Well, we've previously looked at the art, deities, and character options featured in Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Inner Sea Gods, and now it's time to summon up our final preview blog—a look at the 40 divine servitors available to the faithful of the core deities via a number of calling spells.
Inner Sea Gods: Divine Servitors
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Well, we've previously looked at the art, deities, and character options featured in Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Inner Sea Gods, and now it's time to summon up our final preview blog—a look at the 40 divine servitors available to the faithful of the core deities via a number of calling spells.
Each of the core 20 deities receives two statblocks in the final chapter of Inner Sea Gods, one its herald, and the other a lower-level outsider. First let's look at a few of the new outsiders, shall we?
Up first is the dapsara, a new angel closely tied to Shelyn, goddess of love, beauty, and art. This CR 4 angel has bardic abilities, including bardic performance and versatile performance, and should serve those who venerate the arts well.
Illustration by Diana Martinez
What could be more opposed to art and beauty than the qlippoth, the proto-demons of the Abyss from which Rovagug ascended. Thognorok qlippoth, like the one depicted here, are considered servitors of the Rough Beast, but are actually sentient symbiotes that once had the misfortune of dining on Rovagug's flesh. As with all the lower-level servitors in the book, Thognoroks are CR 4, has 6 HD, and can therefor be called with lesser planar ally and/or lesser planar binding. Though I would caution against trying with this guy.
Illustration by Ben Wootten
If a CR 4 outsider just isn't going to cut it for you, there's always each deity's herald. Inner Sea Gods presents the herald subtype, which grant a uniform array of abilities to these unique outsiders who serve as envoys and agents of their patrons. Heralds generally have 18 or fewer Hit Dice, come in around CR 15, and can be summoned with greater planar ally. Each of the heralds received a new development pass, standardizing their abilities and upgrading those released prior to the Pathfinder RPG up to the current rules set. Here's Asmodeus's herald, the sinister and deadly Basiles, for your viewing pleasure.
Illustration by Emeliano Petrozzi
This fella, however, breaks the herald mold, which is befitting of the herald of the god who motivated Sarenrae and Asmodeus to work together to imprison him. I'm talking, of course, about the Tarrasque, also known as the Armageddon Engine, herald of Rovagug. Not only does the version presented in Inner Sea Gods include the herald and spawn of Rovagug subtypes (resulting in different stats than the world-neutral version in the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary), it keeps the original's CR 25, making it by far the most dangerous of the heralds presented in the book.
Illustration by Ben Wootten
And there you have it, folks! By the time another one of these previews would go up, most of you will have your copies of the book, so I'll move on to previewing other forthcoming books. Inner Sea Gods is available in game stores everywhere and can be purchased as a hardcover or PDF download right here.
This book features three all-new prestige classes, each offering different abilities depending on which of the 20 core deities the character worships. That's 60 different iterations of the prestige classes! The classes are the evangelist (a jack-of-all trades that serves as a divine-themed version of the character's other class[es]), exalted (a deity-specific prestige class for divine spellcasters), and sentinel (a full-BAB prestige class for holy warriors).
Illustration by Ivan Dixon
There's more to Inner Sea Combat than just prestige classes, however! In fact, there's something here for followers of dozens of religions who want to stick with a single class their whole career. We've got new feats, religion traits, subdomains, and spells, including spawn calling, which allows the caster to summon one of Rovagug's mighty spawn, and comes with a mythic upgrade to bring about even more destruction.
Illustration by Alejandro Rojas
In addition to scores of new faith-themed magic items, Inner Sea Gods also presents a new type of magic item—altars. These stationary places of worship grant bonuses to those characters who pray at them each day.
Illustration by Diana Martinez
That's all for today, but check back soon for one more look inside Inner Sea Gods, when we'll examine a few of the creatures that make up the book's sizable bestiary. Inner Sea Gods is already on its way to distributors, and will be available in retail stores and to subscribers in the near future. You can preorder the book here.
The release of the Pathfinder Campaign Setting hardcover, Inner Sea Gods, is fast approaching, and that means it's time for some previews. The art team already did a preview of some of the amazing illustrations to grace this 336-page tome, so I'll talk a bit more about the words that accompany the book's incredible art.
Inner Sea Gods: Deities
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
The release of the Pathfinder Campaign Setting hardcover, Inner Sea Gods, is fast approaching, and that means it's time for some previews. The art team already did a preview of some of the amazing illustrations to grace this 336-page tome, so I'll talk a bit more about the words that accompany the book's incredible art.
The bulk of Inner Sea Gods are flavor-filled write-ups of all 20 core deities of the Inner Sea region. These articles go into divine detail about the gods' personalities, relations with other deities, their appearances, and home realms, as well as overviews of their churches' organization, typical temples and shrines, a priest's role, holy texts, holidays, and summonable planar allies.
Illustrations by Mark Molnar and Ben Wootten
Beyond the core deities, Inner Sea Gods also explores many of the region's minor deities to a deeper degree than ever before in the history of the Pathfinder campaign setting. Among the deities covered in this section are Achaekek, Alseta, Ghlaunder, Kurgess, Naderi, Razmir (yup), Sivanah, and Zyphus. Even more deities of all sorts are presented as complete pantheons, both of racial deities (like those worshiped by dwarves, elves, orcs, and other monstrous races) as well as the Outer Gods, demigods, and forgotten and dead deities.
Illustrations by Cheng Hong and Yuriy Georgiev
If that doesn't seem like a lot of gods, check out this spread from the appendix. This is only 1/7 of the content in this massive table of just about every being you can worship in the Inner Sea.
Check the blog soon for another look inside Inner Sea Gods, in which we'll examine some of the new rules elements available in the book (and yes, we'll show off some more art). Inner Sea Gods will be shipping to subscribers and game stores in April, and is available for preorder now.
... The Origins of Gods and Magic Thursday, September 11, 2008 I've always been a fan of mythology, dating back to my pre-teen years reading about the Greek and Norse gods and not coincidentally right around the time when I started playing D&D. Working as a designer at Wizards I eventually became known as the gods guy, writing or developing most of the deity write-ups for the World of Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms. In the last months of Dragon magazine's time at Paizo I wrote a series...
