One is the Loneliest Number

Saturday, August 8, 2015

We just got back from a great Gen Con where we met thousands of people interested in Pathfinder Online, and we gave out around 1,700 postcards inviting people to check out the game. We were running the Elemental Rift escalation all weekend with a giant screen showing the action to everyone while veteran players took turns fighting pesky elementals for the crowds. Overall, it was a really fun weekend—I especially loved putting real-life faces to many in-game avatars.

One question came up over and over at the con: Can you play Pathfinder Online solo? In a game billed as massively multiplayer, with territory control and settlement building as main features, is solo play even viable?

The answer is that while you really need to join a settlement for training purposes, there are many activities that you can pursue on your own that don't force you to interact with others.

Gathering raw materials is usually a solitary endeavour. Heading out into the wilderness to find some rare ingredient can be very zen-like as you move from resource node to resource node discovering what bounties the wild has to offer. Sure, harvesting in a group can provide safety from NPCs and other players, but there is something very satisfying about exploring the world and its resources without having to communicate with other gatherers.

Tenbar checks out a forest node near Pathfinder University.

Crafting is also a solitary pursuit. You can train your character in all the skills you might need to make certain items such as weapons or armor, from gathering to refining to crafting. You will want almost certainly want to buy or sell raw materials, refined goods, or finished products, but you can do that via the auction house, interacting only indirectly with buyers and sellers.

On the PVE side, it is rather easy to go out hunting solo as long as you're careful about which groups you initiate combat with. You'll eventually learn which groups you can take down with ease, which are a bit of a challenge, which you can defeat with some help and a little luck, and which will almost surely result in your demise. Part of the fun of solo combat is that you can constantly challenge yourself, testing the limits of your abilities. When you are in a group, it is never certain what part you played in the success or defeat of your group, but when you are solo, the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat is solely in your hands. But no one will be there to heal you back to health if you bite off more than you can chew, or to help you take down a particularly difficult foe.

Obviously, the territorial aspect of PFO isn't for the solo player. Running a settlement and generating the influence needed to make it viable is something that dozens of players need to do together. Even holdings and outposts need a handful of players to put up and run. But there are many other ways a solo player can contribute to a game which focuses on the interactions of many players.

Lisa Stevens
CEO

Living in a Material World

Saturday, July 24, 2015

One of the most interesting things about Pathfinder Online is the fact that the items your character uses are crafted by players. In so many other MMOs, the gear that players crave is the result of killing off specific boss monsters. Sure, PFO's boss monsters drop nice spells and other maneuvers, and killing NPCs is a great way to get the recipes folks need to make all the stuff in the world... but those items still need to be created. Raw components need to be gathered or bought from other players, and a crafter needs to have a specific recipe and must dedicate time to crafting the item.

PFO also has no NPC stores selling gear. The auction houses in the game are stocked entirely by other players, who set their own prices for each item. This leads to an interesting economy where items that are in demand command a much higher price than items that are more niche.

Every week, I travel around the map, checking out all the player-run auction houses. The quality of each auction house depends a lot on the local groups and the players who are taking the time to stock the auction houses. If the local population is sparse, then the auction house tends to be fairly bare, with items listed either being insanely cheap or outrageously expensive. On the other hand, in areas with a higher population, the auction houses are vibrant, with goods changing hands all the time and prices moving toward what the market will bear.

The exception to this rule is settlements which are run with a "commune" philosophy, where everyone contributes everything they have to their central bank, which in turn provides them with all the gear they could want for free. It's a great way to play the game if you don't want to worry about money and gear, but it tanks the local economy for folks who have a more capitalistic bent. These settlements have some of the highest populations... but some of the weakest auction houses.

I have been running a merchant business out of Thornkeep for the past six weeks. My main goal has been to provide new players with upgrades over the starter gear they get when they start the game. It only takes around a week of play before a new player will be ready for better gear, so keeping my supply pipeline full is a hard job. But it is also very profitable. And the money I make has allowed me to start purchasing raw materials from gatherers or refiners rather than having to gather it all myself. This has allowed me to ramp up production of goods to keep up with the ever-increasing new player demand.

The Bloodstone Swords' merchant Gilrin stands outside the Thornkeep Auction House.

Another facet of the economy is that creating finished goods usually involves a web of people. For instance, to make a +2 Steel Longsword, a weaponsmith needs Steel Ingots +2, which are made by a smelter using 22 iron ore, 22 coal, and an ordered essence. Iron ore and coal are gathered by miners, while the ordered essence comes from a dowser. That longsword also needs Basic Strips +2, which a tanner makes using 10 Beast Hides, gathered by a scavenger, and 4 weak acidic items and 1 weak deadly item. Acidic items include smoke peppers and foxfire, while deadly items include belladonna and blood nettle; all of these are gathered by foresters. So it's hard—but not impossible—to make things all by yourself. To make that sword without involving anyone else, you'd need levels in Dowser, Forester, Miner, and Scavenger to gather the raw materials. Then, to refine them, you'd need levels in Smelter and Tanner. And you'd need levels in Weaponsmith to make the finished sword.

Also, some raw materials are localized. For instance, coal is more common on the west side of the map, which is pretty far away from the Thornkeep area. I've had to go out there and gather some coal, augmenting what I find with purchases from local gatherers in the auction houses, and then I haul it back to Thornkeep using the new mule system. Soon, there will be a Buy Order system where I will be able to tell gatherers that I am willing to pay a specific amount for each piece of coal ore they bring me. This way, I won't have to worry about going places to get coal, and the gatherers will know they have a ready source of cash for the stuff they find. This is going to be a huge boost to the player-created economy because players will know there's a particular amount of money being offered for a particular item, and it will help set pricing norms.

So there are already a lot of interesting facets to the economy in PFO. Once the enchanting system is added to the mix, crafters will have a myriad of ways to differentiate their wares (other than price). The economy in PFO has risen from its infancy and is now entering its awkward teenage years. It will be exciting to see how it grows and develops!

Player Profile: Drake and Kachara, Gatherer and Armorer from Keeper's Pass

I first met the person who plays both Drake and Kachara when a large contingent of folks from Keeper's Pass showed up at PaizoCon this year. Keeper's Pass has focused their in-game efforts on gathering, refining and crafting, providing gear for their compatriots in the large EBA alliance. Kachara created a special set of Ornate Steel Plate +3 for my character Laurethoron to wear on special occasions.

Let's hear from Drake and Kachara about how this all came about:

Drake "the Mule" heard the calling of Desna and convinced his twin sister Kachara to follow him wandering the world in search of new things. That led them to the River Kingdoms where they met other wanderers and helped found the settlement of Keeper's Pass. While his sister settled down quickly and found work as a master armorsmith, Drake preferred to get out and explore the land. In his exploration he was always finding valuable gems and ores which seemed to find their way into his pack, apparently not even slowing him down. When he would return to town he would dump out his pack and people would be astonished how much he was carrying. Unfazed, he would shove the haul into the hands of the town crafters—all but the most choice bits of iron and other metals, which he would smelt himself to present to his sister before leaving town to see what else he could find.

Kachara, twin sister of Drake, having no strong ties to anyone else in her home village and no available apprenticeships to the local smithy, decided to follow her brother in his wanderings. Her decision proved the right path for her as it led her to the River Kingdoms where she received training in the crafting of the armors that are in high demand by the adventurers flooding the area. She set herself up with a group of friendly individuals in the mountains a fair ways south of Thornkeep where they founded the settlement of Keeper's Pass. She always has work orders coming in, and the constant stream of work only causes her to improve her craft further. Her brother always returned from his wanderings bearing gifts of iron of the highest quality, which she uses to forge armor for her friends and new family here in the River Kingdoms.

Player Profile: Stache, The Merchant Prince of Kreuz Bernstein

One of the more exciting things that has happened in the game since the launch of Early Enrollment is the revitalization of the settlement of Kreuz Bernstein by Stache. In the early days, Kreuz was practically a ghost town, but Stache and his army of gatherers and crafters have turned it into a thriving hub of commerce. It has the widest selection of Tier 2 gear, which the more advanced players make use of, and the prices for most things are among the most reasonable in the entire Echo Wood. From what I hear, Stache is about to become the first millionaire merchant in the game.

Stache and his crew of refiners and crafters stand outside the Kreuz Bernstein auction house.

Let's hear from Stache himself about how this all came about:

Who is Stache? The Merchant Prince, the man behind the Mustache, the guy who gets it done. The Stache even talks in third person. Stache and his twin ZomoZ (brother from another mother) do a stiff business in virtually everything craftable. Stache has an army of dedicated refiners for every refining job, and tons of crafters pumping out quality goods for the masses. ZomoZ is the strong arm of the law, enforcing trades and defending the infrastructure that his twin has built.

Stache has worked his way up from being a citizen of the Empire of Xeilias (EoX), to being one of the leaders. Yes, that's right, Stache is the mustache behind the curtain, and while he runs his own company, it is almost a one-man company.

Kreuz Bernstein, the home for Stache and many more, has widely been recognized as the best auction house for Tier 2, with a steady supply required for the Empire's war efforts. Stache is an equal opportunity merchant. Large orders have been purchased from virtually every corner of the map, including the monster hunters at Talonguard, the dwarves of Forgeholm, and the students and staff of the one and only Pathfinder University. Shady intermediaries from down south who would rather their names remain anonymous also buy my wares when they are running low. Conservative rumor has it that Stache has crafted a third of all goods consumed by the Empire, with other crafted goods going anywhere there is coin.

The pleasure from profits gained is only exceeded by his pride in his name, his brand, and his very fine Mustache. No person can doubt a deal or trade made, as Stache's word is as good as gold. Stache's company, Stache's Mustache, has also seen the limelight from reclaiming towers for the ability to craft high-tier gear, and for the betterment of the market as a whole.

Are you interested in crafting with someone who has connections to every type of refiner in game, so you do not have to wait for seven people to log in over a week's time to get one thing crafted? Stache has logged in and crafted every day for over half a year strong and there is no stopping this crafting machine! Consider joining Stache's Mustache, Kreuz Bernstein's pride and joy. Search "Stache" in game in the company finder—it's the one and only! There are profits to be made, and war to be had when bored!

Lisa Stevens
CEO

The Most Dangerous Game

Saturday, July 18, 2015

In Richard Connell's 1924 short story "The Most Dangerous Game," a hunter bored with animals because they don't have the brain power to be a threat to him instead hunts people he has trapped on his island. This he finds exhilarating, especially when a big-game hunter lands on his shore.

In Pathfinder Online, the most dangerous game is played between two human-controlled characters. Even the most advanced AI cannot provide the challenge and unpredictability of battling another human-controlled character. Many MMO players crave the thrill of this Player-vs-Player challenge and seek out PvP in preference to fighting NPC monsters which can become predictable because of the limits of AI.

Arch enemies Phyllain and Nihimon square off in a duel to the death!

Our goal is to give players meaningful and focused outlets for PvP while disincentivizing the random player killing that plagues other open-world MMOs. In Pathfinder Online, settlements fight over territory and other valuable items. There's still a risk that anybody can attack anybody else at any time, which adds a sense of suspense to your encounters with other characters in the game, but in PFO, meaningless PvP comes with a cost to the aggressor, so the reality is that you will rarely (if ever) have this happen to you unless you are part of a group which is at war with another group.

Territory Warfare Is Here!

With the next patch to the game, players will be able to vie for control of hexes in the River Kingdoms. There are currently 603 claimable hexes in the game; as of the writing of this blog, 219 of them have been claimed by someone by putting down a holding and some outposts. Holdings and outposts produce the bulk goods that settlements will need to grow and thrive once that system starts to come online in a month or so. For the last few months, settlements have been putting down the holdings in anticipation of this. But until now, those holdings were impervious to attack.

A mass battle between Golgotha and Brighthaven over a tower.

