Hello, all! I’m here to steal the blog from Luis Loza this week because he can’t be allowed to have all the cool new dragons that are dropping with the upcoming releases of Pathfinder Monster Core 2 and Pathfinder Lost Omens Draconic Codex. Dragons are for everyone! Though, er, the people who get their villages burned down may not appreciate that.

Back at Paizocon, some people asked me for a hint about one of the new dragons coming in Pathfinder Lost Omens Draconic Codex, and I said it was something sharp. Allow me to introduce our brand new, very sharp dragon: the vorpal dragon!

Vorpal Dragon concept art by Kent Hamilton.

Vorpal dragons are arcane dragons and manifestations of sharpening magic. The first vorpal dragon sprung forth from a vorpal sword after it struck the head off a jabberwocky, so vorpal dragons have a very storied pedigree, and just like the blades from which they take their name, they’re infamous for being able to slice the heads off their foes with a single snicker-snack! That said, the younger dragons don’t have complete control of their magic. When they slice off someone’s head, the person doesn’t die, and their victim can even pick their head up and put it back on pretty easily, assuming the dragon doesn’t get to it first and fly off with it. Adult vorpal dragons retain this ability, and more genial ones tend to cut the heads of would-be dragonslayers without killing them, the better to teach them a lesson.

Vorpal dragons don't blast dangerous magical energies from their throats like many of their cousins. Instead, they inhale, draining blood from people in the area, which inflicts void damage on their targets. Worse yet, anyone who is bleeding when the vorpal dragon inhales also takes their current persistent bleed damage, as they’re a nice and juicy feast for the dragon!

Luis also mentioned the coral dragon, which appears in Pathfinder Monster Core 2. Fortunately, it also appears in Pathfinder Lost Omens Draconic Codex, so I can show it off!

Coral Dragon concept art by Kent Hamilton.

This is one of art director (and star dragon concept artist) Kent Hamilton’s favorite dragons, and it’s easy to see why! These dragons are gorgeous, and they know it. While few people would call any dragon humble, coral dragons are obsessed with their appearances in a manner notable even among their kin. Funnily enough, this means that coral dragons who are not so conventionally attractive tend to be luckier in finding a mate, as they’re less prone to provoking jealousy in their peers.

(As the great sage Jimmy Soul says: If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty dragon your wife.)

The oldest and most powerful coral dragons are so beautiful that anyone who looks at them risks losing their senses among the dazzling patterns of the dragon’s coral reefs. A very unlucky adventurer might even lose their sight entirely, as they’re caught up in a school of colorful fish that blocks their vision. At least it’s a lovely way to go?

That’s it for the dragons this week! Look forward to more previews from Creative Director Luis Loza and myself, and be sure to pick up the books so you can see all our beautiful dragons!

Next week’s blog answers the age-old question: What’s black and white and red all over?

Eleanor Ferron (she/her)
Senior Developer (Rules & Lore)

The launch of the new Paizo Store is fast approaching! Here’s what to expect.

• Paizo.com will go dark at 8 a.m. Pacific on Monday, November 10th. You won’t be able to access any Paizo services, including Paizo Connect, organized play reporting, forums, downloads, order history, etc., while we work to bring an all-new experience online.
• Our hardworking warehouse team will spend the day shipping all orders placed prior to downtime.
• Customer Service will be unable to make changes to subscriptions once downtime begins. Once the new store is live, you’ll be able to make changes to your subscriptions yourself, as detailed in the Subscriptions at the New Paizo.com Blog You can still contact the CS team at customer.service@paizo.com for any other issues during downtime.
• Your wishlists, sidecarts, and pending orders are not moving to the new store, giving you a chance to make all new wishlists just in time for the holidays!
• Your subscriptions, My Downloads, Paizo Connect console, gift certificates, and store credit will be automatically moved to the new store.
• Please follow us on Bluesky, Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit, keep an eye out in the Pathfinder Second Editionand Starfinder Second Edition subreddits, or sign up for our newsletter to keep up to date on the store launch and other fun Paizo news!

We expect this provisioning process to take 2–3 days to ensure the best possible experience for our users when they return.

When the New Store is Live

When the new store is live, your old Paizo password won’t work. When you log in to the store for the first time, select “Forgot your password” and you’ll receive an email with instructions on how to create a new password.

Your password for the forums and Organized Play will remain the same until we build new solutions for those systems.

After you have successfully logged in:

• Please verify that your payment methods and addresses are correct. Note that you might have two different payment methods and addresses selected as default (one for the main store and another in your Subscription Manager if you’re a subscriber).
• Open your Library and verify your downloads are present. If you’re missing any, please open a ticket with Customer Service.
• Please review Paizo Plus and make sure that your rewards tier is correct. This is based on your purchases over the last 12 months, and we want to make sure you receive all the rewards you’ve earned! For more information on Paizo Plus, check out the Introducing Paizo Plus Blog

Reporting Issues

If you see any errors, please report them in the New Store Feedback thread in the Website Feedback forum. We’ll list known issues here and continue to update them during the post-launch period.

Store Overview with Director of Ecommerce Lyle Borders

Lyle has created a walkthrough video showing off many of the exciting new features that await you in the upcoming Paizo Store:

While we have worked hard to ensure a smooth transition, there will be unexpected issues; nothing quite tests your systems like thousands of people interacting with them. We expect that ticket times will be longer than usual, and it might take us a bit to triage all the feedback. Thank you in advance for your patience, and thank you again for supporting Paizo as we level up our systems and prepare for the next decade of games!

Good Gaming!

Jim Butler
CEO

To my fellow Blood Lords and those within their employ,

As His Ghostly Majesty’s newly appointed diplomat to Absalom, I have taken it upon myself to study how to interact with the living citizens of our surrounding nations. And I am most honored that our king has requested that I share this information with all of you. Every night, Mechitar grows grander and more cosmopolitan. It’s no surprise that other nations are curious about us and our customs, but even as they come to know our traditions and fawn over our elegant architecture and beautiful works of art, it is our duty to make ourselves aware of their sometimes backward and simple ways.

I have included some helpful tips that have been shared with me during my time among the breathing:

1) If a living being approaches you and smells very strongly, it is not appropriate to question if they have extraneous parasites living within them. This is apparently deeply rude, even though we know that our ghoul companions would be flattered that we noticed their new stench.

2) “You look very alive today!” seems like it would be a good compliment. However, I was informed by my newest companions that strikes the living as morbid and threatening, even when accompanied by a skeletal smile.

3) If you’re invited to dine with the living, it is acceptable to communicate to them the type of sustenance you prefer and where they might be able to locate it within their city. Offering to fetch it yourself from their staff can seem predatory.

4) Living beings do not enjoy some of our standard party tricks and jokes. During my hilarious story about how I met my darling friend Zoroq, I removed my head to mimic my old schoolteacher (as one does when playing the role of skeletal halfling) and it scared the daylights out of my host’s children, except for his youngest.

5) When you’re taken around a city and shown the sites, remarking about your own experiences during the times when their buildings were built is often seen as charming. However, if you notice another undead milling about, it’s best to ensure that your companions are already aware of their presence before striking up a conversation. Who knew the Grand Lodge of Absalom had so many ghosts that the Pathfinder Society was unaware of?

I hope this letter has been quite informative to my fellow leaders of Geb, and I hope Geb himself approves of my work and the information I have shared.

For Eternity,

Blood Lord Msasa Kuatuz
Export Guild

Happy Halloween, Pathfinders!

Shay Snow
Pathfinder Society Developer

Howdy! Luis Loza here! I’m here to preview a few more dragons you can expect with the upcoming Pathfinder Monster Core 2. This time around, we’re taking a look at a new divine dragon and a new occult dragon.

Requiem Dragon Concept, artist Kent Hamilton

This is a requiem dragon, a divine dragon concerned with caretaking souls as they travel through the afterlife. Requiem dragons tend to focus on specific planes and shepherd souls to those planes, leading to requiem dragons linked with the likes of Heaven or Hell. They also have a connection to life energy, as they are born from the energies of Creation’s Forge.

A requiem dragon’s link to life allows them to always know the Hit Points of creatures they can see. They are also able to link a dying creature’s soul to their own body, preventing them from slipping into death. Their breath is a line of spirit damage that dooms undead creatures, helping guarantee their destruction.

Monster Core 2 also features the resurrection dragon, a divine dragon with power over death who can unleash void energies and bring creatures back to life. You can see both of these dragons on the cover of the upcoming Pathfinder Lost Omens Draconic Codex!

Despair Dragon Concept, artist Kent Hamilton

Today’s occult dragon is the despair dragon. Like all occult dragons, despair dragons have an innate compulsion that drives them. In their case, they must feed on fear in addition to their typical sustenance. Despair dragons are shrewd and scheming creatures, using their abilities to seek useful sources of anguish. Some despair dragons delight in their hunt for fear, diving deep into wickedness to fulfill their needs. Others dread their very nature and choose to hunt creatures they feel are deserving of torment. It’s not uncommon for a despair dragon to agonize a local tyrant or a vile criminal.

Despair dragons, of course, have the frightful presence ability. They can use their reaction to gain temporary Hit Points whenever a creature loses the frightened condition. Their breath is made up of every scream they’ve drawn from terrified creatures, dealing sonic damage to all in the blast. As they grow older, they can use their tongues to create grotesque decoys. These decoys have the general silhouette of a humanoid or animal and are useful for tricking unsuspecting creatures to follow them toward the dragon lying in wait.

The book’s other occult dragon is the whisper dragon, a successor to legacies of brass from the past. These dragons are compelled to hoard secrets and rumors, are highly diplomatic, and maintain vast whisper networks.

Next week, we'll be showing off a dragon Eleanor gave us some clues about at PaizoCon who's known for being quite sharp—what could that mean?

Hope you enjoyed the previews so far. Make sure to check out Pathfinder Monster Core 2 when it releases this November!

Luis Loza (he/him)
Creative Director (Rules & Lore)

We are rapidly approaching the launch of the new Paizo Store, which uses the BigCommerce platform, so it’s finally time to showcase what’s waiting for you in subscriptions, how subscriptions work, and how subscribers can add products to ship with their upcoming subscriptions!

Starting Your Subscription

When you go to any subscription line page, the first choice you’ll need to make is whether you want to start with the current release for that line or the upcoming release. The current release will cost the MSRP plus $.01; future releases will charge $.01 to start your subscription and the MSRP as it starts the shipping process. The $.01 charge is required by the credit card company to ensure that your card is valid for recurring subscriptions.

You can also choose to have multiple copies of a subscription item sent to you as well.

The Subscription Cycle

Paizo’s release date for new physical releases is usually the first Wednesday of every month. Three weeks prior to that, you’ll receive an email from Paizo letting you know that you will be charged for your upcoming subscriptions. Two weeks before the street date, your credit card will be charged, and you’ll receive the free PDF for your product (if applicable) in your Library. You’ll receive another email containing the tracking information for your package once the Paizo Warehouse ships out your products. As an example, here’s what your December 2025 subscription process would look like:

• November 10th: Email notification of upcoming subscription charges with a direct link to your Subscription Manager. More on that below.
• November 17th: Credit card charge and PDF released to your Library.
• November 17th: Your subscription products begin the shipping process, and you receive an email with your tracking notification. The goal is to get the products to your door on or before street date.
• December 3rd: Release date!

Your Subscription Manager

You’re always in control of your subscription when you use the My Subscriptions section of your Paizo account. From here, you’ll be able to see all your active and inactive subscriptions and be able to skip or cancel each subscription 24/7. The email you receive 7 days before you’re charged will direct you to this page as well.

Shipping: You control the shipping address for your subscriptions from your My Subscriptions page, and you can change it at any time before your subscription is charged. Non-subscription orders have their own shipping addresses that you can set during checkout, but subscription orders are separate from the rest of the store. By default, products are shipped using the least expensive shipping method available.

We know that some of you would prefer a specific shipping method for your subscriptions, and we have asked for that functionality from our vendor. We don’t have an ETA for that, but if it becomes available, we’ll let you know.

Billing: As with your shipping address, the credit card attached here is separate from the main store. This is because the Paizo Store accepts many different forms of payments now, and recurring transactions (subscriptions) have limited payment methods that they allow. For example, Google Pay and Apple Pay aren’t allowed for recurring subscriptions.

Here are the options available to you from your My Subscriptions page for each subscription.

• Skip Product: You skip the current product in your subscription.
• Pause: Will be available at a later date
• Cancel Subscription: Your subscription is canceled. You can choose to reactivate the subscription at a later time at the bottom of the My Subscriptions page or on the normal subscription pages in the store.

Add to Subscription

As a subscriber, you’ll have the option to add most physical products to your next subscription shipment, saving you money on shipping. All you have to do is go to the product page for the item you want, and you’ll have a new option below the Add to Cart button that will move the product over to your next subscription order.

If any of the items added are out of stock when your subscription is ready to ship, your subscription shipment will not be delayed; we'll ship any in-stock items along with your subscription products, and any out-of-stock items will be moved to your next subscription shipment. You’ll see these in your subscription manager.

FAQ

How do subscriptions work?

Just choose the product line you'd like to subscribe to from the Subscriptions page (such as Pathfinder Rulebooks, Starfinder Special Edition Rulebooks, and others), add it to your cart, and go through the checkout process. During checkout, you'll be given the option to start with either the current or next release in the line—just click the radio button next to the product you'd like to start with.

If you choose the current product, you’ll be charged during checkout and added to the subscription program you’ve selected.

What advantages are there to subscribing?

Subscribers to any of our lines will receive each subscription product directly from Paizo and need never worry about missing one of our releases. Many of our Pathfinder and Starfinder products include a free PDF of each subscription product purchased as part of the subscription. Some subscriptions include a percentage discount on each new release. See the individual subscription pages for more details!

If you’ve signed up for Paizo Plus, your subscription purchases will also earn gold after each successful charge. For more information, visit the Paizo Plus page.

When will I be charged for my subscription?

During checkout for a new subscription, Paizo will charge your card $.01 to validate the card and set up the subscription.

Paizo normally releases our books on the first Wednesday of the month. For those releases, you’ll receive an email roughly 3 weeks before the release date that informs you about your upcoming subscriptions as well as the date the card you have on file will be charged.

When we charge your card, we will add the PDFs from your subscription products to your Digital Library.

How do I skip a release or cancel my subscription?

Visit the Subscription Manager, to:

• Skip: You won’t receive that product, but your subscription will continue with the next release.
• Cancel: Your subscription will be removed from your account. You can sign up again at any point in the future by reactivating the subscription through the Subscription Manager or by repurchasing through the store page.

What credit card is charged for my subscriptions?

Paizo will charge the credit card you originally signed up with until you change it through the Subscription Manager. When you change your payment method in the Subscription Manager, you change it for all your subscriptions. This won’t change your primary store payment method for non-subscription products, and changing the primary store payment method for your account won’t automatically change your subscription payment method.

What happens if my credit card expires?

Paizo will send you an email alerting you that your card is expiring on the 1^st and 15^th of the month prior to expiration. You can then change your default card in the Subscription Manager. That will update your payment method across all your subscriptions.

Can I use coupons or gift cards for my subscriptions?

Yes, but only on the initial order of the subscription. A valid credit card is required even if the gift card or coupon amount exceeds the product cost. Your credit card will always be charged $.01 to validate your subscription.

Are multiple subscriptions sent in the same order?

If your subscriptions share the same payment date, payment method, and shipping address, they will ship as a single order.

How are subscriptions mailed?

Paizo will always mail your products using the least expensive method available. Selecting a specific method for subscription orders is not currently supported.

Does Paizo offer combined shipping for non-subscription orders?

Yes. You can combine a regular order with a subscription order if:

1. You place that order prior to your subscription products being charged, and
2. Both orders use the same payment method and shipping address.

To add an item to an upcoming subscription order, visit the page of the item you wish to add to your order and find the ‘Add this to My Subscription’ button. You will be charged for both your subscription products and any added products.

If any of the items in your sidecart are out of stock when your subscription is ready to ship, your subscription shipment will not be delayed; we'll ship any in-stock items along with the subscription, and any out-of-stock items will remain in your sidecart to ship with a future subscription shipment.

Are international subscriptions available?

Yes—we ship worldwide.

How often do you ship subscriptions?

Many product lines have months between releases. For example, the Pathfinder Rulebooks line only has 3-4 releases per year. You will see these details in the Subscription Manager, on our Release Schedule page, and on the product pages in the Paizo Store.

I just ordered a subscription. Why isn't my first volume shipping?

It may be that the item you chose to start with has not yet been released. The Subscription Manager shows the estimated schedule for your upcoming subscription items. You can see more upcoming releases on our ReleaseSchedule page.

I just ordered a subscription that includes a free PDF. Where's the PDF?

We add the PDF of each volume to your Digital Library page as soon as you are charged for the print edition.

Does Paizo offer PDF-only subscriptions?

Digital subscriptions are not currently supported.

Does Paizo offer subscriptions through local gaming stores?

We do not. That might change in the future for stores that want to order directly from Paizo, so make sure to ask your local game store to carry Paizo products. To find a store in your area, visit our Retailer Locator.

Thanks again for supporting Paizo, and I hope to see you later this week for another store blog!

Good Gaming!

Jim Butler
CEO

Welcome to spooky season, ‘Finders!
Are you looking for ghosts, ghouls, creepies, and crawlies to add some festive flair to your games? You’re in luck—we’ve got a whole host of monstrous books, cards, and accessories on sale just in time for All Hallow’s Eve!

Now through October 31st, take 20% off a collection of monstrous products.

Pathfinder Monster Core

Over 400 monsters, endless possibilities! Pathfinder Monster Core brings a menagerie of monsters to your table—fully remastered for Pathfinder Second Edition! Plus, make prep time easy with the Monster Core Pawn Box and Monster Core Battle Cards—so you’ll always have a pawn for the table, and a quick rules reference for combat!

Starfinder Alien Archive

If your table hasn’t made the transition to Starfinder Second Edition, Starfinder Alien Archive is a great way to expand your universe! In addition to countless monsters, aliens, and robots to fight, Starfinder Alien Archivealso includes additional playable species for Starfinder First Edition.

Grab the Alien Archive Pawn Box or Alien Archive Battle Cards to make prepping for game night even easier!

Pathfinder Adventure Path: Season of Ghosts

Start a chilling adventure this Halloween with Pathfinder Season of Ghosts! This four-part Adventure Path takes place in the haunted town of Willowshore—where the yearly ghosts passing through are the least of your worries! Can you and your fellow adventurers save the town from a curse that spans the seasons?

Pathfinder Adventure: Night of the Gray Death

Delve into high-level gothic horror with Night of the Gray Death! This standalone adventure takes adventurers through a dungeon of horrors to an ill-fated masque. A perfect short adventure for spooky season!

Plus, pick up the Night of the Gray Death Flip-Mat to keep the adventure moving with maps for the adventure’s pivotal encounters!

This is only a small selection of the products on sale for our Monster Mash! Browse an expanded collection of bestiaries, battle cards, pawn boxes, and more—plus PDF versions of all products are also on sale!

It’s A Game Night Smash!

Hello Starfinders!
We’ve discovered a piece of the Wreck of the Returned that detached during the crash and we need to get some agents in there to investigate as soon as possible! Wait… I think I see some Hellknights already on site! Surely they’re not up to anything bad, are they? Better hustle, Starfinders, and ready your laser pistol. We might have a fight on our hands…

Starfinder Society Scenario #1-07: Seize and Destroy is an Invasion’s Edge metaplot scenario for 1st- through 2nd-level characters written by Shan Wolf.

Meanwhile, Zizenzi has a package she needs delivered to our anacite allies over at Investigation Site A01. Yup, that’s it, just a package to deliver with our compliments. Sounds easy! Surely nothing will go wrong!

Starfinder Society Scenario #1-08: Compliance Protocol is an Invasion’s Edge metaplot scenario for 1st- through 2nd-level characters written by Elizabeth V. Nold.

Left to right: illustrations by Tom Ventre and Rodrigo Gallo

Take care out there, Starfinders!

Jessica Catalan
Starfinder Society Developer

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Greetings Pathfinders! How is it already fall? While we ponder that mystery, we might as well tell you about a few excellent adventures we have for you.

Illustration by Rodrigo Gil

First, we’ll look to Galt. Over a year ago, trouble in the Verduran Forest (specifically the troubles found in the Wardens of Wildwood adventure path) drove a young horned dragon from their lair. Unable to oppose the forces of the Wildwood Lodge under its then-twisted leadership, they fled north. They desperately want to return to the forest but aren’t confident enough in their own capabilities to make the attempt themselves. They’ve heard of the Pathfinders, and how they’ve solved numerous issues and helped others.

They’ve come to the Woodsedge Lodge proposing an alliance, though really they just want help but are too prideful to ask directly. Venture-Captain Armeline Jirneau has seen through the dragon’s story, but is sympathetic to their plight. She needs some agents (that’d be you) to scout the northern Verduran, as she knows the troubles with the Wildwood lodge have passed. Should this work out, the Society will have one more draconic ally, even if this one is a bit young and naïve.

Even though you’ve got to wait a little while for the Draconic Codex, this bit of Draconic fun is ready for all ages. Pathfinder Quest 26: Dragon’s Plea is an adventure for 1st- through 4th-level characters written by Lucas Servideo.

Josh Foster
Pathfinder Society Developer

As the war between Cheliax and Andoran rages on throughout Avistan, nations that were expecting to stand on the sidelines find themselves being pulled into the mix, much to their frustration. Nidal has made it clear that they have no interest. However, the powerful vordine general Kizrech doesn’t seem to care what their decision is. A pair of unusual Nidalese twins, one Kuthite, one Shelynite, have learned of Kizrech’s plans to try and drag the shadowy land into the war and have agreed to work together to stop it, while also reaching out to the Pathfinder Society for assistance in this difficult and dangerous mission. Can the Pathfinders stop a false flag attack on Nidal’s soil? And if they do, will they be willing to have the information about this attack be returned to the Umbral Council or accidentally have it fall into the hands of Desnan revolutionaries?

Illustration by Josef Kucera

Pathfinder Society Scenario #7-05: Battle of the Thorns is an adventure for 9th- through 12th-level characters written by Christopher Wasko.

That’s all for this month, Pathfinders! Have a safe and spooky October!

Shay Snow
Pathfinder Society Developer

Hello, hello! Luis Loza here! You might have heard that we will be unleashing a massive flight of brand-new dragons with the upcoming releases of Pathfinder Monster Core 2 and Pathfinder Lost Omens Draconic Codex. While I love previewing new dragons and showing them off one by one like an excited grandfather sharing the mass of pictures in his wallet, I won’t be able to do that this time around. Unfortunately, we have too many new dragons! With that in mind, the plan is still to preview a few dragons over the coming weeks and even give some behind-the-scenes insight by sharing the concept art by our very own incredible concept artist, Kent Hamilton.

Our first preview focuses on some of the dragons found in Pathfinder Monster Core 2. As some of you may know, our dragons are broken into one of four classifications based on the four magical traditions. This time, I’m going to showcase a new arcane and a new primal dragon.

Illustration by Kent Hamilton

This big fella is a rune dragon, an arcane dragon with the power to create and manipulate runes. Runes are an important part of magic in Pathfinder, and these dragons have an innate control over these powerful symbols. A rune dragon’s scales are thick and feature natural runes, as well as runes the dragon inscribes themself. These scales are effectively runestones and would-be dragon slayers can use these scales to transfer runes to their equipment like they would any other runestone.

A rune dragon can shift the power of the runes on their scale, attuning the runes to a particular energy to grant the dragon an immunity to the likes of acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic damage. In addition to claws and sharp fangs, a rune dragon creates runes during combat. They can create an explosive rune and place it on a creature, later detonating it for a blast of the same type of damage attuned to their body. Instead of a typical breath, a rune dragon’s breath places several runes on creatures in a cone and immediately detonates them. As they grow in age and power, a rune dragon gains the ability to create other runes with different effects.

Pathfinder Monster Core 2 also features the phase dragon, an arcane dragon with power over teleportation magic that can blink around the battlefield and teleport their foes away.

Illustration by Kent Hamilton

The other dragon we’re looking at today is the cinder dragon, a primal dragon with a focus on fire. The cinder dragon fills the roles of older dragons that were known for being red. Like their legacy counterparts, cinder dragons are all about fire, but we decided to turn that knob up to 11 this time around. Their pyre breath not only deals fire damage, but can also set creatures on fire and fills the area with obscuring smoke. If a nearby creature is on fire, the cinder dragon can stoke the flames and cause them to burn intensely for a moment, causing the creature to take their persistent fire damage once more.

As they grow in power, cinder dragons have greater control over fire. Ancient cinder dragons are capable of cursing a creature to transform all of the damage they would cause into fire damage. This is an indiscriminate curse, turning the damage from a fighter’s sword or a sorcerer’s ice spell into fire alike. It turns out that while it might look cool, dealing nothing but fire damage isn’t particularly helpful against a cinder dragon!

The other found primal dragon in Pathfinder Monster Core 2 is the coral dragon, aquatic dragons that live around coral reefs. A coral dragon can unleash blasts of water and even meld into their bonded reef to travel great distances.

That’s all the dragons we can share for now. Senior Developer Eleanor Ferron and I will continue to share more in the coming weeks, and I hope all you fans of dragons look forward to more previews. See you then!

Luis Loza (he/him)
Creative Director (Rules & Lore)

Hail, Pathfinders!
Our friends at BKOM Studios are hard at work bringing Pathfinder: Abomination Vaults, the first ever co-op hack-and-slash ARPG set in the Pathfinder universe, to life. In this special look behind the scenes, their team shares how they’re transforming one of Pathfinder’s most iconic Adventure Paths into an interactive dungeon crawl.

From reimagining the tabletop maps into expansive 3D environments, to designing the rhythm of combat and exploration, here’s how the legendary Abomination Vaults are being built for exploration on-screen.

From Page to Playable Map

Every dungeon floor starts as words on a page. To get from there to a fully realized game map, the team begins by really digging into the chapter. We read it cover to cover, cross-check references, and even dive into GM-helper content online to better understand the vibe and details.

Once the story is fully absorbed, we break it down into the most important ingredients: key characters, artifacts, encounters, and plot moments. These act like anchors, shaping how the floor will flow from start to finish.

From there, we sketch a rough 2D layout. Nothing fancy, just a way to visualize the overall player path and how different spaces connect. That sketch then grows into a gray box map in the engine, which gives us our first sense of scale and pacing.

Artists jump in next with concept art, which guides the look of the environments, lighting, and VFX, while also inspiring the design team to push ideas further. Combat designers add encounters, narrative designers weave in dialogue and quests, and everything is tested and tweaked until it clicks. Over time, the rough gray box evolves into the vaults you’ll see (and fight through) in game.

Expanding from 2D to 3D

Here’s the thing about tabletop maps: they’re designed to fit on a single book page. That’s perfect for pen-and-paper play, but way too cramped for a hack-and-slash action RPG. So, when we bring them into the game, we reimagine each floor as more of a “biome” than a house-sized layout.

This gives us room to expand combat arenas, add hidden paths, and build a dungeon that feels big enough to get lost in. Going 3D also lets us layer in verticality: players can climb ruined walls, leap over massive chasms, or descend into lava-filled forges. Spaces that were once flat on paper suddenly feel massive, dangerous, and alive.

Finding the Right Pacing

Great dungeons aren’t just about what’s in them—they’re about the rhythm of how you move through them. That’s why we spend a lot of time thinking about pacing.

The rule of thumb? Don’t put two big combat arenas right next to each other. That risks overwhelming players (and sometimes accidentally pulling multiple fights at once). Instead, we alternate between combat and exploration, giving breathing room between battles.

Early on, players see more exploration spaces as they learn the layout and mechanics of a floor. As they push deeper, combat intensity ramps up, leading to bigger and more challenging fights near the end. It’s like music, quiet moments make the big ones hit harder.

Populating the Dungeon

With the layout and pacing in place, the next step is filling the dungeon with meaningful encounters. The goal is to make every room feel alive and interactive.

Combat areas are built to showcase environmental set pieces and give space for tactics, while exploration areas lean into puzzles, traversal challenges, narrative moments, or tricky terrain. Sprinkling these elements throughout keeps the dungeon dynamic and makes it feel like an environment you can master rather than just walk through.

Bringing It All Together

Rebuilding a legendary dungeon like the Abomination Vaults for an action RPG is no small task, but the result is worth it. Every corridor, chamber, and chasm is designed to immerse you in Belcorra’s dark legacy, whether you’re piecing together clues, avoiding traps, or battling horrors that lurk in the depths.

We can’t wait for you to explore Floor 8 and beyond when the game launches.

~ The Pathfinder: Abomination Vaults Team

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Greetings, ‘Finders!
We're in the final hours of our BackerKit campaign for Pathfinder Quest, and what an epic journey it has been! Thanks to the incredible support of our community, we’ve hit major milestones, unlocked exciting stretch goals, and made our game bigger and better than we ever could have hoped for. But it’s not over yet! There’s still time to make Pathfinder Quest even more amazing and ensure your adventuring party has endless hours of adventure ahead of them.

Pathfinder Quest is a cooperative adventure board game for 1–4 players. Build your character(s) from the ground up by choosing their ancestry, class, and ability cards—or dive right in and play a prebuilt iconic hero! From character creation to combat challenges and exploration, each player’s actions matter, with choices that ripple throughout the entire multisession campaign.

Pathfinder Quest is available in Standard Edition with pawns for all creatures and characters, and Deluxe Edition with plastic miniatures of the iconic heroes and select monsters. Pathfinder Quest Deluxe Edition is only available via this crowdfunding campaign, so if you’re a mini painter, don’t miss your chance for these exclusive figures!

Funded in under 90 minutes, Pathfinder Quest has smashed through over a dozen goals during our month-long campaign thanks to our followers. Some of the extra perks unlocked include:

• Two additional classes: Ranger and Oracle
• Three additional ancestries: Leshy, Orc, and Tengu
• A total of 13 miniatures for Pathfinder Quest Deluxe Edition
• Endless Adventure Mode: Novice, Seasoned, and Veteran Tiers
• A variety of bonus alternate miniature sculpts

And that’s all on top of the already packed core experience!

Wait … Endless Adventure Mode? 😮

You heard right. We’ve unlocked a whole second way to play! Endless Adventure Mode offers randomized encounters using the same components from Pathfinder Quest, giving you limitless replayability.

The brand new mode is split into three tiers: Novice (for 1st level heroes), Seasoned (for 4th level heroes), and Veteran (for 8th level heroes), giving you the freedom to explore various levels of play and experience.

The BackerKit campaign for Pathfinder Quest ends at 7:00 p.m. Pacific Time on Friday, October 17. But we’re not just shutting it off, we’re going into OVERTIME MODE and letting the community decide when our campaign ends! Every new backer during the final moments of Pathfinder Quest will extend the campaign by 10 minutes.

Join us on twitch.tv/officialpaizo for our End-of-Campaign Marathon Stream at 5:30 p.m. Pacific Time on Friday, October 17, and help us send off Pathfinder Quest with a bang!

See you there, heroes. Let’s finish strong!

Digital Adventure Releases

The following adventures will be released on October 29, 2025, and may be run at events beginning on that date.

Pathfinder Society

Pathfinder Society Scenario #7-05: Battle of the Thorns*

Pathfinder Quest (Series 2) #26: Dragon's Plea

Starfinder Society

Starfinder Society Scenario #1-07: Seize and Destroy*

Starfinder Society Scenario #1-08: Compliance Protocol*

*part of a subscription

Updated Retail Incentive Program

Our Retail Incentive Program is intended to benefit those game stores and other venues that host Organized Play games by incentivizing players to make purchases of food and gaming products while playing Pathfinder and Starfinder Society. While Starfinder Society (second edition) launched without support for this program, it is now included!

We have grouped Pathfinder Society and Starfinder Society (second edition) into one program, as the systems are similar enough to make the benefits work for both games. No changes were made to the Pathfinder Society rewards, we have simply made the language more universal. The RIP programs for Pathfinder Society (first edition), Starfinder Society (first edition) and the Pathfinder Adventure Card Society remain unchanged.

You can view and download the rewards at the link above or at this printable PDF. We encourage all organizers to incorporate the program into their regular events and conventions!

Guide to Organized Play Translation

We are pleased to announce that the Guide to Organized Play: Pathfinder Society (second edition) now has an updated French translation! Many thanks to community members and volunteers Mr. Fred, Vincent Andrey, and Rectulo for taking on this project and their ongoing work keeping the translation up-to-date.

You can view the translation at this link, or by selecting “French” on the dropdown menu on the right side of the screen. If you’re interested in assisting with this translation or a translation into your native language, please contact me at organizedplay@paizo.com for more information!

Sanctioning Updates

Last week, the first Starfinder (second edition) Adventure Path, Guilt of the Grave World, was released! Starfinder Society players may use the character options within, including the elebrian ancestry and corpsefolk versatile heritage, in Starfinder Society play. Please see the Starfinder Society Character Options page for any restrictions or clarifications.

Next month will see a real monster mash incoming with the release of Monster Core 2 and Lost Omens: Draconic Codexfor Pathfinder, as well as Starfinder Alien Core. Sanctioning for all of those books will be posted on the street date, so look forward to those!

GM Recognition

Campaign Service Coins

Over the past month, several new Campaign Coins have been awarded! We award these coins to members of the community who have gone above and beyond to provide an exceptional program to the community at large. Campaign Coins are awarded based on nominations; if you believe someone in your community is deserving of this award (whether or not they are a Venture Officer), send an email to organizedplay@paizo.com with their name and reasons.

Congratulations to:

Adam Loutzenhiser, who now holds a campaign coin and OP ID #886

and John Brinkman, who now holds a campaign coin and OP ID #885

GM Ranks

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 having ran between one and three games for venture-captains (program dependent). A conservative estimate of the time needed to reach the 5th milestone is 650 hours!

This month we had two GMs reach their fifth rank!

5th Glyph (PFS2): Greg Garcia, Robert Odell

If you believe you’ve completed your 5th rank but haven’t been announced yet, please email me at organizedplay@paizo.com.

Conventions

Event Spotlight

Over Labor Day weekend, Game Kastle in College Park hosted their third annual mini-convention featuring Pathfinder and Starfinder play! In one game store, they ran 36 tables of Organized Play, including our newest interactive special. The event also raised over $1400 to support local mental health charities.

Thank you to Nicholas, Greg, and Boyd for hosting a great event for a good cause! If you’ve run an event recently that you’d like highlighted in the blog, send information and photos to organizedplay@paizo.com.

Upcoming Events

Fall is coming to a close, but spooky season provides plenty of opportunities for conventions! Join the community at GameholeCon, PaizoCon Europe Online, Scarefest or one of the many other upcoming conventions, all of which can be found on our conventions calendar.

Next month we’ll be at PAX Unplugged in Philadelphia running Pathfinder and Starfinder Society, as well as demos of Pathfinder Quest (still available to back on Backerkit!) and Pathfinder Monster Match! Early signups for our games begin on October 20 on the Warhorn linked above. Come on out, play some games with us, and even get your hands on an exclusive Pinny Arcade pin!

Until next time—Explore! Report! Cooperate! And may all your treats be un-tricked!

Alex Speidel
Convention and Organized Play Manager

Hail and well met, ‘Finders! This month’s new releases uncover the secrets of Eox, threaten the fate of the Saga Lands, and take monsters out…on dates!

A reminder: the Organized Play scenarios listed here are September’s scenarios, which released September 24th! As we have shifted our physical product release to the first Wednesday of the month, we will be highlighting the digital releases from the previous month!

Never miss a release with our Paizo Subscriptions—for everything from rulebooks to accessories! Subscribers get a free PDF with purchase, early access to game content, and exclusive discounts on paizo.com!

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Starfinder Guilt of the Grave World Adventure Path

DISCOVER SECRETS FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE!

When a group of galactic heroes for hire take on a job for a dwarven mining conglomerate, they make a discovery that challenges recorded history—and pulls them into a deadly con­flict with the Corpse Fleet, an armada of evil undead who want to turn the galaxy into a grave. Guilt of the Grave World is a five-part Starfinder Adventure Path with themes of exploration, horror, and wacky pop culture for 1st-level characters. If the heroes can survive the trials that await them on the grave world and beyond, they’ll reach 5th level by the end of this Adventure Path!

Starfinder Guilt of the Grave World Adventure Path is available in standard hardcover, faux-leatherette bound special edition with foil debossing, and PDF format.

Pathfinder Monster Match!

The only thing more dangerous than the denizens of the world of Pathfinder is Golarion’s monstrous dating scene! In Pathfinder Monster Match!, compete with your friends to court all kinds of curious creatures, from vivacious vampires and dashing dragons to… a sentient pile of ooze? Why not! When animus turns to amorousness, a whole new world of romantic possibilities opens up!

Players will take their monstrous romantic prospects on a wide array of dates to get to know them better and give gifts to demonstrate their affection, all in hopes of finding their perfect match!

Starfinder Player Core Pocket Edition

THE GALAXY NEEDS YOU!

The Starfinder Player Core is the definitive entry point for Starfinder Second Edition, with everything a player needs to learn how to play the game! Choose from 10 ancestries, six character classes, and hundreds of feats and spells to create unique characters ready to take on a ruthless galaxy awash with magic and opportunity. Starfinder Player Core brings the Starfinder RPG into its new edition and is now 100% compatible with the acclaimed Second Edition of the hit Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Along with GM Core and Alien Core, these books provide a new foundation for the future of tabletop gaming!

The pocket edition presents the same contents as the standard edition in a smaller sized softcover for a lower price and better portability.

Pathfinder Adventure Path #219: Lord of the Trinity Star (Revenge of the Runelords 1 of 3)

THE RUNELORDS RISE AGAIN!

As Queen Sorshen prepares to unveil a portal that will link her mountaintop city with the rest of the world, she invites heroes from throughout the land to take part in the festivities. But in the days leading up to the ceremony, a strange cult mobilizes in the city’s shadows. Who is the mysterious leader of these cultists—a group known as the Risen of the Trinity Star—and can their plans be stopped before disaster wracks the Saga Lands? The Revenge of the Runelords Adventure Path begins with “Lord of the Trinity Star,” a complete adventure for 12th–14th level mythic characters!

Pathfinder NPC Core Battle Cards

FACES FRIENDLY AND FIENDISH!

The soldiers, courtiers, criminals, and more from Pathfinder NPC Core make a grand entrance with NPC Core Battle Cards! This box of over 350 cards showcases non-player characters, with visuals perfect for fights and roleplaying scenes. Each card features a beautiful, full-color image of a character from NPC Core on one side, while the other side provides that character’s statistics for quick and easy reference. Show your players what characters they’re facing while keeping the NPC’s abilities at the ready, and watch your games come alive!

Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Command Center

As battles rage throughout the land, generals direct forces from well-defended command centers—and this tactical map can set the scene! One side shows a stone keep on a mountain face with an assortment of defensive towers surrounding a simple courtyard, and the other depicts a command center in a large palace complex overlooking the sea. Order your armies or defend your battle plans with Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Command Center!

Starfinder Society Scenario #1-05: Sloughscar Summit

A Starfinder Society Scenario designed for 1st- through 2nd-level characters, playable in 2-3 hours.

Under the leadership of First Seeker Sarmak, the Starfinder Society has established a fledgling lodge in Akiton’s Sloughscar Hills to study a massive, crashed starship known as the Wreck of the Returned. The Starfinder Society isn’t the only group interested in the Wreck. In addition to countless freelancers and independent salvagers, three prominent factions have arisen and are clashing at every turn: the Aspis Consortium, a coalition of local Akitonian salvagers, and a government sanctioned delegation from the planet Aballon. With an eye to improving relations, Sarmak has invited representatives from each of these factions to meet on neutral ground to come to terms.

When danger threatens to disrupt the Sloughscar Summit, it’s up to the Starfinder Society to keep the peace.

Pathfinder Society Scenario #7-03: A Foot in the Door

A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for 5th- through 8th-level characters.

While the city-states of Iblydos have a long, storied history, the Pathfinder Society has little connection and fewer resources in that part of Golarion. Thus, when Venture-Captain Calisro Bennary has the opportunity to get a lodge set up in Hoimpeia, one of the chief port cities, she races back to Absalom to collect veteran agents for the task. Her contact isn't giving connections and a site for a lodge away for free. Something has been harassing shipping, and while the authorities are happy to let merchants take a longer route, the change has cost a particular merchant dearly. If the Pathfinders can clear up the shipping lanes, the merchant will move heaven and earth to get them a foothold in Iblydos.

Starfinder Society Scenario #1-06: Magic in the Mist

A Starfinder Society Scenario designed for 1st- through 2nd-level characters, playable in 2-3 hours.

A mysterious spire shrouded in purple mist has been seen in the jungles of Ukulam, a continent spanning nature preserve on the planet Castrovel. These sightings are periodic but persistent, yet scientists, explorers, and tourists have all been unable to reach the site or pinpoint its exact location. Intrigued by reports of the vanishing spire, Venture-Captain Arvin has secured permission to dispatch a team of Starfinders to Ukulam to locate and explore the mysterious structure.

Pathfinder Society Scenario #7-04: Sulfuric Negotiations

A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for 3rd- through 6th-level characters.

While Cheliax and Andoran are playing at each other's necks, Absalom finds itself stuck in the middle, unsure of the next steps to take. During a hurried meeting between the High Council of Absalom and the Chelaxian embassy, Chun Hye-Seung of Absalom's First Guard finds herself slightly shorts on guards and requests a Pathfinder party to help fill out her ranks and keep the Chelaxian ambassador's family safe (as well as keep any devilish influence out!). However, between devilish plots on one side and eager saboteurs on the other, the Pathfinders will need to keep their heads cool and pay close attention to keep the Tevineg family safe!

Pathfinder Quest

There’s just a little over a week left to back Pathfinder Quest, our upcoming cooperative adventure board game for 1-4 players! Join the campaign and prepare to save Falcon’s Hollow from certain doom!

Our friends at MyMiniFactory and Titan Forge are running a concurrent Frontiers campaign featuring STL models of all of the creatures in Pathfinder Quest—plus, some Hellfire Crisis extras!

From Our Partners:

Our partners at Archives of Nethys, Demiplane, Fantasy Grounds, Hero Lab Online, and Roll20* are dropping new content this month as well! Buy your PDF on paizo.com to get a discount via the PaizoConnect API. Or pay full price on their platforms, sync your account, and get a complimentary PDF on the Paizo Store.

*Roll20 is no longer a part of PaizoConnect and discounts and complimentary PDFs do not apply.

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Thank you for playing Starfinder and Pathfinder!

Shop the Paizo Store and your favorite local game store today!

Hail, Pathfinders!
Today we’re catching up with our friends at BKOM Studios while they develop a Hack and Slash adaptation of Pathfinder: Abomination Vaults. Talking to their Creative Director Wyatt and Art Director Jonathan, we learned more about what it takes to translate a game from tabletop to video game. And in this case, it was all through the lens of strange and mysterious inhabitants of the Darklands: caligni.

Immersion and Understanding 

To bring caligni over to their game, BKOM started with a clear understanding of their identity. Where better to start than the caligni’s tragic history?

Once people of the mighty Azlanti empire who reigned over Golarion, they fled underground millennia ago to survive the cataclysmic Earthfall.

In desperation, they made a pact with malevolent demigods known as the Forsaken, who transformed them into resilient and merciless subterranean dwellers capable of surviving the Darklands. 