The Origins of Gods and Magic
Thursday, September 11, 2008
I've always been a fan of mythology, dating back to my pre-teen years reading about the Greek and Norse gods and not coincidentally right around the time when I started playing D&D. Working as a designer at Wizards I eventually became known as "the gods guy," writing or developing most of the deity write-ups for the World of Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms. In the last months of Dragon magazine's time at Paizo I wrote a series of Core Beliefs articles for Greyhawk, and when James and Wes wanted to keep the series going with the gods of Golarion they asked if I'd mind continuing it. Of course, I jumped at the chance—how often do you get a chance to shape the mythology of a new published world? Work on those articles naturally led to me filling out the gods section of the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting, and that led to writing Gods and Magic.
Tackling this sort of project can be daunting. James, Mike, Wes, and Erik all had their ideas about the setting and its history, and all I had were a few paragraphs on each deity, which I had to expand into two-page write-ups that didn't go against their years of home campaigns and office discussions about the world. Fortunately, we had a format that worked—the long deity write-ups in Pathfinder—and the first step was to reduce that format from its 6,000–8,000 word incarnation to a more manageable 1,600–word two-page setup. Stripped down to a leaner form, I knew exactly what topics I had to cover; the challenge was getting into the right mindset for writing about each of the 20 deities, which is where real-world inspiration comes in.
Thousands of years of human history have created hundreds of strange beliefs suitable for adapting into a game. Sacred prostitutes? Check. Mortals making pacts with fiends? Check. Beast-headed protector deities? Check. And so on. Using the references on my bookshelf, bits from the History Channel, and online sources such as Wikipedia, I was able to find idea seeds that I could "game up" for an interesting deity description. The ultimate goal was twofold: one, to make the gods cool enough that GMs think, "I need to get these guys into my game as soon as possible," and two, to make them cool enough that players think, "I want to play a priest of this god as soon as possible.' Depending on the deity, this may require making them sexy (like Calistria), creepy (like Zon-Kuthon), badass (like Iomedae), or some other "hook."
Most of the text in the deity write-ups is "fluff" rather than "crunch"—descriptive material with no game mechanics, useful for getting the feel of a religion but usually not enough to differentiate them when the dice hit the table. Fortunately, this book has a lot of room for crunch; each deity gets a faith-specific spell and magic item, and these help nail down aspects of the god and his or her worshipers as well. For example, there's an Asmodean magic item that lets a worshiper use his own blood to augment certain spells. Calistria's priests can seduce an enemy, then cast a spell to avenge themselves against that enemy. Rovagug's cult has an item that causes rage if the wearer is bound or shackled. Torag's priests have a spell that turns failures into successes. Urgathoa's followers can compel enemies to eat their own fallen comrades. Little things like this help establish the reality in a fantasy world where these gods and goddesses are real.
Gods and Magic was a fun book to write. The work situation was a bit more hectic than my normal experience (near my deadline I had my sister's wedding and moved to Washington to start full-time at Paizo) but I'm familiar enough with the process of writing this sort of material that I could let my instincts steer me true. It doesn't hurt that the rest of the Paizo team is very supportive and gives great feedback—a smart designer quickly learns to rely on these open channels of communication to make their work stronger, and that is precisely what I did. I think this book will become an integral part of your Golarion collection, and I hope you enjoy it.
... Out of the Void Wednesday, August 27, 2008Keen-eyed readers of Chapter 3 of the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting have noticed that the deity Groetus, God of the End Times (that creepy moon nearby is his holy symbol, by the way), granted one less domain than the other gods. The problem there is, of course, the fact that there’s just not a lot of good choices for a chaotic neutral god of the apocalypse among the SRD domains—my goal was to include a new domain for Groetus, but...
Out of the Void
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Keen-eyed readers of Chapter 3 of the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting have noticed that the deity Groetus, God of the End Times (that creepy moon nearby is his holy symbol, by the way), granted one less domain than the other gods. The problem there is, of course, the fact that there’s just not a lot of good choices for a chaotic neutral god of the apocalypse among the SRD domains—my goal was to include a new domain for Groetus, but space considerations got in the way.
But never fear! In the upcoming Gods and Magic, Groetus gets his missing domain—the Void domain! Keyed to the darkness between the stars and secrets humanity was not meant to know, the Void domain bolsters the mind against harmful magic while granting access to spells that allow flight through the empty places and the power to call down outsiders from beyond the stars.
Void Domain
Granted Power: You gain a +4 insight bonus on saving throws against all mind-affecting effects.
... Good Versus Evil Friday, August 22, 2008One of the most rewarding parts of seeing the upcoming Gods and Magic come together is seeing each of Golarion's core 20 deities illustrated. We've seen a few show up here and there in Pathfinder already, but in this book, it's all of them! Pictured here are two of our world's deities—sinister Asmodeus and indomitable Iomedae. James Jacobs ... Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief ...
Good Versus Evil
Friday, August 22, 2008
One of the most rewarding parts of seeing the upcoming Gods and Magic come together is seeing each of Golarion's core 20 deities illustrated. We've seen a few show up here and there in Pathfinder already, but in this book, it's all of them! Pictured here are two of our world's deities—sinister Asmodeus and indomitable Iomedae.
... Hail the Headless King! Wednesday, August 13, 2008There's more in the multiverse than just the deities of Golarion's civilized races. Amid the near endless realms of the Great Beyond lurk wonders and horrors beyond the imaginings of mortals, beings deserving of worship, and terrors of which no man was ever meant to know. ... In addition to the twenty most prevalent deities of the Pathfinder Chronicles campaign setting, the next tome in the Pathfinder Chronicles line, Gods & Magic, sets...
Hail the Headless King!
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
There's more in the multiverse than just the deities of Golarion's civilized races. Amid the near endless realms of the Great Beyond lurk wonders and horrors beyond the imaginings of mortals, beings deserving of worship, and terrors of which no man was ever meant to know.