In EE10.1, a company will be able to feud the owning company of a holding and then try to seize control of that holding's hex during the controlling company's PvP window, which that company sets. This will be a multiple-day affair. First, the invader will need to capture the hex's outposts. NPC guards will attempt to fight off the interlopers and will give the hex's current owner time to arrive in force to prevent the seizure. The more you upgrade your holdings and outpost, the better and more numerous the guards will be, giving you more time to arrive on the scene and beat back the attackers.

If the attacker is able to take all the outposts in the hex by killing all the guards and then accumulating enough capture points at the holding, the next day they will be able to try to do the same thing to that hex's holding. If they are successful, the attacker will take over ownership of those structures. Ownership of the holding gives ownership over the hex. This is the way that countries, kingdoms and empires will be built, hex by hex. And it all starts in a few days!

The Future of the Most Dangerous Game

Over the next year, new systems will be coming online to add more variety to PvP combat in the River Kingdoms.

First up will be the Faction System. In this system, players will be able to join one of several factions in the game and gain access to benefits from that association, including unique gear, training and locations. But all of these benefits come with a potential drawback: members of a faction opposed to yours can attack you without penalty whenever and wherever they find you. And you can do it to them as well. For instance, two of the first factions will be the Pathfinder Society and the Aspis Consortium. These two age-old enemies hate each other with a passion, and the lore of Golarion is full of stories of their fights against each other. In PFO, lower-tier members of these factions will have the option of flagging themselves for PvP with. members of the opposing faction, but as you rise through the ranks of your chosen faction, the flag for PVP will become non-optional.

Farther down the road, we will add factions such as the Echowood Bandits, the Crusader Knights (including the Eagle Knights of Andoran and the Knights of Iomedae), the Hellknights, and factions serving each of the major gods. Factions provide PFO players with a way to opt into consensual PVP that allows them to add to their character's backstory and purpose in the game.

Even farther on in the game's development, there will be settlement vs. settlement warfare, including siege engines and army-vs-army combat. But those details will have to wait for a future blog.

Player Profile: Nihimon Vhane'Sylvan

The first time I heard of Nihimon was in the earliest days of Pathfinder Online when we sent out a request for supporters to send us videos telling us why they were excited about our game, which we used during our first Kickstarter campaign. In the following years, Nihimon became a strong voice in our online community, helping us crowdforge the game into what it is today. His goblinary.com website has become an essential resource for players interested in studying the game design behind PFO. In-game, Nihimon is one of the leaders of the settlement of Phaeros, a community of wizards in the southern Echowood. Allied with Brighthaven and Keeper's Pass to form the Everbloom Alliance, the Phaerites have been in an almost constant battle with the evil city of Golgotha to their north. Both sides have dealt blows to each other in the last few months. It will be interesting to see how their war changes as new features are added to the game.

Nihimon takes a moment to rest outside the Phaeros library.

I first heard about Pathfinder Online when a friend of mine pointed me to Your Pathfinder Online Character on the Goblinworks blog. I immediately recognized the revolutionary potential of such a game and fell head-over-heels in love with it. The promise of being one of those first players let into the game lured me to become active on the forums. There, I worked hard to be helpful and informative and to push back against the "learn to use search, newb" mentality that plagues so many other game forums. What started with Guild Recruitment & Helpful Links gradually morphed into Pathfinder Online (Public) and culminated in the Goblinary.

The Seventh Veil organization officially announced itself on February 20, 2012, almost exactly two months after the first Goblinworks Blog. We have some of the most active longtime fans of PFO, and many of the players who came together on the forums back then are still actively participating in the community and have been playing PFO since Alpha. We set ourselves the goal of writing useful guides and spreading our knowledge to the rest of the community, and we have achieved those goals with many of the guides linked at Pathfinder Online (Public) having been written by our members.

Nihimon first appeared in the River Kingdoms in the form of an elf wizard. He holds divination magic in high esteem for its ability to lay bare the truths of the world around him. As a Steward of the Seventh Veil, he—along with Decius Brutus—is responsible for the well-being of the citizens of Phaeros, and to a lesser extent all of the Everbloom Alliance. This is a very diverse group consisting of peace-loving gatherers and crafters, hardy adventurers, and stalwart warriors. We have been victorious against several attacks by the Elves of the Mordant Spire, and against hordes of Elementals, but by far our most ruthless and relentless enemies are the raiders from the Empire of Xeilias who attack from the Northern Cragthorns. Although many of us have no love of war, we have answered the challenge. Our many victories do little to quell the attacks, or to give comfort to those who grow weary of endless war. And yet, we do what we must, guarding the precious candle-flame of hope which holds back the shadow of despair.

Player Profile: Phyllain

Every game needs a villain, and the Empire of Xeilias and Golgotha in particular have risen to the occasion, giving players a group to strive against while providing players who want active PvP an organization that funnels their needs into avenues that aren't toxic to the game. Leading this group of miscreants is Benevolent Dictator Phyllain, whose journey to leadership was less "carefully planned rise to power" and more "last man standing." But Phyllain took a situation he wasn't necessarily looking for and turned it into a powerful group in the game, an empire that players will be striving against for a long time to come.

Phyllain evades his enemies.

A brief backstory about Phyllain? This should be fun.

It all started back in the second Kickstarter. One of my buddies told me about it, describing it as "like EVE Online, with swords." I was hooked.

We originally started The Bloody Hand as an unaligned mercenary group of PvPers focused on assassinations and resource interdiction. That dream lasted until we learned about the support mechanic. At that point we needed to find a city that would be willing to support a bunch of Neutral Evil players, or we'd have to found our own. After deciding that it would be too much work to have our own city (oh, the irony!) we decided to join with House Karnath and Maelstrom to found Golgotha. We almost joined Phaeros at that point, but an actual evil city seemed more attractive than a neutral one.

So once we formed Golgotha we started talking to Callambea about an alliance. We would eventually add Auroral and Kreuz Bernstein to this alliance, forming the Empire of Xeilias. At this point I was supposed to just be in charge of small-group PvP—bandit-type stuff.

As Pathfinder Online got closer to Alpha, some of the leadership for the Empire decided the game wasn't for them. By the time we reached Early Enrollment, I was pretty much the only officer left. That's how I went from being the small-group PvP guy for one city to running four cities and an evil empire!

For the first couple of weeks I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off, managing every aspect of everything. It was going ok, but I was burning out fast. At this point there was a sort of player intervention where I ended up promoting a bunch of people to manage specific aspects of running four cities. People were put in charge of recruiting, PvE, production and stuff like that. It reduced my workload significantly and let me focus on diplomacy and stabbing people.

Around this time we abandoned Callambea, Auroral and Kreuz Bernstein. We didn't need them and it wasn't worth the effort to do anything with them. We did everything out of Golgotha and consolidated. There were a few hold-outs in those cities, but for the most part, the people who started those settlements weren't playing the game any longer.

Eventually we turned that around. Quij joined us and picked up Callambea, making it an actual city that could stand on its own. We swapped to a coin economy inside Golgotha and recruited Clan Maugrimor, Dreamless, and Stach. Those three groups have made Kreuz Bernstein into the best-stocked and best-maintained market in the game.

That's where we stand today. Golgotha stands strong against the combined forces of the Everbloom Alliance. Kreuz Bernstein and Callambea are making money off that war handover fist. We keep the server interesting. We are pretty much the only group on the server that actually starts conflict. Every other group on the map responds to what we do. Whether it's coming up and taking us on directly or signing peace treaties and sending us bulk goods for continued peace, we are definitely the "bad guys" of the server. It's a role I love and want to continue.

So if you want to dive right into PvP, or provide for the war machine and get rich doing it, head on over to xeilias.com and put in an application—we will get you going!

Lisa Stevens
CEO

Faithful Companions and Deadly Foes

Saturday, July 11, 2015

Whenever there is a new patch for Pathfinder Online, it's like being a kid in a candy store, or getting the new rulebook with that class you've been dying to play! New options that expand the game are really fun to play around with and they have the benefit of changing things up enough to make it interesting. The tenth patch for Pathfinder Online (lovingly referred to as EE10) brings a bunch of new stuff into the game!

I Used a Mule... and I Like It!

In a game which simulates a real-world economy, moving resources and finished goods from one side of the map to the other without help is a daunting and time-consuming task. Even a character optimized for hauling heavy loads can carry only a small amount of something heavy like iron ore or coal, not to mention the bulk resources that settlements need to grow and become more advanced.

Enter the mule, the ornery equine whose ability to haul heavy loads is legendary. In EE10, players will be able to hire mules to help them carry heavy loads across the map. Either buy a set of saddlebags from the auction house, or craft a set with your leatherworker character, then proceed to the muleteer adjacent to the bank to get your own friendly mule for six hours! The mule will follow you around like a puppy dog... as long as you don't go too fast and leave him in the dust. If you do, he will sit down on his hind legs and pout until you come back into range, at which time he will leap up and run to you with a happy grin on his face.

When left for more than a minute though, the mule will no longer be attached to you. Once a mule becomes unattached, anybody (including you) can come up to him and acquire him, at which point he will happily follow his new owner around. So you'll want to get back to him quickly. If the mule isn't acquired by anyone within 15 minutes, it will die from loneliness and leave a husk that can be looted in the next half hour. After that time, whatever's left in the husk goes away for good.

Laurethoron hires a mule at the bank before heading out.

While playing around with my new mule friend, I found that he worked great for gathering resources. As you go around gathering, he will dutifully follow you and allow you to dump the stuff you find onto him for the first four hours that you have him. (For the last two hours, you may only remove goods from your mule.) This means that you can effectively stay out gathering for hours without having to spend a bunch of time running back to town every time you become too encumbered.

The downside to the mule, though, is that a bandit who sees a mule is going to (probably correctly) assume that there's profit to be had by taking your mule. Doing so will give them a reputation hit unless you are being feuded by them (attacking a mule is the same as attacking you for reputation loss), but the gains could outweigh that penalty. On the other hand, the mule is almost always slower than a running human, especially when loaded down with stuff. So if the bandit takes the mule for himself, he'll have to make a slow getaway, giving you a chance to bring some friends in to hunt him down. A bandit who wants to run off will have to take only what he can carry, leaving the mule for you to reacquire, minus a few choice pieces of your stash.

The mule is definitely a game changer in a virtual world where goods are regionalized and bank vaults aren't global. I can't wait to see how it shakes out!

I Fought Nhur Athemon... and I Won!

The other big feature coming this weekend is the first server-wide event, the Wrath of Nhur Athemon. As I mentioned in last week's blog, this event is centered around the removal of the towers that have dotted the landscape in our War of the Towers mini-game. But now their time is done; Nhur Athemon has other uses for them.

Testing the escalation, four of us decked out in Tier 2 gear with a bunch of expendables such as potions and greater tokens, and set out to free a hex from Nhur Athemon's influence. I don't want to give too many spoilers, but beating this escalation is all about finishing off the various quests, not killing the monsters that defend the hex (though sometimes those two things will align). The minions of Nhur Athemon had some tasty loot on them—some of the best I had seen in the game to date! Tier 2 and even Tier 3 recipes, spells, and maneuvers dropped into our greedy hands. There were even a handful of the new recipes for creating settlement buildings—things folks are going to really want come early August when you'll be able to start building your own settlements from scratch!

Laurethoron battles Nhur Athemon one on one.

This escalation event also unveiled the first of the new Azlanti crystals, Pathfinder Online's twist on Pathfinder RPG's ioun stones. Everybody who participates in beating down the escalation gets a crystal for their efforts. Crystals have their own slot on your character and we plan to introduce different crystals in future monthly events. Eventually, you'll be able to take lesser Azlanti crystals and craft them into much more powerful versions.