As part of the deal, when a caligni dies, they combust in a burst of light and flame, with their soul energy feeding the Forsaken… a cruel irony, as the Forsaken vanished long ago and no longer watch over them, meaning their souls feed no one! 

Caligni combatants are split into distinct societal and battlefield roles, such as stalkers, callers, and vanguards, and many other roles. 

The last piece of the caligni puzzle is the owbs, strange ancient beings from the Netherworld who caligni have come to worship and obey. These powerful creatures guide and manipulate caligni to do their bidding. Whether the owbs are manifestations of the ancient Forsaken, or simply imposters, is shrouded in mystery.

The caligni skulker, and agile and deadly foe

Building out Battlefield Roles 

With a clear definition of who caligni are, BKOM could start designing their game mechanics. Rather than being regular combatants, they wanted each caligni unit to be cohesive but unusual, challenging players in new ways:

• Skulkers: The prototypical members of caligni forces. They fight like rogues, zip in and out of combat, and whittle away at the heroes. Players will need agility, precision, and teamwork to corner the skulkers and take them out efficiently.
• Vanguard: These are designed to be slow, powerful juggernauts who shake the battlefield with their heavy greatsword strikes. Their presence forces heroes to maneuver around the battlefield to avoid devastating blows.
• Callers: The “support types” of the caligni forces: deadly glass-cannon priests who cripple the heroes with dark magics borrowed from their owb masters, while empowering their caligni allies to greater heights of ferocity.
• Owbs: Powerful elite ranged enemies who use their shadowy “Curse of Darkness” to obliterate heroes from afar. Owbs will reposition when approached, hiding behind caligni servants. When an owb is on the battlefield, the heroes must pay attention to its attacks or be wiped out by its shadow magic instantly.

BKOM noted that these designs will evolve throughout implementation and testing, so we look forward seeing the final versions on the battlefield!

An Explosive Finale 

One of the most defining aspects of caligni is how they die. Thanks to a nasty pact made ages ago, when a caligni falls, they explode in a burst of flame and light.

This aspect was key for translating over into the gameplay. When a caligni is defeated, a small AoE preview is displayed that heroes must escape (usually with a dodge) to avoid suffering a burst of damage and crowd control. 

But after playtesting, BKOM quickly saw how easy it is to go overboard with the death blasts! They were constantly stunning, killing, de-buffing, and displacing the heroes. This is especially a problem when swarmed by caligni in the cramped corridors of the Darklands.

Don’t get caught in the blast!

However, this element was too central to their identity to simply abandon. Instead, the designers carefully dialed down the severity of the death blasts until they provided the right balance of punishment and player agency. Now, taking out a caligni still means being ready to roll out, but won’t lead to being pinballed around into five different explosions while your HP bar empties out.

Ultimately, the “combined arms” dynamic and unusual mechanics of caligni are intended to force a new and unique challenge for heroes arriving in the Darklands. Their unusual fighting style should push Pathfinders to try new strategies and master calignis’ strengths and weaknesses. 

Art Vision and Pipeline 

Switching to the visual representation, Art Director Jonathan Dufresne described the process of bringing caligni to life.

Getting the visual design right always starts by looking at the source material. References and inspiration come directly from the books and other Paizo artwork.

At the current stage of production, BKOM’s art pipeline is well defined. It starts with reference gathering, then moves to a front-and-back-view sketch. A balance is struck between retaining key elements of the original design while adapting them to the game’s vision.

Adding details to the initial 3D render

During review, proportions are checked, making sure they’re exaggerated enough to read well from a top-down perspective. Each enemy and character must feel unique in their silhouette for quick recognition by the player. Small details are also minimized to keep the visuals easy to read. Throughout the process, the Art team consults Game Design to ensure the enemy visually matches in-game behavior.

The next stage is 3D blocking. The goal here is to validate proportions directly in-game with proper camera angles. As always, reading well in the context of the game is a priority before moving to polish. Animation can also get started using the 3D blocking, before we even get the final models.

The last step is the detailed, textured enemy to bring everything together. While there’s room for feedback and minor changes, most of it has already been approved and implemented in previous steps.

A fully rendered model

Caligni Skulker Design

Applying this process to an example like the caligni skulker shows the method in practice. Taking the original references to inform the concept art, the team matches the original intent closely. Changes mostly take the form of adjustments to the proportions to suit the game’s other enemies and overall art direction.

The caligni’s tattered dark cloth and bandage were kept, to preserve their signature image.

Weapons are often deliberately oversized. Even though the original design has a dagger, BKOM’s 3D model is larger to make it easier to see during gameplay.

Animation and VFX focused on making the skulker feel nimble and evasive, using effects like the smoke grenade. By this stage, all the pieces come together and bring the character to life.

Thanks for checking out Wyatt and Jonathan’s breakdown of their approach to translating caligni from the TTRPG to their game. If you’d like to follow BKOM’s progress with Pathfinder: Abomination Vaults, be sure to join their official Discord server and follow them on social media!

Discord | Twitter | Facebook | Newsletter | Wishlist

You've discovered a blog post with information about the process of making Pathfinder Quest, Paizo's new cooperative adventure board game for 1–4 players! Just like in Pathfinder Quest, you must choose what path to take and then refer to the specific blog entry to learn more how Jason and Joe brought the game to life!

If you’d like to learn more about the game in general, read entry 5.

Entry 4 shares a little bit about what we hoped to accomplish with our design for this game.

If you want to discover some of the biggest challenges we faced while designing Quest, read entry 2 (for Joe's take) and entry 6 (for Jason's take).

To see what we're most excited about, check out entry 1 (Jason) and entry 3 (Joe).

Thanks for reading, and we hope you’re as excited about Pathfinder Quest as we are!

Entries
Read each of the following only when instructed by the blog post above!

1
Pathfinder is known for its rich world, full of storytelling potential, deep and meaningful character building, and a tactical play experience, and with Quest, we can bring all of that to a wider board game audience. So, while the game will feel immediately familiar to fans of the RPG, we worked hard to ensure that the story and overall mechanics of this game were approachable and easy to learn for new players as well.

2
One unexpectedly intricate challenge was designing our set of 17 modular, double-sided map tiles so that they are interesting, reusable in unique ways, line up nicely, and don’t take up too much table space. And there was much triple- and quadruple-checking to make sure no single encounter required you to use both sides of the same tile!

3
I can’t wait to hear stories from players about how their character builds, along with the items they’ve found, challenges they’ve attempted, and tactics they’ve used, have combined in truly unique ways to make for awesome gameplay moments. Even when playtesting the same encounters over and over, we never saw things play out the same way, and my favorite thing is watching players find clever and unexpected synergies that emerge from a series of relatively simple choices.

4
Our primary goal while making Quest was to shoot for as approachable an adventure board game as possible while giving players the right amount of interesting decisions—not too few as to feel repetitive, but not so many as to overwhelm—and also to make choices matter! You’ll find that as you play out each encounter, each adventure, and indeed throughout the narrative of the entire campaign, your group’s particular makeup and choices through the story leads to their own unique tale.

5
Pathfinder Quest is a cooperative fantasy adventure board game for 1 to 4 players. In Quest, you will play through a series of adventures, each one consisting of several encounters presented to you in the Adventure Book. Each encounter tells you what challenges you might face, both while exploring the world and while in combat. Challenges often require dice rolls to complete and depending on your result, you will get sent to the Challenge Book to learn your fate!

Throughout each adventure, you will be asked to make important choices that shape the overall outcome of the story. At the end of each adventure, you will level up and get ready to take on even more challenging foes and dangers in the next adventure!

If you want to learn more, check out our launch blog or go straight to the BackerKit campaign page!

6
Finding the right point of balance in a game like this can be tremendously difficult, especially when each combat features new monsters and characters frequently gain new items and abilities. While everybody wants to win, we also want to ensure that the victory feels earned— through clever choices, tactical teamwork, and a little bit of luck. Both the player and monster statistics went through several rounds of revision and playtesting to ensure that we got the sweet spot that we wanted. The fights are tough, but if you play smart and work together, you should win the day.

7
This entry is not pointed to by anything, so if you're reading it, you must love secrets—that's great! We crammed Pathfinder Quest full of little surprises, whether it's the achievements you can check off (eventually unlocking a unique item), special uses for your character’s background or class abilities, lots of narrative twists and turns, and maybe even a secret passage. Oh, and when we say you shouldn't look through the item deck? You really shouldn't...

Mama, put my guns in the ground
I can’t shoot them anymore
That long black cloud is comin’ down
I feel I’m knockin’ on heaven’s door
--Bob Dylan

As we approach the anniversary of our total party kill at the bottom of the Abomination Vaults, it’s time to make public what we sometimes call “Session Plus One.” While we’d love to sit around and chat after the final die roll is made, the end of a marathon is usually a frenzy: players are leaving for long rides or flights home, there is the cleanup after days of Pathfinder, a scramble to capture any material we can, and then finally much-needed sleep. The Abomination Arsenal ended with a 22-hour session, which compounded everything just mentioned. Typically, after things settle down, we get together (remotely if necessary) and chat about everything from our favorite moments of the project to the rooms we wish we had explored. Everyone brings questions for our GM about all the things we missed along the way, feedback about the project, and especially the “what if” scenarios that we just have to know the answer to. Suffice it to say, Adam is all about reflection, and weighs it evenly with the prep sessions before a launch.

Before we go behind the scenes, you might want a refresher on how our party of gunslingers managed to reach the bottom of Pathfinder’s largest megadungeon:

• Introduction
• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6
• Part 7

We’ll start with a glance at the hours, as this campaign clocked in close to some of the six-part Adventure Paths we’ve played. The foremost reason for this is that we roleplayed a ton; there is plenty of story to be found in Abomination Vaults, and we brought a party with a lot of depth. Privately, we set out to prove that just because we all had the same class, that didn’t mean our roleplaying would suffer. Second, we often featured many members of the Black Powder Cadre at each marathon, which meant more players at the table and slower combats. Lastly, we backtracked a bunch, including revisiting old levels to double-check certain areas or comb them again for anything we may have missed. We never did get the teleporters working, and we remember spending the better part of an afternoon being chased through the megadungeon by a flesh golem that always seemed to know where we were.

• Completed Adventure Path: Abomination Vaults
• Total Marathon Hours: 431 hours, 15min
• Total Session Hours: 280 hours, 25min

Misses

□ The luckiest shot of the campaign was the one that never landed. If you’ve read community feedback about Abomination Vaults, you’ve probably heard of the voidglutton on level four. While James Jacobs was kind enough to let it kill a single character so the rest could flee, for groups that should flee immediately but stick around, it’s bait for a TPK. Zoric went first and rolled a 29 to hit. If he had hit, we wouldn’t have known its armor class was insanely high, so we would have stayed – we all agree the project would have ended. The same can be said if Zoric rolled too low and missed. Our character builds weren’t developed enough and we were really struggling at those levels, so we ran on round one and never went back.

□ One of the factors that lead to our failure in the final encounter was a general lack of understanding regarding Belcorra, Nhimbaloth, and possible ways to defeat the ghost queen. On level three, we missed finding a secret door in the library that contained an important book: The Whispering Reeds. There is no way to overstate how key it was that we failed to obtain this, as it contained highly useful information about Nhimbaloth that might have changed our actions in the final encounter. Worse yet, you saw we missed several rooms the voidglutton was guarding, which contained more lore about Belcorra and the Whispering Reeds. Here is the best part: To make sure we didn’t miss anything, we returned to the library as higher-level characters and searched once more – but our Perception rolls were terrible.

□ So there we were on level nine, and we still had only a vague idea of what we needed to do to kill Belcorra permanently. Another bit of hope was lost when we ran into one of the encounters that can shut down and downright abuse a party of gunslingers. A clay golem AND a graveknight emerged from a secret vault together – in close quarters – with little room for our retreat. We were lucky to have survived, and never found the fulcrum lattice that would have helped us better understand what to do with the lenses we kept acquiring. 

Behind the Scenes:

□ What we didn’t say at the outset, was that there had never been a single gunslinger (or equivalent class) in any of our campaigns – not one. We also have no plans, nor any desire to include a gunslinger in our future projects. We absolutely loved this journey and want it to remain a cherished memory. Instead, let this project be appreciated as a testament to the diversity of experiences that can be found within Pathfinder. 

□ There are props that don’t always show up in pictures but are with us throughout. Our favorite was the ammo crate mentioned briefly in the introduction blog. This crate with “OAD” emblazoned on it was at every marathon, whether it was in the studio, on the patio, or around us where we slept. We put dice, books, even Gatorade in it, and you can see it with the Amber Die alongside a set of our own Norse Foundry dice.

□ With the sheer number of session hours we clocked, we added more new members in this project than any that has come before, bringing the total to thirty-two since 1987. Congrats to Auralee, Theodora, Doug, and Karee! That makes two more nurses, another teacher, and the owner of Critical Hit Cookies!

□ Our projects have a lot more that we can’t always slow down to feature. One of these was every gunslinger’s friend: custom-painted magnetic trackers for whether your gun was loaded, jammed, or empty. Another was the set of bullet dice our GM handed us after the first marathon—one die for each player. The last was Doug’s painting of our favorite scene, which will forever hang on the walls of Fort Rannick (our headquarters) for future members to behold!

□ Want to play Abomination Vaults with us? We’ve been known to run the Vaults at Philly Area Gaming Expo. Actually, we still have our character sheets and miniatures in case you want to play a party of gunslingers…

Abomination Vaults by the Numbers

• Real-life time passed: 18 months
• Longest single session: 22 hours, 15 min.
• Overall combat record: 109-8-9
• Party shared feat: Toughness
• Most valuable skill: Crafting
• Most valuable feat: Risky Reload
• Coolest gunslinger ability: Redirecting Shot
• Total character deaths: 9
• Infernal contracts signed: 5
• Critical Hit Cookies consumed: c. 800
• Approximate mg of caffeine consumed from Wawa per marathon: c. 5300
• Number of times a nurse began a marathon straight from an overnight shift: 11

Party Data

Zoric
Way of the Sniper (Unexpected Sharpshooter)
Highest single shot damage: 102

Vlai Cafellyn
Way of the Vanguard
Scattergun splash damage against foes: 441
Scattergun splash damage to allies: 351

Grundak, son of Bashdak
Way of the Sniper
Doors destroyed with Barricade Buster: Unknown
Number of shots missed against doors with Barricade Buster: 4
Clutch play: Critical hit to open combat against Belcorra

Breen Danaan
Way of the Pistolero (Pistol Phenom)
Total uses of Treat Wounds: 185
Total uses of Continual Recovery: 648
Total hit points healed: 8,865

Lady Sniper
Way of the Sniper
Number of single arquebus shots over 50 damage: 12
Total amount of ammunition crafted by party: c. 7,100

Quote not to forget:

(near the end)
Adam: “Alright guys, it’s 5am, just keep that in mind.”
Julian: “It’s 5am? We need to beat Belcorra quick, cause I gotta be in homeroom in two hours!”

Aftermath

The town of Otari wasn’t the same after the Black Powder Cadre failed to emerge from the Vaults that last time. The citizens had already begun to speak of us as the Roseguard reformed, and had no idea they would never see us again. By now, a statue to our first fallen companion—Rome—stood in the center of town. Ayla’s Oddities and Collectibles, a general store started by our companion Maloika, had become the go-to place for just about all your needs. Carman Rajani, the dejected blacksmith, used his acquaintance with us to win the election for mayor, and had promised to rename the town “Rome.” It was a slick move, as the town had been named Otari for the fallen companion of the Roseguard hundreds of years before.

When you arrive, you’ll find Otari a dark place, with an empty general store and a careless mayor. Yet, the damage we did to the Abomination Vaults will take Belcorra years to repair as she replaces her forces.

Which is just enough time for your group to finish her off.

Follow Order of the Amber Die:

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When the runelords of Thassilon went into hiding on the eve of Earthfall, they each expected to emerge not long after to a world ready and ripe for conquering. Yet so great was the devastation, and so misplaced was their trust in their underlings, that once they had stepped away from the world, they were left to languish for thousands of years. The first to rise from this self-imposed exile was Karzoug, Runelord of Greed. His return to the world not only thrust the runelord legacy into the modern era, but helped trigger the other six runelords’ returns as well.

Through this all, the most powerful runelord of them all, Xanderghul, runelord of pride, was ironically and continually caught off-guard. In the end, he was murdered before he could awaken, yet to the most powerful of all runelords, death was but one more indignity. One that only fueled his thirst for revenge against the world that, by all his own accounts, should be his to destroy.

In the Revenge of the Runelords Adventure Path, your characters are already mythic heroes—legendary figures who have accomplished more than most do in a lifetime. You’ve each answered a mythic calling and made names for yourselves—enough that you’ve attracted the attention of Queen Sorshen herself. Once one of the runelords, and arguably the only runelord who could stand toe-to-toe against Runelord Xanderghul, Queen Sorshen has seen her fellow six runelords stick to their natures and, time after time, be defeated by this new age’s heroes. Sorshen chose differently, in part after spending thousands of years in magical isolation with her own personal demons, and now she wants to help build societies rather than tear them down. And to do so, she admits she needs help from this era’s heroes—and who better to call upon than Golarion’s newest mythic adventurers?

Inside the Revenge of the Runelords Player’s Guide, you’ll find player-friendly, spoiler-free information and tips to help you make an exciting new 12th-level mythic character perfect for the Revenge of the Runelords Adventure Path!

This player’s guide contains:

• Character suggestions, including recommendations for ancestries, classes, languages, skills, feats, gear, and mythic callings and destinies well suited for this Adventure Path.
• Six new backgrounds tailor-made to not only set your PC up as a hero of the Saga Lands, but to help explain why and how Queen Sorshen chose you to ask for help.
• Four new mythic callings tailor made to match Revenge of the Runelords’ themes, as well as brief notes about new mythic destinies designed to fit into this Adventure Path’s story.
• Advice for you and your GM on how to run Revenge of the Runelords as a follow-up Adventure Path for a previous campaign, be it Seven Dooms for Sandpoint, Myth-Speaker, or something else.
• A “Recap of the Runelords.” The saga of the runelords is one that’s played out over multiple Adventure Paths and, indeed, multiple editions of the game—this “runelords primer” intends to bring new players up to speed (or to remind established players of what’s come before) in as spoiler-free a way as possible as to who these runelords are and what they’ve been up to.
• Finally, a brief description of the capital city of New Thassilon, known now as Xin-Eurythinia (once known not so long ago as Xin-Shalast), presents you with a brief gazetteer of the remote metropolis where this campaign begins, but details six unusual downtime activities your PCs can engage in as the campaign begins—or with your GM’s approval—even before!

Download The Revenge of the Runelords Player's Guide!

Greetings, players! In today’s blog we’d like to take a moment to recognize our talented freelance authors who contributed to the most recent batch of Pathfinder Society (second edition) scenarios. Some of these authors have been writing for us for years, while others saw their names in print for the very first time!

Alex Speidel
Convention and Organized Play Manager

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Illustration by María Rosario Arteta Chagüi

Jacob W. Michaels (he/him)

PFS2 #6-00: Salt of the Ocean

Hi everyone, I’m Jacob W. Michaels (he/him), one of the writers of PFS Year 6’s Pathfinder Society Scenario #6-00 Salt of the Ocean, which was my first special. This was a pirate adventure, so I looked at classic pirate stories for inspiration, including Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (but so many others too; more than I can really list). I had so much fun trying to bring as many nautical and piratical references to the adventure as possible, giving players a great chance for underwater fights and thematic sailing moments—I had a blast creating pirate demons and a demonic pirate ship. I also loved delving into Pathfinder history, too, since this adventure’s background dated to the earliest days of the Society. I hope everyone got as much of a kick out of Averill Quint calling their modern Pathfinders “tomb robbers and demon worshippers” because he thinks they’re trying to loot Pathfinder property as I did. Lastly, shout out to my co-author, Rigby Bendele. This was my first time co-writing a scenario and it was smooth sailing (sorry, couldn’t resist one more nautical reference…) working with Rigby and making sure our two halves of the adventure meshed.

 Hilary Moon Murphy (she/her)

PFS2 #6-05: Silver Bark, Golden Blades

Hello all, my name is Hilary Moon Murphy (aka Hmm)! One of my favorite scenarios to GM was Pathfinder Society Scenario #1-06 Lost on the Spirit Road, so of course I wanted to create a companion piece for it.

My goal was to create a truly repeatable adventure: one that would continue to surprise players no matter how many times they played it previously. Inspired by two ‘make your own dungeon’ adventures in PF1, From the Tome of Righteous Repose & Beyond the Halflight Path, I decided to have two separate dungeons, three possible bosses, and to allow GMs to put their monsters and traps anywhere on the map.

My favorite part of Silver Bark, Golden Blades was including the Risuchō, the adorable network of squirrel-rabbit mail carriers that are the primary postal service of the Forest of Spirits. Being able to showcase them made me so very happy.

If you enjoy my adventures, please look for Starfinder Society Scenario #1-10: Rites of Rekindling, which will be coming out this November! Join me for whimsy and a solar celebration on the formerly frozen planet of Lajok!

Dave Nelson

PFS2 #6-08: Upon Wheels and Rime

Greetings Pathfinders! My name is Dave Nelson, a name you've probably seen on several Pathfinder books throughout the years, but never on a Society Scenario. That changed last year, when I got tasked to write Pathfinder Society Scenario #6-08: Upon Wheels and Rime. Starting Golarion's journey towards trains (something I've wanted the setting to have for a while) was both a big honor and tricky task for my first Scenario. However, it seems I did something right, as it is not only the most requested adventure of the year but was also nominated for an Ennie. I want to thank everyone who played and enjoyed the scenario and look forward to seeing how the development of the train progresses (hopefully on chicken legs). If you want to keep up with what I'm doing next you can follow me on BlueSky @davicthegrey.bksy.social and find an up-to-date list of my credits here: https://davicthegrey.carrd.co/ If you want more adventures from me, you can check out my first Adventure Path in the form of Pathfinder Adventure Path #218 Titanbane, which just released. See everyone again in the next one!

Illustration by Bruno Cesar

Linda Zayas-Palmer (she/her)

PFS2 #6-09: The Power of Legends

Hi folks! I’m Linda Zayas-Palmer (she/her), former development manager for Paizo’s narrative team and current full-time freelancer. For Year 6, I wrote Pathfinder Society Scenario #6-09: The Power of Legends. With the release of War of Immortals on the horizon, the org play team tapped me to write an adventure to highlight the new mythic rules. I have fond memories of playing around with mythic abilities in the Destiny of the Sands series for First Edition Pathfinder Society. While Destiny of the Sands features Pathfinder agents in the middle of their careers, Power of Legends takes characters who are among the Society’s strongest and gives them reality-bending powers to strike down their foes. So naturally, the PCs needed some larger-than-life opposition. The main villain’s a doozy, but the other encounters the PCs fight all have their own mythic tricks to them too. The scenario’s runtime is longer than a typical PFS adventure, so if you’re a GM planning to throw this trial at your players, I recommend carving out an extra hour or two.

You can find me on my Youtube stream Arcane Mark on Tuesdays at 8pm Eastern and Saturdays at 1pm Eastern (https://www.youtube.com/@arcanemark2562), and on the Arcane Mark Discord (tiny.cc/arcanemark). My most recently released works are the Pathfinder Society Battle of Hellknight Hill special event that debuted at GenCon, as well as Roll For Combat’s Battlezoo Bestiary: Elemental Storm, which I developed and also wrote for.

Joseph Blomquist (he/him)

PFS2 #6-12: The Burning of Greensteeples and PFS2 #6-99: Under the Eye of the Mantis

Welcome back to the fun, friends! You’re just in time for everything to Hells with the coming season of aggression—especially from Cheliax. I’ll be your guide for … no wait… I wrote stuff!

I’m Joseph Blomquist (he/him), and you’ve seen my words in the Starfinder Galaxy Guide,Mechageddon!, a bunch of backmatter in various Pathfinder and Starfinder AP volumes, quite a few PFS and SFS adventures, and a slew of other Paizo products and games around the industry. This season, I was tapped for two very different Pathfinder Adventures.

The first, #6-12: The Buring of Greensteeples was a return to one of my favorite (and most polarizing) adventures, #3-04: The Devil-Wrought Disappearance. Shay asked if I would be interested in bookending that exploration into Varian Jeggare’s home, and I leapt at the chance. Not only did I get to wrap up some hanging storylines I set up in 3-04, but I hinted at another from #4-02 Return to the Grave, and set up a bit of the overarching theme of Season 7!

Then came #6-99: Under the Eye of the Mantis. For this GenCon special, I was paired with one of my favorite people, Michael Bramnik, and found that our styles complement each other perfectly (Good job Devs!). Mike and I wanted to give multi-table players some new experiences in PFS specials, and I think we did a great job, bringing recent storylines together while bringing back classic or forgotten NPCs. It was a ton of fun to work on.

You can find me at the blog I never update www.UnderwearOnTheOutside.com or as @Doctormono on Bluesky. Stay tuned, I have more Paizo work coming this year, and I can’t wait for you to have a chance to dive in.

Alison Cybe (they/them)

PFS2 #6-15: Lost and Forgotten

Hi there, I'm Alison Cybe (they/them, at least for as long as our benevolent UK government allows me to use such pronouns), and I designed Pathfinder Society Scenario #6-15: Lost and Forgotten.

When I designed this adventure I wanted to create a light, puzzle-oriented dungeon crawl where the tension wasn’t in whether the party survived, but in how they explored. The aim was flexibility—letting tables approach challenges at their own pace, try things in any order, and focus on interaction and creativity without feeling like they’d “failed” their way out of progress.

Some reviewers took this to mean “the rolls don’t matter.” In truth, they matter in the same way a chess move matters—you can play badly and still finish the game, but your choices shape the state of the board. Time pressure, resource attrition, and the shifting initiative bonuses in the second act were all designed to be felt cumulatively rather than ending the scenario on a single failed check. Pathfinder Society scenarios must work for a broad range of tables, so the safety net is intentional—especially in puzzle-centric adventures where a single failed roll shouldn’t brick the experience for everyone else. Likewise, the “helpful” NPC wasn’t there to take over, but to keep momentum at tables where the GM might otherwise have to stall play until someone guessed the One True Answer™. I'm truly sorry that people did not enjoy this adventure.

You can find me on Bluesky and Facebook as Alison Cybe, where I post about writing, gaming, and occasionally pictures of my cat pretending to solve riddles better than my playtest groups.

Shan Wolf

PFS2 #6-18: Symposium on a Fallen God

Hi, my name is Shan Wolf and I loved being an author on Pathfinder Society Scenario #6-18: Symposium on a Fallen God It gave me a great chance to play with aspects of the Godsrain that I hadn't even thought about, warshards! I felt inspired during the writing of this scenario by both academic debates and rap battles. The ability to use your knowledge and vocabulary to not only educate, but make fun of your opponent in a friendly manner. I was also told I could get to dig into the great rules for the exemplar class to make an enemy and I hope people found the encounter fun. I'd also like to take this opportunity to offer a heartfelt thank you to our wonderful Pathfinder Society Devs, as I'm extremely grateful to be given the opportunity to write adventures for everyone.

I hope those who got to play the scenario had a blast, and thank you all.

To learn more about me, you can find me at shanwolf.bsky.social where you'll see me muse about various things but mostly social justice topics and how they relate to the world.

Scott Young (he/him)

PFS2 #6-19: What Walks Again

I'm Scott D. Young, from Winnipeg, Canada, Paizo contributor and proud father of two amazing teens and one orange cat. My most recent scenario for Pathfinder Society was #6-19, What Walks Again. What a treat to be able to bring back the evil mastermind of a previous Adventure Path, long thought dead. I love being able to work with characters and stories that have history to work around while developing new bits of lore. Trying to create a stat block that was both evocative of the original fiend, and yet made sense with the story, was a real challenge. The Paizo freelance community is wonderful, though, and I was able to get a seasoned team of scenario authors to playtest the final combat. That, plus Shay Snow's development magic, and a storied NPC behind the scenes make for a final encounter that I hope will be memorable.

Coming in September, Starfinder Society Scenario #1-06Magic in the Mist is my first scenario of Starfinder Second Edition, and I'm really looking forward to doing more in the Starfinder Universe in future. You can find me on Discord (gm_lamplighter) and at various online conventions throughout the year.

Hiromi Cota (they/she)

PFS2 Quest #24: Tanuki Trouble

Hai tai! Greetings, Pathfinders! I had a lot of fun crafting Tanuki Trouble, and I hope you had even half as much fun playing it! If you haven’t had the chance to play it, Tanuki Trouble is a light-hearted adventure designed for players of all ages, with everything from a raucous party to an opportunity to play matchmaker to exciting combat. As you might expect from the name, it features tanuki, one of Tian Xia’s cutest ancestries and one of my favorite creatures from Japanese folklore. Tanuki are traditionally very whimsical and fun-loving, which made having Kodomi Village embroiled in an out-of-control prank war a natural fit. It also meant that I could ask for art of a tanuki holding a pie-launching crossbow, which makes me smile every time I see it.

In other Pathfinder news, I worked on Pathfinder Lost Omens: Draconic Codex, which is due to come out in about a month. I can’t wait for GMs to introduce players to my draconic children. If you want to find out what I worked on for the book, stay tuned to my BlueSky account @hiromicota.

We’re getting very close to the launch of the new Paizo store, so I wanted to give everyone a tour about what to expect when it goes live! For more information on the new store, check out the April Tech Update and Introducing Paizo Plus blogs.

Categories

We’ve looked through logs examining page hits and website traffic and had many internal discussions to create the primary means of navigation for the new store. We’ll continue to update the interface as we learn more from all of you about how to better organize the store to make the products you’re looking for easier to find. Now, let’s take a look at the Pathfinder section of the new store.

Coming Soon showcases all announced products that are not yet available for sale for each brand. For example, you won’t find upcoming Starfinder products in the Coming Soon folder in the Pathfinder section, but anything with a Pathfinder logo will be visible here.

New to Roleplaying displays introductory products like the Pathfinder Beginner Box and the Pathfinder Player Core and makes it easier for new players to find the things they might be looking for.

The others are self-explanatory, though one thing to note though is that with the new store, products can appear in more than one place. This is especially true of Pathfinder Partners, who are licensed partners whose products will appear next to the products they are built for (like the Foundry VTT version of an Adventure Path showing up alongside the Adventure Path).

Each section also has its own filters. You can refine products visible to you on a page by clicking a radio button and it will then hide the products that don’t match your search. For example, there is a Brand filter that lets you choose between Pathfinder First Edition, Pathfinder Second Edition, and Pathfinder Second Edition Remaster. There is also one for just Pathfinder, which shows Pathfinder products regardless of what edition you are playing (like pawns, miniatures, etc.).Pathfinder Adventures has filters for Level Ranges; Miniatures has filters for Creature Type (Aberration, Beast, etc.), Material (metal or plastic), Painted (yes/no), Player Character, Rarity, and Size. As you move into specific product categories (like Adventures), the filters change to show only the filter options that exist in that category.

New Product Detail Pages

Presentation: New releases for Pathfinder Second Edition and Starfinder Second Edition have extra previews associated with them. Our goal is to provide previews of the covers, table of contents, and a 2-page spread with every release. Each page will also have a “stat block” at the bottom that lists the weight, dimensions, Paizo SKU#, UPC, and page count for the selected product.

Variants on the Same Page: Hardcover, Sketch, Special Edition, and Pocket Edition books will all live on the same page. Clicking the button will change the image that’s displayed as well as change the cost for that book. This makes it easier to show the entirety of the product’s formats in one place and ensure you’re getting exactly the version you want to get. The exception to that are PDFs, which live in a separate Digital Editions folder under each category.

What to Expect/What’s Changing

The Paizo ecommerce store has been built over the decades to be very flexible, and we’re going to lose some of that flexibility as we transition to a new store. Here are some changes that are coming directly as a result of the new store.

Site Downtime: Paizo.com will go dark for roughly two days when we start the conversion. During this time, the tech team will be squaring up the data we have in the old store and making sure it’s updated in the new store. That includes things like balancing gift cards, vouchers, Humble Bundle codes, purchase history, subscriptions, your downloads, and a bunch of other data.

Sidecart: The process by which you add items to future subscription orders is changing. We’ll cover that in the subscription blog.

Wishlists: Your current wishlists will be going away with the launch of the new store. If there are lists you want to retain, please copy them all down in the next week or so. You can create multiple wishlists in BigCommerce, such as one for Holiday Gifts, My Next Campaign, or Revenge of the Runelords. You can share a wishlist to make it public for friends and family or keep it private.

Foundry VTT: We’ve been offering two different versions of Foundry VTT products: one that includes the PDF and the code together, and one that offers just the code at a discount for customers who already owned the PDF. The new store unfortunately can’t support gating a product behind PDF ownership, so we’ll be offering our Foundry modules exclusively as code-only items and pricing them similarly to the code-only Paizo products already available for purchase on the official Foundry storefront.

While that does mean that our existing PDF + Foundry bundles and discounts for PDF ownership will be going away with the launch of the new store, we fully plan to explore new options in the near future that can offer a similar combined value to customers who invest deeply into digital content.

The existing PDF discounts will remain in place until the launch of the new store, so if you already own the PDFs for any FVTT products you've been planning to pick up, you still have a chance to get them at a substantial discount!

Preorders: The preorder window for future products is now limited to 7 days prior to street date. You’ll see the release date under the title, and it won’t give you an option to select any format to make a purchase until the 7-day window opens. If you’re one of the few customers who use preorders (bless you!), we encourage you to subscribe instead. That will grant you the free PDF and allow it to ship early.

The next blog will cover subscriptions, but I know most of you are asking when the new store will launch. To that, I will say we are incredibly close. Our teams are hunting down pesky gremlins, and we’re doing end-to-end testing on the systems that are currently working. Thank you again for your continued support as we make this big move to a new platform!

Jim Butler
CEO

Calisro sighed. Being in the same port as the Pixie always put her in a sour mood. It’d been years since the Decemvirate all but purchased the ship from her by “gifting” her the vessel she and her crew currently sailed. The new vessel—she’d cheekily named it the Glorious Payoff—never quite made its mark on her the way her old ship had. The Payoff certainly wasn’t inferior to the Grinning Pixie. Hells, being a newer vessel even made it superior in many ways. But the Pixie wasn’t just a ship, it was a lodge. And she never realized what that meant until she was no longer aboard.

Illustration by Kenneth Camaro

Her ship—her former ship, she mentally chided herself once again—held so much excitement. More than she and her crew ever expected when they decided not to rob the agents that hired her for transport all those years ago. Piracy was boring in comparison—a realization that vexes her every time she sees her former vessel, and one hitting especially hard today.

“Enough o’ this!” she scolded herself. “Eras would laugh like there’s no tomorrow if I was mopin’ like this where he could see.” She’d talked herself back onto the Pixie several times for “joint operations,” but Eras the Needle, the Grinning Pixie’s current venture-captain, had finally had enough of that excuse. She’d accidentally tried to take command too many times, seems like. “Ship’s not mine anymore. Never really was. Faster you get that into your thick skull, Calisro, the faster we can get past it.” She gazed at her reflection in the polished shield in her captain’s stateroom, the closest thing to a mirror she bothered to keep. “You’re a gods-damned pirate, and even if you don’t care for theft like you used to, the sailing’s still in your blood. ’Sides, it’s not like we gave up on the piracy entirely.” A grin crossed her face as she thought of the countless Aspis transports and merchants flying Chelaxian colors she’d hit, and less savory types as well. “Besmara’ll see me drowned if I turn into a dour mess every time that ship’s in port with me.”

She looked into the mirrored shield, determination overtaking her features. “The Payoff don’t feel like mine ’cause I haven’t let it. Haven’t given it the chance to be the ship it deserves to be. The crew, too. They’re restless. They stayed out because this Society gig was as exciting for them as it was for me.” She began to pace across her cabin. “I’ll be damned if I spend my time sulking over that ship one more day. If adventure and the unknown is what made that ship feel like mine, then I believe we’ll just have to find some more.” She pulled out her sea charts, looking over ports and routes. “Been there. And there. Dozens of times there. Been all over this whole gods-damned Inner Sea ten times over or more. In that ship.” A realization slowly dawned on her face. “Then we’ll just go beyond.”

She dug through her charts, finding some older ones purchased long ago and never used. “Let’s hope that blasted Godsrain didn’t affect these routes too much.” She smiled to herself. “Hells, even if they did, it’ll just make things more interesting. Crew’s been dying for interesting. We’ll be going where the Society’s never been.” She rushed out her door and shouted for her first mate, an old iruxi salt named Ixfial who’d proven his worth countless times after she came into possession of the Glorious Payoff. Much of her crew had stayed from her old days as a Free Captain of the Shackles, but some had left to join that foolhardy assault on the Whispering Tyrant. They never returned.

“What’s the word, captain?” the tall, silver-scaled sailor asked, clearly ready to be back on the open sea himself.

“We’re set to sail? Water and provisions all aboard? I know we’ve got that kineticist we picked up in Riddleport, but I don’t want all our eggs in one basket.” She looked out over the crew and could sense the same restlessness she was feeling.

“Aye, captain. Ready at your command,” he said, grinning at seeing his captain acting more like herself.

“Consider the command given. We sail for Iblydos.” Calisro’s gaze was fixed on the southern horizon, opposite the bustle of Absalom to the ship’s north.

“Iblydos? But we’ve never…”

“Sailed those waters? Of course not! But we’re damned well going to fix that. A little voyage somewhere new wouldn’t cause you to molt on me, would it?” She grinned, chiding her first officer.

He recovered, a fierce smile now covering his face. This was the captain he knew. “Of course not, captain!” He turned to the crew and began to shout orders, readying the vessel to sail south.

As her crew began the arduous work of preparing the vessel, Calisro walked back to her cabin. “Decemvirate thinks they can just buy me off,” she muttered. “I’m a damned venture-captain, same as Eras. Can set up shop wherever I please. A pirate beyond that. Can plunder where I please. This is my ship, and the Glorious Payoff will see to it that we earn its namesake. No one else at the Society to get in my way, no existing relationships to worry about or scoldings from Eliza or that thrice-damned Decemvirate for ‘causing trouble.’ That lot didn’t seem to mind too much when I captured six Aspis caravels in as many days.”

Her old ship now entirely forgotten, she turned back to her charts. “Let’s see what the waters of the Kardaji Bay can offer me. Can’t imagine it’ll be boring.”

Illustration by Fabio Di Bernardi

Josh Foster
Pathfinder Society Developer

Hello Starfinders!
You’re formally invited to attend the Sloughscar Summit this month, which is to take place on the planet Akiton! First Seeker Sarmak has scheduled this diplomatic event to strengthen ties between the various groups interested in exploring the mysterious Wreck of the Returned—a massive starship that recently crashed in the region. As these groups have been clashing at every turn, First Seeker Sarmak is looking for Starfinders willing to work security for the event and put in a good word with the bickering factions. Let’s hope all goes smoothly…

Starfinder Society Scenario #1-05: Sloughscar Summit is an Invasion’s Edge metaplot adventure for 1st- through 2nd-level characters written by Lysle Kapp.

Meanwhile, on the planet Castrovel, a mysterious spire shrouded in purple mist has been seen in the jungles of Ukulam, blinking in and out of sight over several minutes before vanishing without a trace. These sightings are periodic but persistent, yet scientists, explorers, and tourists have all been unable to reach the site or pinpoint its exact location. Intrigued by reports of the vanishing spire, Venture-Captain Arvin has secured permission to dispatch a team of Starfinders to Ukulam to locate and explore the mysterious structure.

Starfinder Society Scenario #1-06: Magic in the Mist is an adventure for 1st- through 2nd-level characters written by Scott D. Young.

Left to right, illustrations by Tom Ventre and Santos da Silva

Take care out there, Starfinders!

Jessica Catalan
Starfinder Society Developer

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Turning our eyes to Pathfinder, we have Myth-Speaker, an AP coming out that is set in Iblydos, a land very similar to earth’s ancient Greece. What kind of program stewards would we be if we didn’t let you run amok there first?

While the city-states of Iblydos have a long and storied history, the Pathfinder Society has little connection to and fewer resources in that part of Golarion. Thus, when Venture-Captain Calisro Bennary has the opportunity to set a lodge up in Hoimpeia, one of Iblydos’s chief port cities, she races back to Absalom to collect veteran agents for the task. Her contact isn't giving connections and a site for a lodge away for free. Something has been causing trouble around local trade routes, and while the authorities are happy to let merchants take longer routes, this change has cost a particular trader dearly. If the Pathfinders can clear up the shipping lanes, this merchant will move heaven and earth to get them a foothold in Iblydos.

Pathfinder Society Scenario #7-03 A Foot in the Door is an adventure for 5th- through 8th-level characters written by Jay Scott.

Left to right; illustration by Fabio Di Bernardi and Max Roche.

Over in Absalom, there are political rumblings. Lord Gulv Tevineg, recently returned from Cheliax, has called a session with the Grand Council to discuss Absalom’s standing in the current aggressions between Cheliax and Andoran. As Chun Hye-Seung of the First Guard is putting together guard rotations, she realizes she’s short on guards and pulls some strings to borrow some of the Pathfinder Society’s more experienced adventurers to (hopefully) be politically delicate guards for the ambassador and his family. The Pathfinders have their work cut out for them, however, as they face down saboteurs, devils, and a… painting?

Pathfinder Society Scenario #7-04: Sulfuric Negotiations is an adventure for 3rd- through 6th-level characters written by Matt Morris.

Josh Foster
Pathfinder Society Developer

Shay Snow
Pathfinder Society Developer

No Game Master. No endless prep. Just an epic adventure in a box.

Dead things prowl the woods around the town of Falcon’s Hollow. No longer content to rest in their graves, they stalk the living. Worse still, the nearby volcano has started grumbling again, spewing plumes of thick, black smoke, and threatens to cover the entire Darkmoon Vale in a cloud of burning ash.

Now, the people of Falcon’s Hollow turn to you to save them! Your four adventurers are all that stand between the small lumber town and total destruction! Do you have what it takes to track the vile undead to their source and put an end to this dire threat before it’s too late?

Pathfinder Quest is live now on BackerKit!

Pathfinder Quest is a collaborative adventure board game for 1–4 players set in the world of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game! Build your hero (or choose a pre-built iconic hero) and set off on a journey to save Falcon’s Hollow!

Every choice you make matters—from stopping to help a townsperson during combat to picking up loot in your haste to escape! Pathfinder Quest is a narrative-rich game designed to keep you guessing as the story unfolds.

Back Pathfinder Quest on BackerKit for a discount off MSRP, early access to the game once it ships, and licensed add-ons, plus access to the BackerKit-exclusive Pathfinder Quest Deluxe Edition, featuring miniatures of select creatures from the game!

Join the party and back Pathfinder Quest today!

Digital Adventure Releases

The following adventures will be released on September 24, 2025, and may be run at events beginning on that date.

Pathfinder Society

Pathfinder Society Scenario #7-03: A Foot in the Door*

Pathfinder Society Scenario #7-04: Sulfuric Negotiations*

Starfinder Society

Starfinder Society Scenario #1-05: Sloughscar Summit*

Starfinder Society Scenario #1-06: Magic in the Mist*

*part of a subscription

Pathfinder Society News

As we announced last month, some changes are coming to Pathfinder Society Scenarios.