In addition to the twenty most prevalent deities of the Pathfinder Chronicles campaign setting, the next tome in the Pathfinder Chronicles line, Gods & Magic, sets its sights on the heavens and hells. From the serenity of Nirvana to the tortures of Abadodn, the deific inhabits of realms beyond the mortal sphere come to life. Along with familiar allies like Cayden Cailean and Desna, and soul-thirsty nightmares like Lamashtu and Zon-Kuthon, Gods & Magic reveals a host of new godly patrons and immortal perils. For example, legends of the scalefolk tell of one Ydersius, know to those who slither as the Headless King...
Ydersius (The Headless King): This ancient being was the patron god of the all-but-forgotten race of snake-men that battled mighty Azlant and lost. Forced to hide in the Darklands with his mortal servants, the Serpent King was decapitated by a mighty champion, but such was the power of the god that he remained alive in two pieces. Now his mindless body thrashes recklessly, and his head is lost and presumably rotted away to a skull. But there are some that say the skull still thinks and can control a tiny measure of power, and if it and the body were ever reunited, Ydersius would heal and lead his people in an attack on the surface world.
Gods & Magic, scribed by the newest addition to Paizo staff, theologian Sean K Reynolds, hits the shelves in October.
... Demon Lords of Golarion Wednesday, August 6, 2008So, if you'll allow me a moment here to go off on a tangent that's near and dear to my black, twitching, tainted heart—let me talk for a bit about the demon lords of Golarion. ... I've always been a fan of demons. I've written at length on my personal blog, on messageboards, in editorials, and in various books about this admiration of all things Abyssal. The one person I've met who can match (or exceed) this perfectly normal and...
Demon Lords of Golarion
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
So, if you'll allow me a moment here to go off on a tangent that's near and dear to my black, twitching, tainted heart—let me talk for a bit about the demon lords of Golarion.
I've always been a fan of demons. I've written at length on my personal blog, on messageboards, in editorials, and in various books about this admiration of all things Abyssal. The one person I've met who can match (or exceed) this perfectly normal and perfectly healthy obsession is Erik Mona. So with both of us pulling some key strings behind the scenes of Golarion, it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that demon lords are going to play a pretty key role in the world.
With the new Second Darkness Adventure Path starting up, we'll be doing quite a bit with those demon lords. In the months to come, you can expect to see a few new demons popping into the Pathfinder Bestiary at times (including at least one well over CR 20 menace), at LEAST one prestige class for demon worshipers, and in Pathfinder #18, an 8-page article about the demon lords themselves. For those who can't wait that long, we've put a preview into the hardcover Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting that lists nearly 30 of the world's known demon lords.
To long-time players of the game, many of the names on that list will look familiar. Many of the names are from real-world mythology (perhaps with a few spelling changes here and there), while more than a few are classic demon lords that, thanks to Necromancer Games' Tome of Horrors, are open content. For now, this list in the hardcover is pretty much all we've got on our demon lords, but since so many of the demons are established names, I thought it'd be helpful to list where they're all from.
Real-World Mythology: Abraxas, Aldinach, Baphomet, Dagon, Flauros, Haagenti, Kostchtchie, Lamashtu, Nocticula, Orcus, Pazuzu, Shax, and Socothbenoth are all from various real-world myths (although in some cases, like Orcus, the real-world inspiration is a mythological place rather than a being).
Open Sources: A few old favorites, like Baphomet, Jubilex, Kostchtchie, and Pazuzu, appear in the Tome of Horrors Revised. Of these, Jubilex is the only one who doesn't really have a real-world mythological source. (Those interested in keeping track of which version is the open content Jubilex and which one isn't the open one need look no further than the spelling of his name, by the way.)
Brand New Demon Lords: And that leaves us with 16 brand new demon lords: the razor-edged Andirifkhu, the brutish simian Angazhan, the mysterious sphinx Areshkagal, the poisonous and fungoid Cyth-V'sug, the insectoid infestation Deskari (whose freaky swarming minions are illustrated here), the froglike and ravenous Gogunta, the murderous werewolf Jezelda, the ghoulish Kabriri, the creeping spider-thing Mazmezz, the deformed and hateful hag Mestama, the dangerously seductive Sifkesh, the troll god Urxehl, the stony gargoyle Xoveron, the dinosaurian troglodyte Xevgavizeb, and beautiful but vampiric Zura. I think that's all of them. These guys and gals were created specifically for Golarion (or in a few cases, imported from my own home-brew campaign world), and beyond a few mentions elsewhere in print, we haven't said much about them yet. That's a situation I hope to change over the next few months, though!
... When Gods Wage War! Friday, July 25, 2008In the past year we've had some incredible covers. We've seen rampaging monsters, unbelievable lands, deadly villains, valiant heroes, and awesome dragons, all illustrated by some of the best fantasy artists in the biz. It's hard to compare to amazing pieces like Wayne Reynolds' cover to the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting, Steven Prescott's work on the Pathfinder Chronicles Gazetteer, John Gravato's cover to Guide to Darkmoon Vale, or...
When Gods Wage War!
Friday, July 25, 2008
In the past year we've had some incredible covers. We've seen rampaging monsters, unbelievable lands, deadly villains, valiant heroes, and awesome dragons, all illustrated by some of the best fantasy artists in the biz. It's hard to compare to amazing pieces like Wayne Reynolds' cover to the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting, Steven Prescott's work on the Pathfinder Chronicles Gazetteer, John Gravato's cover to Guide to Darkmoon Vale, or Andrew Hou's Classic Monsters Revisited, but that doesn't mean our favorite artists aren't going to try to blow even these awesome pieces away. Case in point, Wayne Reynolds' cover to October's Gods and Magic, where firey-winged Sarenrae, goddess of the sun, takes some divine vengeance on Rovagug, god of destruction. I won't crowd the piece with any more of my ugly words, but for a face-to-face look at Golarion's 20 core gods and even a few newcomers check out Gods and Magic, coming soon!