Of course, befitting all the great loot, Nhur Athemon turned out to be the deadliest escalation that we had faced to date. Between the four of us–a heavily armored melee fighter, a ranged fighter, a cleric, and a wizard—we died 22 times over the course of the escalation. We got better at fighting Nhur Athemon as we went along, so I expect that we will have slightly less deaths the next time we face off against him, though his minions are nevertheless deadly. With the right mix of potions and spells, you can give yourself an advantage, but it will take trial and error (and a few deaths in the process) to figure this out. And in the end, Nhur Athemon and his hoodlums are still going to give you a fierce battle. What fun!

For newer players, we have made The Shadow of Nhur Athemon, an easier version of this event that will appear in certain hexes. With some +2 Tier 1 feats and some spells and potions, you will have a tough fight on your hands. This escalation doesn't drop the high-end loot that the main one does, but it will give new players some nice things to play around with in the game, including the Azlanti crystal drop.

Player Spotlight: Jokken

I met Jokken as part of the leadership of Stoneroot Glade and the Coal Road Alliance. At the start of the game, he and his allies were hampered by being isolated in the northwest corner of the map, away from all the action. Rather than letting that become a negative, he and his compatriots in the northwest have managed to create a thriving haven for characters interested in dealing with some of the NPC challenges in PVE far away from the PVP drama happening in the southeast part of the map. Now they are one of the fastest-growing areas of Pathfinder Online. Let's hear from Jokken himself about how this all came about:

I love Pathfinder Online. It touches core aspects of my interests and life as few other things do: Fantasy tabletop RPGs, Online Multi-User Dungeons, and a vibrant, evolving community. Like many of my peers, I came upon fantasy roleplaying with the classic D&D "red box" in the mid-1980s. Thanks to Mr. Mentzer, I still desperately want to punch that Bargle fellow in the nose. That grudge and the stirring art of Larry Elmore gave birth to a passionate obsession that has lasted 30 years. What started in my friend's basement as ten-year-old children rolling dice for hours upon end, slaying caves full of trolls and bears for magic and plunder, evolved into the rich 12-hour-a-week tabletop gaming experience I enjoy today.

My love for Paizo began with Dragon Magazine. Along with Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" comic and Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series, Dragon and Dungeon were the cornerstone of my adolescent escape experience. Grabbing those magazines from my local bookstore each month and poring over them cover-to-cover brought joy that is completely untranslatable to adult life. Given my endearment of such works, my weekly group and I were on board with the launch of Pathfinder RPG Alpha, running the entirety of the Second Darkness Adventure Path under that system. Since then, our multiple weekly gaming sessions have been filled with adventure paths, Pathfinder Society scenarios, and mythic homebrew. With a diversified pot of interests, I'm a 3-star Pathfinder Society GM and, along with my dear friend venture-captain Eric Clingenpeel, I organize an annual convention hosted in a winery/brewery. (If you're in the Mid-Michigan area at the end of August, join us at Tavern Con 2015!)

When not rolling dice, working, or volunteering on community projects, I'm playing MMOs. That experience began in the days of yore when I'd log my Packard Bell 486/66 machine onto a much younger internet and get lost in text-based MUDs such as GemStone III and Tarmon Gai'don. One can not thank TinyMUD enough for turning a floundering middle-school typist into a keyboardist extraordinaire. Games like Asheron's Call and EverQuest came calling in the '90s along with an eventual transition to a seven-year experience in World of Warcraft.

By the end of 2013, my interest there had lost its steam. The glory of the theme park MMO was waning. That's when the Pathfinder Online Tech Demo Kickstarter hit my radar. After reading all I could on the burgeoning product, I wanted it and I wanted it now. When the second Kickstarter came along I got a chance to vote with my wallet and help to make this dream come to be. I didn't have the bankroll to become an alpha backer, but last August I was very pleased to buy access to Early Enrollment and begin my life in the River Kingdoms.

Those early days were simply the best. I still miss clobbering goblins with the flat side of my axe and tussling with the "Werewolf of Rathglen." The experience of interacting with a game world that evolves and changes 24/7 is impossibly enticing. Many of the friendships garnered in those early days of development are the seeds of the community to come.

With January and the launch of Early Enrollment, we hit the ground running. We had pledged to life in the west and became enamored with the ideal of living on the frontier. With no handouts or guidance from an alpha aristocracy, we are a people on the range with nothing but bootstraps and grit. The bonds of our Alpha experience held our little cadre together. We are Stoneroot Glade, Talonguard, and Tavernhold, and we are here to stay. We slowly built what we have from the salted earth up, and did it without a training manual. It is tedious and painful at times, but endlessly rewarding. In lockstep, we embraced "hard is fun."

There were so many awesome days the first couple of months. In week one, we kitted out in starter gear and hastily crafted +1's and set ourselves upon a wild and dangerous wilderness. We'd do crazy things, like spend a 5-hour evening tussling with Moloch Cultists, nervously ferrying coin and the occasional piece of Tier 2 loot back to the bank as a break from being roasted alive. Gutgluts (a tribe of goblin ghouls) were a numerous mainstay. We endeavored without end to push them back around Guardheim and away from our lands. I was stunned not just by those undead fiends but also at the resolve of my companions. I think the pinnacle of our grit in the Tier 1 days was clearing out a Ripping Chains goblin tribe at the full 26,000 strength with four unrelenting souls, a pile of gear, and a free weekend. Making a safe place for new recruits is important to us. It came from the blood, sweat, and tears of the dedicated.

Jokken and his Stoneroot Glade compatriots rest at one of their shrines.

We decided early that we'd be a free people. Freedom and brotherhood became the cry of the western settler. We looked at the collectivist play going on in the east and put it at our backs. We would be a collection of engaged clans, a tribe of diversifying interests with constructive gameplay at its heart. We have a lot of sand in the western sandbox, and our desire to pile it up is ravenous. We advance through hard work and fair trade. Meritocracy has become the way of the west. We're a land where everyone is born a slobbering infant and worth is built on one's ambition and resolve.

Looking at the community growing across the map, we saw the Empire of Xellias focusing on an engaging and exciting PvP-centric experience, the Free Highlanders fighting for justice and glory in the north, and the Everbloom Alliance churning the cogs to manufacture an industrial complex and great civilization in the southeast. "Where do we fit?," we pondered. Largely, we inherited the role of player-versus-environment by necessity. We were a small band of settlers compared to the rest of the server, with five escalation sources and three monster home hexes in our region. We would either forge ourselves into the most skilled and efficient force tackling those threats, or we would die trying. To that end, we did both spectacularly. We do not like being overrun by infected hexes, therefore, by force of will we do not get overrun. Molochs, Ustalavs, Mordant Spire, and Elemental invasions meet our mettle and are no more. One can walk from Talonguard to Tavernhold and have little to fear.

Our latest (and perhaps proudest) endeavor is the creation of the Coal Road: a bridge between east and west; a lifeline of communication over the distance between our kingdoms. The Coal Road is a physical thing, much like the Silk Road of Marco Polo fame. It stretches from Forgeholm and Blackfeather Keep at the edge of the Eastern lands, into the Southern Echo Peaks, through depot stops in Callambea and Alderwag, into the Western Echo Woods, before coming into the heart of our society in the Bulwark Hills, connecting Tavernhold to Stoneroot Glade and Talonguard, then turning South to a cozy tavern on the Highwater Plains. It is a conveyance from east to west and back again; a path for those of brave heart and bold endeavors to journey and seek their self-made futures and fortunes. It is also a fantastic online resource, a place for citizens across the River Kingdoms to communicate and trade with the peoples of the west; an open channel of diplomacy where new relationships can be fostered and new trade opportunities found. In either incarnation, all who are respectful of their neighbor are welcome to join the Coal Road. Its stones come from the ore of our land, the mortar, the triumph and tears of our ambitions. We hope you like it.

The future holds limitless possibility that none can predict. Even our seers of Desna and Pharasma are silent on the subject, but I, as many, look forward to meeting it head on.

Lisa Stevens
CEO

You Got Golarion in My MMO!

Saturday, July 4, 2015

When we began designing Pathfinder Online, one of the first issues we needed to tackle was making our fantasy sandbox MMORPG feel like Pathfinder. The terms of the Open Game License make a straight port of the Pathfinder RPG rules a challenge—and a lot of RPG mechanics just don't work very well as MMO mechanics anyway—so we would be focusing on the Pathfinder world of Golarion as our touchstone.

Choosing the Echo Wood portion of the River Kingdoms as our starting location made it easy for us to mix in a lot of Golarion color in a sensible way. The crusades against the Worldwound have brought combatants from all over the Inner Sea region and thus the River Kingdoms have become a melting pot of races and nationalities. The Sellen River system is one of the most traversed in Avistan, and the surrounding nations of Ustalav, Numeria, Brevoy, Galt, Kyonin, and Razmiran give us many options for storylines and villains.

This statue of Pharasma graces a player settlement.

Marked of Pharasma

In the Pathfinder RPG, overcoming death is something that requires a higher level spell such as raise dead or resurrection. But in Pathfinder Online, player death can't be permanent, so we needed a story reason for the discrepancy. Enter Pharasma, the Lady of Graves, who holds sway over birth and death. For a reason we have yet to reveal, Pharasma has taken a special interest in the Echo Wood. Pathfinder Online characters have died elsewhere on Golarion and have returned to life near Thornkeep with only a vague memory of their former lives. Very soon, these characters realize that they are trapped in this part of the world. Giant barriers of force keep in the Marked of Pharasma—the name given to those who cannot die here in the Echo Wood. Other creatures can come and go as they please, but unlike the Marked, those creatures can die permanently. What plans Pharasma has for the residents of the Echo Wood are shrouded in mist, much like the Lady of Graves herself. Will she expand the region under her control? And what's the story with those who are "twice-marked" by her? Only time will tell.

An elven wizard spies the Emerald Spire in the distance.

The Emerald Spire

In order to obtain part of the funding for Pathfinder Online, we ran two Kickstarter campaigns. Each of those Kickstarters featured a Pathfinder RPG sourcebook detailing a part of the Echowood. The Thornkeep sourcebook was the first, and author Rich Baker peppered the Echo Woods with many mysterious sites. The Dismal Caverns are home to the Bonedancer goblin tribe, who make an appearance in-game as the Bonedancer escalation. Their home hex is in the mountain to the north of Thornkeep in the game. To the northwest of Thornkeep on Rich's map, you will see Oreena's Cottage. This is the site of the Nature's Wrath home hex and the mysterious Warden of the Wood. Perusing the map, you can see that places like Toad Hollow and the Skullbasher's Den can easily be found in-game using the RPG sourcebook map. All the little tidbits of lore in the game are culled from various sourcebooks, brought together in Pathfinder Online.

When we decided to create a super dungeon for the Pathfinder RPG, Rich's paragraph on the Emerald Spire intrigued all of us and we decided to expand the idea into the Emerald Spire Superdungeon for the second Kickstarter. Once again, pieces of information from that book have made it into the game, and when Fort Inevitable is built sometime in the future, it will draw heavily from that book.

But for the moment, the most important thing Pathfinder Online has brought into the game from these books is the lich Nhur Athemon, whom Erik Mona created for his dungeon level in the Emerald Spire. Nhur Athemon is responsible for creating the mysterious towers with large floating gems that dot the landscape of the Echo Wood. These towers have served an important role in Pathfinder Online since the launch of Early Enrollment in January, as they have been the source of power for each settlement, and controlling those towers affects a settlement's ability to offer training.

All that is coming to an end on July 10 with the start of the Wrath of Nhur Athemon server-wide event. The Spire's resident lich has had enough of the puny surface dwellers leeching off his emerald power and he's out to put a stop to it! In the end, the towers will be destroyed and the players will have to fend for their settlement's training in new ways.

The Wrath of Nhur Athemon server-wide event starts Friday, July 10 at 10 am PST.