Beginning in January of 2026, we will release two Pathfinder Society scenarios per month. These scenarios will be 2–3 hours in length with one band of levels, such as levels 1–2 or 3–4. Each scenario will still award 4 XP, 10 Treasure Bundles, and 4 Reputation with a faction. We will also no longer use Challenge Points; scenarios will instead be presented with a baseline encounter and adjustments to make the encounter easier or harder based on the table. We’ll also be releasing the final Pathfinder Quest in December. You can learn more about these changes, as well as the transition into hardcover Adventure Paths, in this blog!

In sanctioning news, two new adventures have been sanctioned! The Myth-Speaker Adventure Path is now available to play for Pathfinder Society credit, as well as the new Pathfinder Game Night: Dawn of the Frogs. You can find sanctioning documents for these adventures on their product pages.

Starfinder Society News

Starfinder Society’s launch month saw hundreds of tables run worldwide for thousands of players! We hope you’ve all enjoyed our launch scenarios and are eagerly looking forward to the upcoming Invasion’s Edge storyline. I promise you, the Starfinder team has some great things in store for this year.

Over the past month we’ve made some changes and clarifications to the Starfinder Society Character Options page, as well as the Guide to Organized Play, to smooth out some of the wrinkles we encountered at Gen Con and in the weeks following. This will be an ongoing process, but we appreciate your patience as we work to answer your questions and sort out any missing pieces. If you think something on either of these pages is wrong or could be clearer, please don’t hesitate to let us know!

This month Starfinder GM Core released; while it has been reviewed and “sanctioned,” in practice this is largely a GM-focused book. As such, the minimal player options in this book, such as vehicles, are not available for purchase or use by default. We’ll be sure to mine this book for subsystems and mechanics to use in upcoming adventures!

GM Recognition

GM Ranks

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 dependent). A conservative estimate of the time needed to reach the 5th milestone is 650 hours!

This month we had five GMs reach their fifth rank!

5th Glyph (PFS2): Matt Duval, Alexandre Menard, Allan C Ong (UncleFroggy), Loren Schmidt

5th Nova(SFS1): James Hargrave

If you believe you’ve completed your 5th rank but haven’t been announced yet, please email me at organizedplay(at)paizo(dot)com.

Conventions

Applications are now open for volunteer GMs at PAX Unplugged 2025! We’re seeking RPG GMs for both Pathfinder and Starfinder Society (second edition), as well as folks willing to demo our board games like Pathfinder Quest and Monster Match! GMs who join us for 12 hours (4 slots) get a free badge for the show, and those who do even more can earn free Paizo products. Learn more and get the volunteer link in the blog post.

On top of PAX Unplugged, there are tons of fall conventions near you! Find one on our Convention calendar. Paizo staff will be attending Hurricon in Orlando, GalaxyCon in St. Louis, and GameholeCon in Madison this fall, so if you’re in the area, come out and join us!

Until next time— Explore! Report! Cooperate! And good luck in the Great Absalom Relay!

Alex Speidel
Organized Play Coordinator

Pathfinder Abomination Vaults (5E 2024) on D&D Beyond!

One of our most popular and exciting campaigns comes to Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition!

When the mysterious Gauntlight, an eerie landlocked lighthouse, glows with baleful light, the people of Otari know something terrible is beginning. Evil stirs in the depths of the Abomination Vaults, a sprawling dungeon where a wicked sorcerer attempted to raise an army of monsters hundreds of years ago. The town's newest heroes must venture into a sprawling dungeon filled with beasts and traps to prevent a spiteful spellcaster from rising again!

As announced at Gen Con 2025, we’ve partnered with D&D Beyond to bring Abomination Vaults to Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition (2024). When you buy this Adventure Path on D&D Beyond, you unlock access to the entire megadungeon—including new spells, magic items, over 90 creatures, and 13 interactive maps!

With Maps, the integrated D&D Beyond virtual tabletop, transitioning to free for all users on September 16^th, now is a great time to get Abomination Vaults on D&D Beyond! Run your campaign with minimal prep, easy-to-access stat blocks and read-aloud text, and the ruins of Gauntlight at your fingertips!

Bring your Fifth Edition party into the megadungeon of Gauntlight Keep today!

Paizo and Humble Bundle are proud to announce our newest charity bundle, the Pathfinder Primer Bundle, which is live now! Not only is this special Pathfinder Second Edition bundle the perfect entry point to Pathfinder for players new and old, but every purchase helps Take This, a mental health nonprofit decreasing stigma and increasing support for mental health in games. September is National Suicide Prevention Month, so it’s the perfect time to support a cause like Take This!

At the base tier of $5 or more, customers will receive PDFs of the most foundational Pathfinder Second Edition publications:

• Pathfinder Second Edition Beginner’s Box (Remastered Edition)
• Pathfinder Lost Omens World Guide
• Pathfinder Core GM Screen
• Pathfinder Remaster Iconics Pregenerated Characters
• Pathfinder Character Sheet Pack
• Pathfinder Advanced Player’s Guide Character Sheet Pack
• Pathfinder Adventure: A Fistful of Flowers
• Pathfinder Adventure: A Few Flowers More

This tier represents an $80 value.

For an additional $10, at the $15 tier, players will receive another 12 PDFs:

• Pathfinder Player Core
• Pathfinder GM Core
• Pathfinder Adventure: Rusthenge
• Pathfinder Adventure:Crown of the Kobold King Anniversary Edition
• Pathfinder Bounty:Sodden Stories
• Pathfinder Bounty: Somewhere Below
• Pathfinder Quest: Falcon’s Descent
• Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Crown of the Kobold King
• Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Rusthenge
• Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Jungle Multi-Pack
• Pathfinder Flip-Tiles: Darklands Starter Set
• Pathfinder Flip-Mat Classics: Twisted Cavern

All map products included in this tier are featured in the tier’s adventures. This tier represents an additional $157.88 in value.

At the $30 tier, we add a complete Pathfinder Adventure Path and even more rulebooks:

• Pathfinder Monster Core
• Pathfinder Player Core 2
• Pathfinder Lost Omens Highhelm
• Sky King’s Tomb Player’s Guide
• Pathfinder Adventure Path: Mantle of Gold (Sky King’s Tomb 1 of 3)
• Pathfinder Adventure Path: Cult of the Cave Worm (Sky King’s Tomb 2 of 3)
• Pathfinder Adventure Path: Heavy is the Crown (Sky King’s Tomb 3 of 3)

This tier includes an additional $129.94 in value.

Finally, we’re pleased to announce a physical tier in this bundle as well! For $45, you’ll receive all the digital products in the previous tiers as well as a hardcover rulebook (you’ll pay shipping and handling when you redeem the code and check out on paizo.com).

• Pathfinder Monster Core (Sketch Cover Edition)

This book has a $59.99 cover price, so not only are you getting it at a discount, but you’ll get the entire $428.26 bundle at a 90% discount, all while helping a great cause.

Don’t miss out on this fantastic bundle, which will be available through September 25, 2025, at 11 a.m. Pacific.

Get the Pathfinder Primer Bundle today!

Hail and well met, ‘Finders! This month’s new releases give Starfinder GMs an arsenal of new tools, bring Pathfinder Game Night to your table, and place Valashinaz’s many treasures in your pocket!

A reminder—the Organized Play scenarios listed here are August’s scenarios, which released last Wednesday, August 27th! As we’ve shifted our physical product release to the first Wednesday of the month, we’ll be highlighting the digital releases from the previous month!

Never miss a release with our Paizo Subscriptions—for everything from rulebooks to accessories! Subscribers get a free PDF with purchase, early access to game content, and exclusive discounts on paizo.com!

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Starfinder GM Core

TELL YOUR STORY… IN SPACE!

Get ready for an adventure your friends will never forget! As the Game Master, you’re the director of your own epic space adventure, and your friends are the stars. You’ll need conniving villains, exciting chase scenes, cinematic starship battles, and bodacious loot to turn your Starfinder session into a galactic adventure. Starfinder GM Core is here to help you with every part of the game, including guidelines on story structure, tips on creating thrilling encounters, tools for world-building, and exciting new subsystems like hacking and cinematic starship scenes. It even contains tips for mixing Pathfinder and Starfinder content to create anachronistic adventures. Starfinder GM Core has everything you need to become the best Game Master in the galaxy

Starfinder GM Core is available in standard hardcover, hobby-retailer and paizo.com exclusive retro video game inspired hardcover, and faux-leatherette Special Edition with foil embossing, as well as PDF format.

Pathfinder Game Night: Dawn of the Frogs

Gather your friends for the perfect taste of the Pathfinder RPG with this deluxe boxed-set adventure designed specifically for brand new players! The small village of Bog Bottom has a problem—locals have been going missing near an abandoned old mill in the surrounding swamp known as Dunmire. But what awaits discovery in this ruin is far more sinister than a few wayward villagers—Bog Bottom is going to need a new band of heroes if it hopes to survive the upcoming Dawn of the Frogs!

Pathfinder Game Night: Dawn of the Frogs presents three short adventures for 1st level characters set in the swamp of Dunmire, and everything you need to play is included in this box! With its four pregenerated player characters, poster maps presenting all combat locations, a sheet of pawns representing the PCs and enemies, dice, and of course a 32-page adventure book, with Dawn of the Frogs, you'll have everything you need to play on your next three game nights! 

Starfinder Galaxy Guide Pocket Edition

YOUR GUIDE TO THE GALAXY… AND BEYOND!

Blast off into Starfinder Second Edition with a star chart of the galaxy and a thrilling tour of adventuring locations across the vastness of interstellar space! The Starfinder Galaxy Guide is a 176-page primer designed for new and experienced players that explores popular types of science fantasy campaigns—galactic exploration, horror, war-torn space opera, and more—giving GMs and players tools for playing out those types of stories in their Starfinder game.

Starfinder Galaxy Guide Pocket Edition brings the same stellar content as a budget-and-travel friendly softcover!

Pathfinder Adventure Path #218: Titanbane (Myth-Speaker 3 of 3)

MYTH-SLAYER!

Having beaten death, escaped the afterlife, and mastered their mythic abilities, the heroes know exactly what threatens the Iblydan isles, but defeating it is another matter! They’ll need to seek a divine sword lost on a secretive island, navigate the monstrous city of Dhuraxilis, thwart their longtime rivals, and wrestle with truly titanic beasts if they’re to bury that blade in their enemy’s heart. The Myth-Speaker Adventure Path concludes with “Titanbane,” a complete adventure for 7th- to 9th-level characters.

Pathfinder Adventure Path #218: Titanbane is also available as a deluxe Foundry VTT module.

Starfinder Character Folio

RECORD YOUR GLORY!

Fully detail your hero and record their adventures with the Starfinder Character Folio! This deluxe character record provides space for absolutely everything you need to know about your Starfinder hero.

• The sturdy folio’s 8 character-defining pages include:
• Expanded space for your hero’s attacks, defenses, feats, and class features.
• Visual references for your character and their gear.
• Tons of space to track gear.
• Room to chronicle your character’s achievements, goals, and history.
• Folder ­ flaps to hold handouts and other documents.

Pathfinder Treasure Vault (Remastered) Pocket Edition

DELVE INTO THE VAULT!

Pathfinder Treasure Vault (Remastered) reveals the glittering hoard of a terrifying dragon, as presented by the creature’s plucky kobold assistant. This 224-page softcover rulebook presents a catalog of gear from nearly every category of equipment and magic item available in the Pathfinder RPG, updated to work perfectly with the remastered Pathfinder Second Edition rules! Give your character the perfect tool for the job with signature weapons, customizable relics, and wondrous items to fit your every need while preparing for any eventuality with potions, elixirs, wands, and more!

Pathfinder Treasure Vault (Remastered) Pocket Edition presents the same content as the hardcover edition in a budget-and-travel friendly softcover!

Starfinder Flip-Mat: Garage Warehouse

FORKLIFT CERTIFIED AND READY TO ROLL!

When adventurers need to explore a warehouse full of bodacious bounty, infiltrate a corporate factory, or find a reinforced garage to park their favorite vehicles, slap this map on the table! One side features an industrial warehouse with fortified doors and storage spaces packed with equipment that characters (and enemies!) can climb or duck behind for tactical cover. The other side shows a mechanical garage full of machinery and lofty catwalks perfect for snipers. Get into tactical position with Starfinder Flip-Mat: Garage Warehouse!

Pathfinder Society Intro to Year of Battle’s Spark—Enough is Enough

A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for 1st- through 4th-level characters.

Hellknights have forcibly taken over Citadel Altaerein, the abandoned Hellknight citadel on the edge of Breachill, a small town in Isger, and unleashed a reign of terror on innocent civilians and town leaders alike. The Eagle Knights of Andoran have called upon the Pathfinder Society for backup while they handle the citadel, requesting that the Pathfinder agents rescue the civilians and prevent any unneeded harm. While the Pathfinders are moving through the town, they learn of a secret way into the citadel, and though it's not without danger, they could learn so much about the enemy...

Starfinder Society Scenario #1-03: Disaster at Dreamlink Labs

A Starfinder Society Scenario designed for 1st- through 2nd-level characters, playable in 2-3 hours.

When a nascent godling called the Newborn was birthed from the planet Aucturn in 324 AG, chunks of its planetary womb and embryonic fluids were cast across the Pact Worlds. Most of this debris—called aucturnite—collected at the outer rim of the system, in a region known as the Gelid Edge. This forlorn field of ice and technomagical debris is a realm of occult power, haunted starship wrecks, and unknown horrors. Yet for all its dangers, the Gelid Edge is a frontier of new discoveries and forbidden knowledge, and many Newborn evangelists, anomaly hunters, and occult researchers have flocked to the region to learn its secrets.

When the Starfinder Society is contacted by scientists from Dreamlink Laboratories, who claim to have made an important discovery in the Gelid Edge, Venture-Captain Arvin dispatches a team of agents to investigate. Unfortunately, something has invaded Dreamlink Labs… and time is running short for the lab’s survivors.

Pathfinder Society Scenario #7-02: Shipyard Sabotage

A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for 1st- through 4th-level characters.

Tensions are high following the Battle of Hellknight Hill, and while Cheliax hasn't taken any direct action, they've encouraged privateers to attack Andoran shipping routes. One of these pirates is especially overconfident and believes she can win more favor with a direct attack on Andoran’s Augustana shipyards. Coincidentally, the Pathfinder Society is in the market for a new ship, and the heads of Supplies and Procurement are touring the shipyards when the attack begins. As the escorts for Nairaba and Kitsch, the two aforementioned heads of their divisions, it's up to you to keep your charges safe while dealing with the chaos.

Starfinder Society #1-04: The Great Absalom Relay

A Starfinder Society Scenario designed for 1st- through 2nd-level characters, playable in 2-3 hours.

The Starfinder Society is one of a dozen prominent organizations invited to participate in the Great Absalom Relay, a live-streamed relay race across Absalom Station and the most anticipated charity event of the year! Charm the audience and upstage your competition as you overcome obstacles and compete in challenges in this showcase of Absalom Station’s hotspots. Win or lose, the spotlight’s on you!

Pathfinder Society Special #6-00: Salt of the Ocean

A Pathfinder Society Special designed for 1st- through 8th-level characters (subtiers 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 & 7-8).

In the Eye of Abendego, the storm has receded just enough to reveal two particularly interesting new sites: one is a wrecked Pathfinder ship and the other an ancient island associated with prophesiers and demons. With some help from an old pirate friend, the Pathfinders are kitted up in order to investigate these two new occurrences. However, it seems like their Pathfinder ally wasn't the only pirate with eyes on these strange new prizes. The Society will have the face the dangers of sea and storm as they sail to their goal, hoping to beat their rivals to the hidden secrets!

From Our Partners:

Our partners at Archives of Nethys, Demiplane, Fantasy Grounds, Hero Lab Online, and Roll20* are dropping new content this month as well! Buy your PDF on paizo.com to get a discount via the PaizoConnect API. Or pay full price on their platforms, sync your account, and get a complimentary PDF on the Paizo Store.

*Roll20 is no longer a part of PaizoConnect and discounts and complimentary PDFs do not apply.

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Bring Pathfinder and Starfinder to where you are, in person or online, and if you don’t have a favorite local game store, get books delivered to your door via a Paizo Subscription! From rulebooks to adventures, accessories, and more, we’ve got subscriptions for every table! Subscribing to a line of books gets you the physical book and the PDF for one price! Subscribe to four lines or more to unlock Paizo Advantage savings on products site-wide!

Thank you for playing Starfinder and Pathfinder!

Shop the Paizo Store and your favorite local game store today!

HELLO, PATHFINDERS!

Oh, my gods, besties, it’s been so long since I’ve been able to write up a briefing and actually give all of you some of the good, good gossip!

First—Mediogalti is so nice this time of year! I highly recommend catching a ship out there so you can get some time in the sun and see some of the extremely attractive locals.

(Eando Kline was certainly eying some of them when we were there!)

Illustration by Josef Kucera

Sarkoris has been wonderful since our agents handled a bunch of demonic issues. My newest friend, Kishna Meltcaller, has been showing me so many interesting spots around the badlands. It feels so much like home!

(I should schedule some vacation time and go see Mom! We can stop by that little kebab stand outside of the Sharpened Axe academy. It’s the best lamb in Urgir!)

Illustration by Sammy Khalid

Finally, I’m back here, in my city! Absalom! The most beautiful place in the world! A few pieces of gossip I’ve picked up while I’m getting back on my feet after my time away:

• Zarta Dralneen’s been spending much more time out of her archives and in the war room with Ambrus Valsin! Do I smell something brewing?
• Eras the Needle just sent over an absolutely enormous missive to be read by Calisro Benarry! Maybe he’s resigning? Or finally telling her off? Or proposing?
• A gentlewoman arrived at the Grand Lodge to speak with our leadership and found herself unable to get into the building properly. While I was sorting books nearby, I heard Valais apologizing to her and saying something about “lich protections?”

Illustration by Klaher Baklaher

That’s what I have for now, Pathfinders!

And, for those of you who joined up to help save me from that tacky oubliette:

Thank you.

Explore! Report! Cooperate! Gossip!

Shay Snow
Pathfinder Society Developer

Paizo has built itself upon the strength of its adventures—the first offerings we published set in the world of Golarion were adventures of different types, ranging from short encounters with maps and minis included to classic 32-page softcover standalone modules, and of course, the flagship monthly adventure line: Pathfinder. This line’s name became the more specific “Pathfinder Adventure Path” two years later when we launched the Pathfinder RPG, but ever since that first volume kicked off Rise of the Runelords nearly two decades ago, the format has largely remained the same. Even as we’ve recently shifted to a focus on three-part Adventure Paths, the physical nature of the product hasn’t changed from a softcover 96-page monthly softcover book.

This format was in part a natural evolution of the monthly magazine subscription model of Paizo’s early days as a magazine publisher, but it was also a necessary side effect of the work and cost it takes to produce an entire campaign. Over the course of 222 months (of which only one was skipped a few years ago when we released the double-sized “Seven Dooms for Sandpoint”), we kept the Adventure Path line going on that regular schedule. But also over the course of 222 months, the world has changed.

And it’s time for the Adventure Path to change with it.

Hardcover Adventure Paths

Starting next year, we are transitioning from a softcover, serialized, monthly format for Adventure Paths to a quarterly hardcover all-in-one format. We’re still committed to publishing four Adventure Paths a year, but these will now be published as four separate hardcover books rather than 12 softcover books. This will allow a GM to have the entire Adventure Path in hand from the start, which should help those who are eager to start their new campaigns on “day 1” of release but who have struggled with how to adjust the adventure for their table while not having details for the later parts in hand. It’ll also help friendly local game stores keep entire Adventure Paths in stock and will prevent situations where parts of an Adventure Path go out of print before others, rendering the entire campaign difficult or even impossible for GMs who prefer physical media to collect. And from a creative side, it allows us, the writers and developers of the Adventure Paths, a lot more freedom in how to present the story—no longer do we have the specter of “what if the GM doesn’t have the other book” looming over us, forcing us to make decisions on encounters and plots that limit what happens in that 96-page softcover to resources found only in that particular section of the adventure.

A three-part Adventure Path consists of 96 pages of content split over three books, for a total of 288 pages in all. The new format will start at 256 pages. On its face, reducing overall pages by 32 would seem to reduce the amount of content you get in each Adventure Path, but that’s not quite accurate, since a single volume is more efficient in several ways. We don’t have to print multiple tables of contents or multiple ORC pages, and the number of back-of-the-book advertisements overall will drop from 8 to 12 to potentially as few as 2. Adventure Toolboxes will be more efficient, and we’ll have greater flexibility in what sorts of support articles we want to include. In the end, you’ll still have the same amount of actual adventure content in a 256-page hardcover as you did in three 96-page softcovers, but it’ll cost you less overall!

Here are some more facts about the new Adventure Path format:

• Each volume will be at least 256 pages long—some might be a little longer, but we’re hoping to keep them relatively the same length.

• Each hardcover Adventure Path will present 9 to 10 levels of play, the same as we’ve been doing for the past several years. Our plan is to do at least one a year that starts at 1st level, one a year that ends at 20th level, and then with the other two, potentially starting anywhere in between.

• We’re doing four a year, but the release schedules will be a bit flexible—one will come out every quarter (so, one in January–March, one in April–June, and so on), but they won’t necessarily be separated by three months each time; this allows us more flexibility internally when an Adventure Path might be more complicated, but also makes it easier to release things in time for conventions or holidays (which don’t always line up in a nice “once every three months” row).

• We’ll still be doing free downloadable Player’s Guides for each of them!

• Hardcover formats make it much easier for us to reprint entire Adventure Paths if they prove popular, letting us have more time to bring back older out-of-print Adventure Paths (like the recently released Gatewalkers Adventure Path compilation) rather than reformatting recent three-part APs that happened to sell out while still in demand.

• A standard hardcover Adventure Path will have an MSRP of $79.99, which is less expensive than the current $89.97 price for three 96-page softcover volumes. The total price is much less when you factor in potential shipping costs split over three books instead of one!

In the end, this is a change that I’m not only excited to embrace, but thankful. Adventure Paths are best enjoyed, in my opinion, all at once, and that can only happen if we move away from the older format and embrace the new. It’s certainly a big change, but in the end, it’s a good one! I’ll be lurking around in the comments for this blog and will be eager to answer additional questions folks have, but in the meantime—here’s a teaser of what we’ve got planned for early 2026’s hardcover Adventure Paths!

Hellbreakers: A 1st- to 10th-level campaign involving the outbreak of the war between Andoran and Cheliax. Can your PCs make the difference in this violent clash that threatens two of Golarion’s most bitter rival nations?

Hell’s Destiny: An 11th- to 20th-level campaign that continues the war-torn story from Hellbreakers and can also work on its own as a high-powered campaign. Can your PCs stop a truly diabolical threat from engulfing the Inner Sea region and casting the continent of Avistan into ruin?

James Jacobs
Narrative Creative Director

Illustration by Gunship Revolution
(Rafael Cal-Ortiz, Mico Dimagiba, Luisa Odulio, Marcus Reyno, Jen Santos, and Timothy Terrenal)

Pathfinder Organized Play Scenarios

Greetings, Pathfinders!

With the debut of the Year of Battle’s Spark, we’ve made a few changes to our standard Pathfinder Society scenario layout to simplify things for GMs and ensure more efficient development behind the scenes here at Paizo. For example, scenarios will now match our Adventure Path encounter format, with “micro” stat blocks for non-custom enemies and hazards found in the Pathfinder Monster Core or GM Core. This will keep overall scenario sizes more manageable and prevent replication of basic information already presented in the core rules.

We’ve already implemented this change, but there are others on the horizon, as well. With the January 2026 release of Pathfinder Society Scenario #7-09: The Chitterwood Walks, Part 1: Scrambling the Tribes by Genevieve Rudat Olejnik, our scenarios will use a single level band, with this scenario set at levels 3–4. You can expect to see two Pathfinder Society scenarios released each month from January onward, with the Year of Battle’s Spark ending with 22 scenarios! Somewhat smaller in size than our most recent offerings, these new-format scenarios are designed to be run in 3 hours rather than 4, making it easier for event organizers to schedule weeknight slots at game stores, where there often aren’t enough hours in an evening to squeeze in our current longer scenarios. (Each scenario will still award 4 XP and 10 Treasure Bundles, as well as 4 Reputation with your chosen faction.) Of course, we’ll continue to endeavor to include juicy roleplaying encounters and other opportunities to flex to longer run-times as needed for conventions and other venues, but the baseline approach will be toward tighter, more-focused adventures.

Additionally, we’ll no longer be using challenge points to scale encounters. Encounters will be written for six PCs, and we’ll provide guidance on offering either a “Harder” or “Easier” experience based on the table you’re GMing for! This matches up with changes we’re implementing in Starfinder Society and is intended to help streamline the overall experience at the table and reduce some of the complexity and GM load in preparation.

As we’ll be providing more content through the main scenario line, our final quest will be Pathfinder Quest #27: Within the Glacier by Kate Tremaine, debuting this December. Pathfinder Quests were always intended as introductory short scenarios to introduce the campaign to new players, and with nearly 30 of them available, there are plenty to choose from. We plan to use some of the resources currently aimed at Quests for exciting new Pathfinder Society projects that we’ll be discussing in future updates.

Thank you for your continued support of the Pathfinder Society campaign and for rolling with these new changes. As the line’s primary developer, I’m excited about the opportunities provided by the updated scenario format and look forward to a bright and exciting future for the campaign!

As we continue to introduce additional updates, we’ll be sure to share them here in this space.

I’m thrilled for the future of Organized Play and can’t wait to share it all with y’all!

Until then, remember the credo of the Pathfinder Society: Explore! Report! Cooperate!

Shay Snow
Pathfinder Society Developer

Greetings, players! We’re pleased to announce that we’ll be attending PAX Unplugged in Philadelphia, PA this November 21-23! We’ll be running scenarios, quests, and demos for Pathfinder and the Starfinder Society, as well as demos of our board games!

We’re now soliciting volunteers for the show! We are currently seeking volunteers for the following roles:

• Game Master: Run tables of Pathfinder and Starfinder Society quests and scenarios.
• Board Game Demo GM: Run demo tables for Pathfinder Quest and Pathfinder Monster Match. Applicants should have strong board game knowledge (both our games and general board games) and preferably have related demo experience.
• Headquarters (HQ): Answer player and GM questions, seat players, handle conflicts and disputes, and report games after completion

Please read this important information before applying:

• Volunteer applications will be reviewed and accepted or rejected by the PAX Unplugged Organizing Committee. Filling this form out does not guarantee acceptance; you will receive an email with further information from the PAXU committee.
• PAX Unplugged schedules will be assigned by the committee. You will be asked for your preference of system and level, but you will not necessarily be able to choose the specific scenario(s) you run. The committee’s intention is to assign people to run the same scenario multiple times during the weekend. There is a free-form field at the end of the form to enter specific requests, though there’s no guarantee they will be honored.
• Reward information is listed in the table below. GMs who do not qualify for a badge will still need to purchase one.
• Applications will be processed on a rolling basis, beginning no later than September 16. The earlier you get your application in, the more likely it is you’ll get the scenarios you want. Please be patient as we put the final details on the convention internally before we send out GM emails!
• Please note that we will not be providing hotel rooms for GMs. All GMs will need to provide their own accommodation. Parking reimbursement is available for 8+ slot GMs if requested.
  • A sub-note on this: the weekend of PAX is also the weekend of the Philadelphia marathon. We recommend GMs make housing/parking arrangements ASAP!
• Any questions about the GM signup process should be sent to the committee at paxunplugged@gmail.com

Rewards Table

Blocks	Parking Pass	Hardcover Product	Exhibitor Badge	In-Game Reward	Voucher
8+ blocks	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
7 blocks		✓	✓	✓	✓
6 blocks			✓	✓	✓
5 blocks			✓	✓	✓
4 blocks			✓	✓	✓
3 blocks				✓	✓
2 blocks				✓	✓
1 block				✓	✓

Definitions for rewards:

• Exhibitor Badge: a badge for the duration of the event.
• In-game reward: A reward for characters based on the current organized play GM reward programs. Pathfinder Society (Second Edition)/Starfinder Society is Achievement Point rewards at the Premier Plus (2.0x) level. Benefits for board game GMs are TBD.
• Hardcover Product: GMs at this tier will be able to choose between Pathfinder Battlecry!, Pathfinder Lost Omens: Draconic Codex, Starfinder Player Core, or Starfinder Alien Core.
• Parking Pass: Reimbursement for parking at up to $30/day.
• Voucher: earn one voucher for $15 spendable on paizo.com for every block run.

PAX Unplugged 2025 Volunteer Application

Major Conventions Planning Server

Anybody interested in volunteering at PAX Unplugged should join the OPF Major Conventions planning server by clicking the image below. Follow the instructions in #welcome to get access to the relevant channels. All important information will be conveyed on this server as well as via email, so please join the server!

Alex Speidel
Organized Play Coordinator

Brad Fiske, Greg Garcia, Nicholas Ruchlewicz, and Jaq Steele
PAX Unplugged Organizing Committee

Hello Starfinders!
Starfinder Society Second Edition has been released into the galaxy and is shining bright! This month, we’re adding two more scenarios into the mix: one set at the heart of the Pact Worlds, Absalom Station, and the other on the fringes of the system in the Gelid Edge. Let’s dive in!

When a nascent godling called the Newborn was birthed from the planet Aucturn in 324 AG, chunks of its planetary womb and embryonic fluids were cast across the Pact Worlds. Most of this debris—called aucturnite—collected at the outer rim of the system in a region known as the Gelid Edge. This forlorn field of ice and technomagical debris is a realm of occult power, haunted starship wrecks, and unknown horrors. Yet for all its dangers, the Gelid Edge is a frontier of new discoveries and forbidden knowledge, and many Newborn evangelists, anomaly hunters, and occult researchers have flocked to the region to learn its secrets.

When the Starfinder Society is contacted by scientists from Dreamlink Laboratories who claim to have made an important discovery in the Gelid Edge, Venture-Captain Arvin dispatches a team of agents to investigate. Unfortunately, something has invaded Dreamlink Labs… and time is running short for the lab’s survivors!

Starfinder Society Scenario #1-03: Disaster at Dreamlink Labs is a horror adventure for 1st- and 2nd-level characters written by Caryn DiMarco.

Left to right illustrations by Nicolas Espinoza and Gonzalo Kenny

The Starfinder Society is one of a dozen prominent organizations invited to participate in the Great Absalom Relay, a live-streamed relay race across Absalom Station and the most anticipated charity event of the year! Charm the audience and upstage your competition as you overcome obstacles and compete in challenges in this showcase of Absalom Station’s hotspots. Win or lose, the spotlight’s on you!

Starfinder Society Scenario #1-04: The Great Absalom Relay is a social adventure for 1st- and 2nd-level characters written by Alex Speidel.

I hope you enjoy your time among the stars!

Jessica Catalan
Starfinder Society Developer

---

Greetings, Pathfinders!
I’m glad to see you’ve all made it through the depths of the August convention season with most of your limbs intact! We’ve got some brand-new scenarios dropping this month as well as the release of last year’s interactive special!

With the Hellknight takeover of Citadel Altaerein and their subsequent oppression of the citizens of Breachill, the Pathfinder Society has partnered up with the Andoran military to help get civilians to safety before the historical Battle of Hellknight Hill! During these various rescues, the Pathfinders learn not only about the Bumblebrasher goblins stuck inside the Citadel, but also of a secret tunnel connecting the town to the old ruin. Once inside, the Pathfinders can learn about some upcoming, dastardly Chelaxian plans…

Illustration by Bruno Cesa.

Pathfinder Society Intro to the Year of Battle’s Spark—Enough is Enough is an adventure for 1st- through 4th-level characters written by Matt Duval.

Meanwhile, shifting forward a few weeks from 7-01—Tensions are high following the Battle of Hellknight Hill, and while Cheliax hasn't taken any direct action, they've encouraged privateers to attack Andoran shipping. One of these pirates is especially overconfident and believes she can win greater favor by conducting a more direct attack on one of the Augustana shipyards. Coincidentally, the Pathfinder Society is in the market for a new ship, and the heads of Supplies and Procurement are touring some that are available when the attack begins. As the escorts to Nairaba and Kitsch, the two aforementioned heads of their divisions, it'll be up to the agents present to keep their charges safe while dealing with the chaos.

left to right, illustrations by Samuel Azeredo and María Rosario Arteta Chagüi.

Pathfinder Society Scenario #7-02 Shipyard Sabotage is an adventure for 1st- through 4th-level characters written by Hilary Moon Murphy.

And to wrap us up, tumbling way back to the beginning of the Year of Immortal Influence, the Pathfinders went on a large expedition to a historical Pathfinder shipwreck in the Eye of Abendego, only to find information about a strange island only known as the Isle of Claws and Terror. However, a nephilim pirate and xir succubus companion are also on their way to the island with much more nefarious goals in mind! Can the Pathfinders beat them there? Will they withstand the might of Abendego’s Squall? And can Calisro Benarry keep the Snapdragon from crashing among the waves?

Pathfinder Society Special #6-00: Salt of the Ocean is a multi-table adventure for 1st- through 8th-level characters written by Rigby Bendele and Jacob W. Michaels.

Josh Foster
Pathfinder Society Developer

Shay Snow
Pathfinder Society Developer

We are fully recovered from our first marathon of Sky King’s Tomb and ready to tell the tale! If you didn’t catch the introduction to this project, we’re playing as a family of dwarves from Clan Firecask, complete with different generations to represent our players’ out-of-game ages. Each marathon of this project also features Order of the Amber Die members from decades past, and for our opening marathon we reached all the way back to the 1980s when our group first began. Before co-founding the Order with our GM, Andrew Woodworth and Adam went as Darth Vader and a stormtrooper for Halloween in 1985; they even have the same birthday and grew up as neighbors in New Jersey. Andy stayed active in the Order until the 2000s, and returned to the table for the first time in twenty years for this marathon – his debut playing Pathfinder!

Joining us as a guest for this marathon was Brandon Gillam of Runehammer, who played as Renck Firecask, a venerable scribe, tattoo artist, and keeper of clan recipes. Brandon held his own in Pathfinder 2E and lasted to share the story of his first Amber Die marathon. Having an artist along for the ride meant that many of the scenes from our playthrough were sketched out as they happened, so we’ve included our favorite piece with this blog!

• Adventure: Mantle of Gold
• Marathon Length: 59 hours
• Session Hours: 32 hours

Our journey began in the undisputed center of dwarven culture: the Sky Citadel of Highhelm. When we sat down at the table, each of us had a folder waiting for us with our character’s name on it. Inside, our GM had placed four high-quality maps printed from the Highhelm hardcover; each map depicted one level of the city: King’s Crown, King’s Heart, Stonebreach, and The Depths. For the entirety of our marathon, we never left the city and never wanted to. We toured some sites that even a family of dwarves who grew up in Highhelm hadn’t seen before, and enjoyed the massive sandbox that this adventure offers. Our goal was to build our clan’s reputation higher before an important festival, and we counted at least a dozen quests that we completed in that pursuit.

Highlights from Mantle of Gold:

□ As Highhelm is the most influential of Sky Citadels, it is connected to the rest of Golarion in ways that make languages essential, and tutors are always in demand. Disa Firecask, known to us as “Mama Disa,” volunteered to become a language instructor at a prestigious school in King’s Crown. Teaching the children of Goldhilt clans is taken seriously, and Disa was expected to submit lesson plans, a pacing guide, and closely follow the curriculum. Disa is a cleric of Folgrit, so the children loved her—yet the stern headmaster insisted on evaluating her skills in the classroom. Disa dropped THREE natural 20s across four rolls to become Teacher of the Month! 

□ We were made aware of a problem at the Cloudspire Embassy, an important location that secures the connection between Avistan and Garund’s dwarves. Upon arriving, we were told that a cloud dragon brought from Garund for protection was not adjusting well to the caverns of its new home. This dragon, Mharsilekinass the Jewel, presented a challenge we were not wholly prepared for: something akin to a bored teenager. After finding pleasure in ambushing us (with initiative rolled), the dragon challenged us to a game of Elemental Stones; if we won, it agreed to behave, but if we lost, we had to amuse the dragon for a week. We stopped our session, broke out the board game, and our GM proceeded to defeat us. Renck Firecask, our bard, stepped up to entertain. A week later, Renck and “Mharzy” had something to show us: a neck tattoo worthy of a wyrm!

□ The sport of basilisk is appreciated in Highhelm in a way that the Philadelphia Eagles fans around our table can identify with. When a star player for the Highhelm Hodags had to drop from the team’s roster, our chances of winning the Avistan Championship were in jeopardy. Tryouts were held, with siblings Thorgreigir and Salthrun Firecask in attendance. While Thorgreigir clutched his rolls and made the team, he now had to perform in front of the whole city. We were down by a score for most of the contest, but with our GM blasting the dwarven version of “Seven Nation Army” and crowd noise in our favor, the championship came down to the last play. Thorgreigir executed a move the team had worked on, and went deep for an over-the-shoulder basket catch. One Hero Point later, we stormed the field as only champions could.

□ You think you might know what Sky King’s Tomb Adventure Path is like? Volume one delivered the off-guard condition to our GM, and that’s hard to do. In total, we played a bit over half of Mantle of Gold, which utilized FOUR different subsystems from the GM Core: Reputation, Influence, Victory Points, and Infiltration. One subsystem would have been interesting, two would have had us talking. With four, author John Compton delivered something that changed the flow of our gameplay in a way we’ve never experienced and are still processing—and we loved it.

□ There was a truly embarrassing scene that begs description. The forges of the dwarven city were in dire need of assistance due to a recent labor strain. We showed up in the hopes of earning reputation, but knew we were in trouble when the ifrit dwarf in charge of “Burntown” asked to see our hands. She wanted smiths and was sent a family of brewers. We failed check after check, with Torag himself turning his head away from us. Drothgyr Firecask played music for inspiration, but it only resulted in more beer breaks. The crossbow we repaired, well, it fired two feet down and to the left. The shield we crafted, we felt bad even calling it done. As for the fence we tried to build, we told ourselves it probably wasn’t for actual use, right?

The Scions

Every family, every clan, every gaming group that has lasted decades will have its own practices and traditions passed down to its scions. Order of the Amber Die is here all these years later because of what our members have passed down to each other since our inception. The first member to show up with a legal notepad and special pen was Andy; he referred to his session notes as a “log,” and while as kids we had no idea what it was for, it changed our sessions forever. The log was overly detailed, with exact damage numbers for every attack and spell. Still, we found ourselves referring back to it between sessions to keep track of locations, items, or NPCs we had met—the log helped us succeed. In future campaigns, someone would step up to keep notes based on the tradition of Andy’s logs. The log changed forms to suit the player keeping it; some preferred a scrapbook with pictures and quotes from our sessions. While this might seem commonplace today, we didn’t know any other groups in our junior high school that were keeping notes like we were back in 1990. At least a half-dozen members have kept the log since, but the record for the most detail sits with a scion who holds the torch that Andy once lit. Karee Vogrin’s notes for this marathon sit at 9,101 words, are nearly twenty-five pages, and will be posted to our Google Classroom where all players have access to them.

Character Deaths:

□ None, Folgrit watched over us.

Best Quote from Marathon 1:

(a marketing discussion stalls out around the table, ending in a squabble)

Renck Firecask: “I can see where the acumen comes from in this family.”

Zuls Firecask: “It skips a generation.”

Current Situation:

As the festival approaches, we succeeded in growing the reputation of Clan Firecask, and then some! At the basilisk championship we released our clan’s newest beer, Battle Axe, and became next year’s sponsor. We earned the key to our very own tavern, even if it was overgrown with fungi. We formed new friendships, one with a dwarf named Elbert Glassgrinder who cheered us on and often bought us breakfast. One morning, Elbert told us his name is actually Krohan, and confessed that he had both stolen AND lost the clan dagger of none other than King Taargick, the Sky King. We spit out our beer—come again? Lightly trusting Krohan for now, we are off to recover what he thinks is the lost clan dagger… 

More Content:

Our table was brought to life with the help of Blue Table Painting for the miniatures, and Black Bard Studios for custom adventure-specific miniatures/terrain.

Follow Order of the Amber Die:

-Facebook

-Instagram

-YouTube

-The Sky Scions thread

Greetings, ‘Finders, and thank you for a stellar Gen Con 2025, featuring the launch of Starfinder Second Edition and the first-ever use of skirmish rules in Pathfinder Second Edition!

Starfinder Second Edition Launch!

An intergalactic welcome to Starfinders new and old as we usher in a new era of science-fantasy roleplaying! Gen Con saw the launch of Starfinder Second Edition with the release of Starfinder Player Core, Era of the Eclipse, Murder in Metal City, and a plethora of accessories!

In addition to product releases, we also celebrated the beginning of Starfinder’s new era with some amazing announcements—including the upcoming Starfinder Afterlight CRPG from our partners at EpicTellers!

You can follow the campaign for Starfinder Afterlight on Kickstarter or wishlist the game on Steam!

For those who couldn’t make it to the show, we’ve recorded a version of our Starfinder Launch Panel to cover all the announcements! Plus, settle in for a wild ride with our celebrity game, recorded live at Gen Con!

Pathfinder Battlecry! & the Hellfire Crisis

Get ready for battle! Gen Con also marked the release of Pathfinder Battlecry!, the latest rulebook for Pathfinder Second Edition. This book introduces two new classes: the commander and the guardian, as well as skirmish rules, player options, siege rituals, and so much more!
<hellknight hill GMs>

Gen Con also bore witness to the opening salvo of the Hellfire Crisis—The Battle of Hellknight Hill! This special Pathfinder adventure made use of the new skirmish mechanics, giving players the opportunity to marshal their troops and storm the Hellknight citadel!

Sending up a special thank you to our Hellknight Hill GMs, as well as BJ Hensley, Thurston Hillman, Mike Webb, and our friends at Titan Forge, My Mini Factory, and Dwarven Forge for the stunning miniatures and terrain!

Organized Play

Gen Con was another astounding year of gaming for Pathfinders and Starfinders alike! Over the course of the weekend, over 1,100 games ran in the Sagamore Ballroom with over 5,000 players! The energy in the ballroom was electric­—nothing beats the excitement of hundreds of people diving into adventure together!

For a snapshot of the hard work our Organized Play GMs, HQ volunteers, and organizers put in over Gen Con, we’ve collected some fun stats:

• Over 70 tables and 350 players for the Starfinder Second Edition Launch Special
• Over 80 tables and 450 players for the Pathfinder Second Edition Multi-Table Special
• Over 450 characters built at our character creation stations
• Over 100 tables of Hellknight Hill
• Over 200 volunteer GMs, HQ, and info desk workers

Whether this was your first time playing with us or you’re a veteran of the Sagamore Ballroom, thank you for joining us for another wonderful year of Pathfinder and Starfinder at Gen Con!

Pathfinder Quest

A new adventure is on the horizon! With Pathfinder Quest launching on BackerKit on September 16th, we kicked off the Launch Party at Gen Con 2025!

Throughout the weekend, we ran demos of Pathfinder Quest in the Sagamore Ballroom and at our demo space in Hall C! We also streamed a special demo session on Gen Con TV, featuring Krystina Arielle!

Join the party today to participate in trivia challenges, access exclusive updates, and receive a free metal coin when you pledge!

Drifter’s End

Paizo partnered with the newly remodeled Bar Cardinale at the Omni Severin to bring Drifter’s End, a Starfinder-themed bar, to life!

It was wonderful to see Drifter’s End full of friendly faces throughout the weekend! Let us know if you tried the Strawberry Machine Cake or any of our special themed drinks!