Ten Other Gods Wednesday, July 2, 2008Beyond the 20 core deities, there are those who have not become so ubiquitous that their names and faiths can be found throughout Avistan or Garund. In some cases, this is simply because their worshipers do not actively seek out new members of their faith, while in others it is the deity who discourages growth. In Aroden's case, a once mighty faith has crumbled to a shadow of its former glory after the god himself perished. Beyond these ten, there exist...
Ten Other Gods
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Beyond the 20 core deities, there are those who have not become so ubiquitous that their names and faiths can be found throughout Avistan or Garund. In some cases, this is simply because their worshipers do not actively seek out new members of their faith, while in others it is the deity who discourages growth. In Aroden's case, a once mighty faith has crumbled to a shadow of its former glory after the god himself perished. Beyond these ten, there exist still more deities, but those generally focus on specific races or regions of the world and have not yet expanded out of their relatively narrow confines to touch other realms and believers. The ten Other Gods detailed in the Pathfinder Campaign Setting are listed below, several of which are being introduced to the public for the first time!
Achaekek (He Who Walks in Blood): God of the Red Mantis and assassins.
Aroden (The Last Azlanti): God of human culture, innovation, and history.
Besmara (The Pirate Queen): Goddess of piracy, strife, and sea monsters.
Droskar (The Dark Smith): God of toil, slavery, and cheating.
Ghlaunder (The Gossamer King): God of parasites, infection, and stagnation.
Groetus (God of the End Times): God of empty places, ruins, and oblivion.
Kurgess (The Strong Man): God of competition, sport, and self-sacrifice.
Milani (The Everbloom): Goddess of hope, devotion, and uprisings.
Sivanah (The Seventh Veil): Goddess of illusions, reflections, and mystery.
Zyphus (The Grim Harvestman): God of accidental death, graveyards, and tragedy.
A Duo of Deities Thursday, May 8, 2008The Pathfinder Chronicles Gazetteer is out now and receiving rave reviews. In case you haven't had a chance to check it out yet, here's an excerpt of what you're missing. I have a soft spot for Shelyn, since she was my first major contribution to the campaign setting, so here's the first official look at her, straight from the pages of the Gaz. ... ShelynThe Eternal Rose ... Goddess of beauty, art, love, and music ... Alignment: NG ... Domains: Air,...
A Duo of Deities
Thursday, May 8, 2008
The Pathfinder Chronicles Gazetteer is out now and receiving rave reviews. In case you haven't had a chance to check it out yet, here's an excerpt of what you're missing. I have a soft spot for Shelyn, since she was my first major contribution to the campaign setting, so here's the first official look at her, straight from the pages of the Gaz.
Shelyn
The Eternal Rose Goddess of beauty, art, love, and music
Alignment: NG
Domains: Air, Charm, Good, Luck, Protection
Favored Weapon: Glaive
Centers of Worship: Absalom, Galt, Sargava, Taldor
Nationality: Taldan
An ancient story tells of how Shelyn stole the glaive Whisperer of Souls from her half-brother Zon-Kuthon in an attempt to redeem him. Obviously, this didn't work, but to the intelligent weapon's great frustration, neither do its continued attempts to corrupt or influence her.
All depictions of Shelyn, regardless of race or ethnicity, show her as a young woman barely out of her youth, with eyes of blue or silver.
Shelyn's ankle-length chestnut hair bears several strands colored bright red, green, and gold. She always wears tasteful clothing and jewelry that accentuates her beauty without revealing too much of it. Shelyn preaches (and practices) that true beauty comes from within, and she favors romances not based solely on lust. Clerics of Shelyn endeavor each day to create something of beauty, whether artistically or through unconventional forms, such as a gardener tending a flower garden.
And, of course, because their histories tie them together, here too is the foul Zon-Kuthon (who also appears in the upcoming Pathfinder #11).
Zon-Kuthon
The Midnight Lord God of envy, pain, darkness, and loss
Alignment: LE
Domains: Darkness, Death, Destruction, Evil, Law
Favored Weapon: Spiked chain
Centers of Worship: Belkzen, Cheliax, Geb, Irrisen, Nidal, Varisia
Nationality: Alien
The Umbral Leaves, which chronicle the history of Zon-Kuthon, claim that he was once the half-brother of the beauty goddess Shelyn, but that his envy over her talents led him to commit terrible acts against her and her works. For his crimes, the gods of Golarion banished Zon-Kuthon to the Plane of Shadow, there to reside for as long as the sun hung in the sky. Unfortunately, in the depths of the Age of Darkness, Zon-Kuthon emerged from his prison to a benighted Golarion and wept tears of joy. Here was a world ripe for the conquering, hidden from the light of the stars and cloaked in fear and entropy.
Zon-Kuthon is almost never depicted by his followers, but his presence manifests as a deep darkness lurking in the center of paintings, and as a standing doorway that leads only to emptiness.
The Midnight Lord wreaked terrible havoc upon the world in the Age of Darkness, but his malign influence has mostly been purged over the years. The lone exception to this is the Shadow Court of Pangolais, the secret rulers of Nidal. In this dark nation, the faith of the Midnight Lord still rules supreme, the leaders issuing edicts from their pitch-black council chambers.
He Who Walks In Blood Monday, April 28, 2008In Golarion, the gods are immortal. They can die, but the methods of their deaths must be divine as well. A mortal cannot kill a god. However—the same cannot be said of demigods! None of the core 20 deities of Golarion are demigods, but we've introduced several along the way who could be called such. A demigod can be killed by mortals—they possess stat blocks, in other words. ... Last Monday, I introduced you to one of Golarion's most...
He Who Walks In Blood
Monday, April 28, 2008
In Golarion, the gods are immortal. They can die, but the methods of their deaths must be divine as well. A mortal cannot kill a god. However—the same cannot be said of demigods! None of the core 20 deities of Golarion are demigods, but we've introduced several along the way who could be called such. A demigod can be killed by mortals—they possess stat blocks, in other words.