The Goblinworks designers have pulled out all the stops with the Wrath of Nhur Athemon, serving up the most challenging fight the game has seen to date. Old tried-and-true tactics will more than likely fail against the ruler of the Spire, and players are going to have to come up with clever strategies to defeat the lich and his allies. The rewards are going to be sweet, with the new Azlanti Stones being given out to all participants in the event. This event will also mark the first time that settlements will be able to put a claim on a hex that previously had a tower in it, so there will be new land up for grabs to those who can defeat Nhur Athemon's plans!

It will take a large group of persistent heroes to defeat the Azlanti lord and push him back to his subterranean lair. Will you take up the fight? Be there at server up (around 10 am PST) for Pathfinder Online's first big server-wide event, the Wrath of Nhur Athemon!

Player Spotlight: Hoffman, Dean of Pathfinder University

One of the cool things about Pathfinder Online is that the players can create things that the designers never imagined. It never crossed our minds that a group of players would devote their time to helping new players integrate into the game by creating an in-game university. The sheer dedication to man the chat channels and provide in-game support nearly 'round the clock is staggering. But Hoffman and his faculty do this and they do it well! They have touched the careers of many of the players in the game, and PFU alumni are now scattered throughout the Echo Wood. Focusing on helping players for their first 90 days while they get their feet wet and figure the game out, Pathfinder University is a shining example of players creating their own stories in the sandbox of the Echo Wood. And Hoffman is a great example of the player whose dedication and drive makes it happen.

In the words of Hoffman:

You want a piece about me? Bleh. My job is easy. My faculty does all of the work and deserves the credit. But if I must, I will share the story of how Pathfinder University came around to share my minor role in it.

It started around a bit too much ale and complaining about these young adventurers that can't even seem to find their way out of Marchmont. Then Foxglove and I were chatting about the abandoned Southwest and how it would be great if we could get people skilled enough to keep RiverBank alive... After some help from people across the area, we put two and two together and realized if we could make an Academy or University at RiverBank then we could kill two birds with one stone.

I wandered down to RiverBank (which was semi-abandoned by its original occupants) and found ogres and bandits everywhere. I started to set up shop and found a vagabond (I mean wanderer) named Nactillius hanging around. He became our first student, back when we first called ourselves River Academy.

It wasn't long before people across the map had an opinion about the River Academy. The most common themes: We should exist; we shouldn't exist; we are just a shill for the big groups. Our biggest problem was that we only had Foxglove and myself, and people were dying before they could ever get to us and leaving the River Kingdoms forever.

So we reached out to other settlements to "borrow" teachers. We were able to get people like Vorsk, Sspitfire, Thannon Forsworn, and Duffy to "volunteer" in addition to rotating guest speakers. Thannon and Duffy continue teaching weekly today.

Am I going on too long? That's the bonus of being the dean: I get to ramble and you have to pretend to listen. Back to the history of PFU.

When we had nobles like Lisa Stevens join us for Keepside chats, they were so popular that we had to hold them in Thornkeep just for space reasons.

As our students grew, we needed more faculty. We found an interesting pair in Aurora and Auriga. They wandered the map together, but there are those who still think they are the same person.

About that time, our students started graduating and spreading out across the map. We picked the best and kept them as faculty. That is how we got to keep Nactillius, Garrick Orcsbane, Dylan Hunt, Dawley, and Kleptus. (Kleptus is one to watch. Sticky fingers, that one, but usually he leaves me a few "gifts" and I never ask where they come from.)

RiverBank was eventually overrun by Ogg and we had to move. It was okay because Thornkeep started to attract more adventurers and we were able to move to University Commons and change our name to Pathfinder University.

Luckily, Garric has been able to keep this new area ogre-free (though Drothar has to make armor for us nonstop).

Was this story supposed to be about me? I just get to sit in this comfy chair and pretend I know what I talk about. Our Chair of Students Nactillius (how much he has grown since his first days) tells me we have enrolled over 270 students. Wow. Foxglove as our Chair of Classes keeps a class going every night with volunteer help from across the map.

I've got the best job and the best faculty. I show up to work for an hour or so each day to prove I'm still alive (the perks of tenure).

If you are new to the River Kingdoms, come join us for your first few months. I may see you, wish you well and put you to work. Maybe that is why my faculty all run when they see me coming?

Hoffman
Dean of Pathfinder University and Hater of Ogg

Lisa Stevens
CEO

Forge in the Crucible of Gameplay

Saturday, June 27, 2015

One of the unique aspects of Pathfinder Online is something we call crowdforging. Crowdforging brings into play a symbiotic relationship between the developers and the players. The players become partners as we design and develop the game over the course of many years. It's more than using customer feedback—it's having players actively contribute to the design by giving us real information from actual gameplay. In addition, the players are creating a vibrant world from an empty sandbox—all the stories, quests, personalities, and most of the gear comes from their hands, forged as they played the game.

Crowdforging the Gameplay

When we started building Pathfinder Online, we created an initial design document—a tome that would guide us as we started to make the game. It laid out our vision for Pathfinder Online, conceptualizing different game systems and how they would interact with each other. In traditional MMO design and development, the design document would be fully implemented before a single player would be let into the game, even in alpha or beta testing. In these games, player can have very little impact on the fundamental design of the game design. If the designers were off base with part of their design, there is little they can do at this point without costly changes and long delays, so the only problems that get fixed are the things that are either relatively easy to deal with, or the most egregious. Things that work "well enough" don't usually get much attention, even if they could work much better.

Instead of locking ourselves into our design document, we created the base systems of the game—the fundamental things that every MMO has, such as running, fighting, inventory, weapon slotting, and crafting. Then we began bringing players into the game during a phase we called Early Enrollment, while we were starting to work on the systems that make Pathfinder Online unique. As we launch each of those systems, the players give us real-time feedback that allows us to maneuver our design away from problems we didn't foresee in a way that you just can't do with traditional MMO design.

Of course, while the players are helping us refine our design, they are also populating the Echo Woods, creating settlements, putting up holdings, fighting off monster incursions, gathering loot and raw materials, and crafting finished goods such as weapons, armor, potions, and other things that characters need to survive in the world.

It has been a really great process for us at Goblinworks. Our current players are pioneers in the game, forging a world from the wilderness, creating an economy, developing political alliances and enemies, and forging real friendships. All the while, their experiences are helping us make the game better for them. Let's talk about some examples!

The Monsters Are Coming

One of the new concepts you'll find in Pathfinder Online is the escalation. There are areas of the world where different groups of NPCs—human or otherwise—have staked a hold on the land to try to fulfill their own agenda. The Skullbasher ogres are trying to fill their stew pots with meat. The Mordant Spire elves are searching for Azlanti treasures. The duergar are looking for slaves to take back to their underground cities.

In our original design document, these escalations would enter the world in a particular hex and, unless they were stopped by the players, they'd grow in power and expand into surrounding hexes. We thought this tension would be great, but through months of gameplay, we realized that because the pressure was always on, the players felt they were being forced to attack escalations even when they might prefer to be doing something else. And if they let the escalations go for a while so they could do other things, the escalations soon got out of hand.

The Bloodstone Swords join with the Pathfinder University Faculty to battle some Charred Goblins.

So working with the community, we started to change the fundamental ideas behind escalations. Players were happy when they could chip away at escalations over the course of a few weeks, but all their hard work was evaporating when the escalation grew back from its losses. So we changed escalations so they grow much more slowly and don't infect other hexes as quickly. And instead of having every escalation start small and grow, we created an escalation that came in strong, but because the monsters were in control, they only left their lower-powered soldiers around. Then, as the players succeeded against the escalation, more powerful minions would get sent in, with the escalation getting harder as you got closer and closer to victory. Also, in the next patch of the game, various events that had been on timers in the past will have those timers removed so that progress against them won't be lost.

All of these changes came through direct feedback from players. Without this feedback, we would have never known that our original plans had flawed assumptions about the way that players wanted to interact with that part of the game—at least, not until it was too late.

Getting the Balance Right

Another part of the game where crowdforging has made a difference is in balancing the classes and the various equipment in the game so there isn't a single, sure-fire winning strategy. This is pretty hard to do in a vacuum—game designers need real game feedback from real players to understand why they behave in unanticipated ways.

For instance, Pathfinder Online has a number of consumable items that the designers thought would be a part of every player's arsenal. Tokens are one example—they're small one-shot magic items that do a single thing, such as heal you, improve your armor, give you resistance to energy attacks, etc. You get them as drops from killing monsters, so you are constantly getting more. The designers thought that even though the effect of a single token isn't huge, players would slot them and use them regularly because they were effectively free and they did provide a benefit. But the reality was that they just weren't powerful enough for folks to bother with. Incredible amounts of tokens built up in character vaults because they weren't being used in the game. So the designers amped up the effects, and now tokens are getting used on a regular basis.

The same happened for potions. The designers thought there would be a big demand for various potions, but only a few select potions (healing and speed) were crafted by most people. The problem was similar to tokens: they just weren't powerful enough to be part of a regular arsenal. Changes have been made based on player input, and the jury is still out on whether potions are where they need to be. Only time and actual gameplay will tell.

These are just a couple examples of how crowdforging is working. There are many other areas where the players have helped to evolve our design document: the auction house, rogue abilities, the way feuds will work. This symbiosis is the crux of how we are making Pathfinder Online the best game it can be.

Player Profiles

We have a very diverse and colorful cast of characters in the game already and I want to showcase that diversity in this blog. But due to some mix-ups on my behalf, I don't have a player profile for this week. I have a number of profiles in the works, and should soon have a bunch in the hopper for future weeks. But in the spirit of crowdforging, I would love to hear your thoughts on players that you think should be profiled, so post your thoughts in the discussion thread—I'll be taking notes!

Lisa Stevens
CEO

Virtual Kingmaker

Saturday, June 20, 2015

When we first started brainstorming for Pathfinder Online (PFO), I was running the Kingmaker Pathfinder Adventure Path in my home gaming group. We were loving the idea of adventurers forging a kingdom out of the wilderness. It gave an extra dimension and purpose to our adventures, along with an additional set of problems to roleplay through.

So when Ryan and I started to think about PFO, I felt that Kingmaker's setting, the River Kingdoms of Golarion, would be the perfect backdrop for an MMORPG: a cluster of small settlements and kingdoms battling the environment and each other for survival. It would be like playing Kingmaker in coordination with dozens of other gaming groups, with each GM sharing info on what his group is doing, and occasionally the groups would get together and either help or hinder each other. In the Pathfinder RPG, coordinating such a campaign would be a massive feat, but MMORPGs are perfectly set up for just such a scenario, so that's what we're building with PFO.

Jon Hodgson's illustration for Kingmaker was an inspirational focus for Pathfinder Online.

Starting in a little less than two months, PFO players, much like their table-top counterparts, will be able to pick and choose how their settlements are going to be built, developing it all with their own sweat and blood. There will be dozens and dozens of buildings to choose from, and you'll be able to upgrade many of those buildings over time. Will you put up walls? How about a community garden? What deities will your temple support? There will be a legion of decisions, making each settlement as unique as any character.

Right now, you can claim a hex in the game and put up holdings and outposts. In a few weeks, you will be able to contest the claims of others, possibly claiming those holdings for yourself, or burning them to the ground. Remember in the Kingmaker AP when you heard that one of your lumber camps was being attacked and you had to intervene? Well, the same thing will happen in PFO to your lumber camp, or your mine, or any other holding. Defend them, or there will be consequences.

The Political Landscape

One of the unique things about playing in a sandbox MMO is that the players themselves build the things that exist in the world. To jumpstart that effort, we did a Land Rush a few months after the Kickstarter ended, and 30 player settlements were handed out to the 30 groups that had the most players pledging to them. This gave us the starting player settlement landscape for when the game launched. You can check out the current map of the game world, created by one of the players in the game, here.