We can’t wait to see you all next year for The Best Four Days in Gaming!

Digital Adventure Releases

The following adventures will be released on August 27, 2025, and may be run at events beginning on that date.

Pathfinder Society

Pathfinder Society Intro to the Year of Battle’s Spark—Enough is Enough*

Pathfinder Society Scenario #7-02: Shipyard Sabotage*

Starfinder Society

Starfinder Society Scenario #1-03: Disaster at Dreamlink Labs*

Starfinder Society Scenario #1-04: The Great Absalom Relay*

Gen Con Recap

Gen Con 2025 was a rousing success! The Sagamore ballroom was packed to the gills 18 hours a day with Pathfinder and Starfinder Society games, Pathfinder Quest and Infinity Deck demos, and the Battle of Hellknight Hill! We ran over 1100 games for nearly 6000 players during the weekend, and it was wonderful to get to game with all of you again.

If you’d like to join us in 2026, look for a call for volunteers here on the blog in January of next year. Only 352 days until Gen Con!

Photos by Gen Con Committee Member bigrin42

Starfinder Society News

The Gen Con launch of Starfinder Society (second edition) was a stellar success! We ran nearly 600 tables of Starfinder Society (second edition), and everybody had a blast (off—okay we’re done doing puns now).

Prior to the convention, we launched our updated landing page, Character Options page, Guide to Organized Play and a new Player’s Guide for the Invasion’s Edge storyline. We know there are still some hiccups and bumps to be smoothed out on some of these pages, but we’re working hard to get everything corrected. If you see any issues with broken links or outdated language, please let us know and we’ll get things fixed up!

One thing I realized we didn’t communicate very effectively ahead of time was our sanctioning process for Starfinder (second edition) adventures other than scenarios. We do not intend to issue chronicle sheets for these adventures, outside of special exceptions like Free RPG Day adventures and other single-session adventures. Players are still free to use the character options in these adventures, provided they own a physical or PDF copy of the product, but there won’t be Organized Play credit for playing or GMing these non-Society adventures.

Pathfinder Society News

We’ve got some new character options for Pathfinder Society this month! Our newest release, Pathfinder Battlecry!, is now sanctioned for use. All Pathfinder Society players who own a copy may play as a jotunborn, a commander and/or a guardian, and many other options are available through boons in the boon store. You can find full details on the Character Options page as usual.

We’ve also released some brand new boons for expanded wizard schools! Add more spells to your wizard’s curriculum from non-core books with the boons, available for just 10 Achievement Points each.

As a reminder, you have three weeks before the September 5th deadline to register your first Starfinder Society (second edition) game and unlock a skittermander character in Pathfinder Society! To help our our play-by-post community, this applies specifically to games begun on or before September 5th.

Finally, we invite all Pathfinder Society members to tune into Paizo Live this Friday, August 15 for news on upcoming adventures in 2026! You can expect to hear some intriguing news about Pathfinder Society scenarios from some of our editorial staff, so join us at 4pm Pacific time on our Twitch channel.

GM Recognition

Campaign Service Coins

At Gen Con, several new Campaign Coins have been awarded! We award these coins to members of the community who have gone above and beyond to provide an exceptional program to the community at large. Campaign Coins are awarded based on nominations; if you believe someone in your community is deserving of this award (whether or not they are a Venture Officer), send an email to organizedplay@paizo.com with their name and reasons.

Congratulations to:

Greg Garcia, who now holds a campaign coin and OP ID #912

John Kaufeld, who now holds a campaign coin and OP ID #923

and Kurt Wasiluk, who now holds a campaign coin and OP ID #924

GM Ranks

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 dependent). A conservative estimate of the time needed to reach the 5th milestone is 650 hours!

This month we had three GMs reach their fifth rank!

5th Glyph (PFS2): Randy Cronin, Daniel Hutchinson, James Reeves

If you believe you’ve completed your 5th rank but haven’t been announced yet, please email me at organizedplay@paizo.com.

Conventions

Gen Con may have ended, but fall is chock full of local events! Check out the Conventions calendar for upcoming events in your area and be one of the first to experience Starfinder Society (second edition). I’ll be joining the local community at GalaxyCon San Jose this weekend, as well as Hurricon in Orlando in October. Later this month we’ll have a call for volunteers for PAX Unplugged (November 21-23), so stay tuned for that!

Until next time: Explore! Report! Cooperate! And good luck in the Great Absalom Relay!

Alex Speidel
Convention and Organized Play Manager

Pathfinder Battlecry! is now available! We enlisted a whole platoon of authors to bring you the most up-to-date intelligence from the front in the form of new backgrounds, classes, archetypes, spells, items, and more!

Pathfinder Battlecry! covers in all their glory. Art by Wayne Reynolds.

Commanding this motley crew is me, Jason Keeley, Senior Designer and the design lead on Battlecry! It all began with an idea for a book about the mortal wars occurring in the wake of Gorum’s death and the eventual clash between Andoran and Cheliax that is the Hellfire Crisis. While this is a book that focuses heavily on fighting and has a lot of options for martial characters, I wanted to make sure most other character types could join the battle. I wrote the guardian class and the story of Arianna Dreth’s encounters with Ulka Oathshriek and Grimmyr (with prodigious help from our more journalistic-minded editors). (Fun fact: The name Arianna Dreth came from an anagram of “Dan Rather” with some extra letters thrown in.) I’ve already been hearing a lot of positive buzz about the book—thank you so much! You can find me on Bluesky @herzwesten.bsky.social if you want to chat about games, books, and dogs!

Now it’s time for our battle-tested authors to sound off!

Rigby Bendele (they/them)

I was excited to contribute the field propagandist archetype to Battlecry! Archetypes like the dandy have always been my favorites, so it was a delight to put my spin on a similar type of design (hat tip to the dandy's designer, Jessica Redekop!). I hope you enjoy playing with it at the table.

Tineke Bolleman (she/her)

Hi, I’m Tineke (she/her), and I’m from the Netherlands. I have been active in the Paizo Organized Play sphere for years, and many of you may know me from the Pathfinder and Starfinder scenarios I have written. For Battlecry!, I brought many of the marvelous troops in this book to life for you. It was amazing to work with others to bring you challenging and diverse enemies to face on the battlefield. I hope you enjoy them!

Jessica Catalan (she/her)

Hi, I'm Jessica Catalan (she/her), Senior Developer on the Starfinder team here at Paizo, head of the Starfinder Society, and frequent freelancer for the Pathfinder and Starfinder RPGs. For Battlecry!, I worked on character options for existing Pathfinder classes, which is a space I always enjoy exploring. I hope you enjoy taking to the battlefield as a summoner with a swarm eidolon, a thaumaturge with a shield implement, or testing out some new feats astride your beloved mount as a champion or cavalier.

Take care out there, folks!

Alain and his mighty steed leap over an enemy encampment. Art by Christoph Peters.

Jeremy Corff (he/him)

Hello! I’m Jeremy Corff (he/him). You may remember me from Starfinder Society Scenario #6-11: Gifts Ungiven, or the Kingmaker Anniversary Edition Companion Guide, Absalom, City of Lost Omens, as well as other work. I was thrilled to have the chance to contribute to Battlecry! My sections included the siege weapons, as well as held magic items and some work on the war mage archetype. Did you know a shocking array of musical instruments played a key part in armed forces before the advent of radio and more advanced communication technology? I did my best to provide a broad selection!

You can see more of my work in the upcoming Revenge of the Runelords Adventure Path, as well as yet-to-be-announced projects.

If you’re hungry for more, you can find me on Bluesky at @solorunstudio.bsky.social or at my Starfinder blog where I post weekly Starfinder content.

Rue Dickey (they/he/xe)

Rue Dickey (they/he/xe) is Paizo's Marketing & Media Manager and a frequent freelance author, designer, consultant, and editor for TTRPGs. They take great joy in designing the macabre and the mysterious alike, and can be found at all hours holding his giant black cat, Belladonna. You can see some of Rue's handiwork in Battlecry!'s siege rituals and the necrologist archetype!

John Godek III (he/him)

Hi! I’m John! Besides Battlecry! I contributed to the Lost Omens Tian Xia Character and World Guides, as well as over a dozen other projects for Paizo, Legendary Games, Evil Robot Games, and Evil Genius Games, including Starfinder Society Scenario #1-00: Collision’s Wake, a special kicking off the release of Starfinder Second Edition at Gen Con this summer. For Battlecry! I wrote the war backgrounds, magic armor, and battle vehicle sections. As a veteran and former sailor, I am particularly excited by several of the entries I contributed. I loved trying to capture the attitude of grizzled soldiers with the veteran background, while the martial musician was inspired by my time in marching bands and drum & bugle corps. Working endless hours in the frigid conditions of Antarctica inspired the creation of the frost furs magic armor, while the eagle wing armor was something I wished I had while flying in helos over Greenland translocating musk oxen. I probably was most excited to bring the ice breaker into Pathfinder after working on three ice breakers all over the globe! Look for me at Gen Con, or reach me at https://knowdirectionpodcast.com/, on YouTube, @johngodek.bsky.social, or at johngodek.com.

Glide with grace while wearing eagle wing armor. Art by Roman Kierszenbaum.

Dennis Muldoon (he/him)

Hello! I'm Dennis Muldoon (he/him). I've been a Paizo contributor since 2019, and in that time, I've contributed to numerous projects across nearly every line Paizo publishes. For this book, I wrote the munitions master class archetype, as well as some magic ammunition and siege ammunition. I'm really excited for folks to get their hands on this book and to see what sort of epic adventures result! You can find more of my recent work in the Starfinder Galaxy Guide (the kalo ancestry), Starfinder Society Scenario #7-13 Ratrod's Revenge, and Starfinder Mechaggedon!

Mikhail Rekun (he/him)

Приветствую, уважаемые читатели! My name is Mikhail Sergeyevich Rekun, and I’m a Russian-speaking Ukrainian-American historian, educator, and author.

Now, I’ve been writing for Paizo for a while, so you might say I have a bit of a reputation—the sort that leads our esteemed Jason Keeley to write me out of the blue and ask if I wanted to write ten thousand words on military gaming. I said yes. Actually, I think said something more like “YES!!!” Exclamation marks were involved.

In my professional life, I teach a lot of military history—mostly post-industrial stuff (ask me about trench warfare!), but I can expound on most anything at least a bit. This was the perfect assignment in which to inflict military doctrine upon an unsuspecting public, only with added reincarnating harpies and depressed lich-queens. I hope you find it fun, I hope you find it interesting, and hey, maybe even a tiny bit educational.

By the by, if you want to see more of my writing, you should head on over to the Luminant Age Campaign Setting", where I am Creative Director. It’s cool, we’ve got teleporting mice.

Kendra Leigh Speedling

Hello, all! I'm Kendra Leigh Speedling, frequent contributor to Paizo. For Battlecry! I did the guerrilla and Iridian choirmaster archetypes; I had fun trying to map particular fighting styles and techniques to game mechanics and updating the Iridian lore a bit for Pathfinder Second Edition. I hope people who liked sniping duo will also like that one! I also got to do the whetstones, little magic items designed to give martials something magical to do with their weapons in a fight. My favorite is the key of unwinding, which lets its user rewrite time itself to avoid enemy attacks. Battlecry! has a lot of other cool stuff in it, also, and I'll be excited to see how folks use it in games.

If you're interested in my future projects/art reposts/cat photos, you can follow me at BlueSky @kendrarara.bsky.social.

Andrew White

Hello, I’m Andrew White! I’m the Digital Products Lead here at Paizo and a frequent contributor to neat books like Pathfinder Secrets of Magic, Pathfinder Guns & Gears, Pathfinder Book of the Dead, Pathfinder Rage of Elements, Pathfinder Howl of the Wild, and numerous others! For Battlecry!, I wrote up a bunch of exciting new battlefield-ready magical weapons as well as a whole slew of new troops to throw at your PCs, and I would like to thank Jason Keeley not only for hiring me for this project, but for not immediately deleting my turnover and never hiring me again when I pitched him a weapon called the chain of command. [Keeley’s note: I flipped a coin, and you got lucky, mister!] You can find me (infrequently) reposting smarter, funnier people on Bluesky @plaguecontrol.bsky.social.

Don’t even try to break the chain of command. Art by Roman Kierszenbaum.

Linda Zayas-Palmer (she/her)

Hi! I’m Linda Zayas-Palmer, former development manager of the narrative team at Paizo. I’m now a full-time freelance author writing TTRPG content, primarily for Pathfinder Second Edition and Starfinder. For Battlecry!, I wrote the follower rules, including the captain archetype, as well as some of the new troops. Both sections were good fun, but I especially enjoyed the process of distilling down the feel of iconic character tropes into mechanics that fit into Pathfinder’s companion framework. My most recently released work includes Pathfinder Second Edition conversion of Palaeogames’s Dr Dhrolin’s Dictionary of Dinosaurs and the living spell, bogey, and kraken ancestries for Roll for Combat’s Battlezoo Ancestries: Titans. I stream twice a week on YouTube as Arcane Mark, together with my game designer husband Mark Seifter. You can also find me on the Arcane Mark discord.

---

Rally your troops and prepare for war at hellfirecrisis.com! Subscribe to the Pathfinder Rulebook Subscription to be among the first to join the ranks with Pathfinder Battlecry!

"What did I tell you about these cheap knockoff sonic plugs?” Quig takes the charred scrap in his paw, turning it in front of Iseph so they can see. “They tear like paper under a little arcanospheric turbulence!”

Iseph’s expression is always rigid, courtesy of its metallic composition, but now it’s utterly blank, like they didn’t even hear.

Quig tries again. “What? That rough landing get to you? You? Hunter of adamantine? Just breathe—wait, no—circulate your arc coolant and loosen up those radial connector bolts.”

“You’re rambling,” Iseph observes, “so you’re fine.”

Their metallic voice almost sounds annoyed with Quig. Weird. They must really be shaken up, Quig figures. Iseph trudges past the landing pod, shrugging off the orbital dive gear to make their customary initial survey for hostiles.

The mysterious Gate of Altyris consumes the horizon with its diameter, framing Quig’s android companion and the rest of the empty landscape. They don’t really know why it exists or where it leads, only that the whole system is counting on them to activate it before the incursion.

“Still no idea what this old tech is made of,” Quig says as he scampers after Iseph, his rig clanking away. “But whoever built that big ring sure did carve out all the good alloys from the planet, didn’t they? This ground’s got more holes in it than I’ve drilled into the ship over the years, and that’s saying something.”

“Probably unstable,” Iseph mutters. “Watch your step. Not flying down for you again.”

“Please. Who do you think you’re talking to, buddy? This magnetic hover field is so good it’ll send you flying if you get too close!”

Quig flips a switch on his boots. His jump jets make a soft humming sound, buffeting him a few scant inches off the ground.

“Well—maybe not flying,” Quig admits. “But you’ll feel it—oooohhhhh! Look at this!”

He skates over the broken earth and stops his momentum only by grabbing hold of a fantastic console webbed with circuitry and control runes, only some of which he recognizes. Sure, there are also beautifully crafted ancient statues standing around it, but those are just decoration. Not his thing.

 Iseph asks, “Is that the on button?”

“Well, it’s made of the same alloy. Scan can’t identify it.” Quig has already made the attempt and stashed his hand-scanner back in his rig. As fast as he can run his mouth, his brain always runs faster. “Similar design. Lemme just pry this panel off—oh, good! That didn’t break anything! Yup, I can see the connector here. Then down that channel, and—yup. Binocs confirm it, straight to the ring. Kinda reminds me of your sub-neural network. You ever mess with the settings on that?”

When Quig looks up, he’s surrounded by spare parts and loose hardware strewn across the ancient alien platform where the console sits. Iseph eyes him the way Quig might eye a passing astral leviathan—with increasing concern the longer it lingers.

“Well, have you?”

Iseph blinks. “Have—what? No? Why—”

“Ohhh. That might explain why your joints erode so fast, ‘Seph. I’m not kidding about loosening up those radial connector bolts.”

Iseph shook their head. “Makes my combat form imprecise.”

“Yeah, yeah, obviously not for combat! But you can swap between modes, you know! Had to learn that myself.” Quig returns to the console, crawling inside to clear out the grime and replace the rusted parts. “When I said goodbye to Scout—boy, I hope he’s okay—I’m sure he is, he’s a clever bot ever since I figured out how to get him sentient—he’ll do great out there, he will, but I think about him sometimes, you know—hand me that spark rotator, will you? No, the spark—oh right. You wouldn’t know what that is—I invented it. That spiky one with the whoosh doohickey over there—no, the—yeah, that one—so, as I was saying, when I designed Munchkin, I realized she’s gotta be adaptable, modular, ready to switch things up at—”

An alarm beeps in his helmet. Munchkin springs from Quig’s rig. The turret unfolds behind him and deploys a quickly-heating barrel in seamless parallel.

“—a moment’s notice!”

Quig rolls into Munchkin’s shadow before an arc ray can blast his tail off. The next shot traces him but strikes Munchkin’s armor plating instead.

“See? Zero-latency combat mode initiation!”

Only then does Quig poke his nose out from behind Munchkin.

The statues surrounding the console step off their platforms, shedding dust from their joints. Under the grime, Quig now sees they’re made of the same alloy as the console.

Iseph unloads their guns on one of those mechanical guardians, precise as always, though its chassis absorbs most of the damage impressively.

Quig licks his tall front teeth. “Oh, I want some of that scrap when we’re done here!”

 Iseph shouts, “Can you activate the gate or not?!”

Quig tries to finish his repairs, but in his haste, his paw slips, slamming his rotator into a panel. A puff of sparks and ozone-flavored smoke blooms into his helmet.

“Oops.”

Iseph rounds on him, so Quig clarifies quickly.

“Uh, the control panel is in better shape than I expected, but the power core is fuzzed!”

Iseph’s opticals snap to the gate the size of a space station. “We have to power that?!”

“Oh, not the gate! That’s fine! It’s just the controls—Oi! Could you big hunks of scrap sit still for a sec? I’m working here!”

Quig draws his arc pistol to fire at a guardian with a glowing arc blade marching too close for comfort. Nigh simultaneously, Munchkin returns fire at a guardian with a zero cannon, firing frosty energy rounds without prompting.

The guardian with the blade shakes off Quig’s shots and advances. That’s when it trips Munchkin’s motion sensor. She swivels a secondary reaction cannon, stopping it in its tracks with an opportunistic blast.

“Ha! See? I told you to sit still!” Quig fires again, but this time, he observes how the armoring alloy reacts. His brain races through possible methods to pierce it even as he generates ideas for powering the console. “Maybe with repairs, the landing pod engine could power the console—what do you think, ‘Seph—”

The blade guardian closes the distance and swings down at Quig’s head. He blocks with his arc pistol, but the guardian is over twice his weight. Quig topples onto his back. The blade burns, searing his eyeshield hotter and hotter the closer it bears down.

One of Munchkin’s frost rounds strikes the cannon guardian in a leg joint, and it wobbles and trips into the chasm. Quig’s round ears perk up at the receding sound of the alloy hitting stone—down—down—down…

“Nice lucky shot, Munchkin,” Quig grunts, “but I think you’ve got a better tool for the rest of this job!”

Munchkin activates her array shift in response to the neural command from Quig’s exocortex. The blazing barrel recedes, replaced by a barrel with self-protective vibrational dampeners. When her next round strikes the blade guardian, the tip of the ammunition shell clicks and a thunderclap detonates.

Sonic ripples vibrate through the guardian’s chassis and crack it at the weakest joints. Then Quig hears a hundred tiny internal mechanisms shattering under sonic shock.

It wheels back from Quig and slumps over the console, powering down.

Quig springs back up to his hindpaws. “Sonic damage! Great! I can always be louder!” He reaches into his rig for an electromag grenade. “Let’s just make a few adjustments here…! How you doing over there, ‘Seph?”

The only response Quig gets is a flurry of gunshots.

“You know, you’re not a great conversation partner, ‘Seph.” Quig sticks a thin tool into the grenade’s casing. “I feel like we never talk. I mean, I’d usually chat like this with Navasi or Dae, but this arcanosphere’s sent the comms to the cats—that’s why I didn’t tell you I had it all under control, see, when the pod went down—could’ve saved you a trip—”

“We!” Iseph takes another shot. “Are in combat!”

“Yeah! What about it?”

Iseph doesn’t answer and instead swings around to fend off a guardian approaching from behind.

“Must have lost their train of thought,” Quig mutters. “Happens to me all the time! Anyway, I’m glad you didcome, ‘Seph, in these circumstances.”

Iseph’s gunshot shatters one of the statues’ headplates. They lift their head, heartened...

Quig pulls the pin on the grenade. “Who would I talk to if you weren’t here? Sure, there’s always you, Munchkin, I like talking to you, but it’s nice when someone quips back. You know?”

Iseph’s face snaps back into a grimace.

“Yeah! See? Munchkin says she wants to get to know you better too, ‘Seph. You can talk to us anytime.”

“Chuck it!” Iseph shouts at him.

“Cheese Louise! You could just say no—oh. Chuck the grenade.” He tosses it over his shoulder just as it starts beeping rapidly. “I was getting there! We were in the middle of—”

The words “a heartfelt conversation” vanish beneath an explosion of sound.

An earsplitting cacophony buries the following sentence as the vibration of the sonic grenade shudders through the unstable terrain. Cracks lace the ground, each setting off a chain reaction in the rock. Everything apart from the ten-foot-square around the console crumbles, slabs of earth careening into the abyss like dominoes.

The guardians still standing plummet into the maw of the planet. Iseph leaps to the console just in time to avoid the same fate, and Quig hits Munchkin’s emergency recall switch, prompting her to fold back into his rig.

For the first time since they arrived, they stand in utter silence.

That lasts until Quig opens his mouth again.

“Phew! That was close!” Quig pats Iseph on the shoulder, now that they’re within reach. “That turned into a bit of a clusterfuzz, didn’t it?”

Iseph gives him a withering look and wipes dirt from their opticals.

Quig himself frowns, turning toward the open console. “Now, how am I gonna run big enough power cables across that chasm from the pod…?”

His eyes rise to the guardian slumped over the console.

“Hold on. You must have an independent power source…”

Quig yanks the console’s power cables out of its case and pries open the glowing casing over the guardian’s power core. With a few adjustments and an adapter, he plugs it straight into the body.

The console lights up, and Quig begins the activation sequence for the gate.

“Just like that! Easy cheesy!” Quig smiles at Iseph.

Iseph, however, stares at the corpse of the constructed guardian that their companion has fashioned into a battery. “That’s horrifying.”

Quig glances between them.

“Oh! Sorry! I guess it is, kinda! I didn’t…” Quig points a thumb at the body. “You want me to disconnect and…?”

“No. It’s practical,” Iseph says. “So are most of your suggestions. Practical and disturbing.”

“Oh.” Quig nods. “Just let me know if I ever, you know, bother you.”

Iseph shakes their head. “You just talk too much.”

“Probably.” Quig can’t argue with that.

Iseph’s internal servos spin.

Quig asks, “Seriously, if you’re not comfortable, you can just tell me to shut up—”

“I,” Iseph interrupts him. Quig lets them talk. “I… would like your help… with my radial connector bolts. The zero-latency mode shift is impressive. I’d like that edge. But I don’t know how to…”

Quig’s whiskered face stretches into a toothy grin. “I’ll show you! Every sentient should get to know their own hardware! Even us meaty ones! I tell you, even my knees have been telling me a lot lately. Everything’s got something to say! If you know how to talk to it, the whole universe opens up to you!”

The gate blooms to life on the horizon beyond.

---

About the Author
Gene Markey is an AuDHD New England writer, artist, and long-time GM. When not rolling 20-sided dice or writing about games, they provide graphics to small organizations promoting third spaces and local community.

About the Iconic
Quig (he/him) is a male ysoki mechanic who recently parted ways with his best friend, Scout, after helping the drone develop into a true artificial intelligence. Now, he’s tinkering with a new prototype—a customizable turret. The mechanic class uses an electric implant or device known as an exocortex to control a powerful mechanical ally—a drone, turret, or deployable mines. Learn more at starfinderplaytest.com!

About Iconic Encounters
Iconic Encounters is a series of web-based flash fiction set in the worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder. Each short story provides a glimpse into the life and personality of one of the games’ iconic characters, showing the myriad stories of adventure and excitement players can tell with the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games.

The mechanic class is still a work in progress, but you can learn more about ysoki in Starfinder Player Core, releasing at Gen Con 2025, on paizo.com, and at your friendly local game store! Be the first to play Starfinder Second Edition by subscribing to the Starfinder RPG or Starfinder RPG (Special Edition) lines and receive a free PDF when your book ships!

Hello, Paizo community! With the launch of Starfinder Society Second Edition, I figure it’s the perfect time to issue a call for new volunteers interested in serving as venture officers for Paizo Organized Play. Whether you’re excited about the new science-fantasy future of Starfinder, dedicated to the classic fantasy of Pathfinder, or ready to mix the two together, we’ve got an incredible worldwide community of more than 700 volunteers ready to welcome their nufriends!

What Venture Officers Do

Illustration by Marko Horvatin

Our volunteer venture officers (VOs for short) serve a variety of functions for the program. Most are involved with organizing games at their local stores and supporting their communities. While this call is geared towards in-person play, we also follow the same structure for our online region and have venture officers focused on virtual tabletop or asynchronous play as well.

Venture Agents (VAs) are the store-level coordinators and often oversee scheduling games at one or two stores. They work with the store owner and employees to share information and speak with their communities to find out what adventures they’d like to play.

Venture Lieutenants(VLs) supervise Venture Agents, often overseeing a city or town. They also typically take up lead positions for local conventions, helping to schedule games and organize GMs for these events.

Venture Captains (VCs) and Regional Venture Coordinators (RVCs) are our top-level organizers. They supervise large cities, states, or multi-state or country regions and help to advise the OP staff on how things are going in their assigned areas.

We also have a rich community of online play, both in the independent online region as well as online offerings from many of our primarily in-person lodges. Whether you’re running online or in-person, there’s a role for you in our organization.

Venture officers can also join task forces focused on specific objectives, such as the Onboarding Task Force, which creates new player resources, or the Guide Team, which maintains the Guide to Organized Play. Joining one of these groups isn’t required but is another way to support our program if you have the skills and interest.

Benefits of Volunteering

Illustration by Rodrigo Gallo

On top of being part of our incredible community, venture officers receive perks depending on their rank.

All venture officers, regardless of rank, receive free PDFs of every Pathfinder and Starfinder Society scenario we’ve ever published. No matter what your community wants to play, you’ll have access to that adventure! Venture Captains and Regional Venture Coordinators also receive PDFs of all Paizo products as a thanks for their hard work and time spent with the program.

Venture officers also qualify for the convention reimbursement program, where they can receive a limited number of Paizo vouchers for organizing conventions in their areas. These events often take more time and effort than simple in-store play, and so we want to be sure volunteers are properly rewarded.

At certain major conventions, such as PaizoCon and Gen Con, venture officers also qualify for increased rewardsbased on their rank. Typically, this takes the form of additional vouchers or earlier qualification for rewards like GM badges, but this varies by show.

All venture officers are invited to our special Discord server! This is used to disseminate information to all volunteers, as well as provide them access to certain resources like images for signs and advance knowledge of scenarios for planning purposes.

How to Become a Venture Officer

If you’re interested in volunteering your services, reach out to us! You can find your local Regional Venture Coordinator’s email on this page; contact them with your information and where you’re located, and they can connect you with any local networks in the area.

You can also start organizing on your own at your local game store! Work with them to find a time that works, post signups, and recruit new players! Anybody can be a store coordinator as long as you’re following the Guide to Organized Play and reporting your games back to us.

Finally, if you don’t have any game stores or volunteers near you, reach out to me! Email me at organizedplay[at]paizo[dot]com, and I’ll get you in touch with whoever’s closest to start building out your local network.

Organized Play Foundation

The Organized Play Foundation (OPF) is the 501(c)3 organization we partner with to protect our volunteers. They support the gaming community of volunteers and players by providing resources and experiences that are fun, safe, and inclusive. When you volunteer as a Venture Officer, you’re helping the OPF accomplish their mission of bringing gaming to people worldwide and supporting their values of transparency, honesty, inclusiveness, and non-exploitation.

If you have any questions about what we do, drop them in the comments or reach out to me. We’d love to have you join us as we build out the best organized play programs in the industry. Until next blog—Explore! Report! Cooperate!

Alex Speidel
Convention and Organized Play Manager

Joganer's head pounded, all memories of last night's party washed away. He knew he should've gotten the Sopeth liver scrubber to go with his ultimate cardio mod system. Maybe after this paycheck, he could hit the clinic for another upgrade.

His comm chirped.

"Manticore One, I want her alive and talking." His handler's garbled, grating voice didn't soothe his throbbing head. "You copy?"

Joganer grunted. "Solid. We're loaded up with stunners."

He scanned the darkened, twisting pipes around him, sensors rendering their outlines clear as day cycle into his HUD. The refinery's heat exchange was a labyrinth: low ceilings, exposed ducts, lots of places an intruder could hide.

"Her signal is coming from the control box, next junction."

Joganer's HUD highlighted a spill of dim light through the pipes beyond. He checked the ammo readout on his weapon and switched off the safety. "Manticore Team, stack up on my position."

Shadows slipped from every corner of the room, power armored, elite mercenaries slinking in his direction—all Sopeth grafted for maximum lethality. They silently formed a line behind him, the nearest member placing a hand on his back to signal readiness.

Joganer raised his weapon. "Move in on three... two... one..."

The team burst into the clearing to find a damaya lashunta crouched over an open panel, the luminous blue tips of her antennae waving gently. She didn't look like much of a threat, but she fit the description they'd been given: short, a fetish for green with a fashion sense like a huffed-out raver. The target wore armor, though nothing anyone might take seriously. The stuffed green plush makiri in her hand matched the accents of the pistol at her hip.

"Woooooow..." She looked them up and down. "It's like Operation Ultra Force over here!"

Joganer knew the infosphere show well. He hated it.

He engaged his helmet intercom. "Raia Danviri, interlace your fingers behind your head and—"

"No." She fastened her makiri's hands behind her neck like a kid about to take her favorite stuffie to school and whispered something to it. Then she met Joganer's gaze. "Why don't you tell me who sent you?"

"You're not in a position to make demands."

She shrugged. "Just trying to do what's best for all of us."

With a flick of her fingers, a spell gem appeared in her hand. A word from her lips, and thick grease bubbled up beneath the fireteam's boots. Manticore Three and Four slipped to the ground instantly. Joganer stumbled out of the puddle as Raia snapped the spent crystal into her pistol, grinning wide.

"Alaka-blam, boys!"

The shockwave of pure force sent Joganer's prone colleagues skidding away on snail trails. Laughing, Raia threw a flare into the grease, turning the path between them into a bonfire. The rest of Manticore Team scrambled backward, terrified to be caught in the flames.

Joganer took a shot at Raia as she fled into the shadows, but his stunner rounds only dented the nearby pipes. Fire suppressors popped out of every surface, spraying everyone down with fluorescent blue retardant. The powder clung to Raia's grease, leaving Manticore Team caked up and pissed off.

"Get up! She's getting away! Let's go, let's go!" Joganer pulled his struggling team to their feet and wiped his visor. "Two, Three, take left. Four and Five, take right. I'm headed up the center. Do not shoot me."

"If you let her get away," came the handler's voice in Joganer's ear, "the consequences will be swift."

He sneered as he pressed into the darkness. "She won't. We've got the whole place locked down."

Manticore Team moved into the jungle of pipes, rifles at the ready. Their friendly transponders pinged in the distance, flanking alongside Joganer. They were ready this time; she didn't stand a chance.

You could just tell me who sent you. Raia's voice spilled into his mind like a whisper. No need to get hurt.

Joganer shook off her distraction. It was nothing more than an old lashunta trick: get him to give away his position without revealing her own.

Two pops rang out in the darkness followed by screams from his left flank. Joganer barged through the tangled walkways to find a pair of comrades writhing on the ground, powered joints seizing and visors strobing. Their armor had stopped the shots, but it hadn't mattered. Joganer knelt and tried to free them from their helmets, but the security systems on their gear were totally fried—some kind of virus.

Two more shots echoed from the stoneward side of the complex. Four and Five screamed before their comms succumbed to static.

"Manticore, sound off!" Joganer stayed frosty, moving away from his fallen friends. "Who's still up?"

Just us now, came Raia's cheery mental voice. Why not shout out the name of whoever sent you, and I can be their problem instead?

A signal pinged his acoustic scanner, and Joganer swept his muzzle toward it. Then came another ping and another, resolving into the pattern of a cartoonish, smiling face. She must've hacked his HUD somehow, turning it into a liability.

Snarling, Joganer shut down his suit. His limbs dragged like high-grav, but his employer's grafts were more than strong enough to finish the mission. That little pistol of hers couldn't do anything against his composite plating, so the advantage was still his.

It'd been so long since he'd hunted another person without the cheats of trackers and scanners, trusting only the purity of his augmented senses. Without stealth compensators, his footfalls hit harder, his gear rustled. Joganer's heart thundered, electrified to finally have a chance to test his newest implants.

He laid eyes on Raia, crouched near a junction and mostly obscured by a breaker assembly. She didn't spot him, and he only needed to get closer for a clear shot at the dead center of her back. Joganer advanced, restraining a smile.

Last chance, she spoke into his mind. Disarm and hand over your boss.

Cocky little thing. Finally in range, he imitated her spoiled tone with a sneer. "No."

Raia turned, bemused, and gave him a finger wave—

—then disappeared into the console with a digital whoosh.

"Damn it!" He dashed to her position, frantic, and stopped dead when he heard a second whoosh in his wake.

Raia's pistol hammer clicked into place behind him as a barrel thunked against the back of his head.

"Want the inside of your helmet cleaned out?" He could hear the smile in her voice against the rising whine of her gun.

Fine. Let her shoot. It wouldn't penetrate. She couldn't hack his gear without power, and Joganer could probably take her in hand-to-hand.

He was about to spin and put her down, but the charging whine grew ever louder. Orange sunlight washed the immediate area, and the back of his neck seared beneath the shielded plates of his armor. Something inside his helmet stank of baking composite.

What in the name of the gods was she pointing at him?

"Overclocked. Enough to turn your face into nothing more than a bad memory and a worse smell," she said. "Now tell me who sent you before I have to ask your next of kin."

"Sorry, Manticore Team," came the voice of the handler. "Can't have that."

"What?" Joganer grit his teeth.

"You're terminated, immediately. No payout. Thank you for your service."

If they weren't going to pay, then he might as well give them up.

"Well?" Raia asked.

Joganer tried to answer, but his breath wouldn't come. It was like his diaphragm had simply stopped, and the air was stuck inside his lungs. He could only form the S sound, opening and closing his mouth. Terror seized his chest as all of his grafts slackened simultaneously—arms, eyes, lungs.

Raia bonked the back of Joganer's helmet with the pistol as he swooned from the lack of air. "Hey. Say something."

He slowly turned to her, blurry red shapes forming at the edge of his vision. Judging from the way she recoiled, he didn't look good.

"Ss... ss..." He dropped his rifle and groped at his throat before reaching for her.

Raia grabbed him and shook him. "Hey! What? No dying!"

Joganer's armor grew heavier. Dizziness overtook him. Parched lips and failing tongue curled into formation as he concentrated with all his might. He sank to his knees, desperate to utter one sound before the jaws of death closed about his mind.

Raia eased him to the ground, rolling him onto his back. "Look, if you want revenge, you're gonna have to spit it out!"

His eyes failed him, and a rattle pushed one final word from his mouth:

"Sssopethh..."

He listened intently for her response. It was the last thing he could do. In the intimate moment of his passing, Joganer found himself wishing Raia would say something, offer any kindness or justice to rest his soul.

Her response was short. "Sorry, I… I didn’t understand that."

Joganer gave up.

Illustration by Kevin Sardinha

---

About the Author
Alex White (they/them) is one of Disney’s go-to Alien writers, having penned the VR action-horror game Alien: Rogue Incursion and two Alien novels (THE COLD FORGE, INTO CHARYBDIS). They also wrote a Star Trek DS9 novel (REVENANT) and the critically acclaimed Starmetal Symphony and Salvagers trilogies for Orbit Books. Alex is a well-regarded moderator and performer, entertaining ballrooms from DragonCon to San Diego Comic Con, and has been interviewed by Variety, Digital Trends, IGN, and more. For fun, they write music on synthesizers and make knives on an anvil. Never at the same time, but maybe with some practice…
Check out their website at AlexRWhite.com.

About the Iconic
Raia (she/her) is a female damaya lashunta technomancer who’s got the smarts, spells, and style for any problem. The technomancer class blends magic and technology. Learn more at starfinderplaytest.com!

About Iconic Encounters
Iconic Encounters is a series of web-based flash fiction set in the worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder. Each short story provides a glimpse into the life and personality of one of the games’ iconic characters, showing the myriad stories of adventure and excitement players can tell with the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games.

The technomancer class is still a work in progress, but you can learn more about lashuntas in Starfinder Player Core, releasing at Gen Con 2025, paizo.com, and at your friendly local game store! Be the first to play Starfinder Second Edition by subscribing to the Starfinder RPG or Starfinder RPG (Special Edition) lines and receive a free PDF when your book ships!

Hail and well met, ’Finders! Today is the beginning of Gen Con 2025, the beginning of an all-new era for Starfinder, and the beginning of Pathfinder’s Hellfire Crisis! With so many important launches and new beginnings, we wanted to give you a one-stop guide to everything happening this weekend!

Gen Con Digital Sale!

Today through Monday, August 4^th at 11:59 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, take 20% off all PDFs released 6 months ago or older! This offer includes Pathfinder First Edition, Starfinder First Edition, Pathfinder Second Edition, and Starfinder Playtest content. Offer does not apply to Foundry VTT modules, third-party publications, and non-Paizo PDFs.

New Releases

Today marks the release of our August 2025 products! In lieu of a traditional release day blog, we’re highlighting the big kickers here!

Starfinder Player Core

Starfinder Player Core is the definitive entry point for Starfinder Second Edition, with everything a player needs to learn how to play the game! Choose from 10 ancestries, six character classes, and hundreds of feats and spells to create unique characters ready to take on a ruthless galaxy awash with magic and opportunity. Starfinder Player Core brings the Starfinder RPG into its new edition and is now 100% compatible with the acclaimed Second Edition of the hit Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Along with StarfinderGM Core and Alien Core, these books provide a new foundation for the future of tabletop gaming!

Starfinder Player Core is available in standard hardcover, the paizo.com and hobby retailer exclusive retro video game–inspired hardcover, and Special Edition faux-leatherette bound hardcover editions, as well as PDF format!

Pathfinder Battlecry!

Report for duty! When diplomacy between nations fails and neither side backs down, war is the inevitable result. From border skirmishes to large-scale invasions, conflict comes in many forms—the perfect chance for heroes to win glory! And war has come to the world Golarion, embroiling the nations of the Inner Sea in a conflict that will forever change the Pathfinder setting.

Pathfinder Battlecry! is available in standard hardcover, the paizo.com and hobby retailer exclusive sketch edition hardcover, and Special Edition faux-leatherette bound hardcover editions, as well as PDF format!

Starfinder Murder in Metal City

Murder in Metal City is a deluxe introductory boxed set adventure for four 1st-level Starfinder Second Edition characters containing numerous tools to assist GMs, including player and creature tokens, an immersive poster-sized double-sided battle map, investigation handouts, item cards, NPC cards, and a GM reference sheet and investigation tracker—everything required for a premium adventure experience!

Era of the Eclipse: a Starfinder novel

From Hugo Award–winning author Tim Pratt (City of the Fallen Sky, Reign of Stars, Liar’s Blade) comes the definitive starting point to the science-fantasy galaxy of the award-winning setting of the Starfinder Roleplaying Game. Experience firsthand the days after the Gap when history disappeared and follow in the footsteps of Starfinder’s newest iconic characters as they rush to uncover the truth of Starfinder’s greatest mystery!

Starfinder Infinity Deck

Even seasoned spacefarers need a break sometimes, and those in the Starfinder galaxy often turn to the Starfinder Infinity Deck for some light entertainment.

The original rules for this ubiquitous deck of 65 suited playing cards, found in virtually every cantina and corner store in the Pact Worlds, were lost to the Gap, an infamous period of missing memory. Since then, countless alien species, cultures, and worlds have invented their own rules using this versatile deck.

Other releases this month include:

• Starfinder Combat Pad
• Pathfinder Adventure Path #217: Death Sails a Wine-Dark Sea (Myth-Speaker 2 of 3)
• Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Siege

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Paizo at Gen Con!

If you’re in Indy this week, stop by any of the following spaces, events, and shows to say hello to Paizo!

Booth 203

Paizo’s main booth in the Gen Con exhibitor hall is Booth 203! Pick up the latest releases, snag some convention exclusives, and meet the designers of Pathfinder, Starfinder, and Paizo Games!

Sagamore Ballroom

Come and game with Paizo in the Sagamore Ballroom! We’ll be running Pathfinder Society, Starfinder Society, demos, and more throughout the weekend! Need to grab something quick before your gaming session? The Sagamore Ballroom will also have a satellite Paizo booth, selling core products, flip-mats, accessories, and more!

Hall C

Looking to try out Pathfinder, Starfinder, Pathfinder Quest, or the Starfinder Infinity Deck? Drop by Paizo’s tables in Hall C, where we’ll be running demos all weekend! Pathfinder Quest demos are played on tables courtesy of Carolina Game Tables.

Drifter’s End

Paizo and the Omni Severin Bar Cardinale are pleased to welcome you to Drifter’s End, a bar on the edge of the universe! Join us at Drifter’s End for Starfinder-themed drinks, small plates, music, and more!

Panels & Events

For full descriptions of Paizo’s panels and events, please refer to last week’s blog! All times below are listed in Eastern Daylight Time.

• Crafting Quarterly Adventures: Thursday, July 31^st from 3:00 P.M. to 3:50 P.M.
• Starfinder Second Edition Live!: Friday, Aug 1^st from 2:00 P.M. to 4:00 P.M.
• Starfinder Second Edition Launch Panel: Saturday, Aug 2^nd from 10:00 A.M. to 10:50 A.M.
• Pathfinder Battlecry! & the Hellfire Crisis: Saturday, Aug 2^nd from 6:00 P.M. to 6:50 P.M.
• Reaction! Pathfinder/Starfinder Rules Crossover Q&A: Sunday, Aug 3^rd from 11:00 A.M. to 11:50 A.M.
• Monster Mash! Pathfinder & Starfinder Creature Creation: Sunday, Aug 3^rd from 1:00 P.M. to 1:50 P.M.

Gen Con at Home!

Can’t make it to the show? Don’t fret, Paizo has a collection of streams and videos launching throughout the weekend to keep you in the loop! And don’t forget—to see our major product announcements for 2025, check out our PaizoCon Keynote Address!

Some of our content creators have coordinated content to release for Gen Con centering around Starfinder Second Edition, Pathfinder Battlecry!, and other key releases! All times below are in Eastern Daylight Time.

Wednesday 7/30

3:00 P.M.: Roll for Combat
Join Mark Seifter and Stephen Glicker of Roll for Combat as they discuss all the new releases at Gen Con with Associate Publisher Thurston Hillman and Starfinder Creative Manager Jenny Jarzabski. (Livestream)

Thursday 7/31

9:00 A.M.: Digital Divination: Murder in Metal City
The Digital Divination team will be reviewing Murder in Metal City with adventure author and Starfinder Creative Manager Jenny Jarzabksi!