Last Monday, I introduced you to one of Golarion's most infamous organizations, the assassins known as the Red Mantis. Today, let me introduce you to their God, Achaekek, the Mantis God, He Who Walks In Blood. The Mantis God serves as an assassin, a tool used by the gods to smite those who deserve smiting. Yet the Mantis God is not a true god—he is a demigod, and as I mentioned above, that means he also gets a stat block. A stat block you'll get to see in Pathfinder #9.
The Mantis God is easily the toughest monster to grace our Bestiary yet. I don't want to spoil all of the surprises here, but check out these fun Mantis God facts!
It is CR 30.
Its Tumble check is +50.
It can create gates by tearing open reality once per minute as a move action.
It is so poisonous that even things that are immune to poison can be poisoned by him.
Assuming he gets in a rend attack, the Mantis God's average damage on a full round attack is about 181. That's assuming no critical hits. And since he threatens a crit on a 15 or above, 180 points of damage is a pretty low estimate.
Needless to say, the Mantis God won't be making a direct appearance in Curse of the Crimson Throne. Unless, of course, your PCs are complaining that nothing they encounter is challenging enough for them!
... More Magic of Thassilon Monday, Jaunary 28, 2008For Pathfinder #5, we asked a small army of authors to send us some spells and magic items that had a Thassilonian feel to them. As it turned out, we got about twice as many as we really had room to print. Rather than just cut the second half out and throw it away, we decided to cut the second half out and throw it into a free web enhancement for Pathfinder #5. Pictured here is just one of those items—a fragment of the Gluttonous Tome,...
More Magic of Thassilon
Monday, Jaunary 28, 2008
For Pathfinder #5, we asked a small army of authors to send us some spells and magic items that had a "Thassilonian" feel to them. As it turned out, we got about twice as many as we really had room to print. Rather than just cut the second half out and throw it away, we decided to cut the second half out and throw it into a free web enhancement for Pathfinder #5. Pictured here is just one of those items—a fragment of the Gluttonous Tome, a powerful artifact that has some pretty major ties to Zutha, the undead Runelord of Gluttony. WARNING: Some of the magic items may not be wise for your PCs to use. They were, after all, invented by the runelords and their minions!
To download a free PDF of the Pathfinder #5 web supplement, click here (180 KB zip PDF).
... Making Monsters, Lamashtu Style Monday, December 24, 2007In Pathfinder #5, we have the second in our series of articles exploring the deities of Golarion. This time around, master of all things divine Sean K Reynolds talks about Lamashtu, the Mother of Monsters and one of Golarion's most notorious deities. After all, she's not just the one the goblins and gnolls and all sorts of other monsters worship—she's the one who MAKES a lot of the monsters in the first place. And if you...
Making Monsters, Lamashtu Style
Monday, December 24, 2007
In Pathfinder #5, we have the second in our series of articles exploring the deities of Golarion. This time around, master of all things divine Sean K Reynolds talks about Lamashtu, the Mother of Monsters and one of Golarion's most notorious deities. After all, she's not just the one the goblins and gnolls and all sorts of other monsters worship—she's the one who MAKES a lot of the monsters in the first place. And if you happen to worship her, well, you might just learn how to make a few monsters of your own. We're not sure WHAT it is this gnoll ranger of Lamashtu is clutching, but it certainly qualifies as a monster!
Oh, and by the way, that's what a Golarion gnoll looks like. He's probably a lot better-groomed than most, though. Gnolls aren't that fond of personal hygiene as a general rule.
Holy of Holies Friday, September 7, 2007In the Player's Guide to Rise of the Runelords, we had a chance to illustrate six of our core deities' holy symbols. Unfortunately, that left the other 14 deities with nothing. What happens when a player wants to draw a sketch of his cleric of Iomedae? How does the GM describe the giant symbol of Rovagug carved into the walls of the evil temple? ... Eventually, the symbols of all 20 core deities will be illustrated, but for now, the following list of...
Holy of Holies
Friday, September 7, 2007
In the Player's Guide to Rise of the Runelords, we had a chance to illustrate six of our core deities' holy symbols. Unfortunately, that left the other 14 deities with nothing. What happens when a player wants to draw a sketch of his cleric of Iomedae? How does the GM describe the giant symbol of Rovagug carved into the walls of the evil temple?
Eventually, the symbols of all 20 core deities will be illustrated, but for now, the following list of short descriptions at least gives you an idea of what their symbols look like. For Erastil, Desna, Shelyn, Abadar, Gozreh, and Sarenrae, the look is set. For the other 14, we may still decide to go another way with some of these symbols, but for now, you can use these in your campaign.
Abadar: Golden key with a cityscape carved into its head, with four runes and a keyhole along the lower edge.
Asmodeus: Red pentagram.
Calistria: Three slender daggers touching their pommels together so the blades radiate out from the middle.
Cayden Cailean: Slightly dented and well-used iron tankard.
Desna: Butterfly with star, sun, and moon symbols on its wings.
Erastil: Arrow nocked in a bow made of a pair of antlers.
Gorum: Iron sword thrust into the side of a rugged mountain.
Gozreh: Leaf with a drop of water dripping from its tip.
Iomedae: Elegant longsword with a circular sunburst behind the sword's hilt.
Irori: Dark blue hand, palm out, inscribed inside a sky blue circle.
Lamashtu: Monstrous three-eyed jackal head seen from straight on.
Nethys: Androgynous porcelain mask, one half black, one half white.
Norgorber: Black featureless mask with one silver starburst for a left eye.
Pharasma: Comet whose tail trails out behind it to form a spiral.
Rovagug: Circular fanged mouth surrounded by nine curling spider legs.
Sarenrae: Angel with arms outstretched and wings curled above in an ankh-like shape.
Shelyn: Exotic songbird with a long rainbow-colored tail curling up over its head.
Torag: A gleaming silver hammer with blocky runes on it.
Urgathoa: White-eyed housefly with bloodstained wings and feet and a distorted human skull pattern on its body.