Once settlement warfare comes into the game and you are able to destroy a settlement or conquer it, this map will change. Already, there are some areas of the world that are more powerful and populated than others. Here is a snippet of the political landscape as it exists today.

The biggest and most powerful alliance in the game is the Everbloom Alliance, or EBA. Made up of the settlements of Brighthaven, Phaeros, Keeper's Pass, Hammerfall and Blackwood Glade; the purpose of the alliance is protection of its member settlements and their members.

EBA's arch-nemesis, the second most powerful alliance in the game, is the Empire of Xeilias, made up of the member settlements of Golgotha, Callambea, Kreuz Bernstein, and Auroral. They are led by their Benevolent Dictator Phyllain, and are the most active PVP contingent. Located in the center of the game map, their exploits against the EBA have already become the stuff of legend in the world.

In the northwest corner of the map lies the third most powerful alliance in the game, the Coal Road Alliance, aka The High Road Covenant. Comprised of the settlements of Stoneroot Glade, Talonguard and Taverhold, they have provided a bastion for folks wanting to steer clear of the drama taking place between EBA and Xeilias. The community there is super-supportive and actively campaigns against the monsters in the area.

In the north, we have the Free Highlanders, consisting of Alderwag, the paladins of Ozem's Vigil, and the dwarves of Forgeholm. This group provides support for each other through trade and defense, especially when troubles flared up between them and Golgotha a month or so back.

Currently, the last significant alliance is the Aeonian League, consisting of Hope's End, Sunholm, and Canis Castrum. For the most part, they have kept to themselves out in the middle western part of the map, with Canis Castrum making a run to become the most significant market town on the western half of the map.

The southwestern corner of the map is a ghost town of hexes overrun with monsters and abandoned settlements and is avoided by most—which will soon mean opportunity for others!

The Emerald Lodge

This leaves the largest non-allied settlement in the game, The Emerald Lodge. Run by Thod, the Emerald Lodge is situated smack-dab in the middle of the map, between the warring factions of the EBA and the Empire of Xeilias. This has made for some harrowing times for Thod and his settlement, but to date, they have navigated the politics, made deals where they had to, and kept themselves viable and thriving in the game without joining one of the larger player blocs.

Player Spotlight: Thod

Five-star Pathfinder Society GM Jens Loesel gives us insight into Pathfinder Online from the point of view of a Pathfinder RPG player, father of two, and the leader of the largest non-alliance group in the game, the Emerald Lodge.

The leader of the Emerald Lodge attacks Ustalavian Invaders.

In his own words:

One of the interesting aspects of a sandbox game is that you can play your own game, bound only by the sand, the other players, and the technology. There is a lot of freedom as a player. And that is what attracted me to Pathfinder Online.

Because I wanted to give everything a Pathfinder Society background, in the early days my main character was Theodum, designed after my very first PFS character. Theodum earned the title of Venture-Captain in the Eyes of the Ten, and now the things he does in Pathfinder Online feed back into his character at the PFS table.

Lately, my dwarf character Thod has taken much of my time. He started as a gatherer because that's probably the most important role to kickstart a settlement economy. Encroaching monsters and the need for victory tokens led to Thod training in fighting, which also makes him fun to play with groups that need someone who can kill monsters in the wild. Most people associate me with Thod now, especially as I post as Thod in my blogs. (A lot of the time I "play" as Thod is actually outside of the game.)

My background as a Pathfinder Society player and 5-Star Game Master in the United Kingdom was invaluable in the Land Rush. To earn a settlement, you needed votes from other players, so I created a background for my proposed settlement that would tie it to the Pathfinder Society. I proposed the Emerald Lodge as a Pathfinder Society lodge located near the Emerald Spire superdungeon. (In game, the Emerald Spire can't yet be explored, but it can be seen, and my son was the first player to see it—or at least to report seeing it—so being close has advantages.) With this background in place, I asked UK PFS players to back me in the Land Rush, which they did. But securing a settlement was only the beginning.

My first nasty surprise came in the first week of the Land Rush, well before anyone was actually able to log into the game. Golgotha, the largest evil group, wanted to position their settlement in a spot that would make them our neighbors. We had several options: join or ally with them; find someone stronger to ally with and hope for their protection; move elsewhere and say goodbye to the background story about being next to the Spire; or ensure that they valued your settlement more alive than dead.

Meanwhile, the Everbloom Alliance was staking out a spot to the other side, albeit further away. This opened up more problems and more options. Do we get between the two, becoming a speedbump when we are overrun, or can we steer a neutral way out of the whole situation? Either side might or might not want us, but they also don't want us to join the opposition. They also don't want the bad publicity from squashing a small, harmless, innocent settlement.

What followed was a year of diplomacy, plotting, building, and interacting with other players. PFO is not just "log in, kill a few monsters, be done." Whatever you do, in game or out of game, has an effect. At times it was a balancing act, especially when we had to take some towers for ourselves or when we tried to ensure nobody tread on our toes. But we are still there. We still have all our towers and, most surprisingly for a lot of gamers, we carved out an oasis between much larger groups that are keen on PvP, yet not only do they let us play our game, they sometimes even support us. We are still around and we plan to be around a lot longer.

There's still a lot to look forward to: growing the settlement further, getting rid of towers... and building our own vision of a Pathfinder Lodge, defended by diplomacy and not force, becoming a neutral meeting point when war rages around us. Oh—and one day being among the first to go down the Spire.

Lisa Stevens
CEO

It's Only The Beginning

Saturday, June 13, 2015

It turns out: I like writing blogs. And here you thought you got rid of me!

For the past six months, I have been very focused on Pathfinder Online now that it has been released into the wild. Since January, we have had nine large releases of content, and we've progressed to the point where I am really happy with the game and the community that has built up around it. So I'm going to be writing this weekly blog each Saturday to keep you up to date about the cool things going on in Pathfinder Online and to let you in on what is coming down the turnpike. Think of it as an Auntie Lisa's Story Blog with a focus on Pathfinder Online!

Starting Has Never Been Easier

With the latest release this past week, Pathfinder Online has entered a new realm of convenience and ease. The new patch focused on the new player experience, providing a new improved tutorial, an improvement to the maps in the game, and most importantly, newly improved tool tips which provide enhanced information to the player on what something does and how to most effectively use it. Pathfinder Online, like the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, is a fairly complex and detailed game, so providing lots of information for players is paramount.

A new player gets advice outside of Thornkeep

It is also way easier to get into the game and start playing. Every new account comes with a free 15-day trial period. At the end of that period, you just start paying your $15 per month subscription fee to keep playing. No box price. No levels of membership. Just one small price per month for countless hours of entertainment!

Monsters, Monsters Everywhere!

While Pathfinder Online has had a wide variety of your typical bestiary monsters such as goblins, skeletons, ogres, bandits, wolves, and more, we keep adding new monsters to the game, and I'd like to acquaint you with the two most recent additions.

The Emerald Spire Superdungeon is at the heart of many of the bad things that plague the Echo Wood region of the River Kingdoms. The Emerald Spire itself delves deep into the earth, opening up rifts into the Darklands. One group that used the Spire to enter the region is the duergar slavers. The dark dwarves have found fertile ground for their slave raids amongst the folks of the Echo Wood and the heroes need to push them back to their dark home.

Fighting back the duergar slavers!

Like any good invasion force, the Duergar are well rounded in their roles. The fighting force is made up of Warriors, Soldiers and Defenders. They also have Scouts and Silencers to sneak around and do rogue-type stuff. Their ranged groups are made up of the Junior and Senior Artillery squads as well as the Bombers. Every army needs its divine support and the Priests of the Duergar do Drokar's work well. Finally, the wizardly sages provide spells in support of their compatriots. Because of their diversity, the Duergar are one of the harder groups to fight in the game, able to provide stout fighters along with destructive ranged combat and spells. They have been testing the mettle of all since their arrival on the scene.

The other group of creatures that has recently made the Echo Wood more deadly are the elementals that have been unleashed. Once again, the Emerald Spire is the culprit for this invasion of aggressive elementals. Ranging in size from rather cute small elementals all the way up to towering huge elementals, the diversity in challenges is unparalleled. These elemental harness many types of elemental energies, from the fiery Magma Elementals, to the dusty Sand Elementals, to the rocky Earth Elementals, and the freezing Ice Elementals, the sheer scope of the various energies at play can be daunting, not to mention the sheer size of the largest ones.

Battling ice, magma, and earth elementals

The first appearance of these creatures in the game happened near my in-game home, Pathfinder University, and it took the combined might of many different settlements sending their best adventurers to turn back the tide and defeat the elementals. Part of the fight was done live from PaizoCon, as experienced veterans and new players alike allied to fight the elementals off.

The Face of Evil

One of the things we unveiled at PaizoCon was the fact that each month, there would be a server-wide event that would drop unique loot and advance the storyline of the Echo Woods, challenging the players to defend their homes. For the month of July, the server event is called The Wrath of Nhur Athemon. Check out the video we made for the PaizoCon banquet!

If you played the Emerald Spire Superdungeon, you are well aware of Nhur Athemon, the renegade Azlanti who was imprisoned below the Emerald Spire many hundreds of years ago by his Azlanti brethren. Nhur Athemon is now a lich using his vast powers to spy upon the Echo Woods above his dungeon prison. His anger at what is happening above is coming to a boil, and it's going to take the combined might of the server to fend off Nhur Athemon and his minions.

If you want to be part of this epic event, be sure to get into the game and gear up right away! The Wrath of Nhur Athemon is a one time event that will not be repeated!

Player Character Profile: Laurethoron

I think one of the most interesting things about Pathfinder Online is that it allows players to make their own stories, just as they do in the RPG. So each week, I intend to showcase a different Pathfinder Online player and that player's main character. And to start it all off, I'm going to do something that everybody always does to me: I want to tell you about my character.

Laurethoron is a female elven fighter who has a smattering of cleric and rogue skills to augment her fighting prowess. She wields a longbow and a greatsword. In January, I started the game in the southeastern corner of the map in the Southern Cragthorn mountains, centering my adventures around the Neutral Good settlement of Brighthaven. For the first month or so, I battled goblins, ogres, bandits, wolves and undead with the members of the Argent Crusade company, with occasional forays against the much tougher Ustalav invaders and Mordant Spire elves.

While my time with the folks of Brighthaven was awesome, I felt that I needed to do something in game to encourage my fellow workers at both Goblinworks and Paizo to play together, so I started a company called the Bloodstone Swords, based on the mercenary group detailed on page 12 of the Pathfinder Chronicles: Faction Guide. We moved our base of operations to the NPC town of Thornkeep and started building a crafting empire to outfit all the new players being added to our company. Gathering resources and leveling up my crafter characters took much of my time for the next few weeks as plans were laid and implemented. At the end of that time, the Swords had swelled to 26 characters and we were ready to start adventuring. To date, we have mostly tackled lower-level adventures as everyone got used to working together, though recently an enclave of Mordant Spire elves was spotted in the hills to the north of our home; we have been battling them, though the cost has been high in deaths. Fortunately, Pharasma, Golarion's goddess of death, has taken a special interest in this region, and death is just a temporary setback.

About a month ago, it was time to move again. NPC settlements are great for getting started, but the only way to gain advanced training for your characters is to become part of a player-run settlement. After looking around the game, we settled on Pathfinder University, a settlement run by a group of players who are dedicating their gameplay to helping new players learn the game and get situated with equipment and training. I liked their mission, so we dedicated the Swords to helping them out, and moved from Thornkeep to University Commons. We are now safely ensconced in our new home and have made a bunch of new friends including Pathfinder U's Faculty and many of the recruits that the University helps out.