11:00 A.M.: ThrabenU Starfinder Class Guides
ThrabenU is releasing in-depth strategy content and guides for Starfinder Second Edition, starting with guides for each of the classes! (Recorded)

1:00 P.M.: NoNat1 Pact Worlds Guide
Explore the Pact Worlds with NoNat in “The World of STARFINDER is Crazy…”

5:00 P.M.: Pathfinder Quest Demo on GenConTV
Rue Dickey and Alex Speidel run a learn-to-play demo of Paizo’s upcoming board game Pathfinder Quest for Maya Coleman and Krystina Arielle!

9:00 P.M.: Know Direction Beyond: Starfinder Player Core
Join Starfinder Designer Dustin Knight and the hosts of Know Direction Beyond as they go over Starfinder Player Coreand give out some prizes!

Friday 8/1

11:00 A.M.: ThrabenU Starfinder Class Guides
For those who missed Thursday’s video, ThrabenU is again releasing in-depth strategy content and guides for Starfinder Second Edition, starting with guides for each of the classes! (Recorded)

2:00 P.M.: Starfinder Second Edition Live on GenConTV
Jenny Jarzabski leads a stellar cast through a Starfinder Second Edition adventure, streamed live from Gen Con 2025!

7:00 P.M.: Convo on the Couch Gen Con 2025 Edition
Join Starfinder First Edition designer Owen K.C. Stephens and Starfinder Second Edition designer Dustin Knight along with cartoonist Stan! as they share stories, discuss game design, and whatever else comes to mind!

Saturday 8/2

10:00 A.M.: Starfinder Launch Sequence Panel
The Starfinder team takes us on a tour of the launch products—plus some special announcements!

12:00 P.M.: Horizons of the Vast Second
Join Bramblebear to meet the administrators of New Harmony, a planet in the untouched frontier of the Vast, as they work to urbanize this newly discovered world while facing threats from the Aspis Consortium, the Azlanti, and even a nefarious entity from the Netherworld.

4:00 P.M.: Phoebe Bane Reviews Starfinder Second Edition with Developer Dustin Knight
Join Phoebe Bane and Chk Chk (Dustin Knight) as they review all the new goodness and gobness in Starfinder Second Edition and give out some prizes!

6:00 P.M.: Pathfinder Battlecry! and the Hellfire Crisis Panel
Join Jason Keeley and Logan Bonner as they break down Pathfinder Battlecry! and give a look ahead to the coming Hellfire Crisis!

Sunday 8/3

9:00 A.M.: Mythkeeper Guide to Magical Academies
Mythkeeper is releasing a new video on his channel about the magical academies of Pathfinder. Drawing heavily from Pathfinder Lost Omens Rival Academies, Mythkeeper tries to cover the exhaustive list of all the major magical academies across the Inner Sea and beyond. Go check it out, and let him know if he missed any!

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Whether you’re joining us in Indy or tuning in at home, we look forward to sharing Gen Con 2025 with all of you!

For more Paizo news, mark your calendars for our next live stream: August 22nd at 4 P.M. Pacific on twitch.tv/officialpaizo!

Hello, Starfinders!
As I pack my bags to head to GenCon for the launch of Starfinder Society and Starfinder Second Edition, I have one last gift to bestow upon you.

The Invasion’s Edge Player’s Guide!!!

Dive right into Starfinder Society by downloading the Invasion’s Edge Player’s Guide! This free PDF is a quick-start guide to Starfinder Society Organized Play, containing all the information you need to get into the program, create characters, and dive right into a game! So whether you’re an experienced fan or a newcomer to Starfinder, download your copy now!

In addition to information on the Starfinder Society Organized Play Program and some handy links for both GMs and players, the Invasion’s Edge Player’s Guide contains in-setting details on the Starfinder Society, including its leadership, training, base of operations at the Lorespire Complex, and current events. Chief among these events is news of a massive starship called the Wreck of the Returned that crashed onto the planet Akiton—the focus of our Invasion’s Edge metaplot scenarios—but that’s not all that the Starfinder Society is digging into this year. (There’s a whole galaxy of adventure out there, after all!)

Illustration by Renan Maurilio

The Invasion’s Edge Player’s Guide also contains brand-new player options!

There’s over 20 new backgrounds packed in these digital pages, such as Dataphile, Exo-Guardian, Forum Aspirant, and Lorespire Archivist. Starfinders looking to help explore the Wreck of the Returned will find the campaign backgrounds particularly useful, such as Akitonian Explorer, First Ones Scholar, and Robot Adversary. Fans who participated in the Starfinder Second Edition Playtest can additionally take backgrounds tied to their adventures, such as Alien Hunter, Party Crasher, War-Hardened Hero, and Wheel Winner!

There’s also two new ancestries you won’t find anywhere else: lizard-like ikeshtis and giant, four-armed shobhads! Both are native to the planet Akiton and make a great addition to the Starfinder Society for Invasion’s Edge.

I don’t know about you, but I see an ikeshti magitech specialist witchwarper in my future…

Left to right, illustrations by David Franco and Rustan Curman.

Thank you for joining me for the launch of Starfinder Society Second Edition and Invasion’s Edge! I hope you enjoy your time among the stars!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a starship to catch!

Jessica Catalan
Starfinder Society Developer

Download Invasion’s Edge Player’s Guide now!

The Inner Sea is home to a variety of fantastical regions with varying themes. Last month’s Lost Omens Shining Kingdoms gave us a chance to look at the classical fantasy found within the Shining Kingdoms region. From courtly intrigue to valiant knights to deadly beast, the Shining Kingdoms hold the potential for unlimited adventure. Of course, a region like the Shining Kingdoms doesn’t come to life without the help of the authors of this book! So, we’ve taken some time to let the wonderful authors of this book talk about themselves.

Illustration by Roena Rosenberger

Sen H.H.S.

Hi all, Sen H.H.S. here, and thank you all for your support of Lost Omens: Shining Kingdoms! For those of you who don't know me, I'm a Taiwanese TTRPG freelancer (she/her) who has written for Paizo numerous times, from all the way back in pre-remaster Bestiary 3 to more recent works like Tian Xia World Guide and Character Guide, and a couple of Adventure Paths. For Lost Omen: Shining Kingdoms, I had the privilege of writing the section of Taldor. Alas, one does not simply venture into Taldor without wading into the history of the entire southern coast of Avistan, so the work was more challenging than imagined. I hope you enjoy what we managed to compile of existing lore, as well as any new or revised content-- be it items, archetypes, or lore. If you want to stay updated on where you can find my writing next (or currently), you can follow me on Bluesky at senhhs.bsky.social, or keep an eye on my website at https://senhhs.carrd.co. I definitely suggest you keep an eye out during the Gen Con season bec-- *NDArted*

Laura Lynn Horst (she/her)

As a lover of high fantasy since watching my dad perform as Mordred in Camelot when I was 5 years old, I was thrilled to contribute to the lore of the Shining Kingdoms. This is my third publication for Paizo (that I can talk about) and I'm absolutely thrilled with the positive feedback the book has received. I was especially excited to see that my contribution of Ulon being at the heart of a new pantheon (The Tides of Chaos) got turned into a meme! You can't keep a mysterious Azlanti god down. I also contributed to the section on Beliefs of the Shining Kingdoms as well as the 2E revamps to the Goldpebble (who I hope my GM never puts in front of me as I'm absolutely terrified of snakes) and Vovorak in the bestiary. Happy reading all! You can find me on instagram and bluesky: @lauralynnhorst (Insta) @nyxfromstyx77.bsky.social (Bluesky)

Illustration by Luis Salas Lastra

Derry Luttrell (he/they and this/that)

Hey all! I'm Derry Luttrell. I'm the host of Dice Will Roll, the Queerest Pathfinder Podcast on the Planet, and a writer, illustrator and founder of Team+, the 3pp PF2 publishing group behind bestsellers like Witches+, Archetypes+, and Tian Xia+. Shining Kingdoms was my first writing credit, and I could not be more grateful for it! I was behind the Shining Kingdoms Today section, the Factions of the Shining Kingdoms, and the Beirean Frosthunt monster. Being able to write about the factions in the Shining Kingdoms was huge for me; first and foremost, I had crazy fun coming up with the dragon-slaying dwarven mech-pilots and salesmen in the Steelwrought Striders, and fleshing out groups like the Lion Blades with Sen and Eagle Knights alongside Matt was fantastic. I was able to help bring firearms into Andoran, which I'm so excited about! But the thing I'm most pleased with is the Wylderhearts; I pitched and developed the original idea, which Michelle baked into an incredible archetype later on. The Wylderhearts are a love letter to my own culture, taking heavy inspiration from the Fianna, the faoladh (an Irish analogue to benevolent werewolves) and Cú Chulainn. TTRPG settings often take Irish ideas and tropes without really paying attention to their origin, so being able to make something authentically Irish was really important to me— and the end result really was special. I hope you enjoy playing wylderhearts as much as I enjoyed making them!

Matt Morris

I’m Matt Morris, and I’ve been lucky enough to do freelance writing for Pathfinder and Starfinder for several years now, working with Paizo and a few 3rd-party companies. I'm currently awaiting the launch of my first Kickstarter, a TTRPG called Remnant Years: Tales of a Ruined Land. I was lucky enough to traipse through Andoran for this book, and it was exciting to see what's brewing now in the Birthplace of Freedom. (Turns out: Lots of plot hooks, some Eagle Knights, and a bucketful of internal conflict.) Andoran is a great place for adventure when you want to explore what it means to be good, how to hold to principles in difficult circumstances, and what happens in the generations after revolutionaries become the establishment. I hope you enjoy creating stories there! I keep an up-to-date list of my work on my Paizo profile, and I’m always looking for interesting projects, so feel free to contact me if you are looking for a reliable writer! When not writing, I’m teaching high school English near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Luis Loza (he/him)
Creative Director (Rules & Lore)

Illustration by Nikolai Ostertag

“OK, self,” Dae said to their reflection without realizing they were speaking out loud. “You’re about to knock the socks off this planet! You’re one lucky cat, you know, but you’ve also got nerve and plenty of raw talent—the makings of a real star! Now let’s get out there and make Miiyu look even more amazing than she already is!”

The pahtra performer closed their eyes for just a moment and took a deep breath, attuning to the vast power of the stars that filled them with inner light. After a long and deliberate exhale, they checked their outfit one last time. Would adding more glitter to their fur would be overdoing it? No, there’s no such thing as too much glitter. They did one more spray, spinning around in the cloud as it covered their guard hairs in iridescent splendor. Beyond the walls, they could hear the crowd chanting for Miiyu in unison with steadily increasing excitement. It didn’t matter that the chant wasn’t for Dae; the energy alone was enough to make them feel as though they could fly. They absently adjusted the woven bracelet on their left arm, smiling widely as they slinked to the curtain, opening it ever so slightly to steal a peek at the audience—

—and drew in a sharp breath.

There, standing in the front row, was a lizard-like humanoid that was clearly trying to blend in and failing spectacularly. It wasn’t that vesk were unknown or completely unwelcome on this planet; it was her body language that caught Dae’s attention. While she tried to appear as excited as two ysoki hanging off the railing to her right, the expression never quite reached her eyes, which were darting around as she took stock of her surroundings. That’s when Dae noticed the outline of a weapon under her jacket, and a shoulder bag brimming with something that could have been eggs but were more likely to be some sort of explosive devices. A flash of light reflected off what Dae had initially clocked as a piece of jewelry. It was a three-pronged imperial sigil, sharp as the claw of their cruel war god.

“A Veskarium trooper in the front row? Oh, come on!” Dae muttered.

Another vesk joined the first. He was doing a better job of blending in, but not by much. He’d had the sense to hide his sigil, but he’d shown up with his admittedly stunning black jacquard silk pants tucked into military issue boots, and he was wearing battlegloves with clawed metal joints. The fur on Dae’s neck stood up as they scanned the crowd and spotted another probable vesk trooper entering the theater on the right-hand side of the stage, blending in considerably less than the two directly front and center. This one hadn’t even bothered changing out of their uniform.

They look out of place and they look armed, Dae thought. They must be after Miiyu! Everybody knew about Miiyu’s rebel activities during the Veskarium occupation of Pulonis. If imperial troopers were here, they probably weren’t fans. There were no security guards in sight, and Dae wouldn’t risk raising an alarm this close to curtain with everyone packed in here.

Dae needed a plan that would protect both the star and the audience while avoiding panic. An idea flared up immediately. With absolute confidence, they stepped out from behind the curtain and sashayed toward the crowd. The cheers that burst forth simmered to a buzz as it became clear that Dae wasn’t Miiyu.

“Hey, posers!” Dae shouted, directly addressing the two vesk sitting front and center, who looked around at the others in their row as if they hadn’t been directly pointed at. One of the ysoki pointed at himself in utter confusion before pointing at the vesk to his left, who shot him a withering glance before scowling up at Dae. “First of all, there’s no replica weapons allowed at this venue, and second of all, they don’t even match your outfits,” Dae accused. “Not to mention Imperial vesk attire is terminally out of style.”

“We’re just here for the show,” the latecomer replied. She wasn’t convincing at all.

“Speaking of shows, this one’s about to start!” Dae was pleased when the spotlight landed on them. They began tapping their foot in a steady rhythm as a ribbon of pulsing midnight unspooled from their finger—the manifestation of their solar weapon in graviton mode. Dae flicked the ribbon with a sound like spring thunder and snatched the female vesk’s shoulder bag, pulling it up on stage and spilling its contents. A jumble of wired pipes gleamed under the stage lights. As always, Dae’s instincts were on point.

The vesk imposters immediately gave up on their ruse. The man cracked his knuckles and scrambled onto the stage, hefting his bulk in slow motion with a bestial grunt. The woman pulled a baton from under her jacket and squeezed. The baton elongated into a triple-bladed polearm—a doshko with a collapsible design created for smuggling into secure venues like this, used for assassinations ordered by Veskarium military leaders with grudges. Miiyu was in danger.

Sparks reflected in Dae’s goggles as they attuned with the blazing creative energy at the heart of every star, turning the dark ribbon into a whip of fire. Dae leapt high into the air with deceptive ease, swirling their ribbon behind them in blazing circles. They landed on the opposite side of the doshko-wielding vesk, smiling as they spun around and lashed the ribbon out like a solar flare. The crowd screamed and cheered as the vesk was engulfed in flames. She staggered stage left and fell to her knees, where black-clad crew tackled her with fire blankets.

The male vesk dashed forward, punching wildly with clawed fists as his wicked tailblade sliced the air. Dae gracefully dodged the swings. Every slash, duck, and weave became part of an elaborate dance made up on the spot.

Then Dae missed a step. Pain hit Dae like a truck as one of the vesk’s underhanded punches slammed into their face. A second later the vesk shoved Dae hard with both hands. The crowd booed and Dae stumbled back awkwardly, pinwheeling their arms. A tongue of flame shot out as Dae’s nimbus reacted to the assault, but they were already off-balance, their dance streak was ended, and the crowd was beginning to rumble with panic.

Meyel, help me pretend that didn’t happen, Dae prayed. A comforting warmth spread through them. Dae cartwheeled and called their solar flare, which appeared like an extra spotlight hovering overhead and blasted the vesk who’d shoved them with a ray of sunlight. He tried to flee then, but Dae streaked forward, leaving a contrail of hypnotic light in their path and twirling the burning ribbon like a lasso.

By now Dae was getting bored with this interruption and was ready to take on the last target. Though it wasn’t necessary, they couldn’t help but add a few flourishes to their movements—a quick flick of the left wrist in this direction, a more dramatic swoop of the right arm that way. Their left leg swept forward, leading the rest of their body in a graceful slide. Small motes of light first emerged from their core and then glittered down around their body before beginning to gather around their elegantly outstretched hands, quickly compounding into a glimmering, dynamic brightness that drew cheers from the audience. Seconds later, a blast of solar energy erupted from their outstretched hands, firing a searing beam of light into the group of soldiers. Two of the three enemies cried out in shock and pain as the light burned through their defenses. At the same time, Dae felt the deep shifting of the stars within them as photon became graviton, and fire extinguished into pulsing dark.

Dae landed with grace, seamlessly going down on one knee in a dramatic bow. Becoming the opening act was completely unintentional. They felt electrified, like they could dance for the next week straight.

On cue, the theater went dark. Dae exited the stage and found their position for the main show. The Veskarium saboteurs had been dealt with without any innocent bystanders getting hurt, and the audience was clearly entertained. The night was off to a fantastic start and was sure to only get better.

“Nice work,” Miiyu purred as she breezed past Dae. Dae felt as if they smiled any larger, their face would break open.

In front of them, the curtain rose as neon pink and teal lights danced over Miiyu. The diva strutted on stage in a shimmering holofiber gown custom made for this song only. The crowd erupted in deafening, delirious cheers. It was going to be a phenomenal show.

Illustration by Pixoloid

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About the Author
Danielle Cavanagh is an artist, writer, and designer living in the Pacific Northwest with her partner and their two cats. Her life is a work in progress.

About the Iconic
Dae (they/them) is an agender pahtra solarian whose literally flashy and magnetic dance moves command attention on and off the stage. No matter how famous they get, Dae always has time for an adventure with their bestie Chk Chk.

About Iconic Encounters
Iconic Encounters is a series of web-based flash fiction set in the worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder. Each short story provides a glimpse into the life and personality of one of the games’ iconic characters, showing the myriad stories of adventure and excitement players can tell with the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games.

Learn more about the solarian class in Starfinder Player Core, releasing at Gen Con 2025, on paizo.com, and at your friendly local game store! Be the first to play Starfinder Second Edition by subscribing to the Starfinder RPG or Starfinder RPG (Special Edition) lines and receive a free PDF when your book ships!

Hello, Starfinders!
The end of July approaches, and that means it’s time to officially launch Starfinder Society for Starfinder Second Edition!

What, you may ask, is our first major storyline for the Starfinder Society? Eyes to the skies, Starfinders! Invasion’s Edge is here!

Emerging suddenly from deep space, a vessel traveling at speeds that should have cracked a planet in half slowed long enough to crash into the Sloughscar Hills of Akiton. Curious explorers and opportunistic salvagers descended upon the wreck, among which was a mercenary team in the employ of the Starfinder Society. Within hours, the starship’s automated defenses activated, driving out the explorers and unleashing dangerous monsters and magical effects into the region, including the dreaded illumantula, a terrifying monster of magic, technology, and light. This starship was soon dubbed the Wreck of the Returned.

Believing the Wreck of the Returned has a connection to the mysterious First Ones and is but the first step in a devastating invasion of the Pact Worlds, First Seeker Sarmak works to establish a Starfinder lodge in the surrounding Sloughscar Hills. Now, Sarmak has put out a call for brave Starfinders willing to help establish and defend this fledgling lodge and explore the Wreck of the Returned.

Illustration by Kevin Sardinha

Our story begins with Starfinder Society Scenario #1-00: Collision’s Wake, a special double length scenario for 3rd-level pregenerated characters written by John Godek III. This adventure is a prequel to Invasion’s Edge and casts you in the role of a team of Akitonian mercenaries hired by the Starfinder Society to keep a wary eye out for any strange occurrences or signs of alien invasion. When a strange starship crashes into the nearby Sloughscar Hills, you’re among the very first on the scene to investigate the wreck. So grab yourself a pregen, ready your laser pistol, and take a peek at what lies within the Wreck of the Returned! We wish you luck escaping alive!

Illustration by Rodrigo Gallo

Starfinder Society Scenario #1-01: Invasion’s Edge is the first adventure in the Invasion’s Edge metaplot! A new Starfinder lodge is being built in the Sloughscar Hills and you’re among the first Starfinders on site. As rookie Starfinders, you’ll lend a hand in establishing the lodge then head out into the wilderness to examine a piece of nearby debris. This intro adventure is written by Michael Bramnik and is designed for 1st- and 2nd-level characters.

Left to right; illustrations by Fabio Di Bernardi and Lucas Fernando

Finally, we leave Akiton behind and travel into the Vast to explore a frozen moon in Starfinder Society Scenario #1-02: Mystery of the Frozen Moon! Initial scans of the moon indicate there are no sapient inhabitants, but there are some artificial structures—an intriguing mystery! What’s more, this moon could prove the perfect jumping off point to explore the surrounding solar system… This delightful adventure is written by Solomon St. John and is designed for 1st- and 2nd-level characters.

That’s all for now, Starfinders, but we’ve got plenty more exciting adventures on the way!

Tune into the Paizo blog on Monday, July 28th for one final treat from me to you, for the launch of Starfinder Society!

Enjoy your time among the stars!

Jessica Catalan
Senior Developer (Starfinder Society)

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Hellooooo, Pathfinders!

Things are heating up this month, and not just because we’re reaching the high point of summer. We’re also rapidly approaching the final scenario of the Year of Immortal Influence!

The Pathfinders found out more about the strange past of Hesla Embersplitter and put a stop to the horrific monster she created out of Deskari’s corpse, ensuring that the people of the small town of Pimatsih in Sarkoris were safe. Her plans to destroy Riftcarver were uncovered during a raid on her home, prompting the Society to relocate the corpse of Deskari’s fallen father, Ingalor, to the Grand Lodge under Zarta Dralneen’s safekeeping. Now it’s finally time to destroy the corpse once and for all, and Zarta’s calling not only on the Knights of Lastwall for assistance, but also every Pathfinder agent within Absalom!

Illustration by Felipe Fornitani

Pathfinder Society Scenario #6-20: The Overthrow of Ambition is an adventure for 9th- through 12th-level characters written by Ivis K. Flanagan.

That’s all we have for you this month, Pathfinders!

Remember: Explore! Report! Cooperate!

Shay Snow
Pathfinder Society Developer

Good day, ‘Finders! With only a week to go until the biggest weekend in gaming, we’re excited to share some of the exciting ways you can spend the show with Paizo!

Starfinder Second Edition Live! – Friday at 2 p.m. Eastern

Join Starfinder Creative Manager Jenny Jarzabski as she leads our star-studded cast (Mark Meer, Krystina Arielle, B. Dave Walters, and Mark Hulmes) through a special Starfinder Second Edition one shot, live from Gen Con’s Streaming Stage!

Get your tickets here!

Not at the show? Watch the stream via twitch.tv/gencontv

Panels

Paizo is hosting a collection of panels on site at Gen Con!

Crafting Quarterly Adventures – Thursday at 3 p.m. Eastern

What goes into outlining, assigning, designing, and developing Paizo’s quarterly Adventure Paths? Paizo developers break down Adventure Paths and talks about Paizo’s upcoming adventure releases!

Launch Sequence: Starfinder Second Edition – Friday at 10 a.m. Eastern

Starfinder Creative Manager Jenny Jarzabski and the Starfinder team take you on a tour of the stars! Delve into the design of Starfinder Second Edition and be the first to hear about exciting upcoming books and adventures.

Pathfinder Battlecry! and the Hellfire Crisis – Saturday at 6 p.m. Eastern

Join the Pathfinder rules, lore, adventure, and fiction designers as they rally for the Hellfire Crisis! We’ll explore the effects of the Hellfire Crisis meta event across Pathfinder product lines and throughout the world of Golarion.

Reaction! Pathfinder and Starfinder Rules Q&A – Sunday at 11 a.m. Eastern

Having a compatibility crisis? Bring your Pathfinder Second Edition and Starfinder Second Edition rules questions to this interactive Q&A! Learn how to mix science fiction into your high fantasy (and vice versa) from the developers and designers of both systems!

Note: This panel is not a space for inquiring about upcoming errata or past design decisions. No official rules calls will be made during this panel—only advice!

Monster Mash! Live Creature Building – Sunday at 1 p.m. Pacific

It’s alive! Paizo designers and freelancers build creatures based on audience ideas and suggestions. Get a look behind the curtain of developing monsters and leave the panel with a fun new encounter for your table!

Drifter’s End at The Omni Severin Bar Cardinale

In celebration of the launch of Starfinder Second Edition, the Omni Bar Cardinale will transform into Drifter’s End for Gen Con weekend! Stop by this intergalactic hot spot for themed drinks, small plates, game demos, and more!

Plus, pick up a special Omni Bar exclusive Paizo button!

Gaming at Gen Con!

Paizo is once again returning to the Sagamore Ballroom for Organized Play, game demos, and more! For a more in-depth look at Paizo’s gaming offerings, check out Alex’s blog about Org Play at Gen Con!

In addition to the Sagamore Ballroom, Paizo also has drop-in demo tables of Pathfinder Second Edition, Starfinder Second Edition, Pathfinder Quest, and Starfinder Infinity Deck in Hall C!

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We can’t wait to see you at Gen Con 2025 for the launch of Starfinder Second Edition! May the dice roll ever in your favor!

Hey there, Starfinders! You might have heard elsewhere, but we’ve got exciting news for you. Paizo is proud to work with Digital Extremes to create a Warframe-themed Starfinder adventure, Operation: Orias, coming October 2025.

In this adventure you play as four Protoframes sent to rescue a spy from a Corpus facility on Orias. Operation: Orias is a taste of the Warframesetting using the Starfinder Second Edition rules, designed to play with friends around the tabletop! Gen Con attendees can stop by our demo area to play a snippet encounter of this full adventure.

I’ve been playing Warframe off and on for many years now (11 years, according to the fun sigil I have in game), and I’ve always had a great time with it. There’s not anything quite like jumping around at intense speeds, slamming down with Rhino’s stomp, and completely obliterating a dozen enemies in the span of two seconds. It’s those moments that keep me coming back again and again.

I don’t know what possessed me to contact Rebb Ford on that random Monday evening, but I suddenly felt a compulsion to reach out. I’m a Creative Director. She’s a Creative Director. Maybe, just maybe, we could link up and make something cool happen! I was floored with how excited she was by me contacting her. A small meeting occurred shortly thereafter, and I could feel that we were all giddy and excited to come together to make something happen. The only question was what we would be able to make.

We wanted something out as quick as we could, but our publishing schedules weren’t built with an unexpected collaboration in mind. Something could happen, but it would have to be slim and precise. We landed on a brief little taste for the universe of Warframe, a mashup between Starfinder and Warframe.

I was fortunate enough to be asked to write a little adventure for this collaboration, and I got to work with the inimitable Kengineer to make something cool happen. Bringing Warframe to the tabletop was a fun challenge and I’d like to think that I was able to translate the feel of being on an in-game mission pretty well. Overall, this has been a super exciting and rewarding experience. Working with DE has been nothing but a dream so far, and I hope that everyone enjoys what we’ve put together. Until next time, Tenno!

—Luis Loza, Creative Director (Pathfinder)

Hiya, it’s Jenny, Creative Manager of Starfinder. I’m not the one who came up with this awesome idea or clenched the deal with Rebb, but Starfinder is my department so I had to get involved at some point. Thurston and Luis arranged the collaboration then suddenly told me they needed me to develop a super-secret crossover project. Of course I was like, “OMG YES! I’m in!” See, Thursty and I have played Warframetogether quite a few times in the past. If you’re curious about my history with Warframe, I’m a filthy casual with about 300 hours played with friends on and off over a few years. I play Fashionframe, so I choose Warframes based on aesthetic and vibes just as much as playstyle. My favorites are Garuda, Jade, and Yareli. Anyway! I never imagined I’d get to work with Digital Extremes to create an official crossover for their game. It makes perfect sense though—Starfinder Second Edition and Warframe really mesh! I can’t wait for you to play what Luis cooked up for you and experience Warframe in tabletop form, combined with Starfinder Second Edition rules.

—Jenny Jarzabski, Creative Manager (Starfinder)

Thurston Hillman, Paizo Associate Publisher here! In Warframe, I’m a longtime Caliban main. (This is an inside joke; I actually was a Valkyr main for years but started saying this as soon as Caliban released.)

So, there I was, at Gen Con chatting with Luis when he mentioned this fun idea of reaching out to Rebb Ford at Digital Extremes about doing something with Starfinder and Warframe. I said “Absolutely, you should go and do that!” Cut to a few months later, when I’m sitting in a call with Rebb and others from Digital Extremes, and excitedly chatting about potential opportunities together. Hearing that several creative leads at Digital Extremes were in the same Rise of the Runelords campaign brought it full circle, as many of us at Paizo are avid fans of Warframe.

From that initial meeting onwards, this collaboration has been a joy to work on, with both sides sharing our excitement of our respective properties. We’ve worked together to make this product that we can’t wait to share with both our communities.

—Thurston Hillman, Associate Publisher & Longtime Caliban Main

Join us in celebrating this collaboration with Digital Extremes today on twitch.tv/officialpaizo at 4 P.M. Pacific!

The fifth time he saw the same grey-furred ysoki hawking her basket of cosmic cratannes (laser-fried dough, hot off the therm, dipped in some kind of sugared orange), Zemir had to admit he was hopelessly lost. No matter the path he decided to walk, all roads in the Spike seemed to bring him back here – the same makeshift food stand in a nook off an alley, the same would-be chef touting freshness and flavor, the same bits of dough stacked tight in a basket that smelled like his kind of delicious. Maybe he’d buy some to bring back upside. Once he figured out where he was in the station. In this version of it, anyway.

Most realities had their own Absalom Station, and there had to be one he could draw on for help, ideally where the resident Zemir had some sense of where he was going. Maybe one where the Spike led back up to the Freemarkets, connected by a daisy chain of hatches, vents, and ladders. Or one where part of the Spike was the hub of the station, with signs and vendors everywhere, and if you paid attention you could find a quick way through. He could almost see himself there – confident stride, cloak trailing behind him, trading nods with passersby who respected his age-whitened hair. All he had to do was glance a bit past the here and now, pull from something beyond the world he currently stood in, and—

stomach lurching, nerves on fire

A station just like this one, the hallways bitter cold,

filled only with the echoed sound of dying

A station where the ground beneath his feet

was devoured by the emptiness of space.

A station where a little girl reached for a snack

before something splintered and ripped her apart,

turning everything to debris.

Zemir blinked the other realities away—once, twice, three times—and did his best to ignore a tiny bit of moisture threatening the corner of his eye. He couldn’t help that girl, he knew he couldn’t, no matter how much he wanted to. He’d learned that lesson years ago, the night he lost his team—his friends—to some trap of reality he would never reach again. Maybe not so different than whatever stalked him now.

A feeling of something wrong had been hanging in the air for weeks, sloshing deep inside his guts, making his skin feel too tight— It was what had brought him down here, walking through the maze that was underneath the station, hoping he would figure out where it came from and why. But that flash of realities? That spinning, dizzy whirl of worlds? That was something stronger than the creeping sense of ill at ease. That sent a wave of sick and spin crashing into his body that only his long years of discipline in times of chaos kept him from spilling back out in bits of bile onto the metal ground.

Zemir tapped at his chest, felt for his anchor. A small piece of obsidian, singed but unbroken. All that remained from a former life. Touch something real, he thought as it danced beneath his fingers. Shake off the fear and steel yourself. You know that you can do it.

It was time to go home.

Zemir bore right at the next set of hallways, ignoring the ones that slipped out of his vision, filled with the voices from some other dimension, thick and indistinct and always a touch out of tune. Left, then right, then right again, feet firmly beneath him, until the last hallway ended in an unexpected alcove, sparse but still in use, with a cot on the floor and a chair at the wall and clothes hanging from a spigot. The light was dimmer here, somehow, and the air hung stale and heavy, as if it had been folded up and shoved into a corner, waiting for someone to stumble into its maw.

skin crawling, hard to breathe

The air thick with a poisonous haze

curled around a family’s remains

their hands reaching for relief

that isn’t going to come

The air bitter cold, stealing the breath

from huddled bodies grasping tight

Leaving nothing but frozen arms

And frost-drenched tear-stained faces

The air, smells of burning

and then, something else.

Something delicious.

Something warm and hearty and fried.

“You really should have tried the cratanne.”

The ysoki was there again, behind him. She smiled wide as she offered the basket of fried dough. “They’re best when they’re fresh, you know. Everyone says so. Might have kept you out of some trouble.” Her voice sounded odd. Minor key, a touch out of tune.

Zemir grabbed for power before thinking to do it, a gesture as natural as taking a breath, bringing his quantum field to life with the ease of years of practice. Other Zemirs were with him now, flickering in and out of the alcove, in and out of this reality. Some close enough in look to be his twins, at least at a cursory flash of a glance; others, dressed up like they owned the place, and still others looking bruised and beaten by a life of struggle he’d never known. But they were all there, facing down the ysoki chef who still stood in the doorway her teeth bared half between snarl and smile.

“Who are you?” Zemir let the voices of all the other Zemirs echo like thunder. No two of them sounded quite the same. Some voices spoke sharp with harsh demands, some were soft and curious, but all were a little out of tune and hollow as struck bells. Just the way the ysoki’s voice sounded. He cleared his throat and began again. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“The real question is, who are you?” asked the ysoki. “A guard patrolling? A rival shopkeeper snooping?” She backed away as she spoke, trying to get past the reach of his spells.

He did not understand, but Zemir knew that he had to take some expanded precautions. Zemir let his quantum field slowly expand as he spoke, putting the ysoki back in its reach. If she noticed, she didn’t let on.

“You’ve been following me,” the ysoki said. “Every time I pick some new alcove down here, try to sell my goods in peace, there you are. I’m just trying to find a place to sell my cratannes. I don’t have anywhere else to go. Please just leave me alone!”

The more the chef spoke, the more Zemir was sure. She was from Absalom Station, not from this reality. He’d heard of witchwarpers who fully displaced their bodies, or who anchored themselves in someone else’s reality, but usually there was deep magic involved, and it was always dangerous. Sometimes it wasn’t voluntary.

Zemir kept his voice calm to mask himself reaching out for more power, casting detect magic to see what it told him. He followed the potentials in his mind—haste and fly would get him out of here if she was dangerous, or lightning bolt if all else failed. But all he detected was a pulse of something warm inside the basket filled with food that she still held. There was more in those cosmic cratannes than fat and fry and flavor.

“I wasn’t following you,” he said, though it didn’t seem to matter now. “I just kept running into you. It felt like something drew me toward you. Perhaps those snacks you’re so insistent I enjoy.” Zemir could feel his voice grow tense. He clenched fingers to unleash a bolt in case she moved against him, but something flashed across her face and before he could decide to cast, he saw her in some other place. Some same but different version of this station.

swallowed laughter, sudden pain

She is in a kitchen laughing

Smells of food and talk of flavors

Promises and joking threats

Recipes passed down

She is in a closet hiding

Lights are flashing, klaxons blaring

Smoke chokes out the sound of screaming

Hands that held her, forced to stillness

She is all alone

She is trapped but won’t go easy

Reaching out for some new power

Pulled to somewhere safe but different

Recipe scrap in her pocket

Nothing left of home

Zemir inhaled sharply as the images—her memories—left his mind, a truth within them that erased whatever he was planning. The quantum field faded. The other Zemirs disappeared. He wondered if one of them was from wherever she came from, and if that version still survived.

“Why show me this?” he asked. “Why draw me to your food stand?” Perhaps this was the only way she knew to ask for help.

“I didn’t,” said the chef, in a small voice, clear but shaky. “I only tried to put some of the place I’m from into my food. The orange sugar is confectionary from my home. It’s just a bit of magic to connect you to the ones who you break and share your bread with. I can’t go home now so… it’s the next best thing.”

“And the visions? The smoke?” He had a feeling she had caused them. She must have some kind of hidden talent. Some reason she’d survived.

“I didn’t mean to. I just wanted to show you what happened. That’s it’s all gone.” It wasn’t an apology. It wasn’t a challenge. It was the plain and simple truth of things.

Zemir thought back to the feeling of loss, the spinning lack of center, the sickness roiling around in his stomach for weeks. Whatever she had done had hit him harder than intended, but something told him he’d have to search somewhere else to find any way to help her. Or himself.

There were questions to be answered, but not in the here and now. He forced his face into a smile, tried to inhale the scent of the treats that she was carrying. They did still smell like his kind of delicious.

“I understand,” he said. “About those cratannes… I can introduce you to some people who will buy the whole lot off you right now if you come to breakfast. How do you feel about coffee?”

Illustration by Bastien Jez

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About the Author
Erin Roberts (she/her) is a writer of stories and games whose work for Paizo includes the fiction series The Godsrain Prophecies and contributions to 10+ books, including Lost Omens: Rival Academies, Lost Omens: Travel Guide, and Interstellar Species. In addition to her work for Paizo, she freelances across the TTRPG world (and was selected as a 2023 Diana Jones Award Emerging Designer Program Winner along the way) and talks about fiction writing every week on the Writing Excuses podcast. You can find her on Bluesky as @nirele and on Linktree at linktr.ee/erinroberts.

About the Iconic
Zemir (he/him) is a male human witchwarper who casts powerful magic spells and warps reality, using a simple souvenir from home to keep him grounded in the vast multiverse.

About Iconic Encounters
Iconic Encounters is a series of web-based flash fiction set in the worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder. Each short story provides a glimpse into the life and personality of one of the games’ iconic characters, showing the myriad stories of adventure and excitement players can tell with the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games.

Learn more about the witchwarper class in Starfinder Player Core, releasing at Gen Con 2025, on paizo.com, and at your friendly local game store! Be the first to play Starfinder Second Edition by subscribing to the Starfinder RPG or Starfinder RPG (Special Edition) lines and receive a free PDF when your book ships!

As Lost Omens lore solidified early in Pathfinder’s first edition, the distant islands of Iblydos appeared briefly and rarely—often just a mention listed among other realms or an apocryphal sidebar pondering the origins of minotaurs. As a reader, I could tell Iblydos wanted to evoke classical Greek culture and myth, yet there was precious little to find. Thankfully, I didn’t just get to read about Iblydos; I wrote the gazetteer for Aelyosos, a major port city and fans’ first window into what makes this archipelago special. And now a decade later, we’ve returned in a big way: the Myth-Speaker Adventure Path, a mythic campaign for 1st-level characters!

If you’ve boosted your own Lost Omens Lore proficiency over the years, you might already be familiar with Iblydos. If not, don’t worry! Let me share some trivia to catch you up and get excited.

Classical Inspiration, not Replication

I mentioned before that classical Greek myth and history inspired Iblydos, so are we getting stats for Zeus? Not quite like that. When pitching and developing Iblydos, I considered what concepts and themes make ancient Greece exciting before considering how those ideas might manifest on Golarion—especially in a way that integrates with surrounding lands Vudra, southern Casmaron’s coast, and the Obari Crossing sailing route.

So what might you find?

• City-States: Much as Athens, Sparta, and others tried, nobody united classical Greece for long. For much of its history, myriad city-states jostled for influence and even hegemony. Likewise, nine major city-states have ruled Iblydos for centuries, with at least one having collapsed dramatically in the Age of Lost Omens. Some city-states feel strongly Greek-inspired, and that means plenty of other city-states break the mold in exciting ways.
• Hubris, Hospitality, and Metamorphosis: Flip open Bulfinch’s Mythology to a few random myths, and you’ll inevitably find some combination of a mortal being braggadocious, a god in disguise being inadvertently snubbed, and that god then transforming the mortal into something ironic. Arachne’s a classic example, and Baucis and Philemon are iconic counterexamples. Iblydos has no shortage of transformation and cautionary tales, even shaping some of the recommended ancestries for this campaign—including awakened animals, beastkin, and more! You’ll also find these themes echoing throughout Myth-Speaker’s narratives.
• Mythological Creatures: Some of the oldest Pathfinder lore credits Iblydos as the birthplace of myriad creatures like harpies and minotaurs. If there’s a prominent Greek myth about it, the creature’s likely making at least one appearance. In fact, cyclopes play a major role in most cities, having joined forces with humanity ages ago.
• Glory: That many fearsome creatures require equally courageous heroes! Homeric heroes chased after kleos, the kind of glory that comes from doing amazing things and ideally being immortalized in stories. Even if the average Iblydan doesn’t intend to wrestle a hydra, they still strive toward excellence in their chosen craft, profession, or other pursuit.
• Demigods: Classical myth boasted more than a handful of immutable deities. The Olympians, titans, and sundry other gods often philandered with mortals, resulting in a host of demigods. Over time, Greek myths and religion evolved and became regionally personalized, such as Artemis of Delphi diverging from Artemis of Ephesus (causing fandom battles worthy of the modern internet). What really sang to me were these demigods and regional mystery cults, each a unique yet doomed to fade from memory eventually. How might Iblydos achieve that same flavor?

Myth-Speaking

And that’s where myth-speaking arose. Iblydos doesn’t have local, full-power deities like Desna, Shizuru, or Kazutal. Instead, most Iblydans revere hero-gods—local demigods who were born mortal but obtained mythic power. When a mortal shows exceptional promise, a city’s cyclopes invite them to join a divinatory ritual called myth-speaking. With their magical foresight, the giants prophesy what great deed the mortal might achieve. If the mortal follows through and succeeds, they attain mythic power like the rules you’ll find in War of Immortals. Those same hero-gods grant spells for a lifetime or three before passing away, making room for new hero-gods.

At least, that’s how it’s worked for millennia. The Age of Lost Omens undermines cyclopean prophecies, and myth-speaking has become less reliable each year. At this point, Iblydos would experience a record scratch double-take worthy of an Adventure Path if approximately four player characters were to attain mythic power all at once. 

The Myth-Speaker Adventure Path

Oh hey, did you hear the Myth-Speaker Adventure Path is a mythic campaign for 1st-level PCs?

Yep, even though your characters won’t start the game with mythic power, they’ll attain it during the first volume! From there, they’ll navigate the political excitement that comes from new hero-gods on the scene, wrestle with the mythic power coursing through their bodies (because their bodies weren’t made for so much energy), and unravel the strange circumstances that led to them being the latest additions to Iblydos’s dwindling pantheon. Expect monster-slaying, mythic problem-solving, and voyages throughout the islands (and into realms where no simple ship would sail).

To help get the ideas churning, check out the Myth-Speaker Player's Guide, a free download full of setting lore, new backgrounds, character design tips, and more spoiler-free content.

Set sail!

John Compton
Lead Developer

The village was scared, that much Grimmyr could sense. While by now he was used to many of the peoples of Golarion being intimidated by his towering form, this fear had nothing to do with him. It had clearly seeped into the community long before he arrived. The faces of the townsfolk were pale and tired. Their movements were slow and languid, as if a heavy weight pressed down upon them. It even seemed to affect the atmosphere—dark clouds gathered overhead, and the flowers ringing the small stone plinth at the center of the village green were wilted and dying. Grimmyr’s heart ached to see such distress.

Grimmyr ducked under a hanging sign painted with a tankard of ale and opened the door to what he hoped was a tavern or inn. While his people had no such formal meeting spaces in the Fray, he had learned that these businesses were good places to gather information. Inside, he drew the stares of several residents and a pair of individuals who were as armed and armored as himself.

“A fellow mercenary!” shouted the taller of the two, waving over to Grimmyr. Her skin was tanned from long hours in the sun, her blonde hair was cut roughly, and her friendly grin showed more than one missing tooth. “Come to protect the fine people of Northfork from the monsters?” she asked.

“Of course he is, Aliss,” said the other. He was stout and bearded, the long reddish hairs twisted into two neat braids. His eyebrows were less groomed, as if left to cover the missing hair on his head. “Look at the size of ‘im.”

“Monsters?” Grimmyr asked, his voice surprisingly soft.

“Aye,” said the one named Aliss. “Scaly buggers that crawl up out of the well just outside of town from time to time. No one knows what’s drivin’ them into a frenzy, but his holiness Mordruk and me are only gettin’ paid to kill them.” She winked at a scowling Mordruk.