Zon-Kuthon: Battered skull with no lower jaw; a spiky chain has been threaded in one eye socket and out the other, so the two chains hang down like metal tears.
Desna Detailed Wednesday, August 8, 2007With work on The Skinsaw Murders wrapping up, we thought we'd give you a brief taste of Sean K Reynolds' insightful exploration into Desna, Golarion's goddess of luck, travel, and more. Presented here is one of several key myths tied to her faith and frequently repeated by members of her flock, as well as a fabulous rendering of her holy symbol by Savage Tide alumnus Ben Wootten. ... Lamashtu's Trap: In her earliest days as a goddess, Desna's mentor was...
Desna Detailed
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
With work on The Skinsaw Murders wrapping up, we thought we'd give you a brief taste of Sean K Reynolds' insightful exploration into Desna, Golarion's goddess of luck, travel, and more. Presented here is one of several key myths tied to her faith and frequently repeated by members of her flock, as well as a fabulous rendering of her holy symbol by Savage Tide alumnus Ben Wootten.
Lamashtu's Trap: In her earliest days as a goddess, Desna's mentor was Curchanus, a mostly forgotten god of beasts, travel, and endurance, and she spent many nights listening to stories of his travels. Curchanus's enemy was Lamashtu, an equally ancient goddess of monsters, madness, and nightmares who longed for his control over beasts. Lamashtu set a trap for Curchanus, leading him on a strange wandering path into her realm, where she swarmed him with horrible monsters, finally attacking in the guise of a great deformed jackal, tearing his beast-dominion from him. This wound was too great for the elder deity, and as his last act he willed his power over travel to Desna. Since this theft, wild animals have treated mankind as an outsider and an enemy rather than a part of nature, and Desna has searched far and wide to find a way to force Lamashtu to surrender Curchanus's stolen power. The faithful use this story to remind them of Lamashtu's treachery, to honor Curchanus's gift to Desna, and to remind them that failure is just a setback, not an end.
Sean Signs On Thursday, July 12, 2007The Rise of the Runelords Player's Guide reveals the twenty core deities of our new campaign setting, including their alignments, portfolios, domains granted, and favored weapons—everything a player needs to know to create a cleric character. Yet there's much more to each of our deities than just this. ... Starting with Pathfinder #2, we'll be presenting detailed write-ups of all twenty core deities. Fans of the Core Beliefs articles that have been running...
Sean Signs On
Thursday, July 12, 2007
The Rise of the Runelords Player's Guide reveals the twenty core deities of our new campaign setting, including their alignments, portfolios, domains granted, and favored weapons—everything a player needs to know to create a cleric character. Yet there's much more to each of our deities than just this.
Starting with Pathfinder #2, we'll be presenting detailed write-ups of all twenty core deities. Fans of the Core Beliefs articles that have been running in DRAGON magazine for the last three years will find themselves on familiar ground here, especially with fan-favorite author Sean K Reynolds at the helm. His first installment details Desna, the goddess of dreams, stars, travelers, and luck, a faith that plays a central role in many of the adventures in Rise of the Runelords. You can look forward to information about Desna, her church, her faithful, new spells, new magic items, prestige classes (like the starknife-throwing priest illustrated here by Ben Wootten), and more—everything a believer of the Song of the Spheres will need to know to bring Desna's word to the masses. We're planning on detailing four deities a year (two per Adventure Path), with Lamashtu, the goddess of monsters and madness, coming next in Pathfinder #4.
First Look at Pathfinder Tuesday, June 19, 2007Pathfinder #1 and the Rise of the Runelords Player's Guide ship this week, and as such, we thought it a good time to unveil a sample spread from the guide. Presented here for your perusal are two pages full of new animals, local takes on the core classes, and a full chart detailing all of the core gods of our setting. So what are you waiting for? Click the image to download a full-size version and dig in! ... James Sutter ... Assistant Editor,...
First Look at Pathfinder
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Pathfinder #1 and the Rise of the Runelords Player's Guide ship this week, and as such, we thought it a good time to unveil a sample spread from the guide. Presented here for your perusal are two pages full of new animals, local takes on the core classes, and a full chart detailing all of the core gods of our setting. So what are you waiting for? Click the image to download a full-size version and dig in!
Forge Spurned Friday, May 18, 2007In Crown of the Kobold King we introduce the dwarven deity Droskar, God of Toil. Droskar's following began as a reaction against the bon vivant trends that pervaded the dwarven society of their day, instating a dreadful dogma of salvation through endless toil and brutal subservience to the Dark Smith, as Droskar was often called. The dwarves became slaves to their own industry, producing heaps of weapons, armor, and gear to appease their dark god. The...
Forge Spurned
Friday, May 18, 2007
In Crown of the Kobold King we introduce the dwarven deity Droskar, God of Toil. Droskar's following began as a reaction against the bon vivant trends that pervaded the dwarven society of their day, instating a dreadful dogma of salvation through endless toil and brutal subservience to the Dark Smith, as Droskar was often called. The dwarves became slaves to their own industry, producing heaps of weapons, armor, and gear to appease their dark god. The wilderness around them was fed to Droskar's fires of industry, until the dwarves choked on their own black fumes and starved in the dust.
The rise of this new religion also saw the first appearance of a new undead monster associated with such endless toil: the forge spurned. When a dwarven worshiper of Droskar perishes, he is brought before his divine lord and judged. If the Master of the Dark Furnace finds him unworthy, he is pierced with burning barbs and returned to the world as a tormented undead creature on an accursed errand to gather souls for Droskar's Furnace. Forge spurned are consumed with their need to forge their soul chains, and prey upon any creature they feel they can easily best. If a forge spurned is felled and its chain taken by another, it seethes with dark fury. A forge spurned stops at nothing to retrieve its chain, lest it be forced to forge another, extending its period of burning torment.
Forge spurned resemble hulking dwarves wrapped in heavy steel chains. Their faces, hands, and bodies are riddled with glowing hot hooks and half-melted razor wire. Black smoke rises from their smoldering beards, framing a freakishly contorted face covered in ash and soot. The tormented beings heft black iron hammers in both hands, and the chains that drape their forms possess the malevolent life of angry metal serpents.