Laurethoron stands outside the Bloodstone Swords' Library Holding

As community members, we have taken on the responsibility to build and maintain a few holdings and outposts in the hexes surrounding University Commons. To the south, we built a Library, supported by a lumber camp and a hunting camp. To the southwest, we built a Sanctum, again with the support of lumber and hunting outposts. To build these structures, we had to gather raw resources; refine them into items such as iron nuggets and hemp rope; beat down a few of the escalations that plague the land, giving us victory markers that allow us to claim the territory we want to build on; then bring everything together to make the buildings. It was a tall task that took the skills of numerous Swords to pull off, but now we are the proud owners of two hexes that will support University Commons.

The Bloodstone Swords have also started a little business making nicer gear for beginning characters and providing them with spells and recipes that allow them to craft their own items. Our crafting queues have been pretty full making goods to put into the Auction House and our gatherers keep us stocked with raw materials.

In the next months, we will continue to support Pathfinder University, but we also have a new goal. A few weeks ago, I invited all of the Pathfinder Society Venture Officers to join the game, and they've been flooding in from all parts of the world. Right now they are getting their feet under them in the game, but I don't doubt that there will be quests and goals aplenty for this group as they spread their wings in the game, and the Bloodstone Swords will be there to lend a hand.

Lisa Stevens
CEO

Promo-Ho-Ho!

Friday, December 5, 2014

We interrupt this regularly scheduled weekly Pathfinder Battles preview to deliver on something I've been promising for a while. We've finally managed to sort a bunch of our unused promotional repaint figures from 2013 and 2014, and I wanted to share them with you as soon as I could! All six are currently available for ordering exclusively on paizo.com. Like previous promo figures, these will not last forever. I think they make great "stocking stuffer" gifts for fellow gamers, so I wanted to get them up in time for the holidays (and because people keep reminding me I've been promising to do so for ages). We'll pick up with the Iconic Heroes Set #1 in-hand photo previews next week. For now, let's look at what Santa has in store in the promo department!

The Bloodbriar Goblin Raider is a special promotional miniature designed to promote the Pathfinder Online game. As the Kickstarter for that project grew and grew, the originally planned single figure turned into a set of 10, and this figure was created all over again and included as part of the 10-figure sealed Emerald Spire Promo Set. That left us with the original run of the figure, which has since been distributed in limited quantities at regional conventions. This version of the Bloodbriar Goblin Raider is based on the same paint master as the figure in the Promo Set, but as it was produced in a different production run, there are slight differences in the paint application. The base is also different, featuring the GoblinWorks logo instead of the Emerald Spire set designation. The figure is a promotional repaint of the Goblin Commando on Mount figure from the Rise of the Runelords Pathfinder Battles set. The goblin is a Small figure on a Medium mount and base.

The Shadowfire Elemental is a promotional repaint of the Medium Fire Elemental figure from the Shattered Star set. It was originally produced in 2013 as a convention promo figure, but was incorporated into the 10-figure Emerald Spire Promo Set to support the Pathfinder Online Kickstarter effort. That left us with the original run of the figure, which has never before been distributed. This version of the Shadowfire Elemental is based on the same paint master as the figure in the Promo Set, but as it was produced in a different production run, there are slight differences in the paint application. The base is also different, featuring the Paizo logo and "2013" instead of the Emerald Spire set designation. Statistics for the Shadowfire Elemental template can be found on page 157 of the Emerald Spire Superdungeon. The Shadowfire Elemental is a Medium figure.

The Lava Lurker is a promotional repaint of the Medium Earth Elemental from the Shattered Star set. It was originally produced in 2013 as a convention promo figure, but was incorporated into the 10-figure Emerald Spire Promo Set to support the Pathfinder Online Kickstarter effort. That left us with the original run of the figure, which has never before been distributed. This version of the Lava Lurker is based on the same paint master as the figure in the Promo Set, but as it was produced in a different production run, there are slight differences in the paint application. The base is also different, featuring the Paizo logo and "2013" instead of the Emerald Spire set designation. Statistics for the Lava Lurker can be found on page 155 of the Emerald Spire Superdungeon. The Lava Lurker is a Medium figure.

The Hellfire Wisp is a variant promotional repaint of the Will-o'-Wisp figure from the Wrath of the Righteous set. It was originally given out in 2014 at the Origins Game Fair and Dragon Con, and has subsequently appeared at other regional events. It features the Paizo logo on the bottom of the base in the place of a regular set designation. The Hellfire Wisp is a Medium figure.

The Goblin Raider is a variant promotional repaint of the Goblin Pyro 2 figure from the Legends of Golarion set. It was originally given out as a sales incentive in 2014 at the Paizo Booth at Gen Con Indy. It features the Paizo logo on the bottom of the base in the place of a regular set designation. The Goblin Raider is a Small figure.

The Slaver Demon is a variant promotional repaint of the Horned Demon figure from the Wrath of the Righteous set. It was originally given out as a promotional "thank you" to participants in the Gen Con Special Pathfinder Society event at Gen Con Indy 2014. It features the Paizo logo on the bottom of its base. The Slaver Demon is a variant Kalavakus Demon, whose game statistics appear on page 78 of Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 2. The figure is a Medium miniature.

And that's it for this week! I've got to go tend to some ornery reindeer up on the roof.

Cheers!

Erik Mona
Publisher

PaizoCon 2014 Announcement Round-Up

Sunday, July 6, 2014

Missed the annual PaizoCon Preview Banquet? Enjoyed too many cocktails while there to remember what we showed off? This post is your one-stop shop for all the important announcements you may have missed!

After a brief greeting from company founder Lisa Stevens and an introduction of the staff by Publisher and Master of Ceremonies Erik Mona, Lead Designer Jason Bulmahn took over the podium to share some juicy details on upcoming books in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game line.

Advanced Class Guide

Jason kicked things off with an overview of August's Pathfinder RPG Advanced Class Guide, the RPG line's major release of 2014. The book contains 10 new base classes, each of which combines two existing classes to create a new hybrid that better serves a given character concept. The brawler, for example, mixes mechanical elements of the monk and fighter to create a scrappy martial fighter without all of the mystical elements or armor focus of its parent classes.

Jason's tour took us through eight spreads of the book, revealing details on the shaman class as well as arcanist archetypes like the elemental master, occultist, school savant, spell specialist, unlettered arcanist, and white mage. He also gave a preview of the book's numerous skald rage powers, a look at its feats, spells, and magic items, and finally a glimpse at the character class design guidelines included in the volume.

Monster Codex

He then continued with a tour of the Pathfinder RPG Monster Codex, a treasury of stat blocks, cultural details, and special rules for 20 of the Pathfinder RPG's most commonly encountered creatures. After a look at the fire giant chapter, Jason showed off several illustrations of the various creatures represented within, which are reproduced below.

Illustrations by Jason Rainville

Check out more monsters from the Monster Codex!

Illustrations by Roberto Pitturru

Illustrations by Alexandre Chaudret

Illustrations by Ben Wootten

Illustrations by Maichol Quinto

Illustrations by Jason Engle

Pathfinder Unchained

The big announcement for the RPG line came when Jason pulled back the curtain on Pathfinder Unchained, the spring 2015 hardcover that will take Pathfinder into exciting new directions. This tome of optional rules revisits the barbarian, monk, rogue, and summoner classes with entirely revised versions designed to improve their overall play at the table. The book also will include an optional (and much simpler) action economy for the game, as well as new ways of designing monsters and treasure on the fly that we think players are going to love. We'll have much more to say about this book going forward, but for now it's probably enough to say that we've been conducting some mad experiments here at Paizo Central, and we can't wait to share them with you!

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game

Following Jason's presentation, we were joined by Pathfinder Adventure Card Game designers Mike Selinker and Tanis O'Connor, who revealed more details about August's Skull & Shackles Base Set and the upcoming Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild Organized Play program. The highlight of the card game presentation was Mike's announcement that the NEXT Adventure Card Game base set will be Wrath of the Righteous, scheduled for a February 2015 release! We'll have full product pages for the whole path up shortly!

Sketch by Wayne Reynolds

Giantslayer Adventure Path

Following the Adventure Card Game presentation, Erik announced the name of the next Pathfinder Adventure Path: GIANTSLAYER! More details about the campaign will be announced at the Adventure Path team's Sunday seminar, and will hit the Paizo Blog in short order.

Licensed Products

Following the AP talk, I focused on a raft of upcoming Pathfinder licensed products, most so new that they do not even have product pages on paizo.com yet! They are:

• A metal Sihedron Medallion from our partners at King of the Castle/Campaign Coins.
• A look at the upcoming Rise of the Runelords soundsets from Syrinscape.
• Pathfinder Comics hardcovers for Volume 2: Tooth and Claw and the popular Pathfinder: Goblins! limited series.
• Pathfinder Iconic Heroes Minimates figurines.

Pathfinder Battles: The Lost Coast

The next section of the Preview Banquet focused on the Pathfinder Battles line of prepainted plastic figures we produce in cooperation with WizKids. In addition to showing off several of the already-revealed figures, Erik finally revealed the set's titanic case incentive figure—the mighty Shemhazian Demon.

Pathfinder Online

Following the annual presentation of our Volunteer of the Year Award (co-awarded to PaizoCon UK founders and masterminds Dave Harrison and Rob Silk), we invited Pathfinder Online executive Ryan Dancey to close out the ceremony with a look at the Alpha version of Pathfinder Online, which went live just last week. It's still very much a work in progress, but there has been a TON of progress in recent months, and it's been really cool to see people playing the game and having fun with it. Ryan and his team have been running demos all weekend, and it's become a great part of the PaizoCon experience to see the game grow from year to year.

Here's a look at the video.

And that's it for new announcements this year! We'll have a lot more to say about these products in the weeks and months to come. If you're at PaizoCon, it's been fantastic getting a chance to chat with and game with you. If you couldn't make it this year, here's hoping you get a chance to attend in the future!

Keep rolling 20s, everyone!

Erik Mona
Publisher

The Crusader Road Sample Chapter

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

In The Crusader Road, Michael A. Stackpole (New York Times best-selling author of X-Wing: Rogue Squadron) brings you a new novel of frontier adventure that offers a taste of the setting featured in the new Pathfinder Online massively multiplayer online roleplaying game. When the aristocratic Vishov family has been banished from Ustalav due to underhanded politics, Lady Tyressa Vishov is faced with a choice: fade slowly into obscurity, or strike out for the nearby River Kingdoms and establish a new holding on the untamed frontier. Together with her children and loyal retainers, she’ll forge a new life in the infamous Echo Wood, and neither bloodthirsty monsters nor local despots will stop her from reclaiming her family honor. Yet the shadow of Ustalavic politics is long, and even in a remote and lawless territory, there may be those determined to see the Vishov family fail...

Chapter Thirteen

A Dream Uprooted

Jerrad couldn't tell from which direction the scream had come. He'd been huddled beneath a blanket reading the wizardry text. Something about the words didn't require light for him to read—which made sense. Many of the spells were centered around illusions and projecting images into a subject's mind. The whole book, he decided, was primarily a practical text on illusion, and he devoured each lesson as the book choose to reveal it to him.

Don't move. He closed the book and trembled. Someone just had an accident. It can't be anything bad. Just stay here.

Someone else screamed.

Serra!

He threw off the blanket. Silhouettes ran through the night—some normal people and some small, like children, but with enormous heads and ridiculously large ears. He resisted the urge to duck beneath the blankets again, and instead cupped his hands around his mouth. "Goblins!"

Jerrad grabbed his belt and fumbled with the buckle for a heartbeat or two before realizing he didn't need to wear the belt. His hand drifted down to the dagger, and he drew it just in time for one of the goblins to bound into his tent, peg teeth flashing.

Time died. The goblin had daubed its face with reddish mud and some yellow paste probably made from flowers. It had tied feathers to its biceps and just below the knees. A mangy skin made up its loincloth and the short cloak it wore. It had a rusty knife tucked into a slender belt, but never made to draw it.