“Only been here about a week,” said Mordruk. “But it’s been getting worse and—” he was cut off by the ringing of a bell outside and shouts of “They’re here!”

With a chuckle, Aliss picked up the longsword leaning against the wall and strode toward the door. “Best hold your breath, new guy,” she said. Mordruk raised the hood of his white cloak and followed without offering an explanation.

Outside, panic gripped the town. From behind closed doors, Grimmyr could hear children crying and furniture being moved to form makeshift barricades. Aliss and Mordruk hurried eastward, alongside farmers armed with pitchforks and shovels, toward the sound of guttural snarls. As Grimmyr passed by the plinth, the sight of the dying flora sent a foreboding chill down his spine.

Grimmyr smelled the creatures before he saw them. It was a terrible, musty odor of sweat and stale air that crept into the nostrils and down the back of the throat. He gagged briefly but pushed through the nausea. Some of the farmers weren’t so fortunate, as they stopped to retch. Aliss and Mordruk had already rounded a corner ahead of him, and as Grimmyr followed, he was taken aback by the number of creatures emerging from the well past the edge of town. Will there be no end to them? he thought. Mordruk uttered a desperate prayer under his breath, and Grimmyr sensed that he and Aliss had not yet faced a force of such size here.

The creatures were reptilian humanoids with mottled gray scaly hides and bony protrusions the length of their spines made more prominent by their hunching posture. Their heads and tails resembled those of cave lizards, and they wore rudimentary hides and wielded simple clubs, if they carried any weapons at all. Each and every one of them exuded that earthy stench. Many wore necklaces of stone chunks on leather cords; Grimmyr found them familiar but couldn’t place why.

The next hour was a grueling struggle against the odds. The townsfolk fought the best they could, holding back the monstrous tide, but it was clear they would eventually be overwhelmed. Aliss cleaved through torsos with her blade, smirking all the while until Grimmyr could see her arms growing weary. Mordruk called down divine magic to keep her and the farmers standing, though even Grimmyr knew such power would not last forever. For his part, Grimmyr waded into the throng of creatures, swinging his flail in wide sweeps and relying on his armor to turn aside claw, tooth, and club. The field became littered with piles of corpses of the creatures… and sadly, more than a few villagers.

A bellow drew everyone’s attention back to the well, where something struggled to emerge. Though this new creature shared some similarities to the ones they had been fighting, its hide was the red of fresh clay and it towered over the others, only a foot or two shorter than Grimmyr. It dragged a stone maul behind as it stomped toward a villager.

Grimmyr protects a villager from a xulgath spinesnapper. Art by Pixoloid Studios.

“No! Face me!” bellowed Grimmyr, knowing a strike from that hammer could crush a skull. That got the creature’s attention, and it came charging toward him. He blocked the first blow with the haft of his own weapon, but the second hit him square in the chest, almost winding him. With a grunt, Grimmyr swung his flail in an upward motion against the creature’s chin, snapping its neck. The maul fell to the ground, and the grass around the weapon’s head began to turn brown almost instantly.

Grimmyr knew what he needed to do next.

He sprinted back into town, toward the village green. With a mighty strike from his flail, he shattered the stone plinth. A small explosion of force sent him stumbling backward. He lost his balance and fell, hitting his head against a tree stump and knocking him out.

When he awoke, Aliss and Mordruk were standing above him. “What did you do, new guy?” Aliss asked.

“The stone. It was calling to them.”

“The fight left ‘em as soon as you smashed it,” Mordruk said. “The townsfolk must have dredged it up out of the well. How did you know?”

Grimmyr smiled weakly, the aches and pains of the battle catching up to him. “Oh, didn’t I tell you? I’m here to keep you all safe.”

Jason Keeley (he/him)
Senior Designer

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Rally your troops and prepare for war alongside Grimmyr at hellfirecrisis.com! Subscribe to the Pathfinder Rulebook Subscription to be among the first to join the ranks with Pathfinder Battlecry!

Iseph pulled their hand away from their side. Their fingers were sticky and purple with their own synthetic blood. The android winced and calculated the odds of completing the contract: 67.3%. Suboptimal.

This bulk freighter was supposed to be derelict, but the corridors were crawling with bone troopers and starving vacc ghouls. A bone trooper, grinning with its whole skull, perched at the controls of a turret and shot Iseph down as they tried to land in the cargo bay. The android’s integrated force field took the brunt of the impact, but a jagged bit of wreckage pierced Iseph’s side. A medpatch relieved the discomfort of severed processors. A few rounds from their semi-auto pistol took care of the bone trooper.

Iseph dashed down gloomy corridors toward the reactor core, a satchel of explosive charges swinging from their shoulder. The priest of Pharasma on Lucent Station who’d hired Iseph was right—this was a rogue Corpse Fleet vessel, locked on a collision course with the tiny asteroid settlement. An invasion? If so, cracking the reactor apart would prevent untold loss of lives.

Iseph found the blast door to the reactor sealed. A grinning skull icon sneered from the display. A quantum pick from their infiltrator kit and a good shove persuaded the cranky door to open. A deep hum throbbed out from the murky reactor chamber and a strong whiff of void energies tickled Iseph’s olfactory sensors. This was no derelict freighter.

Three grated catwalks, stacked one above the other, surrounded the hemispherical reactor far below. The blast door spat Iseph out onto the middle deck. Radiation flared the operative’s built-in force field. Levels just below redline, but that wasn’t the problem. The starving pack of vacc ghouls on the catwalk above was. 

Recalculating. There is now a 53.5% chance of successfully completing the contract. Lucent Station required better odds.

An emaciated ghoul dangled from the cables above, waving a cutlass-shaped grindblade. Iseph sighted it through the sniper scope and blew it screaming to the reactor pile below. Another pair dropped in front of them waving grindblades. Iseph batted one slash away, gritting their teeth as dermal plating took the blow. That ghoul staggered out into midair and vanished. The android flipped their rifle around and bashed the second one, then drew their pistol and fired three rounds into its head. A third ghoul clambered like a spider along the underside of the catwalk right into the last sniper round.

Recalculating…75% chance of success. 

Iseph’s next target was a tangle of vapor-swaddled conduits that rose up from the core, braided through the catwalk levels. A coffin-like emergency shunt sat on the deck nearby. An explosion there would reverberate up and down the conduits, maximizing a chain reaction.

Iseph gripped their side as they limped towards the shunt. A hulking creature emerged from the vapor clouds. Tall as a standard human, but twice as broad, it was composed of hunks of oozing flesh. A blue-and-silver armored coat festooned with the rank badges of an admiral barely contained its squirming flesh. The admiral grinned at Iseph with sharp, rotten teeth and swung a massive grindblade to the ready. A pair of rigor mortics, constructs of raw flesh and armor plating with integrated shields, lumbered into flanking positions.

Recalculating…50% probability of success.

Predictably, the rigor mortics charged forward shields first to shove Iseph off the catwalk. The admiral advanced behind them, wheezing in sharp, lungless gasps that the android hypothesized were an attempt at laughter.

Iseph grabbed one of the shields and yanked it clean from the rigor mortic’s bony grip, then plunged the zero knife into a visual organ. Silvery-black ichor streamed from the wound. Iseph slammed the pistol to its forehead, pulled the trigger, and sent the undead plunging headless into the reactor.

Iseph vaulted over the other rigor mortic, slicing a bundle of cables that festooned the deck. The cut cables vented steam and coolant, twisting on the deck like live serpents. The hapless rigor mortic became entangled in the coils. The android emptied the entire magazine of their pistol into its bulbous head, spattering gore across the deck.

Ammo depleted. Odds at 52%.

Snarling at the demise of its rigor mortics, the admiral lunged at Iseph with the heavy grindblade. Iseph hurled the zero knife and the cold blade buried itself deep in the admiral’s neck. Pus boiled from the wound, but the monster just laughed as it continued to advance.

Iseph grabbed one of the cut cables and swung out over the abyss. The grindblade whooshed through the empty radioactive gloom where Iseph had been only moments before.

45%.

Momentarily clear of the catwalk, Iseph unclipped the incendiary grenade at their belt with a free hand and pulled the electronic pin. Then they tossed the grenade at the admiral. The brute vanished in the explosion, leaving behind only jagged pieces of bone and metal. Iseph swung back to the catwalk and landed safely on deck.

Increasing probability of success: 89%.

Iseph approached the emergency shunt, reaching for a charge. They stopped short at the flow viewport. Inside, instead of a reactor feed there was a humanoid face. The humanoid was young, and softly glowing vermilion arcs traced across their features. An android. Distorted black veins of void energy pulsed in parallel swirls alongside their circuitry. The necrotization of tissue indicated a 35% chance the android was a borai or some other type of undead.

Iseph stepped back, still clutching the charges. This “shunt” was nothing more than a sarcophagus hooked up directly to the reactor. What kind of being would need to draw that much power?

There was a high probability this android was a necrovite waiting to be reborn in undeath. The android’s eyelids flew open and met Iseph’s searching gaze with their own. Their curious expression melted to pure terror. Though the operative couldn’t hear their cries through the thick portal, the meaning was clear: Help me!

Iseph glanced at the explosives in their hands. They could help free the android one way—or another. Was this a ruse? Processing new directive.Odds for success: Unable to calculate. Iseph placed the charges in standby and back in their bag. They toggled the latches on the sarcophagus. Clouds of vapor smelling like decaying plant matter spilled from the hatch.

The creature dropped to their knees and gasped. Trailing wires and tubes kept them connected to the machinery in the sarcophagus. “Thank you,” they whispered.

Iseph visualized half a dozen martial strikes to neutralize the kneeling android, but remained still, curiously moved by their stark vulnerability. “What were you doing in there?”

The other shrugged. “They t-took me.”

“Who took you?”

“Don’t remember. But I didn’t w-want to go.” The other’s voice was shaky, indicating confusion and anxiety. Iseph considered that. They, too, had once woken up not remembering.

“I have a directive to destroy this place,” Iseph advised.

The necrotized android regarded Iseph warily. They stood as the umbilical tubes detached with wet pops and examined themself as if for the first time, another familiar act. Something stirred in Iseph. 

“Do w-what you must. I won’t stop y-you,” the other said.

“You won’t,” Iseph agreed, strangely conflicted about that answer. They set a charge against the power coupling of the sarcophagus and armed it. Shunt or not, the device was still connected directly to the reactor.

94% chance of success.

“I’m Avel.” The other’s eyes glimmered with vermilion light.

“Iseph. You should come with me.”

Avel arched a glowing brow. “Are you sure? I don’t know to what purpose I’ve been set.”

Iseph shook their head and set the rest of the charges. “Then find your own purpose. Everyone should have that chance.” Avel looked around at the cavernous ship of the dead, considering. Calculating their own odds, maybe? Iseph checked their remote detonator and set it on standby.

“Let’s leave this wretched place, Iseph,” Avel said with a shudder. They found the escape pods three decks above. No bone troopers or rigor mortics impeded them. Perhaps Avel was repelling them with a secret signal. Iseph opened the pod’s hatch and ushered Avel inside. The other android hesitated.

“Will they accept me where we’re going?” Avel asked. Iseph shrugged. The Pharasman priest would likely need to be persuaded. Iseph could handle that.

A huge shadow crashed into Iseph, knocking them to the deck. The detonator skittered from their hand. The admiral towered over Iseph, its flesh charred and suppurating from the grenade blast. Its jaw hung loose, enhancing its vicious grin. It held the splintered ends of the grindblade against Iseph’s throat. Avel stepped over to the detonator and picked it up. Was this betrayal after all? Iseph began to calculate the probability. Avel smiled and thumbed the button. 

The deck shook and the admiral toppled back. Iseph kipped up to their feet, feeling their medpatch—and the artificial flesh beneath it—tear open in a new arc of fire. Iseph ignored the painful sensory stimulus and shoved Avel into the pod. They crawled in after, sealing the hatch.

The admiral’s howling face appeared at the viewport. Iseph slammed the launch trigger and the escape pod blasted into space. In the distance, the freighter’s hull spasmed as explosions in the reactor tore it apart. Lucent Station, still just a speck of spinning rock in the forward viewport, was safe.

Mission Complete. Or was it? Avel stared at their destination, expression tight.

“I don’t know what they did to me, Iseph. I could be a danger to the ones you saved.” Avel said. Iseph shook their head, wondering at this unexpected deviation from their mission. Avel had not been part of their calculations before, but they certainly were now.

Illustration by Mirco Paganessi

---

About the Author
A. Penn Romine teaches animation and VFX, following a career working in Hollywood on award-winning films and television. His first novel, The Mosquito Fleet, is available now from Broken Eye Books. His stories have appeared in Lightspeed, FUNGI, HELP FUND MY ROBOT ARMY, and BY FAERIE LIGHT. He lives in the Pacific Northwest and enjoys mixing cocktails and watching terrible movies. You can find him all over theinternet.

About the Iconic
Iseph (they/them) is a nonbinary android operative who has cybernetically modified their body into the perfect precision weapon. Iseph swaps between their trusty pistol, rifle, and zero knife (plus other gear looted off their take-downs) and knows how to aim to deal the most effective damage to a target.

About Iconic Encounters
Iconic Encounters is a series of web-based flash fiction set in the worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder. Each short story provides a glimpse into the life and personality of one of the games’ iconic characters, showing the myriad stories of adventure and excitement players can tell with the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games.

Learn more about the operative class in Starfinder Player Core, releasing at Gen Con 2025, on paizo.com, and at your friendly local game store! Be the first to play Starfinder Second Edition by subscribing to the Starfinder RPG or Starfinder RPG (Special Edition) lines and receive a free PDF when your book ships!

Digital Adventure Releases

The following adventures will be released on July 30, 2025, and may be run at events beginning on that date.

Pathfinder Society

Pathfinder Society Scenario #6-20: The Overthrow of Ambition*

Starfinder Society

Starfinder Society Special #1-00: Collision's Wake

Starfinder Society Scenario #1-01: Invasion's Edge*

Starfinder Society Scenario #1-02: Mystery of the Frozen Moon*

*part of a subscription

Campaign Updates

Pathfinder Society

As the war against Cheliax kicks up, new Pathfinder agents find themselves called to join! As of May 23, 2025, the following updates have gone into effect:

• The strix ancestry (Lost Omens Ancestry Guide 132) is now available to all Pathfinder Society characters. Players who have previously purchased a strix ancestry boon from the boon store can re-download the file to gain access to a free resurrection for their strix character(s).
• The boon for the automaton ancestry (Guns & Gears 36) has been reduced in cost from 160 Achievement Points to 80 AcP.

Additionally, at or before Gen Con we hope to add new boons to the Achievement Points store which will allow wizards to expand the spells accessible through their schools. Stay tuned for more information as we have it!

Starfinder Society

Starfinder Society (second edition) launches at Gen Con 2025! In the next few weeks, we should get the Guide to Organized Play out to everyone, along with updates to our landing pages and Character Options pages. In the unlikely event that any of this misses that date, however, I wanted to compile everything you’ll need to know to get started.

• All Starfinder Society (second edition) adventures are repeatable. Players may play them as many times as they like with a different character each time. A character may never have more than one Chronicle from the same adventure, as this breaks the timestream and the hounds of Tindalos start showing up.
• Starfinder characters may begin their adventuring career at 1st, 3rd or 5th level. Regardless of level, a new character begins with 0 XP. Characters may be freely rebuilt until they reach 12 XP and are played at their next session.
• Players have access to all options in any Starfinder rules source they own, regardless of rarity. Exceptions include any Unique items, and any options specifically restricted on the Starfinder Society Character Options page.
• The Starfinder Player Core is the only “core source” for the campaign. Players are not required to own the Player Core to use the options contained within it. Players must own other books, such as the Starfinder Galaxy Guide, to make use of their options.
• Starfinder Society character numbers start at -2701.

Please read our series of launch reveal blogs for more information on what’s to come!

Sanctioning Updates

Since our last blog, the following rulebooks and adventures have been sanctioned for Pathfinder Society play & use!

• Pathfinder Treasure Vault (Remastered)
• Lost Omens: Shining Kingdoms
• Shades of Blood Adventure Path
• Gatewalkers Adventure Path Compilation

You can find out more on the Pathfinder Society Character Options page.

Free RPG Day

This year’s Free RPG Day adventures have also been sanctioned for play! Please note that per our agreement with Free RPG Day, these are not permitted for play until July 22, 2025; as such, I have disabled reporting for these adventures until that date.

The Scourge of Sheerleaf || Battle for Nova Rush

GM Recognition

Campaign Service Coins

In the past few months, several new Campaign Coins have been awarded! We award these coins to members of the community who have gone above and beyond to provide an exceptional program to the community at large. Campaign Coins are awarded based on nominations; if you believe someone in your community is deserving of this award (whether or not they are a Venture Officer), send an email to organizedplay@paizo.com with their name and reasons.

Congratulations to:

Bret Indrlee, who now holds a campaign coin and OP ID #873

and Randy Cronin, who now holds a campaign coin and OP ID #910.

GM Ranks

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 dependent). A conservative estimate of the time needed to reach the 5th milestone is 650 hours!

This month we had three GMs reach their fifth rank!

5th Star (PFS1): Redelia

5th Nova (SFS1): Ed Emmer, Kishmo

If you believe you’ve completed your 5th rank but haven’t been announced yet, please email me at organizedplay@paizo.com.

Conventions

Gen Con is just on the horizon, but it’s also time to start planning your fall schedule! Check out the Conventions calendarfor upcoming events in your area and be one of the first to experience Starfinder Society for second edition.

Until next time adventurers - Explore! Report! Cooperate! It’s off to the stars with us!

Alex Speidel
Organized Play Coordinator

Greetings, Gamers! In the April Tech Update blog, I promised to give you a breakdown of how the upcoming loyalty program will work. Today, I’m here to tell you that at its core, Paizo Plus operates similarly to the current program: spend money with Paizo and unlock free products and discounts.

Under today’s Paizo Advantage program, if you subscribe to 4 different lines, you unlock either Starfinder Society or Pathfinder Society subscriptions for free; subscribe to all 6, and you get both for free. Subscribing to 4 lines also unlocks a 15% storewide discount on most Paizo products. Paizo Advantage will be replaced by Paizo Plus when the new store launches.

The Paizo Advantage program was designed to be laser-focused on subscriptions, and it has served Paizo subscribers well for many years. However, as our product catalog has grown, we’ve realized that we need a more robust system that better rewards all our shoppers for their dedication in various ways. We needed a program that was more flexible and easy to understand, as well as one that we could modify as we learned what consumers valued most. That’s how Paizo Plus was born, and we can’t wait to share it with you when we launch!

The Basics

When the new store goes live, you’ll need to opt in to the new loyalty program to start earning gold. If you’ve opted in to receive emails from Paizo, you’ll receive an email about the new program when we launch. And you’ll be able to earn gold right from the start:

• Join Paizo Plus: You’ll earn 25 gold upon joining!
• Leave a Review: 5 gold with an initial limit of 1 per week (260 gold/year if you write a review every week). You can only write reviews of products you have purchased through Paizo.
• Birthday Reward: You’ll earn 25 gold on your birthday. Happy Birthday!
• Follow us on Social Media: Up to 25 gold if you follow us on all 5 platforms.
• Gold on Purchases: You’ll earn 1 gold for every dollar you spend, and the amount of gold you earn increases as you advance in reward level. More on that below. 

Legal details will be available in an updated Terms of Use when the new store launches. 

Refer-a-Friend

Another way to earn gold is by recruiting friends to make purchases from Paizo. Each time someone takes advantage of your referral by spending $20 or more at Paizo, you’ll earn 25 gold. 

Spending Gold

So, on Day 1 if you take advantage of all the ways you can earn gold you’re sitting with 65 gold in your account. What can you get with it? To start, we’ll be offering: 

You’ll see that you can get a Pathfinder Society or Starfinder Society scenario for $10 off, which will make most scenarios you choose free. You can also see that Paizo is tilting the scales in favor of the gold value for Society purchases, because we genuinely believe that this is an essential program for our players and want to encourage more players to participate. 

Our goal with the new Paizo Plus is to maintain the same value as the Paizo Advantage program. Paizo Plus is slightly better than Paizo Advantage, and these starting values allow us to monitor the program and expand it in the future once we see how everyone is earning and spending their points. 

Reward Tiers

We adapted the proficiency system from Pathfinder Second Edition (and now Starfinder Second Edition) and used it as the basis for the tiers that build the programs around. 

Legendary Loot: From time to time, Paizo will release items that are exclusively available to Legendary reward members. They might cost gold pieces, dollars, or a combination of both. They will likely be available in very limited quantities and for short periods of time.

We value our Experts and Masters and will ensure additional rewards are available for all tiers that require both gold and a dollar cost, as well as those that require only gold or other qualifying factors. 

Questions and Answers

Here are a few answers to some of the most common questions I anticipate. For the complete legal rules (which take precedence over this Q&A), you’ll need to wait until we launch. 

Will I keep my free subscriptions to Pathfinder Society and Starfinder Society when Paizo Plus launches?
No, but you will be able to purchase Society scenarios for free using gold.

How is gold calculated?
Paizo Plus takes the cart total after all discounts have been applied (but before taxes and shipping) and multiplies that amount by your gold multiplier (1, 1.25, or 1.5). For example, if you buy a hardcover book for $60 and use a $20 off coupon, you’ll earn gold based on the $40 purchase (40, 50, or 60 gold depending on your tier). 

Can I spend the gold I would be earning from a purchase during that purchase? 
No, you can only spend gold after it has been earned. 

How long do I stay in a membership tier? 
When you achieve a new tier, you stay in that tier for 12 months. At the end of 12 months, Paizo Plus recalculates your tier.

When I reach a new tier, do I need to wait a year before I can advance to the next one? 
No, when you reach a higher tier, you will be upgraded, and a new 12-month calculation will begin. 

Do I reach a new tier by accumulating gold or spending money?
Only by spending money. Gold and dollars are two different pools.

Does gold expire?
Yes, after 12 months. You always spend the gold with the closest expiration date first. We’ll send an email to notify you about expiring gold if you’ve opted in to receive emails from us. 

Can I earn gold for past purchases? 
No. Only purchases made after Paizo Plus goes live and you’ve opted in to the program count. You can, however, write reviews for purchases over the last 5 years and earn gold on those reviews.

Will Paizo give away free gold?
That is a distinct possibility if you’re reading our fantastic emails and following us on social media!

What happens if I terminate my account? 
All gold is removed and cannot be returned. 

Can I give gold to a friend? 
No. Gold is for your use only and is limited to your account.

Does gold have any cash value?
No.

Do the discounts offered in Paizo Plus stack with store sale discounts?
No. You’ll receive the single highest discount available.

Sneak Peek of the Store

Here’s a brief look at what the team has been working on in the new store. Still subject to change, of course. Isn’t it pretty?

Concluding the Adventure

We look forward to unveiling the new store and Paizo Plus in the very near future! We're much closer to launch now than we were in my April blog, but we still have some work to complete before we’re ready to announce a specific date. 

Thank you again for your support of Paizo. We look forward to welcoming you to the new store soon!

Good Gaming! 

Jim Butler
Chief Executive Officer

This was, Navasi decided, the third worst date she’d ever been on.

It wasn’t her datemate’s fault this time, though; things had been going pretty well with Pakelia considering they’d met on Shelyn’s Boudoir. Navasi wasn’t usually one for dating apps, but she’d been recommended that one by Quig, of all people. Probably he was just sick of hearing her complain about her disaster of a love life.

So she’d nabbed a reservation at Angelfish, Absalom Station’s hottest new seafood restaurant, and to her surprise, Pakelia turned out to be a real person, not a scambot—and a charming one at that. They’d already moved past small talk by the time their server brought them their menus.

Then everything went to hell.

As another explosion rattled the chandeliers, Navasi tugged Pakelia further into the cover of their overturned table. The verthani woman’s shoulders were a taut line, soot staining the green silk of her dress; her gaze darted around, seeking an exit. They’d been seated in the back corner, and the attackers were between them and the panicked crowd of diners and staff fleeing out the front door.

Navasi glared at the menu lying on the floor by their broken cocktail glasses, its scrolling display of the day’s specials replaced by a sigil of a cat’s paw clutching a scimitar. She knew that sigil. And if Trace was here, it wasn’t because she’d lucked into a table.

As the dust cleared, she heard, “Navasiiiii!” echo from the extemporary exit Trace’s grenade had blown in the wall, and any hope she’d had of Pakelia not identifying her as the target of this chaos evaporated. She glanced over but couldn’t read any emotion in Pakelia’s ink-black eyes.

A hail of electrical bolts singed holes in the wall behind them. That was definitely Trace’s first mate, Arvann. Navasi muttered a word that would have made her childhood etiquette tutor revoke her vidgame privileges for a week and fished her laser pistol out of the thigh holster strapped under her skirt.

“They’re after you?” Pakelia asked, glancing briefly at the gun, then away. Navasi sighed, cursing Trace’s timing. Her lifestyle could be risky, and Pakelia was an accountant, for Besmara’s sake. An accountant she’d inadvertently dropped into a firefight. Oh, I am so not getting a second date.

“Yeah,” she said. “Sorry. It’s… complicated.”

“A soap opera plot is complicated,” Pakelia said. “This is what I’d call a problem.” She peeked over the table. “They’ve got all the exits covered.”

Was it her imagination, or had Pakelia’s posture relaxed?

“Navasi!” Trace’s voice rang out. “Get out here before I ventilate this ceiling!”

“Because you’ve done the décor so many favors already,” Navasi retorted. Disproportionate was the key word for Trace’s reactions to pretty much anything. She’d found it intoxicating, once, before she’d gotten tired of feeling like a moth crisping itself on a flame. She scanned the restaurant for options. Trace’s tendency to bombard first and ask questions later had worked to their advantage in one way, at least; there were plenty of broken chairs and tables to use as cover, and luckily, everyone else seemed to have escaped already.

“Dare I ask?” Pakelia murmured in her ear. The scent of her perfume, floral and subtly sweet, cut through the acrid tang of electricity, and Navasi spared a moment of wistfulness for lost opportunities.

“Don’t date a Free Captain,” she answered. “And if you do date a Free Captain and then break up with them, don’t take a protection job on her route and foil a score she’s been planning for months.”

“Might I suggest,” Pakelia mused, “that perhaps you shouldn’t have let her know who did it?”

“My ship’s pretty distinctive,” Navasi said, wondering if she was imagining the hint of amusement dancing on the edges of Pakelia’s voice. She tilted her head at the panorama windows on the other side of the restaurant, which provided a beautiful view of Jatembe Park below. “Okay. See those windows?” The table shielding them disintegrated, another grenade boom echoing through the air. Navasi grabbed Pakelia’s arm and yanked her away from the wreckage. The two scrabbled toward the next overturned table.

“They’re our exit,” Navasi finished, brushing splinters off her dress. The purple satin was shredded and stained, probably beyond nonmagical repair. “Damn it, Trace!” she yelled over the table. “This dress was expensive!”

“I like your blue one better!” Trace called back. “What happened to the blue one?”

Navasi contemplated taking a deep breath and counting to ten. Instead, she popped up long enough to fire a few warning shots.

“You borrowed it,” she shouted, in between laser blasts, “and spilled nitro fuel on it. Remember?”

“Is that why you broke up?” Pakelia asked.

“No,” Navasi admitted, “but it should have been. Would have saved me some time and trouble.” Trace’s response to that was another grenade. Navasi hissed in surprise as Pakelia slid an arm around her shoulders and swept her along to new cover as their second table met the same splintery fate as the first.

“Is she trying to kill you?” Pakelia asked. As they ducked behind table number three, her knee only narrowly avoided skidding across the remains of someone’s mango shrimp. The question wasn’t incredulous, but neutral, a mere clarification of fact stated in the exact same tone she’d used to ask their server whether the Castrovelian glowfish sauté had nuts in it. She was handling this better than Navasi would have expected.

“Probably not,” she said. Trace had a temper, but she wasn’t that extreme. “If I had to guess, I’d say she just wants to knock us out, steal all our valuables, and call it even.”

“Well,” Pakelia said. “I’m fond of this necklace—and also my skull—so I’d prefer to avoid that.” She inclined her head toward the far wall. “Making a break for the windows it is. I assume you’ve accounted for the main problem?”

“That we’re five stories up?”

“That’s the one.”

“Did you see that tattooed vesk guy out there?”

“I tend to notice people blasting arc emitters at me, yes.”

“He’s got an autograppler on his belt.”

“You want us to fight past your angry ex and her crew, snatch an autograppler off one of them, and then dive out of a five-story window?” Pakelia asked.

“Pakelia,” Navasi began, her stomach sinking. “I’m sorry I—” She wasn’t sure how she planned to end the sentence—ruined our date? have a chaos gremlin of an ex? am totally cursed when it comes to relationships?—but before she could try, Pakelia grinned.

“Sounds fun,” she said, giving Navasi a wink. “I’ll cover you.”

With what? Navasi opened her mouth to say, when Pakelia made a graceful motion, her forearm unfolding to reveal a pistol. She decided to file her many questions away for when they weren’t under attack. Time to go. She stood, pointing at Arvann. “Get him!” she called, aiming a laser blast at his arm to punctuate her directive. She didn’t want to kill any of them, but Arvann was sturdy; he could take a few hits.

Pakelia sidled around the table, shooting off covering fire as Navasi made a dash for the overturned chair closest to the window. Trace’s vertical pupils were narrowed and her fur bristling, her ears pinned back against the top of her head. Oh yeah, she’s mad.

“You got in my way!” Trace hissed. “That score was supposed to set us up for years.”

“I just took a job!” Navasi said. “How was I supposed to know you were the one after that ship?”

“Like it would have changed anything if you’d known!” Trace lobbed another grenade, but this time Navasi dodged out of the way, nearly tripping on the silverware scattered across the floor.

“So what if it didn’t?” Navasi demanded. “You don’t get immunity just because we used to date!”

“I’ll keep that in mind should I decide to get up to anything nefarious!” Pakelia called, executing an impeccable tuck and roll to the table on Navasi’s other side. Her shots stayed perfectly steady throughout the entire maneuver.

“And,” Trace snarled, her pupils retracting to a line, “you still have my favorite Strawberry Machine Cake t-shirt!”

“Seriously? That’s why you’re blowing up the restaurant?”

Giving up on reasoning with Trace, Navasi made a dash toward Arvann. She only got halfway there before Trace’s gyrojet pistol unleashed a rocket, slamming her into the wall. Her dazed mind registered the incongruous view in the security cams—the restaurant’s mural of an angel holding a platter of fried calamari overlain by her in her ruined dress, two elegantly painted wings extending outward behind her—before she fell to the ground. She shook her head unsteadily, then looked up in time to see Arvann raise his arc emitter again.

“Watch out!” she called to Pakelia, but it was too late; his shot struck her in the leg. Pakelia stumbled, muttering a curse in Vercite under her breath.

Illustration by Emanuel Pantaleon:

Oh, that is it. “Leave! My! Date! Alone!” Navasi snapped, scrambling to her feet. She grabbed Pakelia’s wrist, towing her along. Still clumsy from the electrical blast, Pakelia faltered, her ankle turning under her next step.

“Hey,” Navasi said, deciding that getting out of here overrode any concerns about being affectionate during a first (calamitous) date. “He barely grazed you.”

As they ran toward Arvann, she kissed Pakelia on the cheek. The effect was immediate: Pakelia’s gait quickened, the burns on her leg somehow no longer hindering her. This time, Trace’s shot whizzed past them, obliterating an unfortunate potted plant in the corner. Arvann steadied his stance as they neared him, no doubt expecting Navasi to try to bowl him over—

She let go of Pakelia, but she’d needn’t have; her date backflipped right along with her. She snagged the autograppler as Pakelia grabbed one of the overturned chairs and flung it through the window glass. In unison, they swan-dived, Navasi shooting the grappler at the exterior wall and grabbing Pakelia around the waist in one smooth motion.

“Navasi!” she heard Trace snarl. “You’ll regret this!”

“I’ll mail you your shirt!”

The wind rushed past as they dropped, the lights from the surrounding buildings blurring to streaks around them. As soon as the two hit the ground, they both collapsed, sprawling onto the grass. The ceiling’s vid display of a night sky twinkled peacefully above them, in marked contrast with the clusters of bedraggled restaurant patrons and staff gathered on the lawn, patching up minor injuries and calling the Stewards on their comms. In the distance, approaching sirens wailed closer. Navasi knew Trace and her crew would be long gone before they arrived; wiggling out of trouble was what she did best.

Navasi took a deep breath, the adrenaline rush fading from her veins. Replacing it was the sense of warmth radiating from Pakelia beside her…and the newfound certainty that her date was no ordinary accountant. “So,” she said. “Do I get to know why you’ve got a hideaway limb with a gun in it?”

Pakelia smiled. “I think that’s more of a second date conversation, don’t you?”

Second—?

Relief swept through her. Maybe Trace hadn’t ruined everything. Maybe Navasi had found someone who wouldn’t cut and run at the first sign of trouble.

And maybe this date was one of her better ones after all.

“Since seafood’s off the menu,” Navasi said, sliding her hand closer so their little fingers brushed, “I know this great noodle place in Sparks…”

---

About the Author
Kendra Leigh Speedling (she/her) is a frequent contributor to Paizo. Her recent projects include work on Starfinder Galaxy Guide and StarfinderAlien Core, as well as some exciting, yet-to-be announced publications! She has a lifelong love of space, pirates, and space pirates, which made Navasi's little tale here a dream assignment. In addition to her RPG work, she writes fiction, with several published short stories and a novel currently in the agent-querying process. She lives with her partner and their polydactyl cat, Milly, who has a bottomless appetite for shrimpie treats.

About the Iconic
Navasi (she/her) is a female human envoy who gave up her plush upbringing for love and a life of piracy—same old fairy tale—until that life ended. Now she’s wheeling and dealing around the galaxy with her crew, always ready with a directive or well-timed quip. But when talking doesn’t work, she goes in guns blazing.

About Iconic Encounters
Iconic Encounters is a series of web-based flash fiction set in the worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder. Each short story provides a glimpse into the life and personality of one of the games’ iconic characters, showing the myriad stories of adventure and excitement players can tell with the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games.

Learn more about the envoy class in Starfinder Player Core, releasing at Gen Con 2025, on paizo.com, and at your friendly local game store! Be the first to play Starfinder Second Edition by subscribing to the Starfinder RPG or Starfinder RPG (Special Edition) lines and receive a free PDF when your book ships!

As many of you know, Diamond Comic Distributors declared bankruptcy on January 14th. Hundreds of game publishers, including Paizo, have partnered with Diamond to sell their products into the book trade (Barnes & Noble, Ingram, Booktopia, and others). Diamond has also sold Pathfinder and Starfinder into Amazon for us.

Paizo has stopped shipping products to Diamond. This means that our August releases will not be widely available at major bookstores or on Amazon. While these sites will likely continue to list products for sale or preorder, most orders for these titles will not be able to be fulfilled. To stay up to date with your collection, please stop by your favorite local game store and ask them to order our upcoming releases, purchase them directly here on paizo.com, or sign up for one of our subscriptions.

We expect Pathfinder and Starfinder products to remain unavailable through book trade channels for several months as Paizo determines our next steps and this matter works its way through the bankruptcy court. The best thing you can do to help Paizo and the 100+ publishers caught up in the Diamond bankruptcy is to order from them directly or go to your local game store and ask them to preorder upcoming releases so you’ll have them on launch day.

Here are the Paizo products impacted for August and September.

August Releases (available July 31st)

• Starfinder Player Core
• Starfinder Player Core Retail Edition
• Starfinder Player Core Special Edition
• Starfinder Combat Pad
• Starfinder Murder in Metal City Deluxe Adventure
• Starfinder Infinity Deck Card game
• Era of the Eclipse, A Starfinder Novel (hardcover)

• Pathfinder Battlecry!
• Pathfinder Battlecry! Sketch Edition
• Pathfinder Battlecry! Special Edition
• Pathfinder Adventure Path #217: Death Sails a Wine-Dark Sea (Myth-Speaker 2 of 3)
• Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Siege

September Releases (available September 3rd)

• Starfinder GM Core
• Starfinder GM Core Special Edition
• Starfinder GM Core Retailer Edition
• Starfinder Galaxy Guide Pocket Edition
• Starfinder Player Character Folio
• Starfinder Flip-Mat: Garage Warehouse

• Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Command Center
• Pathfinder Treasure Vault (Remastered) Pocket Edition
• Pathfinder Game Night: Dawn of the Frogs (Deluxe Adventure)
• Pathfinder Adventure Path #218: Titanbane (Myth-Speaker 3 of 3)

As always, thank you for your ongoing support of Paizo!

Jim Butler
Chief Executive Officer

Hail and well met, ‘Finders! This month’s new releases entice you into mysterious gates, map the Shining Kingdoms, and welcome new heroes to Iblydos!

A reminder – the scenarios listed here are June’s scenarios, which released last Wednesday, June 25th! As we have shifted our physical product release to the first Wednesday of the month, we will be highlighting the digital releases from the previous month moving forward!

Never miss a release with our Paizo Subscriptions—for everything from rulebooks to accessories! Subscribers get a free PDF with purchase, early access to game content, and exclusive discounts on paizo.com!

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Pathfinder Adventure Path: Gatewalkers Compilation

GO BEYOND THE GATE!

On the night of the Missing Moment, thousands stepped through portals across Golarion, seemingly against their will. These so-called gatewalkers returned with strange, paranormal powers but no memory of where they had gone. Can the heroes unravel the mystery of the Missing Moment before the source of their newfound power consumes them? This hardcover compilation includes all three adventures of the Gatewalkers Adventure Path, a worlds-spanning, mind-bending campaign for 1st- to 10th-level characters.

Gatewalkers is available in standard hardcover, Special Edition faux-leatherette bound hardcover, and PDF formats, as well as a deluxe Foundry VTT module!

Pathfinder Adventure Path #216: The Acropolis Pyre (Myth-Speaker 1 of 3)

BECOME THE LEGEND!

The port of Bailax hosts lavish funeral games for a recently deceased hero, inviting all to compete for prizes and glory. When the adventurers investigate an ominous omen that interrupts the festivities, what they find won’t just transform them into mythic hero-gods, but will also incite Bailax to violent revelry and arson. Can the new hero-gods save the city from self-destruction? The Myth-Speaker Adventure Path begins with “The Acropolis Pyre,” a complete adventure for 1st- to 3rd-level characters.

The Acropolis Pyre is also available as a deluxe Foundry VTT module.

Pathfinder Lost Omens Shining Kingdoms Map Archive

YOUR GUIDE TO THE KINGDOMS!

The Lost Omens Shining Kingdoms Poster Map Archive presents seven huge, lavishly illustrated double-sided full-color poster maps depicting important cities and the Shining Kingdoms region. With this map archive, your adventures can take you to the port city of Augustana, the mercantile hub of Kerse, the temple-caverns of Larrad, the post-rebellion rebuilding of Isarn, the magic-infused Iadara, and the opulent metropolis of Oppara.

Presented in a durable box for easy storage and retrieval, the Shining Kingdoms Poster Map Archive charts the path to endless adventures in the Shining Kingdoms or any fantasy RPG campaign!

Pathfinder Deck of Endless Treasure

Fill any magic shop or dragon’s hoard with ease using the Deck of Endless Treasure! Draw and combine any four cards from this deck to generate a brand-new magic item ready for play, each with its own distinct powers, quirks, and story hooks. With over 100 million possible combinations, you’ll never be without a unique treasure for your game!

Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Districts Multi-Pack

TAKE IT TO THE STREETS!

Big, crowded cities teem with adventure, so give your players something to see while they’re out and about the town. This Flip-Mat Multi-Pack shows a street view of four different districts in a fantasy metropolis, each with busy intersections, persuasive vendors, and danger in the alleys waiting to prey on those who walk the streets. When you need a good city scene in your adventures, Pathfinder Flip-Mat: City Districts Multi-Pack has you covered!

Starfinder Flip-Mat: Cityscapes Multi-Pack

IT ALL HAPPENS IN THE CITY!

Starfinder Flip-Mat: Cityscape Multi-Pack includes two double-sided tactical maps, with each map face depicting a different district in a sprawling futuristic city! One side features a modern city square with holographic displays. Another presents a maze of crisscrossing alleyways and rooftops perfect for intrigue. A third offers a residential district and major apartment complex, while the fourth side unveils the heart of a vibrant commercial district, with a maglev station to serve as the perfect departure point for any number of destinations and adventures. The ideal maps for any futuristic or near-modern game, this set has you covered for almost any urban encounter!

Pathfinder Society Scenario #6-18: Symposium on a Fallen God

A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for 3rd- through 6th-level characters.

Taldor responded to the Godsrain, the death of the war god Gorum, with an attempt to draw in the finest minds in magical study. They've invited scholars from across Golarion to attend a symposium on the Godsrain and the warshards, pieces of Gorum fallen from the sky, and the Pathfinder Society has decided to present their findings from some unique warshards they recovered in hopes of gaining insight from others across the world. The Aspis Consortium, though, finds this an excellent opportunity to gain valuables in the theft of research materials and to harm the Pathfinders by framing them for the theft. The Pathfinders must deal with the Aspis and clear their names lest they leave the symposium not with new knowledge but with a reputation dragged through the mud.

Pathfinder Society Scenario #6-19: What Walks Again

A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for 11th- through 14th-level characters.

Strange earthquakes have been rocking the small town of Pimatsih in Sarkoris, and it seems to coincide with the arrival of Hesla Embersplitter and her newest acquisition: Riftcarver, the scythe that was once wielded by Deskari, the demon lord who ripped open the Worldwound. As the PCs arrive to investigate and help secure the town, a demonic incursion begins, and they must work to help bring the Sarkorians together to keep the town and its inhabitants safe. However, lurking behind the horde, the Split Ember has made the Lord of Locusts walk again, and he turns his hungry gaze and maw toward the Pathfinders.

Pathfinder Society Quest (Series 2) #25: The Greengold Dilemma

A Pathfinder Society Quest designed for 1st- through 4th-level characters, playable in 2-3 hours.

Greengold, a port city within the elven nation of Kyonin, is recovering from a disaster, and this gives the Pathfinder the perfect opportunity to set up a lodge within the Elven nation. To do so, though, they must convince some of the leaders and most important people within the Elven nation. The Society has sent a team of its leadership to handle these negotiations, but they've also sent some newer agents to help make an impression of the potential training with the Society can provide. Of course, the Aspis Consortium, longtime enemies of the Pathfinders, have been trying to make inroads in Greengold, and some overzealous agents decide that the PCs would make excellent targets.

From Our Partners:

Our partners at Archives of Nethys, Demiplane, Fantasy Grounds, Hero Lab Online, and Roll20* are dropping new content this month as well! Buy your PDF on paizo.com to get a discount via the PaizoConnect API. Or pay full price on their platforms, sync your account, and get a complimentary PDF on the Paizo Store.

*Roll20 is no longer a part of PaizoConnect, and discounts and complimentary PDFs do not apply.

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It was with supreme regret that Ulka concluded the younger Blackjackets were looking at her with admiration. Not a revelation she wanted to have on the battlefield, especially while splattered with ghoul blood. She grimaced and wiped the flecks of crimson sludge off her arm, tinting streaks of her green skin black. The length of her polearm usually kept the mess at bay, but these rotbags were full of more fluids than she was used to, and they tended to burst.