Mark of Sin Friday, May 11, 2007As you can see, I've just received the final go-ahead to reveal to everyone the rune designs that artist Jeff Carlisle has created to go along with our new system of sin magic, which we'll be introducing as a primary theme in the first Pathfinder campaign. Needless to say, they look fabulous and we're all pretty excited about them. Jeff and Senior Art Director Sean Glenn spent a lot of time working together to create this unique look, with Jeff pulling...
Mark of Sin
Friday, May 11, 2007
As you can see, I've just received the final go-ahead to reveal to everyone the rune designs that artist Jeff Carlisle has created to go along with our new system of sin magic, which we'll be introducing as a primary theme in the first Pathfinder campaign. Needless to say, they look fabulous and we're all pretty excited about them. Jeff and Senior Art Director Sean Glenn spent a lot of time working together to create this unique look, with Jeff pulling inspiration from Wayne Reynolds' intricate tattooing and embroidery on the images of Karzoug, Rise of the Runelords' big baddie, and Seoni, our iconic sorceress.
Even beyond their sheer visual impact, I think my favorite thing about these runes is that they're practically puzzles—even without knowing which rune is which, you can still figure them out easily once you know what you're looking at. Which, while I'm fairly certain I understand the reasoning and symbolism behind each one, is why I'm curious to read your explanations. See if you can tell what led Jeff to draw each symbol the way he did, then post on our messageboards and let us see if your answer is better than ours!
Ye Gods! Thursday, April 26, 2007When we decided to set both...
Ye Gods! Thursday, April 26, 2007When we decided to set both Pathfinder and the GameMastery modules in the same unique campaign world, one of the first issues we as a staff had to tackle was the pantheon. As Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief James Jacobs regularly points out, without compelling deities, the game is much less fun—and not just for clerics. Before you can know anything about a person or culture, you have to know who's pulling the strings (or who they think is pulling them, anyway)....
Ye Gods!
Thursday, April 26, 2007
When we decided to set both Pathfinder and the GameMastery modules in the same unique campaign world, one of the first issues we as a staff had to tackle was the pantheon. As Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief James Jacobs regularly points out, without compelling deities, the game is much less fun—and not just for clerics. Before you can know anything about a person or culture, you have to know who's pulling the strings (or who they think is pulling them, anyway). Judging by the response to our "What do you want to know about Pathfinder?" thread on the messageboards, most of you feel the same way.
Since gods are so central to a campaign setting, everyone on the design staff (and a fair number of people who technically aren't) had an opinion. Many were the long Friday afternoon meetings spent hotly debating whether the goddess of love is necessarily good, or whether she should be given the Trickery domain. Whether the gods created the people, or the people, through their belief, created the gods. Whether druids needed a god, and if so, whether or not clerics could worship it. How to make a home-and-harvest god cool enough that people would actually want to play a cleric of one. In the end, however, the chaff was blown away, and our exhausted team found itself staring at a list of twenty core gods, with the provision that the door would be left open for numerous lesser deities as things evolved. And while most of the names and many of the concepts were admittedly swiped wholesale from the exhaustively documented (we're talking hundreds of pages) pantheon of Jacobs' homebrew game world, the resulting list bears each of our marks.
While the full pantheon will be presented in detail in the Rise of the Runelords Player's Guide, which will be available for purchase and free online download this summer, we wanted to preview part of it here on our blog first. Presented below is a brief snippet on the six gods worshipped most frequently in Sandpoint, the location of the first Rise of the Runelords adventure.
Erastil, Old Deadeye LG god of farming, hunting, trade, and family
Domains: Animal, Good, Law, Plant
Favored Weapon: longbow
Sarenrae, the Dawnflower NG goddess of the sun, redemption, honesty, and healing
Domains: Fire, Good, Healing, Sun
Favored Weapon: scimitar
Shelyn, the Eternal Rose NG goddess of beauty, art, love, and music
Domains: Air, Good, Luck, Protection
Favored Weapon: glaive
Desna, Song of the Spheres CG goddess of dreams, stars, travelers, and luck
Domains: Chaos, Good, Luck, Travel
Favored Weapon: starknife
Abadar, Master of the First Vault LN god of cities, wealth, merchants, and law
Domains: Earth, Law, Protection, Travel
Favored Weapon: crossbow
Gozreh, the Wind and the Waves N god of nature, weather, and the sea
Domains: Air, Animal, Plant, Water
Favored Weapon: trident
Of course, any good pantheon requires far more than a list of domains, and each one of these deities has his, her, or its own quirks and backstory that will be explored in lavish detail in Pathfinder's supplementary material... but more on that later. Stay tuned for further god-related updates in the coming weeks, and as always, we'd love to hear your questions and comments on our messageboards.
Raising The Runelords or, How To Recover From a TPK and Make It Look...
Raising The Runelords or, How To Recover From a TPK and Make It Look Like You Planned It All Along Sunday, April 22, 2007Once upon a time, I was running one of my favorite adventures, White Plume Mountain, for my players. They messed up good, got split up, and ended up all being dominated by a certain vampire charged with guarding a certain hammer. Now, I didn't want to admit I had a TPK on my hands, so I took a cue form another favorite adventure, The Mud Sorcerer's Tomb, and introduced a...
Raising The Runelords
or, "How To Recover From a TPK and Make It Look Like You Planned It All Along"
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Once upon a time, I was running one of my favorite adventures, White Plume Mountain, for my players. They messed up good, got split up, and ended up all being dominated by a certain vampire charged with guarding a certain hammer. Now, I didn't want to admit I had a TPK on my hands, so I took a cue form another favorite adventure, "The Mud Sorcerer's Tomb," and introduced a whole ancient society of primeval necromancers over the span between game sessions, and next time we gathered, I had the now-dominated PCs sent by their new vampire lord to release the first of several slumbering wizards from a forgotten age. They let one out, but then escaped their charm and spent the rest of the campaign trying to undo what they'd done. But the idea was too cool to let my players fix. They defeated one of the ancient wizards, but once one woke up, the others came back in a chain reaction. Today, my world has several new nations ruled by these reborn necromancers, all because back in college a few friends of mine blew their saving throws.