The goblin hissed and leaped for him. Clawed hands reached for Jerrad's throat. The young man thrust the dagger forward—less as an attack than an attempt to fend the goblin off. His dagger plunged into the goblin's throat right above a necklace of bones. Hot blood shot up Jerrad's sleeve, and the goblin's dying spin tore the slicked knife from his hand. The creature stumbled and fell against Jerrad's cot.

The goblin's claws rent the pillow asunder, then the creature slumped amid a blizzard of feathers. It sighed as if settling down for a welcome nap.

Jerrad stared at his gore-drenched hand. A feather landed on it, drinking in the goblin's blood. What have I done?

Then he heard another scream. Serra! I have to find Serra! He dropped to a knee and yanked the dagger from the goblin's throat. Trailing feathers in his wake, he ran into the night, and heard her scream a third time.

There!

Serrana ran pell-mell through the camp in a panic. She headed mostly west, angling toward the furthest of the root cellars. He raced after her, slashing goblins and pushing them out of the way. He didn't hurt many, but caught a couple solidly. They'd either not seen him coming or didn't care as long as there was loot to carry off. Odd, capering victory dances took precedence over fighting, adding absurdity to the night's horrific chaos.

Ahead, his sister tripped and fell against a pile of wood scraps. Three goblins moved at her. Two had knives.

"Hey!" Jerrad thrust his left hand high in the air as the goblins stared at him. This better work!

He cast the spell he'd been trying to perfect beneath the blanket. A brilliant light flared from his hand, rendering the goblins in silver and his sister in icy blue. One goblin screamed, dropping his knife, and clawed at his own eyes.

As darkness returned and a wave of fatigue washed over him, Jerrad let his run carry him into the nearest goblin. He bowled the creature over. His foe sank teeth into Jerrad's left shoulder, but the boy barely noticed. Hand tight on the dagger's sticky hilt, Jerrad stabbed again and again. His thrusts ruined the goblin's belly, but he didn't stop stabbing until the jaws slackened.

He pitched the body off and rose, blood coursing down his arm and dripping from the blade. He gave Serra a smile. "It's okay."

Her eyes grew wide and her voice rose with fear. "Jerrad, look out!"

He spun right into an avalanche of goblins. His knife sank into something solid and warm, but it didn't matter. A skull clipped his jaw, cracking teeth together. With horror contorting Serra's face, Jerrad sank beneath a wave of rending claws, biting teeth, and goblin flesh.

∗ ∗ ∗

Tyressa leaped from the battlements and landed in a crouch. She gathered her skirts and pulled the rear hem up between her legs, tucked it into her belt at the belly. Cool air chilled bare feet. Another two steps and she picked up a stout stick. Two more and she levered a hatchet free of the chopping block where they killed chickens. With one stroke she slashed the stick into a sharpened stake, then stalked into the night.

More screams drew her onward. She heard someone yell "Goblins!" and thought it might be Jerrad. At least he's alive. She killed the urge to run to him. Panic would slay her, and then she'd be no help to anyone.

The first goblin flew at her out of the darkness, screeching as it came. Tyressa twisted, thrusting with her left hand. The stake caught the goblin in the chest, but a skin vest prevented it from penetrating. The creature giggled at its good fortune, then grew quiet as an overhand blow with the hatchet split its skull.

Off to the right, one of the woodsmen cleaved a goblin in half.

"To me!"

The man looked up as she wrenched the hatchet from the skull, then ran to her, nodding as he came. "Goblins."

"I see. I'd prefer highwaymen."

"My lady?"

"Bigger targets, and they don't bite." She raised her voice. "To me, Silverlake!"

Tyressa had meant the call to draw the settlers to her. A few came, one with an arm hanging limp and blood pouring from his shoulder. More quickly, however, came the goblins, chittering and gibbering, snarling and giggling insanely.

Off to the north one section of the wall ignited in a wash of flames. Goblin silhouettes writhed across the landscape. They piled up against the longhouse, standing on each other to get in the windows. Knives cut some, broomsticks thrust others away. Yet more ran around carrying off even the most inconsequential of trinkets. One had even slapped a boot on its head, lacing the floppy helmet on beneath the chin.

All this Tyressa took in with emotionless clarity. She didn't even allow herself anger, because letting in one emotion would open the way for others. She thrust and cut within her guard, remaining safe as her husband had taught her to do, yet missed no opportunity to kill. The hatchet's dull end pulverized what the blade wouldn't slice. A slap with the flat shattered bone. Goblins reeled away trying to press their faces back into shape.

The wounded man went down, and the goblins dragged him away. Tyressa closed ranks with the others. More goblins came in a wave that broke against the ferocity of the settlers' defense. Blood splashed. Sweat stung the countless scratches on her legs and forearms. Bones snapped. They weren't hers, but one solid hatchet stroke sent a shock wave up into her shoulder, and the dying goblin carried the hatchet away with it.

Lady Tyressa understands that a true leader leads
from the front lines.

"They're running, my lady."

The woodsman was right. But that's not right. Tyressa frowned, wiping her brow and smearing blood across it. The goblins had thinned, scattering in all directions, but more were upright than dead or dying. Why would they break off the attack?

Then she felt it, through her feet. Tremors in the ground, matching heavy footfalls. Something crashed through the darkness, coming up from the lake. She couldn't tell what it was, other than big. Whatever it was, the goblins knew better than to be anywhere near it. And she'd have followed their example, except that she wasn't going to let anything drive her from her home.

∗ ∗ ∗

Welinn huddled just inside the southernmost portion of the wall, cloaked darkness. He could see plenty well through it, as could all the goblins. The problem was, he couldn't see anything but goblins. Attacking, looting, setting fires, dying, all he saw were goblins by the legion.

That wasn't the way it was supposed to have worked. He, being of the Brambleclaw Tribe, had gotten the blessing of his chief, then gathered a company of goblins. He'd told them all the things the manlord wanted, especially about the scaring and the girl. The scaring would be what earned him extra money, so he had stressed it to his fellows.

He'd had a special thought in that regard. The manlord had wanted the attack to come on the moonless night, but that made no real sense if scaring was the object. If men couldn't see the goblins, how could they be scared? They couldn't, so the plan had to be modified so there was enough light to allow the scaring.

The Brambleclaws had taken the news about scaring to heart. More than one approached him asking if they could invite a cousin, since more would be scarier than less. Welinn had accepted the first few offers, then started refusing, but no one had listened to him. Cousins had invited other cousins, and it looked as if every goblin between Thornkeep and Silvershade Lake had joined in.

Then he saw it. One of the goblins had gone to far with scaring. He invited Grakka.

The creature looked like an ogre, but Welinn had heard it was of mixed blood—human or elf, though looking at it the goblin couldn't have told which. The ogrekin lived alone in the wood, having been driven from or escaped from Mosswater. It came dragging the lower half of a sapling—complete with root ball, as it stalked up the slope from the lake. The footfalls sounded as thunder and the ground shook.

Too much scaring. The goblin made himself as small as possible. He waited for Grakka to pass, then Welinn snuck around the corner and darted into the night. It didn't matter how much gold money the manlord would give him, it wouldn't be enough to lurk within the ogrekin's bloody domain.

∗ ∗ ∗

Jerrad rolled and tried to heave a goblin off him. He might have succeeded, he didn't know. His push included his knife, but he didn't hear a grunt or scream. Then again, being at the heart of a ball of yowling, gouging, gnawing goblins meant he couldn't make sense of much at all.

I have to get free. He fought panic and bit. He drove his knees into things. He smashed his head backward into something which crunched. His left elbow slammed against hardness, and his left hand closed on something squishy. He yanked. That got a howl, then teeth closed on his right wrist and his knife went flying.

He lashed out with everything he had, but the goblins weighed him down. Any time he sent one flying, two more would pile on. He couldn't get a decent breath. And something had a hand on the side of his head, trying to work his head up to expose his throat. He fought it. Claws sank into his scalp. Blood ran. The grip slipped for a second, then moved down and hooked beneath his jaw.

Then it was gone. Something hit with a solid thunk, and that goblin vanished. Then another thump, and another. Weight left his legs, so he kicked. He arched his back, then twisted, trying to get his hands under him.

Another thump, and more weight evaporated.

And then he heard her voice. "Get. Off. Mouse!"

Jerrad wriggled from the pile. As he stood, two goblins came for him. An arrow splashed back to front through the throat of the furthest, then struck the other in the back of the head. The razored broadhead skewered the left eyeball on its way out. The goblin stiffened, viscous fluid streaming down its face, then flopped to the ground.

Beyond it stood Kiiryth, another arrow already fitted to his bow. He gave Jerrad a nod, then turned and sped another shaft into the night.

Between them stood Serrana, a four-foot length of pine sapling clenched tight in her fists. She whipped it up and around, spraying blood and goblin brains all over, then crashed it down. The blow pulped a goblin's bulbous head. The club rose again and struck the same goblin.

"Serra. Serrana!"

She looked up at him, feral fire burning in her eyes. Lips peeled back in a snarl. She flashed a grin, then whirled and battered another dead goblin's skull into wet mush. "Get. Off. Mouse!"

"Serrana, its okay, they're off me."

His sister stopped for a moment, a thick, dark slurry running down over her hands. "Mouse?"

"Yes, Serrana. You saved me."

"I saved you."

Kiiryth closed with both of them. "There are more to save. To the longhouse, now."

∗ ∗ ∗

Maraschal Sunnock stood alone in the chaos within the longhouse. He'd gone there to give some last-minute orders to his servants concerning the next day's journey. He'd heard the scream and seen forms running through the night before someone had closed and barred the door. And even when a goblin thrust its face through a window, he still couldn't believe it.

This is wrong, all wrong! His mouth went dry. I wasn't supposed to be here.

"You, help us!"

Sunnock looked up. One of the woodsmen had joined two other men at the door, pushing back against a horde of goblins. Boards began to creak. Nails squealed and worked free of the wood. The man waved him forward and, dazed by disbelief, Sunnock joined him.

The second his hands touched the door's wood, fear burst within his heart. Until that moment, the attack had been an abstract thing. Here, leveraging his muscle against that of the goblins, he could feel their insistence. They were avatars of gluttony and hatred and greed. A knot in a board popped free, striking him in the face. He stared out through it, eye to eye with a goblin.

Sunnock spun, slamming his back against the door. People warded every window, stabbing and battering goblins, shoving them back into the night. But there, toward the center, children huddled with older folks. Faces ashen with fear, they looked toward him. His presence gave them hope. They counted on him. He was their salvation.

For a heartbeat before he realized the pressure on the door had slackened, Sunnock felt like a hero. He understood that all the gold in the world couldn't buy the sensation of having someone look upon you with gratitude for saving her life. He was all that stood between them and the end of everything. His selflessness would live on forever.

And it was that thought, as yet untainted by wondering how he could turn that gratitude to his own advantage, which occupied his mind the very moment the massive root ball exploded the door. Sharp oaken splinters pierced him through and through. A heavy board crushed his skull. His lifeless body flew into the room, bouncing and rolling to the edge of the circle of people he had saved.

He never heard the terrified screams attesting to his failure.

∗ ∗ ∗

Jerrad arrived at the longhouse's far end just as the huge, ugly beast struck his first blow. Wood shattered. What had once been the door was now a jagged hole. People screamed from beyond it.

Jerrad choked down fear. "What is that?"

"Some unholy creature gotten on someone by an ogre." The archer's eyes narrowed. "Not full-blooded—usually called ogrekin—but just as nasty as the purebreds."

The ogrekin tugged its club free. Eight feet tall, with flesh the color of a bruised mushroom, the creature bulged with muscle. The sheer power it could generate was terrifying enough, but its face could only be described as blasphemous. One pointed ear sat lower than the other, and the pale blue eye on the left had to be three times the diameter of the brown one on the right. Yellow teeth were jumbled in a jaw that gaped open, and the nose had been broken so many times Jerrad had to cant his head to make the nostrils line up right.