It would take hours of scrubbing to kill any chance of an undead infection, and Lake Encarthan’s waters were probably just as tainted as the battlefield she stood on. Hell on a pike. Where? Where had she gone wrong? The Blackjackets were infamous for their loyalty to Druma and nothing else, and their masters knew the worth of that devotion. High pay, respect and prestige, the best equipment and training, pressed and fitted uniforms made of sturdy cloth, and thick leather boots to ward off the mud. The fashion wasn’t to Ulka’s taste, but she couldn’t complain about the quality. Not even Andoran’s army provided their irregulars with anything close. The skinflints in Druma even managed to keep a decent supply line running, and the Blackjacket’s civilian caravan had done a solid job of handling logistics...

The caravan! Screw the gods sideways, that was it, wasn’t it? She and her regulars just had to barge to the rescue when those shadowy forms had descended upon the civilian caravan. Dammit, dammit, dammit! She just had to look the hero, didn't she? She just had to feel a twinge in her black, shriveled lump of a heart at the thought of families and children getting slaughtered by something they couldn’t even touch! Ulka hated the fact civilians were even out here to begin with, but it was inevitable with mercenary groups this large. The fighters weren’t patriots, you couldn’t convince them to put up with the lonely hardships of a mere soldier.

Why did it have to be shadows? The caravan might not have needed her help against zombies or skeletons. They had a bold few who’d put up a resistance—Ulka made a mental note to circle around to that sullen little dwarven fletcher when this mess was done—but what could knitting needles and laundry lines do against something with no flesh?

Ugh, had she saved someone's husband? A daughter? That wasn’t the kind of devotion she could scare off with her usual tactic of being brutish and blunt. The very last thing she needed was more fresh-faced, bright-eyed whelps deciding they wanted to run along at her heels. From a moral standpoint, they weren’t that much better than the undead they were fighting. War camp hangers-on tended to be the kind of people who would smash in a dying widow’s nose in the rush to loot her family jewel box. But they were still people, and people always made things messy. She’d hear them sing songs around the campfire, watch them toss treats to the dogs, see one dance a little jig with his son. They’d save her the prime cuts of bacon at breakfast, ply her with bottles of Belkzen gin. They’d laugh at her stern grumbles and idle threats. They’d likeher. They’d rush to save her on the battlefield and take an arrow straight to the throat.

Ulka ground her teeth against the back of her tusks. There was still a fight to be won.

She let out a howl that ripped across the battlefield, an undulating cry that an Andoren soldier had likened to a shepherd’s call sung by a wolf. Her scattered soldiers marched up, spears out, to form up around her in the brackish muck.

“These ghouls want flesh?” she yelled. “Rip their damned feet off their damned legs and cram them down their damned throats!” Her soldiers laughed as they charged into the fray, like the rotten rat bastards that they were.

Ulka followed behind them, assessing the situation. Barring reinforcements from the lake, the battle wasn’t likely to last much longer. The Tyrant might have unfathomable horrors at his command, but those weren’t here. These were nothing more than offal Tar-Baphon had thrown at a hapless village to clear out space in his barracks. Her mercenaries and the Blackjackets would obliterate them, along with anything else unfortunate enough to be in the vicinity.

Though perhaps not without casualties. There was a sudden roar from somewhere out on the water, as one of the stilted houses nearby exploded into flames. The shockwave sent the seasoned warriors onto the wrong foot; even Ulka stumbled. A minor error, speaking to their military discipline, yet the dead were not so easily stunned. The ghouls pounced.

Ulka gave a shrill whistle, using her polearm to gesture to the caravan behind her. “Artillery fire! Retreat inland!” she commanded. That had almost certainly been a volley from one of the Tyrant's skeletal warships, not that Ulka could see far enough in this quadruple-damned sunlight to confirm. May Sarenrae find a dead rat in her most holy breakfast. If Ulka ever met the goddess, she'd pluck that sunbird like a pheasant and string her up in the larder.

The ghouls loped into the Blackjacket front lines as the soldiers began to fall back, rusted blades and rotting nails seeking gaps in their targets' armor. A Blackjacket youth stepped wrong in the loose earth, stumbling as the reedy grass caused his boot to slip. Ulka stepped up beside the man—a boy, in truth—and, in a single smooth motion, swung her polearm up in an arc that ripped through the ground. She ran on swift, simple instinct, the kind that must be earned if one wanted to ply the trade of war and live past twenty. It came with enough force to rip the ghoul’s legs clean off its torso.

Ulka cleaves a ghoul in two. Art by Pixoloid Studios

Ulka snorted as the disparate pieces thudded into the ground, baring her teeth and lowering her spear. A quick glance to the side confirmed her fears. The youth wasn’t just looking at her admiringly anymore. His gaze had gone past awe and settled just on the wrong side of devotion.

The orc snarled up at the quintuple-damned sunny sky, where she could only imagine the gods were laughing at her. “I'll hang the lot of you for this,” she mumbled.

Eleanor Ferron (she/her)
Senior Developer

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Rally your troops and prepare for war alongside Ulka Oathshriek at hellfirecrisis.com! Subscribe to the Pathfinder Rulebook Subscription to be among the first to join the ranks with Pathfinder Battlecry!

Greetings, Starfinders!

Time flies in the Drift, huh? It seems like just yesterday we released two new classes for you to play around with, and it’s already past time for a wrap up! The Starfinder Second Edition tech class playtest featuring the mechanic and technomancer formally concluded on May 30th. Since then, the Starfinder team has been eagerly and diligently reading every word that’s been submitted on the playtest surveys. And remember: even though the playtest is over, you can still use the playtest mechanic and playtest technomancer until the two classes are officially released, including in Starfinder Society Organized Play.

Illustration by Pixoloid Studios

The mechanic was overall a hit, but we have some tune-ups planned for the class before the final release. We noticed players had trouble using mines and turrets when fighting flying enemies and in zero gravity environments, so we’re looking into ways to make them a little more three-dimensionally compatible. Many players were confused about how and when turrets can be repaired, deployed, and deactivated and we will be looking into options to make sure that if your turret is stolen by a disgruntled enemy, you can still participate in the fight to retrieve your little buddy. We are also looking into sprucing up mods, potentially opening ways to affect allies’ weapons and making mods last a little longer, but we need to run more internal testing before we can make any promises!

Technomancer requires some significant changes to make the class easier to play, less action starved, and add in more class features they can use with technology. We are currently looking at retooling Overclock Gear, perhaps combining it with more versatile Magic Hacks to highlight each programming language’s gear and shifting the focus of some of its class features away from spellshapes. We are also introducing minions called minibots you can purchase with credits as early as level 1. Minibots can help adventurers of any class with simple tasks, like recording video or carrying a single small item.

These are just a few of the potential changes we’re planning to test out internally. We’ve had a blast reading your feedback and hearing about your playtest experiences. Thanks again for your participation in the Starfinder tech class playtest!

—The Starfinder Team

“Victory is the outcome of a divine equation whose clauses are simple to solve for: which side has the greater skill; what side has the greater force(s); who has the advantage of position; which side is more disciplined; for whom are the consequences of failure greater. To the more favored goes the victory.”
—The Lost Sage

THE RESERVE, NOW

By the time the transport’s wake lights up the drop off point, Obozaya’s already disappeared into the trees.

The pilot—a former squad-mate named Sozulak from her cadet days— had clicked his tongue against his teeth in amusement but kept his peace when she commissioned the flight. She read the smug superiority in the way he tilted his head, and while it irked her, expending energy on anything but her mission was a foolish waste.

The angry buzzing of the ship breaking atmo gives way to the deceptively gentle hum of semi-sentient flora and megafauna deeper in the jungle, and Obozaya can’t help the shiver of anticipation that ripples through her.

She has 12 hours before Solzulak returns. First order of business for the hunt is evening the playing field.

She allows herself to be fully armed as she digs the hole, deep and even with sides reinforced with thick branches she collected around the perimeter of the rendezvous. But when that is done, off come the weapons and armor, until she is left in cloth barely thick enough to keep the cold from stiffening her joints, and a doshko made for vesk who still had their egg-teeth.

Next, setting up the endgame.

The mechanism is as elegant as it is simple, though setting up the tripwire is difficult. The chill of the damp twilight air makes her feel sluggish. It galls her a bit, but she has to admit to herself that she has become accustomed to temperature-controlled environments. This operation, beyond being a tying up of loose ends, is a good reminder to work on lapsed training.

Finally, the seeds of victory are sown, and all there is left is to wait.

THE RESERVE, THEN

A hunter’s moon crawling with bred and imported monsters from across the known galaxy, the Reserve was legend to all vesk.

Though hazing was officially frowned upon, any cadet wanting to come into active service with some glory to their name was welcome to face the wilderness for 12 hours. Surviving meant well-earned bragging rights, and Obozaya Ymeros’s secret visions of being a battle saint were enough to make up for any holes in her armor.

The rules were simple: walk into the jungle and survive until rendezvous, with just your doshko and your wits.

When Obozaya took her turn, it was the wet season.

As soon as the transport was clear, Obozaya ran into the clearing, shouting as hard as her lungs will allow. The rain was coming down hard enough that she worried maybe nothing would hear her call, but within less than 20 minutes it was clear her worries were unfounded.

A whiskered renkroda—female and young but large and vibrating with aggression—leapt from a nearby tree without preamble and nearly knocked Obozaya’s head off. Pivoting toward the change in heat above her, the vesk cadet’s foot slipped in the mud and the claws meant to kill only gouged, and ripped away a small horn.

Bleeding and surprised, Obozaya was still a lethal warrior. She managed to slice the beast across the face with her weapon, opening a wound that swallowed one of its eyes.

The renkroda was like a demon possessed, and Obozaya was nowhere close to being a battle saint. The fighting went on for an hour in the rain, felling trees and obliterating rocks in the fury of their clash, and Obozaya was forced to do something she had never even considered before: retreat.

The beast was not done with Obozaya though, and stalked her for hours, slashing and bleeding her at every turn, until all the vesk could do was use the remains of what must have once been a supply drop to barricade herself into a cave and wait for pick up.

The renkroda paced back and forth in front of the barricade, pawing at the debris and huffing aggressively. Obozaya was dead sure it would break in, but as the moon set, they locked eyes, and after a few tense moments, the beast snorted and loped away.

When the transport came, though she technically achieved her directive, Obozaya felt that she had left whatever honor she brought with her down on the surface of the hunter’s moon.

The bitter truth of the Lost Sage’s words echoed in her mind: To taste of victory, first you must dine on defeat.

THE RESERVE, NOW

Obozaya makes a fire and breaks out her rations. She takes a long, deep breath.

Closing her eyes, she reminds herself of the soldier’s guiding principle. For a warrior, the composure of the spirit and the calm of the mind should never be disturbed by the passions of the body.

When the food is done, and she has stretched her muscles loose, Obozaya stands, cracking her knuckles, and takes up her simple doshko.

Her voice is exponentially louder now as she bellows into the night. Just like the first time she set foot on the Reserve, she does not have to wait long until her call is answered.

A horrible hissing growl is all the warning she gets before a shadow descends from the trees, quick as a lightning strike.

THE RESERVE, THEN

While it wasn’t unheard of for a soldier to return for a go at the Reserve, it was incredibly rare, and always as a sort of confirmation of purpose to the Empire.

When Obozaya returned, it was barely more than a week after taking her Soldier’s Due, bristling with wounded pride and armed to the teeth with the best gear she could afford.

Plasma doshko in hand, bandoleers of incendiary and frag grenades on her armored chest, magnetar rifle slung across her back, she was a vision of righteous vengeance. And if her roar of challenge wavered in the middle, it must have been a trick of the wind.

The renkroda that appeared was huge and bold. It prowled into the clearing and met her gaze with one remaining eye.

Obozaya grinned and readied her weapon; she knew this beast. “Glad to know it’s personal for us both.”

The renkroda lunged and they fought bitterly, splintering trees and chipping rocks. This time though, it was the renkroda who ran, having suffered the loss of a talon and the tip of its tail.

Obozaya was relentless in her pursuit, lobbing incendiary grenades to force its path back towards her, shooting into its hide with her rifle to try and slow it down. She set the jungle on fire with her fury and her weapons, showing no mercy.

In the end, the renkroda, exhausted and gravely wounded, could do nothing but lie panting on the ground. Standing over her prey, Obozaya raised her humming doshko high, catching her reflection in the creature’s single, frightened eye.

Backlit by the fires raging around them, Obozaya looked to herself like a terrible demon towering over a helpless lesser being; it stopped her cold. The words of the Lost Sage came to her mind then: The honor of an action is directly weighed against the cost of that action—with great difficulty comes great honor. No honor can be gotten from ill-intentioned action.

“There is no honor here.”

And, shaking her head, Obozaya gently lowered her doshko.

THE RESERVE, NOW

Claws strike metal, throwing sparks into the air.

Teeth close around flesh, tearing skin and muscle, just missing shearing bone.

Heavy bodies thud together with enough force to uproot trees.

They lock up for what feels like days, titans of war, and when they come together, the sound of it is like thunder. Their battle rips through the trees and rolls over hills, until they reach the dark heart of the jungle.

When they separate, Obozaya understands there is something different about the renkroda. It has the same scarred face, the same scattering of marks where bullets bit into its side, same stunted tail. But there is a nervous frantic energy to the beast now. The renkroda puffs up its body, lunging and retreating, as if to drive Obozaya back towards the path they had carved through the trees—to drive the vesk away.

The trap Obozaya laid earlier was behind the beast, though, and while the soldier was enjoying herself this time around, it was time to bring the game to a close.

“Sorry, girl.”

Straightening to her full height, Obozaya lets out an almost joyful, if menacing, laugh. With a high-pitched scream, the renkroda skitters backwards. Then it turns and runs away at full speed.

“Three, two, one—”

Thwup!

The snare stops the renkroda so fast it runs in mid-air for a whole second.

Stretching a kink out of her shoulder, Obozaya approaches the swinging, shrieking animal. It sounds furious, hissing and swiping at the vesk as she stands just out of reach.

“You let me get you at the end there, didn’t you? Are you tired of the game?”

The renkroda pants, glaring with its one eye, but seems to calm down as Obozaya walks around it.

“Interesting.”

Obozaya walks back around, and the beast howls again, swiping at her, then attempting to lunge and bite through its own feet to escape the snare.

“Huh…”

Looking around, Obozaya sees that just to her left is a felled tree, as big around as she is tall, with a hollow sizable enough to crawl in. She crouches down beside it to peer in, and the renkroda goes berserk.

The soldier has an idea of what she’ll find inside, and she is not surprised to see a clutch of half a dozen eggs.

Looking back at the bucking and screaming renkroda, Obozaya can’t help but chuckle and shake her head.

The nest was well hidden enough that she had missed seeing it when she set up the trap. Incredible.

Obozaya doesn’t hesitate. With a heavy sigh, she walks around to the far side of the trapped beast, avoiding its wild claw strikes as she raises her doshko and prepares to strike.

Bzzzz!

Her doshko buzzes as she swings and severs the line stretched taut above the renkroda.

She backs away as the renkroda lands on her clawed feet. The predator glares back at Obozaya and hisses, but she’s no longer attacking. She’s limping to her eggs. The two predators acknowledge that this is a ceasefire.

“Next time.”

When Solzulak picks Obozaya up, he is relentless about mocking her lack of trophy.

Once again, the words of the Lost Sage come to her mind: The songs that are sung of us are what others claim to know about us, but the honor we gain when no one watches is what we know of ourselves.

Obozaya says nothing as they shoot up and out among the stars. That she knows is enough.

“There is no smooth nor easy path to the peak of the mountain known as Honor.”
—The Lost Sage

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About the Author
Vita Ayala (they/them) is a trans non-binary Afro-Puerto Rican writer born and bred in New York City, where they grew up dreaming dreams of dancing on far away worlds, fighting monsters on the block, and racing fish along the bottom of the sea.

Vita writes both comics and prose fiction, and has written for publishers such as: Abrams (Song of the Lioness: Alanna), Black Mask Studios (The Wilds), DC (Static), Image Comics (Finders//Keepers), Marvel (New Mutants), Vault Comics (Submerged), and more!

About the Iconic
Obozaya (she/her) is a female vesk soldier who protects her allies with big guns, heavy armor, and her menacing presence. She’s never afraid to swap to her doshko and go one-on-one with an enemy whenever honor demands.

About Iconic Encounters
Iconic Encounters is a series of web-based flash fiction set in the worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder. Each short story provides a glimpse into the life and personality of one of the games’ iconic characters, showing the myriad stories of adventure and excitement players can tell with the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games.

"Learn more about the soldier class in Starfinder Player Core, releasing at Gen Con 2025, on paizo.com, and at your friendly local game store! Be the first to play Starfinder Second Edition by subscribing to the Starfinder RPG or Starfinder RPG (Special Edition) lines and receive a free PDF when your book ships!"

Greetings, players! In today’s blog we’d like to take a moment to recognize our talented freelance authors who contributed to the final batch of Starfinder Society (First Edition) scenarios. Some of these authors have been writing for us for years, while others saw their names in print for the very first time! No matter what, this era of Starfinder might be ending, but I’m sure it won’t be the final time you see their names.

Alex Speidel
Convention and Organized Play Manager

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Jenny Jarzabski (she/her/xe)

SFS1 #7-02: Zo! vs. Zo

This adventure started out as a conversation in Starfinder team chat. We knew we wanted to create an adventure starring Zo!, so we started brainstorming potential themes and hooks. My colleague Dustin has always wondered about a specific detail of the Starfinder setting: Why does the undead celebrity Zo! share a name with the magnificent Triaxian port city of Zo? Is it coincidence, or some deeper lore? This question was on his mind as we tossed out weird ideas for another televised adventure.

Eventually, he brought it up.

And the rest is history.

Beyond this wacky conversation, my inspiration for Zo! vs. Zo included too many hours of Judge Judy, listening to a friend’s retellings of Ace Attorney games, and simply imagining what a TV court drama would look like on a planet with real dragons and semi-legal combat between residents. Triaxus (the planet) has lots of high fantasy themes, so I started thinking about what a typical fantasy concept like trial by combat would be like in Starfinder. I decided literal legal battles would probably be fought by combat lawyers hired to represent their clients. From that, another idea formed: What if the player characters act as Zo!’s combat lawyers in his legal case against the city? I thought that sounded truly outrageous, so that’s how I designed the adventure. If you’d like to experience more of my work, my favorites are Mechageddon!, a Starfinder First Edition Adventure Path about playing a squad of mech pilots defending their home world from kaiju, and A Cosmic Birthday, a Starfinder Second Edition adventure about surviving a disaster on Absalom Station. You can also check out Starfinder Second Edition, launching now with StarfinderGalaxy Guide!

Katrina Hennessy (she/they)

SFS1 #7-06: Archives of Eternity

I am thrilled to have once again contributed to Starfinder Society adventures with 7-06:Archives of Eternity. I am also, as ever, grateful for the wonderful team who took my submission and improved it in so many ways. It is always amazing to see the art that is produced, as well as what the development and editing teams contribute. This was my first time designing a map, and the difference between what I submitted and the full art version was astounding. Metaplot adventures have their own challenges and bring their own joys. It is fun to be part of a bigger storyline while also writing a complete and independent adventure. Trying to think like and design for an alien culture that I don’t know or understand pushed my creativity. I look forward to the possibility of contributing to the new campaign when the time is right. Happy gaming everyone.

Kendra Leigh Speedling (she/her)

SFS1 #7-08: Envar’s Awesome Rescue

Hello, all! I’m Kendra Leigh Speedling, frequent contributor to Paizo. For Starfinder Society this year, I got to return to everyone’s favorite(?) disaster influencer, Envar Tamm, in SFS #7-08: Envar’s Awesome Rescue! Envar’s been plaguingdelighting the Society for a while; my first outing with him was in 5-12: Envar’s Expeditions, and it was fun to see how he’s grown (or not, sometimes!) over the years. I do have a soft spot for the guy, even when his judgment is questionable. My favorite parts of Envar’s Awesome Rescue are 1) Envar critiquing the kidnappers’ ransom note and 2) a certain encounter where the scenario’s villain goes old school damsel-tied-to-railroad-tracks on Envar’s poor body double. The scenario was a blast to work on, and I hope you all have enjoyed playing it as much as I did writing it.

I also got to co-write 7-11: Breaking the Crucible, where Starfinder agents have to stop a group of Hellknights from carrying out terrible experiments against a captive population, which brought back some familiar faces as well! Finally, I helped out with development on 7-09 through 7-14, and it was fun to work on things from the dev side for once. The authors for those all did a fantastic job, giving First Edition Starfinder Society a fitting sendoff!

If you’re interested in seeing more about my upcoming projects (and sometimes cat photos), you can follow me on BlueSky @kendrarara.bsky.social.

Matt Duval (he/him)

SFS1 #7-09: Clutches of the Vault Lord

Back in 2019 when Thurston asked me to work on Future’s Fall I had no idea it would turn into me writing a multi-adventure tale, and I’m so grateful that he and Jessica let me be a part of it. I have so much admiration for Tom Phillips’ iconic Gloomspires story and this felt like getting to do my own echo of that.

Clutches of the Vault Lord pulls together all the threads and characters of Salvation’s End in one climactic confrontation with the tyrant. There are callbacks to almost every NPC we’ve met along the way, more mishaps and bizarre vault experiments, a singing and dancing living cartoon complete with theme song, and a final(?) clash with the Vault Lord. I hope the adventure captures all the wacky, imaginative sci-fi we’ve come to expect from Salvation’s End while giving the Starfinders a chance to demonstrate their heroism against a classic villain who delights in their own wickedness. And if that villain leaves no trace of a body in their last moment, rest assured the echoing laughter you hear is only in your imagination…

If you’d like to see more of my work, the Pathfinders get to thwart Hellknight schemes this August in Pathfinder Society Intro to the Year of Battle’s Spark—Enough is Enough!

I’m online on Bluesky at sleepyfelixthecat.bsky.social.

Solomon St. John (any)

SFS1 #7-10: Rasheen’s Requiem

Howdy folks. The name’s Solomon St. John—Sol to my friends, any pronouns are fine—and, in addition to being Paizo’s editing lead for both Starfinder and Pathfinder Society, this season I got to write Starfinder Society Scenario 7-10: Rasheen’s Requiem. Helping wrap up a storyline that’s been running since season one felt like a satisfying send-off to the first edition, even though there were half-a-dozen scenarios to edit between it and the true finale.

I’m always excited when I get to use my obscure master’s degree (in “Northern Studies,” a multidisciplinary cultural studies program from the University of Alaska) on the job, which I got with 7-10—the frontier settlement of Requiem Falls is essentially a sci-fi twist on Alaskan bush communities. The NPCs you meet there, Elarora and Naeyri, are likewise amalgamations of a few people I knew while living in Fairbanks, with some science-fantasy twists. The “razor roc” on the cover, meanwhile, is only loosely based on the birds up there, who will fight you but are thankfully much smaller.

My next adventure, Starfinder Society Scenario #1-02: Mystery of the Frozen Moon premiers at GenCon at the end of July with the rest of the Starfinder Society Second Edition kick-off; as you can probably guess from the name, that one also takes some cues from my degree, but you’ll have to wait to find out exactly what. 

For more of my upcoming and personal work (and photos of my three cats), you can find me on BlueSky @stjohnsol.bsky.social.

Brent Bowser (he/they)

SFS1 #7-12: Those Who Call

Writing the finale to the season 7 metaplot, #7-12: Those Who Call, was exciting and flattering, but also stressful because I knew I had to really stick the landing. Sarmak, Kinpopo, and Hope-01 have been active participants in the players adventures, more so than the usual quest giver or escort NPC, so I wanted to make them feel like a part of the story while not taking spotlight and agency away from the players.

I wrote Those Who Call to be like a multitable special. I wanted players to choose their adventure and feel the impact of the other team of Starfinders on the mission. I also wanted it to feel like an action movie with a high sense of urgency and mustache-twirling evil villains melodramatically monologuing. 

My favorite part of the scenario was designing the factory itself. They say write what you know, so I may have brought a sense of soullessness to a corporate military industrial complex. It’s fine. I’m fine. Everything’s fine. I’m fine. Hopefully the setting reinforced just how evil the First Ones are. If you’ve not played yet, I recommend tackling the Logistics and Planning room.

When I’m not writing for Starfinder or managing IT projects, I perform stand-up and improv comedy. My debut stand up special, I Think I Get It Now, is on my youtube channel @BrentBowser1337. And let me know what you think of The Swarm in Starfinder Alien Core.

BlueSky & Threads

Kia Ora everyone! We are pleased to announce PaizoCon South Pacific 2025!

It’s been a while since New Zealand hosted the event, with the previous event being in Matamata in 2017 (Hobbiton!). This year we’re hosting PaizoCon South Pacific from September 5–7, 2025 at the Don Rowlands Centre, Lake Karapiro.

We’re running the second editions of both Pathfinder and Starfinder along with two multi-table special scenarios. We intend to begin GM signups in July, with player signups following in August on Warhorn.

To keep up-to-date with event details as they’re announced, head over to our Discord server or inquire via email. Announcements will also be posted on our Facebook event page.

Net sale proceeds from the event go toward conservation of the kākāpō, a critically endangered bird native to New Zealand.

See you there!

“Hey. You up?”

Chk Chk’s antenna vibrated as he sent a telepathic message to the group. He could have sensed Dae and Obozaya through their linked vitals, but the whirl of the protection-class security robot’s gripper arm demanded his focus. One moment he’d been chattering with Dae while feeling for secret panels and inscriptions along the wall. The next thing he knew, a robot was waving mechanical pincers in his face.

Chk Chk drew his painglaive and repositioned himself further down the cramped corridor, away from the door. He wasn’t ready for another battle. There had been no time to rest since Dae blasted the last of the swarm of observer-class security robots that had chased them through the (allegedly) abandoned space station’s corridors. Less than a minute ago, Obozaya had slammed the butt of her rifle against an escape pod’s electronic lock. Percussive maintenance, she’d said. Then the wall popped open and revealed two robots nestled among the wiring—dormant, then jerking to life. Now one robot blocked Chk Chk’s view of his friends with its hulking white chassis.

He stepped back and thrust the painglaive between the machine and his body. The robot’s gripper rhythmically spread and shut, a blunt claw smooth and heavy with thousands of pounds of reserved force. Reserved for his delicate bones. His heel hit a wall, bending polymer with his weight. Not stable enough to push off from, but solid enough to pin him as that claw came for his throat.

“Chk Chk, you can’t ask that! What will my fans think if this chat leaks?” Dae’s lighthearted response interrupted as he dodged to the side and away from the attack. Suddenly Dae cut the theatrics: “I’m up. Obo’s not.”

The answer was obvious once Chk Chk took a second to scan their interconnected vital signs. Dae pulsed with the rise and fall of the sun, while Obozaya’s vitality signs had dulled and slowed. Still alive, but unconscious and wounded. He focused on Obozaya—and the claw crushed his shoulder.

He tried to pull away, but it held tight and squeezed. Pain exploded and pulsed down his upper arm. The robot stopped crunching his carapace and raised him into the air. The mechanical groans deepened with the effort of lifting him, but his path up remained smooth and constant. As his feet left the ground, he kicked wildly at the robot’s metal chassis, hoping to break something. Even in danger, the grunts of the machine reminded him of a deep bass line somebody could dance to. Before he knew it, his foot was kicking in time to the beat.

The pain in his shoulder escalated every moment the claw grabbed him, spiking when he swung in its grasp. A crunch came from his back. He screamed.

“Chk Chk!” screamed Dae’s outside voice. Their pitch warbled higher and louder than normal, as though they were moving toward them from far away at incredible speed.

And they were!

Dae flew across the tiled floor at the speed of a meteorite impact, crashing down in a halo of sparks and broken tile. Their sun-etched arm slammed into the robot’s back. Hydraulics released with a hiss as Dae dragged it backward in an explosion of gravity, ripping the air around Chk Chk and popping the sensors in all his auxiliary antennae at once. The claw opened. Chk Chk fell. He grabbed for a pipe jutting from the wall and missed, scrabbling at smooth metal with his own weak claw, another keeping hold of his weapon.

He landed on his back and floundered for a moment. If Dae kept this footage, he swore he’d delete this scene later. But he was out of the robot’s agonizing grip, and at last he could help. Obozaya, slumped in her armor, draped over the twitching body of the other robot. Dae ripped the arm that had just crushed Chk Chk’s shoulder out of his attacker in a spray of sparks, then waved it at the camera drone floating overhead with a cheeky grin.

Chk Chk felt for Obo’s vitals. She was safe and stable, but she still needed help. As he scrambled over tiles now slippery with leaking oil, he popped his crumpled shoulder back into place. No time to worry about that. A second shadow was forming under Obozaya where her blood had pooled. Chk Chk’s bond showed him her injuries as though they had been inflicted upon his own body.

Blunt force to the head, he assessed, laceration on the forehead and possible concussion.

The edges of Obozaya’s shadow stretched toward him as he pulled her pain into himself. His forehead stung until it felt wet with blood, though it was only the transference of her suffering to him. The wound wasn’t real, but the pain was. Meanwhile, Obozaya’s shadow trickled into her wounds. Flesh grew into scabs and bone fused. Chk Chk sensed her pain vanish, felt the blood returning to her numb limbs. His pain would heal his friend, so he could take it.

Obozaya’s eyes shot open.

Her lungs opened with a gasp.

Chk Chk held her gaze as the dull ache of a head injury melted away from her and into him. Obozaya shifted upward, stood, and walked toward him. She loomed tall as ever, but now he could sense her body was full of pain. Old injuries. New injuries. But she always kept going. So would he.

“Chk Chk, you’re getting sloppy,” she bellowed, though she ended with laugh. “Try to keep up!”

Chk Chk smiled. He released the pain, laughing weakly at Obozaya’s cheerful bravado. Time began again for him. During the fight, the world hung suspended. No thoughts, no time to process his adrenaline response, nothing. Now, the exhaustion crept into him, deeper than he expected.

 “I’ll make it up to you,” he responded, too winded to speak. “How about coffee?”

 “Deal.” She said.

“Don’t forget me!” Dae added, barely looking up from the robot they were assessing. “Remember, I drink graviton style.”

Chk Chk smiled as he pulled his setup from his bag. Dae liked their beans darker than a black hole with zero sweetness or additives, while Obo’s drink of choice was a pepper-and-honey latte, heavy on the honey and steamed milk. As he pulled out his gear, he tested his shoulder by rotating it in the socket. Sore, but not unbearable. He’d apply a medpatch first, enjoy its anesthetic numbness and sharp scent of peppercorns, then he could get to grinding.

Brewing coffee in his tiny field press was one of his favorite tasks. He didn’t need to perfectly execute the string of commands Raia taught him to jailbreak the deluxe nanopress machines favored by most cafés. Here, he could tune out and slip into the elegant simplicity of the ritual. Dae and Obozaya had already launched into a post-mortem discussion of their break-in, analyzing the successful approach followed by the accidental activation of hidden security robots, and ending in a blow-by-blow commentary about the fight.

Illustration by Mirco Paganessi

The grinder growled as Chk Chk inhaled, halfway hearing their talk, which was more technical than he ever wanted to delve. Why spend so much time trying to avoid pain? He didn’t get it, but then again, Obozaya didn’t understand why he sought out mosh pits. And after the dance, or the fight, his calming ritual was to unspool the grinder, measure out and place the beans, then grind any excess adrenaline into fine coffee for the press.

Brewing coffee contained the rhythm of a song, with its precise timing and variety of sounds. Growls, plinks, and drips kept the brew moving. Kept his friends going.

“Hey, Chk Chk.” Obozaya interrupted his thoughts again, just as he started to visualize how this moment would fit into a music video. “What happened back there? Did you get lost or something?”

“I was distracted,” he responded telepathically. His throbbing shoulder grated at his attention, making speech undesirable. “It’s my fault. I ended up on the wrong side when the robots ambushed us.”

Dae cleared their throat, then looked down. Yeah, he had been too busy joking with them to notice the robots lunge at him and Obozaya. A few more seconds and they would’ve been a unified team when the robots popped out from their hiding place.

No time to dwell on it. He tipped the beans into the press and activated a quick-heat pouch of water. Perfect temperature in seconds. As it warmed, he placed it over the med patch.

“I thought you priest types were good at paying attention,” Obo kept talking, though her eyes were fixed on the waiting press and its steady drip of coffee. “Try to keep that from happening again.”

He nodded. The water was warm enough now, though he let it linger on his shoulder for just a second longer. It poured into the upper chamber of the coffee maker, then slowly dripped downward. He unscrewed the metal cups from his mess set, added instant milk to one, and set them to self-heat. At the bottom of his pouch was the bottle of syrup he made before setting out. An ounce into the milk, and all that was left was to wait.

“Look at this, bestie!” Dae said, interrupting his reverie by waving the robot arm in his face to show off its twisting knotted snake logo. “Aspis parts.”

“You’ll be Aspis parts if you knock the coffee over,” Obozaya grunted. “Good find, Dae.”

The press pinged, quieting Dae and Obo with the promise it was finished. Chk Chk poured two drinks, before he set to making his own. Black with a pinch of glitter magically coaxed into color by the drinker’s current mood. It was his favorite barista trick learned in Takoris. He brewed his coffee Fulldark black with extra syrup, the surface swirled with shifting opalescent fire—the sheen of Zon-Shelyn’s sacred gown, and the myriad colors of the Drift, or the colors of his changing heart.

He sighed at the bitter aroma and sipped sweet, warm comfort. Soon, they would all be back on their feet and charging through the next door as a team. Until then, coffee.

---

About the Author
Rigby Bendele (they/them) writes in Richmond, Virginia as a TTRPG designer, fiction writer and erstwhile poet. They focus on strange, fantastic and embodied experiences. You can find their work in Starfinder Adventure Path: Mechageddon!, Pathfinder Adventure: Claws of the Tyrant and other fine Starfinder and Pathfinder books.

About the Iconic
Chk Chk (he/him) is a male shirren mystic with the shadow connection who worships Zon-Shelyn, the god of therapeutic art and self-expression. Chk Chk casts powerful spells, heals his allies, and expresses his emotions through dark poetry—when words fail, he channels his feelings by smacking enemies with his painglaive, a powered polearm sacred to his deity.

About Iconic Encounters
Iconic Encounters is a series of web-based flash fiction set in the worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder. Each short story provides a glimpse into the life and personality of one of the games’ iconic characters, showing the myriad stories of adventure and excitement players can tell with the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games.

"Learn more about the mystic class in Starfinder Player Core, releasing at Gen Con 2025, on paizo.com, and at your friendly local game store! Be the first to play Starfinder Second Edition by subscribing to the Starfinder RPG or Starfinder RPG (Special Edition) lines and receive a free PDF when your book ships!"

“Freedom is the state or fact of being free from servitude, constraint, inhibition, etc.; liberty.”
—Oxford English Dictionary

Salutations to all intrepid Pathfinders and Starfinders!

The Paizo offices are closed today, June 19th, to pay respects to a crucial day in African American history. Many of you may have associated America’s criminalization of slavery with the Emancipation Proclamation, and this would be partly true. The painful and more devastating truth is that after January 1st, 1863, for 901 more days, thousands of slaves remained in bondage, most completely unaware that these changes were happening mere miles away from them. News regarding the end of the Civil War was intentionally blocked from entering Confederate states, and the slaves in those states were not informed of their freedom until Major Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Texas on June 19th, 1865. That day, colloquially known as Juneteenth, marked the true end to slavery in America and the beginning of a new life for every African and African American on this soil. Although we and other marginalized groups like ours still show resilience daily in our uphill battle for civil rights, we celebrate Juneteenth as one step among many towards true equal rights and equal opportunity.

Juneteenth is more than just an automated notification on your calendar. It’s more than just a portmanteau created and maintained in a culture of resistance. Juneteenth means freedom.

A great way to show solidarity and to support Juneteenth and our community is by donating time, money, or other resources to a black-focused organization. Here are the ones we recommend:

• Color of Change
• The Marsha P. Johnson Institute
• National Black Child Development Institute
• National Black Justice Coalition
• NAACP, or The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
  • Please refer to them as the NAACP only if you are non-black.
• SPLC, or Southern Poverty Law Center

To learn more about Juneteenth and why we celebrate it, check out Juneteenth.com.

As a black employee here at Paizo, I’m honored to have the opportunity to educate our space about this significant moment in history that often goes unnoticed.

Thank you and Happy Gaming!

Maya Coleman (xe/xem/they/them)
Community and Social Media Specialist

Hellooooo, Pathfinders and welcome to summer and Pride Month and warmth!

Illustration by Vlada Hladkova

And speaking of warmth, let’s start off with a quest in Kyonin, where the Pathfinders have finally received some warm welcomes after years being on the outs with elven leadership. Between helping deal with a demon problem (apart from Treerazer) in #4-99: Blessings of the Forest, and offering to help in the cleanup of Greengold in the aftermath of Treerazer’s attacks (during the Spore War adventure path), the Pathfinder Society has won no small amount of gratitude in Kyonin, along with the approval of Queen Telandia. They’ve decided to build a lodge in Greengold, but it’s not enough to have the queen’s blessing, the Pathfinders must win over several influential figures in order to get approval for the most suitable sites. The impression your PCs make will determine the quality of the lodge that we end up with. Of course, nothing is ever straightforward when it comes to the Pathfinders. Our old friends the Aspis Consortium are trying to covertly set up shop during the rebuilding efforts, and I imagine they’ll have something to say about the Society setting down roots in the elven kingdom.

Pathfinder Society Series 2 Quest #25: The Greengold Dilemma is an adventure for 1st- through 4th-level characters written by Glen Parnell.

Illustration by Tom Ventre

And now for scenarios. We’ve got a couple great ones this month.

First, the Godsrain has left no small amount of chaos across Golarion. Taldor, though, has taken it upon themselves to become a center for scholarly research into the aftermath of Gorum’s death, and the warshards made of his shattered armor that fell to the planet on the day of his demise. They've invited scholars from across Golarion to attend a symposium on the Godsrain and the warshards, and the Pathfinder Society has decided to present their findings from some unique warshards they recovered in hopes of gaining insight from others across the world. The Aspis Consortium, though, again won’t let things be too easy for us. They find this an excellent opportunity to gain valuables in the theft of research materials, and to harm the Pathfinders by framing them for the theft. It’ll be up to you to deal with the Aspis and clear their names lest they leave the symposium not with new knowledge but with a reputation dragged through the mud.

Pathfinder Society Scenario #6-18: Symposium on a Fallen God is an adventure for 3rd- through 6th-level characters written by Shan Wolf.

Illustration by Tom Ventre

Directing your attention ever so carefully to the small town of Pimatsih in Sarkoris, we find the Pathfinder Society returning to investigate the strange earthquakes that coincidentally began when Hesla Embersplitter returned to the nation with her newest toy: Riftcarver. Having learned more about her and her intentions during an investigation in Embersplitter Manor, the Society is wary of what plans she may get up to, and what corpses she may resurrect during her time around the Worldwound.

Pathfinder Society Scenario #6-19: What Walks Again is an adventure for 11th- through 14th-level characters written by Scott D. Young.

Illustration by Tom Ventre

Josh Foster
Pathfinder Society Developer

Shay Snow
Pathfinder Society Developer

Like many of his kind, Grimmyr is unable to return home.

Grimmyr was born to a family of iivlar keepers of Clan Idrun, one of many small nomadic jotunborn communities within the Fray, that sub-planar realm that lies between the mortal Universe and the Ethereal Plane. A place of silver, shifting sands and insubstantial copies of geographic features and animals of the Universe, the Fray has been the realm of jotunborn and their progenitors for millennia. Grimmyr—and indeed all jotunborn—was told since before the time of his weavingday about the responsibility bestowed upon their ancestors by the gods so long ago: to watch over the mortal Universe that they helped create. This stewardship has been passed down throughout the generations, and during times of chaos and strife, jotunborn must venture to the mortal realms to lend their aid.

Grimmyr knew the stories, knew that he might be called upon to redirect a river or replant a forest, but he never expected that it would actually happen. He was happy tending to his family’s colony of iivlars, watching them spin their silk, shepherding them to patches of ethereal grass where they could feast, and gently pushing aside their claws when they got a little too curious. He could see his life’s path stretching before him. He would meet a pretty girl from a passing clan, fall in love, and be joined. They would have a child, and Grimmyr would teach them the ways of iivlar-keeping. Perhaps one day, he would be considered a clan elder and resolve disputes between neighbors and guide the community through the Fray.

But then, a god died.

The cosmic upheaval of Gorum’s death was felt across the entire multiverse, and the Fray was no different. All jotunborn could feel the havoc being wrought in the mortal Universe deep in their souls, like a spiritual itch that needed to be scratched. Grimmyr was out in a field when the ground began to tremble. Something began to tug at his soul, and he instinctively knew that he was being called elsewhere to fulfill his ancestral duty. Time was short, but the insectile iivlars couldn’t be left unguarded, so he quickly shepherded them back to the clan. His mother and father were waiting there for him. He could see in their eyes that they also knew.

The goodbyes were solemn but not despairing. All three of them understood the weight of this obligation, and while a jotunborn leaving the Fray could be gone for weeks or even months, Grimmyr’s parents believed they would see him again soon. His father presented him with a pair of sturdy gauntlets made of molted iivlar shell to keep him safe, and his mother said a brief prayer to Skode, the giant goddess of heroism. Another violent shudder ran through the ground, as if the Fray was impatient for Grimmyr to fulfill the covenant. Grimmyr nodded silently to his parents and gave in to the pull on his soul.

Grimmyr appeared among lush jungle greenery, the most plant life he had ever seen in one place at a time. It was night, so he concentrated on the silk woven through his skin, creating a soft glow by which he could see. As he began to get his bearings, he smelled the smoke. He pushed past broad leaves and enormous flowers to find a fishing village on a river, one of its huts engulfed in flames. Before he could react, an arrow pierced his shoulder. Several brown-skinned elves—presumably residents of this settlement—trained their bows upon him, with one nocking another projectile. He held up his hands in a gesture of supplication, but his enormous size and glowing skin must have confused and frightened them, so they loosed a full volley at him. He barely dodged out of the way, an arrow glancing off his gauntlets as he shielded his face.

Grimmyr, the iconic guardian.
Art by Wayne Reynolds

Grimmyr’s flight brought him closer to the river, where other elven village folk formed a line to move buckets of water from the shore to the burning building. They froze in fear at the sight of him, but that allowed Grimmyr to notice what he first thought was a log slide closer to a villager knee-deep in the river. The mud-brown crocodile suddenly surged forward, but Grimmyr had already pushed the villager to one side, and its jaws clamped down on Grimmyr’s arm instead. Prying the crocodile off him, he hurled it back into the river, where it swam off to find easier prey.

Though they were initially wary of Grimmyr, they didn’t stop him from carrying barrels of water from the river to help put out the fire. Later, a white-haired elven elder tended to his wounds. She spoke a few words of Grimmyr’s language, and through their conversation, he learned where he was: a settlement on the Vanji River in the jungles of the Mwangi Expanse on the world of Golarion. The elder explained how a piece of burning sky fell from above to cause the fire, a piece of something larger plummeting down far to the southwest.

Since then, Grimmyr has been tracking that fallen star, certain that it is the key to what brought him to Golarion. Other fragments of it scattered along its trajectory, causing minor disasters where they landed. After following one such piece to the hideout of a band of river pirates, Grimmyr realized he required more protection than just his gauntlets and pieced together a suit of armor to fit his frame from various sources. Some he purchased, some he scavenged. To defend himself, he added several striking heads to a stone maul, hoping that its intimidating appearance would deter otherwise aggressive foes.