And now, that fateful happenstance extends to Pathfinder. The ancient Runelords of Thassilon have developed into their own unique force, but they certainly owe their conception to that fateful day deep under the game's most famous volcano. Reproduced below are some of my notes on the nature of the Runelords and Thassilon. Warning for those who plan on playing in the Rise of the Runelords campaign: serious campaign spoilers ahead!
The Runelords
In the first Pathfinder blog post I mentioned how we needed to build a new region to set Rise of the Runelords in. In fact, it's more complicated than that. We actually had to create TWO regions. The first of these is Varisia, the realm in which the new Adventure Path takes place. The other is Thassilon, the ancient empire that once sprawled across much of this corner of the world. An empire that was, at its height, ruled by seven powerful wizards known as Runelords.
Thassilon was a sprawling empire that covered an area about as large as the western half of the United States. The Runelords were maniacal arcanists who used magic to fuel their own decadent vices. They forged alliances with dragons and enslaved giants by using secrets of rune and glyph magic stolen from the aboleths. With their enslaved giant armies, the wizards of Thassilon built massive tombs, enormous magical constructs, and staggering monuments that survive today, mute testimonies of a mysterious age long past. Yet as all evil empires must, Thassilon fell. The reason for this fall remains a mystery, but as the end drew near, the seven Runelords retreated into the depths of their greatest monuments, entombing themselves with orders for their minions to release them later to reclaim their empire. Alas, Thassilon's minions were enslaved or slaughtered. No one was left to waken them, and so the wizard kings of Thassilon slumbered for countless ages.
Virtues of Rule, Sins of Magic
At Thassilon's dawn, the Runelords held that wealth, fertility, honest pride, abundance, eager striving, righteous anger, and well-deserved rest were the seven virtues of rule—rewards that one could enjoy for being in a position of power. But the Runelords soon abandoned the positive aspects of these traits, instead embracing greed, lust, boastful pride, gluttony, envy, wrath, and sloth as the rewards of rule. Today, long after the fall of Thassilon, the original seven virtues are held as the great mortal sins, although only a few scholars who have studied ancient Thassilon know of their true sources.
The Runelords' magic was closely tied to these seven categories, to such an extent that they developed their own schools of magic. All of the Runelords were specialist wizards. They recognized seven schools of magic (lumping divination magic into the universal school), and each school was associated with one of the seven sins. A Thassilonian wizard selected one sin when he became a specialist, and that determined his prohibited schools, as detailed below.
Envy Focused on the suppression of magic other than your own.
Specialty: abjuration
Prohibited Schools: evocation and necromancy
Sloth Focused on calling agents and minions to perform your deeds for you, or used magic to create what you needed as you needed it.
Specialty: conjuration
Prohibited Schools: evocation and illusion
Lust Focused on using magic to control and dominate others to force them to satisfy your desires, and in the control of other creatures' minds, emotions, and wills.
Specialty: enchantment
Prohibited Schools: necromancy and transmutation
Wrath Focused on the destructive powers of magic, and the use of magic to channel destructive forces.
Specialty: evocation
Prohibited Schools: abjuration and conjuration
Pride Focused on using magic to perfect your own appearance and your domain through trickery and illusions.
Specialty: illusion
Prohibited Schools: transmutation and conjuration
Gluttony Focused on the use of magic to manipulate the physical body in order to maintain an unending thirst for continued life.
Specialty: necromancy
Prohibited Schools: enchantment and abjuration
Greed Focused on the use of magic to transform things into objects of greater value or use, and for the enhancement of the physical self.
Specialty: transmutation
Prohibited Schools: enchantment and illusion
The Big Bad End Guy
Although Rise of the Runelords touches upon many different aspects of the ancient empire of Thassilon and its evil rulers, we knew from the start that we wanted to focus on one Runelord as the main bad guy for the campaign. Not only is it better to have a single villain for PCs to obsess over and hate, but by leaving the other six Runelords more or less undeveloped, we're leaving lots of room for further expansion to this Adventure Path and our campaign setting as a whole. We also knew that, in order to realize his evil plot, this Runelord would be harvesting the souls of creatures that had succumbed to his favored sin.
But still—which sin to pick?
Wrath seemed like the obvious choice, because who can't get behind an explosion-launching bad guy who has fire for blood and lightning for hair? (That's probably a little over the top, but you get the idea.) Wrath certainly fit well with the giants we wanted to use, but it broke down when you applied the themes to the second adventure, which requires a group of murderers who are murdering prominent citizens. If we went with wrath, they'd just be killing themselves off.
So then we looked at lust. Also a great sin to build a villain off of, and it certainly works well with the second adventure in a Jack the Ripper sort of way. But then we get back to our giants. These guys are huge menacing brutes. Not really known for being sexy and what not. So lust was out the window too (though it shows up in the GameMastery module Seven Swords of Sin).
That was when we hit upon greed. With the Runelord of greed, we had a big bad end guy who had a built-in way to tempt and gain his minions; he was filthy rich. Giants are certainly easy to see as greedy, and having our murderers stalking and killing merchants and politicians (and maybe even adventurers like the PCs!) worked perfectly. It also gave us some interesting options when designing his look. Gemstones embedded in his knuckles and forehead! Tattoos made out of gold! And if we do our job right, and our Runelord of greed ends up being a really effective villian, you get to see the looks of worry on your players' faces when, at the end of the Adventure Path, you remind them that there are six more Runelords still out there. Runelords associated with far more violent sins than greed…
And that's how we ended up with Karzoug, Runelord of Greed, becoming the first megavillian of Pathfinder. That's him up near the top of this page. He's lookin' pretty good for a guy who's probably over a thousand years old, eh?