Despite all this, Grimmyr hasn’t forgotten about home. He believes that whatever powers brought him to Golarion will be able to return him once he has dealt with the catastrophe he was sent to correct. Until then, he will continue to protect those that need it, much in the same way he kept his iivlars safe.

Jason Keeley (he/him)
Senior Designer

Rally your troops and prepare for war alongside Grimmyr at hellfirecrisis.com! Subscribe to the Pathfinder Rulebook Subscription to be among the first to join the ranks with Pathfinder Battlecry!

Located halfway along the Obari Crossing sea route that connects the Inner Sea to wondrous Vudra, the archipelago of Iblydos boasts millennia-old city-states guided by ascended hero-gods. At least that’s how society used to operate; the Age of Lost Omens ruined prophecies’ reliability, and cyclopean prophecies were essential in creating new hero-gods. As attrition and age kill off the remaining hero-gods, Iblydos perseveres, made rich by trade yet dreading the demise of its pantheon.

In the Myth-Speaker Adventure Path, the player characters visit the city-state of Pol-Bailax as it mourns the death of an exceptional citizen—one who would have become a hero-god in better times. Yet Iblydans don’t simply weep; they celebrate a life well lived. The PCs’ arrival coincides with spectacular funeral games to celebrate this hometown hero, and it’s a perfect time to join the festivities, discover Iblydan history, and begin the PCs’ own legend. As they do, mythic power is reawakening in Iblydos as not seen in ages. It’s all fun and games for now, but the PCs soon attain mythic power of their own. Will they become the hero-gods Iblydos has long sought? And what is this mythic power, why does it emerge now, and what is the cost of this power?

Inside the Myth-Speaker Player’s Guide, you’ll find player-friendly, spoiler-free tips and advice to help you create an exciting and engaging character ready to take on what awaits. Contents include:

• Character suggestions, including recommendations for ancestries, classes, languages, skills, and feats well suited for this Adventure Path.
• Six new backgrounds designed for adventurers in Iblydos, such as the Student of Apotheosis who studies the hero-gods of old and the Beast Seeker who dreams of confronting the legendary monsters that call the islands home.
• An overview of the remaining hero-gods to inspire your own journey or even empower your divine spellcasters.

Download the Myth-Speaker Player’s Guide

Greetings, ’Finders! Next Saturday, June 21st, is Free RPG Day! Paizo is proud to once again be a participating publisher, with adventures for both Pathfinder Second Edition and Starfinder Second Edition! Check to see if your friendly local game store is participating at freerpgday.com!

Starfinder Adventure: Battle for Nova Rush

Welcome to Free RPG Day 2025! Take the leap into Starfinder Second Edition as prisoners of a nefarious pirate captain. When the ship comes under attack by the Corpse Fleet, it’s time to seize your chance to escape! Battle space pirates for control of the Nova Rush, befriend a chipper virtual intelligence, and escape the Corpse Fleet alive in Battle for Nova Rush!

This short adventure for 1st-level characters puts players in the role of four iconic Starfinder heroes: Chk Chk the mystic, Dae the solarian, Iseph the operative, and Navasi the envoy! Each character comes with complete pregenerated stats and roleplaying tips for the adventure—and they’ll need to use every tool at their disposal to liberate Nova Rush and their new friend, Captain Concierge, from dastardly space pirates!

Pathfinder Adventure: The Scourge of Sheerleaf

The quiet village of Sheerleaf has always been a place of peace and prosperity, but the rolling hills and herds of sheep have caught the eye of a vicious dragon who demands their subservience. Though they’ve tried to stand against the villainous monster, the village is helpless to fight him when he takes hostages. But Sheerleaf hasn’t given up hope; even if no one in the village is strong enough to take on their foe, surely some traveling adventurers can help!

The Scourge of Sheerleaf is a short adventure for 10th-level characters where you take on the role of one of four unique dragonblood characters—people who have special abilities in their lineage granted by a powerful connection to a type of dragon. This adventure sets the dragonblood heroes on a mission to defeat a powerful dragon and save the village he’s been tormenting! The four pregenerated characters provide all the information needed to jump right into this Free RPG Day adventure; all you need are your dice and your friends!

If you’re planning to run The Scourge of Sheerleaf, we recommend picking up a Pathfinder Battles: Adamantine Dragon Boxed Miniature to end your adventure in style! Prefer to paint your own? Pick up the Pathfinder Deep Cuts: Adamantine Dragon Boxed Miniature and break out those brushes!

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Paizo’s Free RPG Day adventures will be available on paizo.com 30 days after Free RPG Day! PDFs of these adventures will be free, while limited physical copies will be available for $5.

Are you ready for the glow up?
Illustration by Gunship Revolution

Howdy, nufriends and old pals! Everybody’s favorite helpful virtual intelligence is back to show you what’s coming up in Starfinder Player Core for Second Edition!

Howdy, nufriend! I’m Captain Concierge, your friendly virtual intelligence guide to Player Core and everything else

Starfinder Player Core has everything you need to launch a new Starfinder campaign or blast your Pathfinder game into outer space. Starfinder Player Core explains how to create a player character (PC), choose their gear, and prepare them to start in your very own sci-fantasy space epic. Note that all content in this book is compatible with the Pathfinder Fantasy Roleplaying Game. You’ll recognize some familiar rules if you’ve played Pathfinder before, but don’t worry—Starfinder Player Core is packed full of fresh content and rules!

So, what’s in the book? Let’s start with the ABCs of character creation: ancestry, background, and class.

• 10 new ancestries, which are also called species in Starfinder.
• Two versatile heritages, which you can mix with any ancestry!
• Tons of new backgrounds for characters in the Starfinder setting, like icon and vidgamer!
• Six new classes designed to help you play your own sci-fantasy hero.

But wait, there’s more! Starfinder Player Core also contains:

• New skills, plus futuristic Lores.
• New feats!
• New equipment!
• New spells!
• Rules for playing the game.

You and your friends can play out countless hours of adventure with tarfinder Player Core!
Illustration by Pixoloid Studios

New Ancestries
Let’s deep dive into those 10 ancestries, shall we? I love meeting alien nufriends!

Android: Play a synthetic humanoid with an artificial body and a real soul. Androids have enjoyed a few upgrades since the era of Lost Golarion, so even if you’ve already played an android in Pathfinder, you should check out the new options!

Barathu: Have you ever wanted to become an enigmatic alien with a bizarre form? How about a floating blimplike entity that can merge with other creatures and rewrite their own genetic code? Barathus got you covered for weird and wonderful.

Human: These adaptable survivors from Lost Golarion are a legacy ancestry with new options. What more do I need to explain? You’re a human, right? (Aren’t you?)

Kasatha: These traditionalists traveled aboard a worldship called the Idari from a faraway home world. Instead of colonizing the worlds they found, they remained aboard the Idari. Kasathas have four arms, always cover their nose and mouth in public, and sometimes carry puzzleblades, a traditional weapon that’s ritualistically assembled each day.

Lashunta: If you like the idea of playing a humanlike alien, consider a lashunta. They’re psychic humanoids who choose how they evolve at puberty, becoming a burly warrior or graceful enhanced scholar—or perhaps becoming someone entirely different and unpredictable.

Pahtra: Pahtras are cat people from a rebel planet who are known for their achievements in magic and music. Their home world Pulonis just declared independence from the Veskarium empire and joined the Pact Alliance. I’ve heard they don’t put up with any imperial nyansense nowadays.

Skittermander: That’s me, Captain Concierge! We’re energetic, six-armed people with colorful fur who love to give our allsix helping our nufriends and old pals every day! You’ll never regret having a skittermander on your team!

Vesk: Vesk are scaled humanoids with a powerful physique and warmongering reputation. They even think they conquered the skittermander home world, Oeddertchonk, but who are they kidding? I know a lot of vesk who defy that reputation—they can be anyone they want to be, just like you.

Ysoki: Pathfinder players might recognize the clever, flexible ratfolk who tend to love tinkering with technology. Their small bodies make them really comfy with space travel—just like us skittermanders!

Versatile heritages are special heritages characters of any ancestry can take. Anyone can become a borai or prismeni.

Borai: Created by botched resurrections and necromantic experiments, a borai is an undead soul attached to a living body. In addition to fitting in at every goth club in the galaxy, they get creepy abilities from their connection to the grave.

Prismeni: Prismenis are touched by the energy of the Drift, a recently discovered hyperspace plane, or have a deep connection to spectra, the elusive “Drift Angels” who are native to hyperspace. Most of them have rainbow hair, flighty personalities, and become ace pilots.

Starfinder is a team game. Your party should have a mix of different classes, feats, and skills.
Illustration by Pixoloid Studios

New Classes

One of the most exciting parts of any game is trying out new classes! Here’s who you can be in Starfinder Second Edition.

Envoy: You’re the face of the party and the self-proclaimed battle leader (or cheerleader, mascot, boss, whatever)! Boost your friends and trip up your enemies by giving out directives, then lead by example to grant your team extra buffs.

Mystic: You have a connection to a primeval force of the universe, and you channel powerful magic and healing through bonds with your allies. You are a healer and spellcaster, with classic Pathfinder spells plus new magic from the future.

Operative: You have a deadly aim and a keen set of tactics to take down powerful enemies. You’re likely a scout, infiltrator, or spy for your party, and you’re a primary damage dealer.

Solarian: You cycle between the powers of gravity and light, manifesting solar weapons and unleashing stellar energy in flashy attacks. You’re a close-quarters combatant relying on your mobility to stay out of danger.

Soldier: You unleash heavy weapons on foes while protecting your allies. Soldiers are close-quarters combatants who use powerful area weapons or two-handed weapons and wear heavy armor.

Witchwarper: You’re a living paradox who can warp reality with powerful spells and manifest the infinite possibilities of the multiverse in your current reality. You’re also a powerful spellcaster with access to familiar favorites from Pathfinder and flashy new magic from the future.

Archetypes:Player Core brings you archetype options for each class, plus a new archetype that lets you become a galactic explorer with the famous spacefaring society: Starfinder Field Agent!

But what about tech classes?

I get it, you want drones and magic hacks and deployable mines! The Starfinder Tech Playtest (April 21^st to May 30^th) features the mechanic and technomancer classes. Mechanic and technomancer will be appearing in a future book which the StarFriends haven’t told me about yet.

Navasi’s player is really glad she took the Battle Medicine feat.
Illustration by Emanuel Pantaleon

New Skills

If you’re going on an adventure in outer space, you need a starship, and it doesn’t hurt to know your way around a computer console. That’s why we’re introducing two new skills, Computers and Piloting, to represent taking control of a starship or hacking into a secure computer system. Starfinder has a bundle of new Lore skills too—Fashion Lore, Junker Lore, Vidgame Lore, and Technology Lore are some of my favorites.

New Feats

The Starfinder team had fun coming up with cool feats to show off how skills work in Starfinder Second Edition. You can create your own temporary Barricade on the battlefield, become a Phreaker and learn to hack without a toolkit, gain a free augmentation with Augmented Body, and more! Plus you’ll notice many of your favorite feats from Pathfinder Second Edition, like Battle Medicine and Toughness.

Get geared up with Starfinder Player Core!
Illustration by Gunship Revolution

New Equipment

Starfinder Player Core contains an armory of new gear to outfit your character for their galactic adventures. Instead of using magical runes to upgrade your items, in Starfinder Second Edition tech equipment follows an improvement system we like to call CTASEUP. Most characters start out with commercial gear, but gradually upgrade to tactical, advanced, superior, elite, ultimate, and paragon versions.

Tech Gear: Whatever you need for exploration, we’ve got you covered with medical supplies, adventuring equipment, entertainment devices, and more. Chug a sharpshooter serum to improve your aim, use your comm unit as a flashlight, or slap a medpatch on an injury.

Armor:Player Core has all kinds of neato options like kyokor plating—that’s armor made from the scaly hide of a kaiju.

Shields: Raising a shield is always a solid tactic on any planet, and you’ll enjoy checking out tech like the retractable irising shield or hardlight phase shield.

Weapons:Player Core has everything from laser rifles to dueling swords. There’s some wild weapons in here—a neural lash you control psychically, a cutlass glimmering with stolen lives, a singing spear, and a nasty little number called the painglaive, a motor-powered fangblade mounted to a polearm.

Upgrades: Most armor and weapons are customizable, with slots for one or more upgrades. Upgrades include everything from environmental protections to jetpacks or magical holoprojectors that change your gear’s appearance. Solarian crystals are a special type of upgrade that boost a solarian’s solar weapon attacks.

Grenades: Grenades are consumable items that explode in a small radius, dealing different types of damage and creating different effects. In Starfinder Second Edition, throwing a grenade doesn’t require you to make an attack roll. Instead, you chuck it at the target, and any creatures in range make a Reflex save against your class DC. Just be careful where you throw those electromag grenades. They cause tech creatures to glitch out and that could be a problem for your friend Captain Concierge.

Magic Items: Have you ever wanted a special contact lens that lets you peer into the record of all mortal experience? What about a crystal diva’s microphone that amplifies your voice and performance? A pocket dimension in a backpack? Starfinder magic items can do all this and more.

Augmentations: Augmentations are a special type of gear surgically implanted into your body that modifies your anatomy. If you want to breathe fire, just head down to the clinic and get a dragon gland implanted in your throat. Flying is no problem with ultralight wings installed into your arms or other alien appendages. There are different types of augmentations in this book: biotech, magical, magitech, and tech. Augmentations also include apex items that permanently increase your attributes.

New Spells

With two new spellcasting classes in this book, you’ll find a trove of brand new spells plus many of your old favorites from Pathfinder. In this chapter, you can give yourself a glow up or summon a phantasmal fleet of starships to bombard your enemies.

Phantasmal Fleet
Illustration by Emanuel Pantaleon

Playing the Game

Most importantly, StarfinderPlayer Core teaches you how to play Starfinder Second Edition and acts as a reference for play sessions. Starfinder GM Core has even more information about environment rules, hazards and traps, vehicles, and more—but that’s a topic for another time! Keep your eyes and other sensory organs on this space for the next blog,

—The Starfinder Team

An arc of electricity shorted whatever communication device the void-eyed figure was wearing as Seltyiel’s sword slid through it, cutting yet another one down. Black shadows clung to his blade, dulling its shine. His face morphed into a mask of disgust for a moment before the sound of shattering glass drew his attention.

“I’d like to ask again—where are we and what the hell are these things?” He hissed.

“Whenever we have a moment to breathe, I’ll work on an answer.” Kyra’s voice was cool and calm with an edge of humor to it—Seltyiel could tell from the curve of her mouth that she was teasing him in that friendly way of hers. But there was worry in her expression too as she burned a hole through another of the empty-eyed creatures, leaving a smoking, shimmering ember in its core as it fell.

“Tsk.” With a snort and a click of his tongue, Seltyiel accepted her answer. The creatures’ faces were identical, and while their bodies seemed solid enough, they melted into shadow when he cut them down. “Copies are never a good sign.”

“Neither is this.” Kyra gestured down the hallway the creatures had slunk down, drawing his attention to the path of draining color everywhere they had touched, the imprint of their footsteps growing by inches and degrees. “Especially not if we are where I think we are.”

“Oh, you’ve got that answer? That might be the best news I’ve heard since we got here,” Seltyiel quipped. He adjusted his grip on his sword, watching the door at the end of the hall, hearing the distant crashes of destruction.

A sigh escaped Kyra’s lips as she uttered a quick prayer, watching the bleached skin melt off one of the foes she’d blasted, revealing a shadowy mass underneath. “Normally, I would agree with you. This place is special—if I am right—and I would be thrilled to find myself here. But to see what these monsters are doing to the Radiant Palace of Possibility? It makes me sick.”

The words brushed against a thread of memory: a book on a table years ago, candlelight barely warming the words on the page. A mythological place, said to have been spun into existence by the Radiant Prism themselves, an intersection at the point where all threads of reality met and reflected each other. A boundless demiplane ruled only by love. A horrible place to be shattering under the invasion of same-faced undead.

“Divinity’s not much my business—I’ll leave that to you. But I agree that this needs to be stopped.” Seltyiel was not entirely sure how to stop a seemingly endless onslaught of copycat ghosts, though.

Find their source and rout them out.

The whispers on the edges of his consciousness urged him forward down the hall, closer to the source of the sounds. Gritting his teeth, Seltyiel gestured with his blade. “Something’s happening over there.”

Following the trail of sapped color as panes of iridescent crystal turned dull, murky gray, Seltyiel led the way further into the palace, Kyra watchful at his back. As they approached, the sounds of destruction grew louder, crashing off the walls.

So focused on hunting the trail that the whispers were guiding him toward, Seltyiel bit his tongue in shock when Kyra pulled him back behind a pillar of crystal as hurried footsteps approached. She hid them just in time. A priestess, garbed in robes of rainbow silk that seemed to be losing color with each step, streaked out from behind cover and ran for the doorway. She stumbled and was caught by the two ghosts behind her. Her starknife clattered to the floor and she screamed.

Before either Seltyiel or Kyra could react, the undead pulled her face from her body, her skin slithering up the figure’s arm to settle atop its own skull, framing the void eyes with the priestess’s final expression of terror.

“Join us. Welcome to the fleet. We are one, we are all,” the monster wearing her face said in a thousand voices.

The voices that came from the creature’s mouth spoke in unison without feeling. The priestess’s stolen face turned empty and blank as the monster reached down, shadows and void energy pouring into her corpse. The void slid over her body, consuming her and erasing the marred flesh of her face into an empty space.

The two creatures pulled her to her feet, one of them handing her another mechanical device—a firearm, but not like one Seltyiel had ever seen—and marching her back to the central chamber. She was now a member of their ranks.

“Everlight, keep us safe while we rescue the servant of your beloved Starsong.” Kyra’s prayer was quiet and whispered, her hand gently touching Seltyiel’s shoulder and carrying with it the soft warmth of sunlight. He knew she meant to fight. But first they needed to know more about the enemy.

Taking a breath, Seltyiel drew a sigil with his free hand, his body shimmering out of view as he snuck into the central chamber, scoping out the field. A large airship—far more technologically advanced than anything he had ever witnessed—dominated the center of the room, surrounded by dozens of uniform-clad undead wearing the same masked face over empty eyes. Closest to the ship, presumably giving the orders, were several floating heads in glass baubles held aloft by a tiny propeller, with no bodies save for the spindly metal limbs that hung down from their chassis. Strange, angular runes shimmered down one of their limbs as the floating head hissed a spell in a language that sounded suspiciously like Necril, the tongue of undead on his world.

The faceless creatures awaited their orders, some platoons already set on destroying the shaped crystal and mirror glass, leaving colorless clutter in their wake. Blood splattered on the floor was the only sign remaining of any resistance, their corpses recruited to join in the very destruction they hoped to prevent.

Seltyiel returned to their hiding spot behind the crystalline pillar, expression grim. “I don’t like our odds. Two of us, hundreds of them—and they can just keep making more.”

“The surest way to lose is to give up before we’ve started. We are in a holy place—there is power here those creatures cannot hope to understand. We need only reach out and tap into it.”

Seltyiel bit back a snarky remark as a shockwave rattled the chamber. One of the crystalline chandeliers collapsed into millions of shards—crushing an entire squad of faceless troopers. None of them flinched. After all, units were expendable in pursuit of the overall goal.

“Don’t let those things take my face when I die.” Seltyiel shifted his weight back and forth, adjusting his grip on his sword and waiting for Kyra’s nod before hurrying into the room, leaping into a platoon of the faceless.

The glowing arc of Kyra’s scimitar cut through a line of undead as she followed suit, each of them now surrounded by encroaching hordes of empty-eyed, hollow masked creatures with blank smiles on their faces.

“Abandon yourself. Become one. Become us. You are nothing. We are all.”

The words came from nowhere and everywhere and made Seltyiel’s stomach turn, anger flaring up in the pit of his stomach as he feinted left and swung right, slicing directly through one of the creatures and watching it dissipate into nothing.

They were wrong—he wasn’t nothing. But two individuals against a sea of endless copies could only hold out so long.

“Looks like we’re late to the party!”

An unfamiliar voice sounded from a balcony above. The faceless turned to seek out the new life force, giving both Seltyiel and Kyra an opportunity for a quick series of blows and a moment to breathe.

A human woman in sleek diamond armor and a catfolk figure dressed in wildly colorful garb stood on the balcony. Somehow, Seltyiel knew the catfolk wasn’t an amurrun from his world, but a pahtra from somewhere else. The human pointed another strange firearm down at the faceless horde and the pahtra cracked what appeared to be a ribbon made of fire. The glee in their catlike face was unmistakable, sharp teeth flashing in a grin. “Come and get me, Corpse Fleet clones! First one to the mirror gets an autograph!”

The pahtra jumped off the balcony with a graceful flip, landing on their feet in front of a trio of mirrors. The moment they landed a rainbow aura surrounded them, making it almost impossible to look away as thousands of different reflections appeared in the mirrors’ faces.

Beams of red fire streaked down from above as the human shot her gun—a laser pistol, Seltyiel thought, but how did he know that?—and pointed at her ally’s position with her free hand. “Get over there!”

Under the cover of laser fire that singed the air like a spray of blazing bolts, Kyra and Seltyiel dashed across the room past dazed faceless to the mirrors where the pahtra stood. “I’m Dae, that’s Navasi. You look like hot garbage, but I love your ‘fits,” the pahtra said cheerfully. “Are they vintage? Oh, and I hope you don’t mind, but I’m recording right now.” They beamed at a tiny mechanical device hovering overhead that Selytiel had only just noticed.

Seltyiel faced the mirror to see what Dae was talking about. He and Kyra were panting, cut up, and bloody. Color had been sapped from their torn clothing. His hair was disheveled and not in a fetching way. Their reflections looked a mess for a moment, but then the images in the mirror began to change.

“My name is Seltyiel,” he said. “We appreciate your intervention.”

“I am Kyra.” Kyra clasped Dae’s hand. “I can see the Everlight shining in you. Thank you for your help.”

The warping visions of himself pulled Seltyiel’s eyes back to the mirrors, and he didn’t notice Navasi dash over to the group, pursued by more faceless undead.

“The mirror—” he started to say, but it was already too late. As each hero turned to face the multifaceted, multidimensional crystal wall, they were shocked by what they saw. The mirrors showed more than just their reflections. Infinite versions of themselves borrowed from memories and dreams and other realities fractalized in the shining crystal.

Navasi watched herself cock her gun with a wicked smile in one facet, clench bloody credsticks in a robotic fist in another, and press a kiss to a blue-skinned woman’s cheek in a third. In yet another facet, she walked beside a handsome diplomat dressed to the nines as his security detail and date all in one. The many versions of Navasi were all equally complicated and stunning, and she watched with delight as a troupe of her other selves talked their way into—and out of—infinite situations.

Every Dae was in the spotlight. They performed old-timey canticles clad in spectacular costume at Golarion World, backflipped into a ribbon spiral in front of a cheering audience, sunned themself in the viewport of a solar yacht, and seamlessly rescued a crowd of fans from armed attackers without missing a step of their dance routine. And of course, Dae’s kaleidoscope included their moody bestie. In one mirror, the two piloted a mech together cutting down colossi with a gigantic chainsword and powered glaive.

Seltyiel bit back a sneer as he made eye contact with the many broken, beaten versions of himself—past, present, and future. But there were more facets behind that. He saw a proud man holding an ornate blade, electricity arcing up and down its length; there was a cozy candlelit chamber, Seltyiel’s reflection bent to a book as a beautiful yet unfamiliar man fell asleep beside him, snuggled against his side; Seltyiel stealing a last sharp kiss from a lover turned enemy, her dagger gleaming across his cheekbone as he pulled away to toss a ball of gleaming magic, its trail pointing directly to the heart of the devil it struck. Power, magic, anger, affection, and more feelings than Seltyiel had words for coursed through him as he grappled with his many reflections.

Kyra’s mirrored selves were all limned in fire. The Everlight illuminated a glimpse of every world that she had the luck and joy to live in: simple, humble Kyra who served a rural temple in threadbare robes; a radiant woman touched with godhood, fire in her hair and sunlight pouring from her eyes; her scimitar cutting through a ghoul just as Merisiel’s blade found its head, pulling the creature’s body in two directions; Kyra as a blushing bride in ceremonial robes joining hands with the same, now her wife. Though the images had no sound, Kyra could hear Merisiel’s precious laughter in her memory. “Here, you are all infinite. Now you can become every version of yourself.” Kyra recognized the Voice speaking—her goddess Sarenrae, the Everlight, who formed the Radiant Prism with goddesses Desna and Shelyn as a divine expression of their romantic relationship.

Curious and compelled, Seltyiel watched Dae, Kyra, and Navasi touch the crystal mirrors. Rainbows swirled around them and their forms blurred. He’d rather die alone than become part of the shadow army pillaging this palace, but those weren’t his only choices. He reached for the mirror. For a moment, all witnessed a sight most mortals could only dream of. The reflections melted away and were replaced by a trio of goddesses, fingers intertwined as they held hands. Anyone in the Universe would know them—Sarenrae, a burning star forged into a woman’s form; Desna, a moth-winged alien with elfin ears and a fickle smile; Shelyn, beauty made flesh with rainbow hair and a tender smile.

They blew the heroes a triple kiss that floated on butterfly wings, exploding into a visual cacophony of sparks and mirrors. All the reflections of the heroes poured into them, filling them with light and power.

Illustration by Mirco Paganessi

The Radiant Prism was gone but their power thrummed in Seltyiel’s veins. He and his allies turned from the mirrors feeling stronger than ever before. Where their footsteps fell, the gray, conforming magic of the invaders was pushed back, replaced with radiant color.

Defiant grins on their faces, Seltyiel, Kyra, Navasi, and Dae held their weapons aloft, free hands ready to cast or block. Their very silhouettes seemed to shift and morph, vibrating with the power of their alternate selves as they clashed with the faceless troops, tearing through them with ease. Copies are never a match for the real thing.

Seltyiel grinned as the last foe dissolved in a wisp of smoke. Only the bodies of the doomed priestess and siblings of her order remained, slumped on the floor and already stirring as color leeched back into their garments and their faces reformed from emptiness. The airship—or starship, as Dae would correct him later—had blinked out of space, leaving a hole in the palace wall that was already starting to repair itself. Gentle music replaced the harsh sounds of battle and conquest.

Seltyiel’s eyelids fluttered as the same music soothed over his mind, returning him to sleep where his body and spirit could slip out of the Radiant Palace of Possibility back to his own home, his own time. Later he’d ask Kyra about the dream, and she’d remember it the same way, down to the last detail. He couldn’t ask Dae and Navasi, but he was sure they were out there somewhere, changed by their adventure.

He was sure they must feel it too—the echo of the encounter lingering, a thrumming mantra in his mind.

In the face of conformity, there is no greater power than being yourself.

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About the Author

Rue Dickey is Paizo’s Marketing & Media Specialist, as well as an award-winning freelance tabletop game designer, author, editor, and cultural consultant. Their independent work is driven by a desire to see more queer joy, rage, and power on the world stage.

Introduction

Order of the Amber Die here, still going strong as the years roll on! In case you aren't familiar with our work from past projects, we'll repeat the staccato version. We only play published adventures. We use the complete rules set. We've had the same GM since our founding: 1987. We like to push the envelope of tabletop roleplaying. We only play marathon sessions—days at a time. We play on location. Our GM isn't afraid to kill characters or TPK us; he'll do it in front of the community, too. Imagine us like a roleplaying team, complete with a Captain and Ref position to help the players. We revere one d20 above all others, and that is the Amber Die. It doesn’t roll more 20s than it should, but it chains them when it does, and doubters have always been converted. After more than 170 adventures, we've even gotten rid of RPG absolutes: yeah, we'll split the party.

Past Pathfinder Projects

The Emerald Spire Project, 2014

The Giantslayer Endeavor, 2015

The Strange Aeons Experiment, 2016

The Azlant Odyssey, 2017

The Pathfinder Playtest, 2018

The Slithering Salve, 2020

The Abomination Arsenal, 2022

The Sky Scions, 2025

The Scions

In our previous projects we’ve always put our own spin on things. For The Abomination Arsenal, we tried to reach the bottom of Pathfinder’s largest megadungeon with a party consisting entirely of gunslingers. With The Strange Aeons Experiment, we assembled a team of Pathfinder players who knew nothing about Lovecraft or the Elder Mythos, and sent them through the Strange Aeons AP to see what would happen. The list goes on, but we’ll let you check out each project as you may.

The years have gone past and we’ve come far enough to be able to look back across the ground we’ve covered. We’ve grown older together, added new members, said hard goodbyes, and finally stopped to look back at ourselves. This has been a personal journey for us as members of Order of the Amber Die, just as much as it has been a journey through adventure paths in front of the community.

This project won’t just be a playthrough of Sky King's Tomb Adventure Path , it will focus on appreciating time and family. The Sky Scions is about a dwarven family in-game, and Order of the Amber Die as a family ourselves. For this project, Adam has dialed up some of the oldest members of the Order. In each marathon you’ll see a cameo from as far back as 1987, when three 10-year-olds sat in mom’s basement and dreamed up a club centered around their favorite die.

We’ve always stuck to the complete rules set, never deviating. As the years went by, our inbox filled with messages asking what house rules we would employ if we ever chose to. With the release of Pathfinder Second Edition and Remaster, we also received requests asking which optional rules we would utilize from the GM Core if we ever chose to. The answer was always simple and quick, but the Will DC increased with each passing year. Around the fire pit at our headquarters, Fort Rannick, we looked at the time visible on each other’s faces and finally decided to go for it.

As our house rule for this project, age modifiers from Pathfinder 1E will be adapted to Pathfinder 2E. A player’s age in real life determines their age category (and thus their adjusted attribute modifiers) in-game. We broke down our membership by decade, so the “venerable” age category in-game consists of players that are 50-59 years old out of game, as those are our oldest members. 40-49 in real life is considered “old,” and 30-39 is marked as “middle-aged” for modifiers. While we acknowledge that there are plenty of exceptions to these modifiers in real life, we wanted to create something that distinguished us by age at the table. Each marathon will feature different rosters of dwarves (therefore ages) from the clan. Still, it’s our first house rule across all these years. We must be getting old.

As a variant rule in addition to our house rule, we will be employing the “free archetype” from the GM Core. After reading through the Highhelm hardcover, we were reminded of how faith is one of the fundamentals of dwarven culture. We wanted to feel the dwarven pantheon as an ever-present part of our story; thus, we all have the same free archetype: Blessed One. We purposely spread the deities among the characters, so we’ll have a variety around the table at each marathon.

Meet Clan Firecask

We are all playing strong-blooded dwarves of Clan Firecask, a Goldhilt clan from the greatest of the dwarven sky citadels: Highhelm. Our main colors are orange and green, and amber features in various ways, of course. Our accent color is blue topaz, and each of our clan daggers is adorned with the matching stone.

We’re not just members of Clan Firecask, we’re directly related to Clanleader Perhill Firecask herself. Which in turn means we’re related to one another, of course. On your left at the table might be your in-game grandparent, and across from you could be your own child or even a sibling. This should make for some interesting roleplaying, and we’ll include a section in each blog to let you know how it goes along the way. When it’s your great-grandchild who just dropped to dying 2 across the battlefield, you might make different decisions than you normally would. As for family spats? Expected.

While the Ironhilt and Steelhilt clans of Highhelm might consider us “soft hands,” our dwarven hands are always busy—busy making beer! This wouldn’t be an Order of the Amber Die project without a high level of immersion, but it was a bit tricky trying to figure out how to approach this vital piece of Clan Firecask’s identity. We came up with this: what if we brewed our own beer out-of-game, and learned the process together as a group the same way our dwarves have spent their lives doing? We ran it by one of our friends, Brandon Gillam of Runehammer, since he was joining us periodically throughout the adventure path. Brandon offered to up things a notch: what if we contacted a brewery and had our own unique beer for this project, label and all? This is where Sacred Vice Brewing in Philadelphia got involved. Brandon drew the label, Sacred Vice made the beer, and our GM dropped the release of Clan Firecask’s newest beer—Battle Axe—right into the actual storyline of our campaign!

Highlights from Preparing Sky King’s Tomb:

• Knowing that Highhelm would feature heavily in our launch marathon, our GM worked closely with Black Bard Studios to make sure the city appeared as one of our best setups over the years. We’re excited to show you more!
• Some of our friends from over the years will make an appearance. Ready to see Joe O’Brien of the Glass Cannon Network as a dwarf from Clan Firecask? How about Brandon Gillam as Renck, the wise bard and keeper of clan recipes? You might even recognize Brandon’s expert hand as the artist of the portraits in this blog. Stay tuned.
• Elemental Stones is one of the most popular games of Highhelm. Our GM has already told us to learn it, as he’s making sure it will feature directly in this campaign. You know us by now, so we’ll stop the session and play a real game every time it comes up.
• Another thing we still love about being around the table is our props. Dwarven coins from Norse Foundry? Pile ‘em up. A dwarven helmet, some quality wooden mugs, and custom clan daggers? Yup. Beard extensions for those of us who dare? Let’s go for it. Growing your actual beard for a year in advance? Jody did it.
• It’s been a while since we played on location, and how awesome would it be to experience the Darklands in an actual cave? Pennsylvania has quite a few caves that are managed for tourists, so our plan is to find one that will let us spelunk in and set up our Pathfinder game!

What’s Next

We’ll drop a blog for every marathon we play, with a plan to finish this AP in six or seven marathons. As Adam likes to remind us, a TPK ends the project. Expect to hear from us again soon with part one!

Follow Order of the Amber Die:

Our table was brought to life with the help of Blue Table Painting for our miniatures, and our marathons would have faltered long ago without Critical Hit Cookies.

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Hail and well met, ‘Finders! This month’s new releases invite you to explore the Shining Kingdoms, remaster Valashinaz’s vault of treasures, and attempt your final Starfinder assessment!

A reminder—the scenarios listed here are April’s scenarios, which released last Wednesday, May 28th! As we have shifted our physical product release to the first Wednesday of the month, we will be highlighting the digital releases from the previous month!

Never miss a release with our Paizo Subscriptions—for everything from rulebooks to accessories! Subscribers get a free PDF with purchase, early access to game content, and exclusive discounts on paizo.com!

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Pathfinder Treasure Vault (Remastered)

VENTURE INTO THE VAULT!

Pathfinder Treasure Vault reveals the glittering hoard of a terrifying dragon, as presented by the creature’s plucky kobold assistant. This 224-page hardcover rulebook presents a catalog of new gear from nearly every category of equipment and magic item available in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game while introducing entirely new categories of items. Give your character the perfect tool for the job with signature weapons, customizable relics, and wondrous items to fit your every need while preparing for any eventuality with potions, elixirs, wands, and more!

Pathfinder Treasure Vault (Remastered) is available in standard hardcover, retailer and paizo.com exclusive sketch hardcover, and faux-leatherette bound Special Edition hardcover, as well as PDF format!

Pathfinder Lost Omens Shining Kingdoms

COURTS AND CAMPAIGNS

The nations at the heart of Avistan were once bastions of chivalry, faith, and history. Now their most iconic god is dead, the empires are crumbling, and the knights are often bigger monsters than the dragons they once fought. The drums of war thunder like cavalry on the horizon. It remains to be seen if these kingdoms and former kingdoms can shine once more or collapse under the weight of history. Don your armor and polish your shield, for bloodstained battlefields and courts alike await! This gazetteer looks at the history, cultures, and current events of Andoran, Druma, the Five Kings Mountains, Galt, Kyonin, and Taldor, accompanied by character details and options to prepare any character for the trials soon to come.

Pathfinder Lost Omens Shining Kingdoms is available in standard hardcover and faux-leatherette bound Special Edition, as well as PDF format!

Pathfinder Adventure Path #215: To Blot Out the Sun (Shades of Blood 3 of 3)

... AND BRING ENDLESS NIGHT

On the trail of Nizca, the vampire who orchestrated the plan to shroud the sun in shadow, the PCs must ascend the tower from within, fighting past deadly guardians and strange Azlanti magic and machinery to reach the tower’s top where Nizca races to repair their device and blot out the sun. The Shades of Blood Adventure Path wraps up with “To Blot Out the Sun,” a complete adventure for 7th– to 10th–level characters.

“To Blot Out the Sun” is also available as a deluxe Foundry VTT module.

Pathfinder NPC Core (Pocket Edition)

POPULATE YOUR WORLD!

Devotees of the gods, cunning mercenaries, fun-loving performers, crafty engineers, devious villains and more all have roles in your game with Pathfinder NPC Core! Over 250 stat blocks for NPCs let you drop all kinds of characters into your game, from servants and farmers to masters of magic and martial arts. The NPCs are crafted to be fun and easy to use, with sets of adjustments to quickly change their ancestry, level, and more. You'll also find a trove of NPCs specific to non-human ancestries, like a dwarf general, goblin get gang, and kobold egg guardian. Each section of NPCs is themed and includes lore, custom rules, and random tables to spice up your gameplay. Never find yourself making up statistics on the fly again—you can find everything you need in Pathfinder NPC Core!

Pathfinder NPC Core (Pocket Edition) brings the same contents as the standard edition in a smaller-sized softcover for a lower price and better portability.

Pathfinder NPC Core Pawn Box

Soldiers and spellcasters! Criminals and courtiers! Allies and villains! The vast variety of characters from Pathfinder NPC Core come alive on your tabletop with this collection of more than 350 creature pawns for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game or any tabletop fantasy RPG!

Printed on sturdy cardstock, each double-sided pawn contains a beautiful full-color image of a creature from Pathfinder NPC Core. Populated primarily with highly useful characters like pirates, farmers, and innkeepers, these pawns also include sets of non-human characters—elves, dwarves, lizardfolk, and more. You’ll even find plentiful pawns to represent troop NPCs, such as military units or town guards, placed on large pawns to show off their multi-character illustrations.

Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Remote Villas

A place to get away!

Everyone needs an out-of-the-way respite, and this Flip-Mat provides two such locations. One side features a spiraled keep perched high on a precarious mountain cliff, while the other side shows a cozy lodge sitting deep in a wintery valley. Whether your characters are in need of a retreat or they’re storming a rival’s secure estate, Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Remote Villas has you covered!

Pathfinder Society Scenario #6-16: The Heart of the City

A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for 5th- through 8th-level characters.

Word from a missing Pathfinder agent makes its way to Decemvirate leadership, revealing that Hesla Embersplitter has not only staffed her manor home with cultists of the deceased demon lord, Deskari, but that she's also received an ominously large shipment from an unknown shipping merchant recently. Unable to convince the High Council of Absalom of Hesla's ill intentions, they turn to their agents to look into what's happening at Ember Manor in the Eastgate District and determine what this ancient artifact is and what she could be planning. Once inside the manor, agents quickly learn that the object is what remains of demonic corpse, protected by Hesla's fanatical Cult of the Screaming Grub!

Starfinder Society Scenario #7-14: Final Assessment

A Starfinder Society Scenario designed for 11th- through 14th-level characters.

Years ago, the Starfinder Society suffered a monumental setback during a mission into the region of space known as the Scoured Stars. After a year of rebuilding, the Society returned to the Scoured Stars and rescued its surviving agents, only to be pushed out by an aggressive species known as the jinsuls. Over the course of the next year, the Society built a coalition of allies and defeated the jinsul menace, scattering them and stopping the divine herald Dhurus from consuming the energies of the Scoured Stars’ awakening deity, Kadrical.

In the years since, former First Seeker Jadnura has patiently waited within the Scoured Stars onboard his starship, the Perfect Silence, acting as a self-appointed steward of the system and communing with the god Kadrical through deep meditation. Now, a potent celestial event is about to occur within the Scoured Stars—an alignment of the stars and planets poised to create a strong metaphysical bridge that could further empower Kadrical and allow the deity to take another step into reasserting itself within the cosmos. Jadnura has invited the Society’s most senior agents to witness the monumental event alongside him, aboard the Perfect Silence. When disaster strikes, the Starfinders experience echoes from the Starfinder Society’s recent past and endure an encounter with the divine.

Will you survive the final assessment?

Return to the Scoured Stars in the final adventure for Starfinder First Edition!

Pathfinder Society Scenario #6-17: The Devil in the Details

A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for 7th- through 10th-level characters.

The Pathfinder Society, like many other organizations and governments, seeks to collect the fallen shards of the dead war god Gorum, the warshards. They have devised a means of detecting some, and using this an expedition of veteran Pathfinders is assembled, but their tracking ritual leads them strait to a secret Chelaxian weapons laboratory. The site's defenses trap the PCs ship, and while the other members of the expedition hold off the Chelaxian forces, the PCs must infiltrate the laboratory to discover what the Chelaxians are fighting so desperately to keep secret, and why the warshard-finding ritual is leading the PCs here.

Starfinder Society Special #6-99: The End Awakens

A Starfinder Society Special designed for 1st- through 4th-level characters (subtiers 1–2 & 3–4).

The Szandite Collective is an alliance of seven planets spread across four adjacent star systems in Near Space, connected by a psychic network of szandite crystals. Although the Collective has consisted of seven planets for all of its post-Gap history, long ago, it once numbered eight, as the planet Krethiskar failed to reconnect following the Gap. With only an approximate idea of where the planet existed in relation to the rest of the Collective home worlds, Krethiskar is lost, and progress on its rediscovery is painfully slow.

Palivhar Chooser of Hues, a respected scholar, astronomer, and member of the Starfinder Society’s Forum, is a citizen of the Szandite Collective and has long sought the missing planet Krethiskar. After decades of sifting through psychic echoes stored within szandite crystals, leveraging potent divinations, and cross referencing the Starfinder Society’s vast galactic databases—all to meet with failure—Palivhar experienced a vivid, recurring dream of a voice, reaching across time and space, to guide them to Krethiskar. Following their dreams into the unexplored reaches of Near Space, Palivhar discovered the very planet that had eluded them for so long: Krethiskar.

Now, Palivhar leads an expedition of Starfinders to Krethiskar’s surface, to survey the planet, locate its szandite crystals, and determine what happened to the citizens of this lost collective. Unfortunately for the Starfinder Society, Krethiskar is a huskworld consumed by the voracious Swarm in ages past. Palivhar’s survey expedition is doomed to become a desperate fight for survival, as the hibernating Swarm awaken. Can you escape the planet alive?

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From Our Partners:

Our partners at Archives of Nethys, Demiplane, Fantasy Grounds, Hero Lab Online, and Roll20* are dropping new content this month as well! Buy your PDF on paizo.com to get a discount via the PaizoConnect API. Or pay full price on their platforms, sync your account, and get a complimentary PDF on the Paizo Store.

*Roll20 is no longer a part of PaizoConnect and discounts and complimentary PDFs do not apply.

Pathfinder Battles: Adult Adamantine Dragon Boxed Miniature

Expand your Pathfinder collection with the Adult Adamantine Dragon, featured on the cover of the Pathfinder Monster Core book!

The adamantine dragon—one of the skymetal dragons—got its name due to the adamantine covering its body. The magic that flows through them draws adamantine to their bodies like a magnet. These dragons can burrow through solid stone, emerging from the ground to ambush their prey. Instead of a typical dragon breath, adamantine dragons belch up huge boulders they consume while burrowing.

The adult adamantine dragon is also available as an unpainted Pathfinder Deep Cuts: Adult Adamantine Dragon Boxed Miniature.

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