Kiiryth's bow came up. The bowstring twanged as he loosed an arrow. It pierced the monster's left shoulder, the broadhead emerging out the back. Blood ran in rivulets down the arm and dripped from the arrow's tip.

The ogrekin didn't give the wound so much as a glance.

Tyressa, butcher knife in one hand and fishing spear in the other, appeared and whistled loudly. "You're not welcome in my town."

Mother! Jerrad started toward her, but Kiiryth grabbed his collar and held him back.

"You'd only slow her down."

The behemoth looked at her. Contempt further warped its face. It snarled, flashing a tangle of uneven teeth. The ogrekin reached for her with its left hand.

Tyressa ducked beneath the attempted grab and circled around toward the monster's back. It turned to keep with her, but its grip on the club slowed it. By the time the ogrekin had pulled the club from the longhouse, Tyressa had darted in and slashed the thing's right heel. Black blood sprayed from a deep cut over the tendon.

Tyressa danced wide, carrying her outside the range of the ogrekin's swinging club. The club came around and slammed into the longhouse's wall. It splintered boards and snapped the corner post. The longhouse shifted, the wood closing like jaws on the club, clinging to it with a fierce tenacity.

The ogrekin snarled and set itself, muscles bunching in shoulders and back. The monster heaved, trying to free the weapon. Wood groaned. Some nails squeaked as they came free, but the building didn't release the club on that first attempt. So the behemoth planted its feet and hauled back for all it was worth.

The damaged tendon popped. The creature's right foot slid out from under it. The ogre landed hard on the base of its spine. The tremor rattled teeth in Jerrad's head. The monster threw its head back and howled in pain.

And a little bit in fear.

The people of Silverlake boiled from the longhouse. Woodsmen chopped into the ogre's shoulders and wrists. People stabbed it, using knives, scythes, and even sharp sticks. Kiiryth shot arrows into any exposed flesh. Even Serrana charged in, battering it with her blood-stained club.

But Tyressa slew it. As others hacked at its limbs, Jerrad's mother leaped onto the ogre's chest. The monster's head came up. It hissed a challenge. Tyressa roared back, the stepped on its throat and thrust the fishing spear straight through the larger eye.

The ogre thrashed, ripping the spear from her hand and tossing her into the crowd. Its death throes crushed one man and broke several others. The people withdrew, weapons ready, as the monster thrashed out the last seconds of its life, then cheered as it lay still.

Tyressa emerged from the bloodthirsty throng bruised but otherwise unhurt.

Jerrad stared at her, and wasn't alone. You're my mother, but are you my mother?

Tyressa bent, resting hands on knees. She breathed heavily for a moment or two, then let her skirt hem slip down and straightened up. She looked around, then nodded.

"This is a terrible night, but you've all done well. See to yourselves. See to our wounded. Then we shall attend to our dead." She wiped her bloody hands on her skirts. "This is a night we mourn now, but shall celebrate in the future. And because of you, Silverlake will have a future."

Want more? Purchase the Crusader Road today!

Coming Next Week: Web Fiction will be going on hiatus next week due to PaizoCon, but stay tuned for an all-new story by Steven Savile in two weeks!

Michael A. Stackpole is an award-winning game designer, computer game designer, graphic novelist, screenwriter, podcaster, editor, and novelist. He got his start writing solitaire adventures for Tunnels & Trolls, so it was a distinct pleasure to return to a world of pure fantasy for this book. Mike lives in Arizona, teaches writing classes through the Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University, and swing dances in his spare time. Visit his website at stormwolf.com.

Illustration by Robert Pitturru.

Pathfinder Battles Preview: Pathfinder Online Promo Figures

Friday, January 11, 2013

The big Pathfinder Online Kickstarter Campaign wraps up this upcoming Monday, so before we head out for the weekend, I wanted to interrupt our normal Pathfinder Battles preview schedule to give a look not just at the seven figures we’ve already revealed, but also the two remaining figures that are likely to be unlocked this weekend as we push toward the project’s ambitious $1,000,000 funding goal.

Please take some time to visit the Pathfinder Online Kickstarter page for more details on which pledge levels receive the promotional minis. There are several options available to match several levels of support.

Stats for these creatures will appear in the giant Emerald Spire Superdungeon that is also a part of this Kickstarter effort. All Pathfinder Online promo miniatures are specially created repaints of existing or upcoming Pathfinder Battles figures.

Up first we have the Bloodbriar Goblin Raider, a brutal little beastie native to the region of Thornkeep, one of Pathfinder Online’s starting towns.

Next up is the insidious Shadowfire Elemental!

Followed by the Lava Lurker!

Finishing up this sub-set’s elemental theme, we have the Mudlord!

And watch out for the Moon Spider!

I’m sad to be the first to inform you that the forests of the River Kingdoms region, where Pathfinder Online takes place, are crawling with Bugbear Snipers!

And Echo Wood Outlaws!

And now, let’s take a look at the two remaining figures, starting with the Emerald Automaton! This repaint is based off a yet-to-be-revealed figure from the Shattered Star set, which we’ll get back to next week.

And last (unless, of course, your support blows the project past $1,100,000!), we’ve got the evil Bone Priest!

And that’s it for now! Please support the Pathfinder Online Kickstarter Campaign. Your generous pledges of support not only help to create an awesome and exciting video game experience, but they’ll also net you some sweet prepainted plastic figures!

Next week we’ll get back to the business of revealing the rest of the Shattered Star set, which will finally release on January 23rd! We’re so close now, you can taste it!*

Erik Mona
Publisher

* Please refrain from licking Pathfinder Battles miniatures. It’s icky.

Superstar Lineup for the Emerald Spire Announced

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Dear Friends of Paizo,

First off, I want to thank you for your support of Paizo through this, our 10th anniversary year. It has been a year of reflection, a year of celebration, and a year of exciting new projects! I am blessed to have an incredible team here at Paizo that I enjoy working with on a daily basis. I am equally blessed with such a super group of fellow gaming enthusiasts that I can call my friends and customers. As Conan would say, life is good!

As many of you know, we have a Kickstarter going that will help our sister company, Goblinworks, make the Pathfinder Online MMO. This game has me excited because it will be the first time that anyone will be able to visually immerse themselves into the world of Golarion and to see what it would be like to actually live in this campaign world that we have only seen through the words of our incredible authors, the pictures of our amazing artists, and the imaginations of our own brains. I can tell you that when I actually was able to take Merisiel and run her through the wilderness outside of Thornkeep in the River Kingdoms the other day, I was trembling with excitement! Pathfinder Online is the type of game that I can really get excited about because it doesn't just lead you through a scripted Pathfinder experience, it allows YOU to shape the experience just like you do in our real world. It reminds me so much of my 30 years of playing tabletop RPGs—I get to decide what happens in my campaigns. That, to me, is very exciting!

The Pathfinder Online Kickstarter has been up for two weeks and I'm pleased to announce that yesterday we reached the $300,000 sub-goal: 30% off the way towards our final goal! Statistics have shown Kickstarters that reach the 30% mark have a 90% chance of success. It means that early supporters came in and the project is on a good track to go all the way. However, we still need a ton of support if we are going to make our goal and see Pathfinder Online become a reality. That means we need your help! Of course, we don't intend to just ask for your help without giving you a little something in return. We've added some tasty morsels to the Kickstarter by way of new reward tiers, some cool add-on products, and some additional value for the already announced tiers.

The biggest announcement this past week was for the Emerald Spire Superdungeon, a Pathfinder RPG product that could become the largest official Pathfinder dungeon ever created! We have enlisted a massive number of superstar RPG designers to each pen their own unique dungeon level in the Emerald Spire. As the Kickstarter pledges grow, so does the dungeon! This superdungeon will be available in both print and PDF, and there are numerous options to support us that will get you this cool collaboration of RPG legends!

I'm super excited to announce today the all-star lineup for the first 12 levels of the Emerald Spire Superdungeon. They are:

Rich Baker (author of the Birthright campaign setting for D&D)
Wolfgang Baur (CEO of Open Design, and legendary TSR designer)
F. Wesley Schneider (Paizo Editor-In-Chief and creator of Ustalav)
James Sutter (Paizo Fiction Editor and creator of Kaer Maga)
Lisa Stevens (CEO of Paizo, and co-founder of White Wolf and Wizards of the Coast)
Keith Baker (Creator of the Eberron campaign setting for D&D)
Ed Greenwood (Creator of the Forgotten Realms campaign setting for D&D)
Erik Mona (Publisher and co-creator of the Pathfinder Campaign Setting)
Mark Rein-Hagen (Co-founder of White Wolf Publishing, author of Ars Magica, Vampire: The Masquerade, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, Wraith: The Oblivion, and Changeling: The Dreaming)
Jason Bulmahn (Lead designer of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and co-creator of the Pathfinder Campaign Setting)
Frank Mentzer (Founder of the RPGA, co-author of The Temple of Elemental Evil, author of D&D boxed sets)
James Jacobs (Creative Director and creator of the Pathfinder Adventure Path and Varisia)

These folks have been my heroes, my co-workers, and my friends in the industry. They have created the products that have defined my 25 years in this industry and I am extremely proud to have them working with me to create the most amazing superdungeon ever! The very cool thing is that this baby can grow bigger if enough people back this Kickstarter. We have another dozen or so amazing authors waiting in the wings should we need to call on their services to add additional levels. How low do you want the dungeon to go? Back this Kickstarter and tell us!

In addition, our friends at WizKids have worked with us to create some prepainted plastic minis for this Kickstarter campaign! The Bloodbriar Goblin and the Shadowfire Elemental have already been unlocked, and we're on our way to unlocking the Lava Lurker. These minis have been added to the reward package for everyone at the Crowdforger Pioneer level and higher. There are more minis waiting to be unlocked as we head towards our funding goal, giving backers a minimum of nine cool new minis if this Kickstarter campaign is funded!

For our Pathfinder Society friends out there, we have added a new reward level that will get you a very cool boon that you can use in Pathfinder Society play! Erik, Mike and Mark have pulled out all the stops in making this the coolest Pathfinder Society boon I have ever seen! Check out the Kickstarter page to learn more!

Now is a great time to help us spread the word about this Kickstarter. The more people hear about us, the more momentum we gather, and the bigger rewards get for Kickstarter backers and Pathfinder fans! Here's how you can help:

1. Pledge to support the Kickstarter! Even if you don't play computer games, there are plenty of awesome rewards to add to your tabletop Pathfinder game.
2. Share the Kickstarter link with your buddies on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.
3. Check the Pathfinder Online Kickstarter page every day to watch the newest videos and learn about the latest reward reveals!

In closing, thanks again for making Paizo your gaming company of choice. If it weren't for you and your patronage, Paizo wouldn't be heading into year eleven. It truly means the world to me and my staff. Have a wonderful holiday season—I look forward to sharing so many new adventures in 2013!

Lisa Stevens
CEO

Pathfinder Online and the Emerald Spire

Thursday, December 6, 2012

Our sister company Goblinworks is busy developing Pathfinder Online, a sandbox-style MMORPG game based on the Pathfinder world. In celebration of them raising $200k in the first week of their Kickstarter initiative, and to thank our fans for their continued support, Paizo is thrilled to announce today new reward tiers for the Pathfinder Online fundraiser. These tiers add awesome new content to the Pathfinder world, we're sure you'll agree!

The biggest news, literally and figuratively, is the launch of the Emerald Spire Superdungeon, what will become the largest official Pathfinder RPG dungeon ever published. The Emerald Spire Superdungeon includes 32 pages of source material detailing the area around Fort Inevitable, one of the starter towns in the Pathfinder Online game. It will also add at least four, 8-page dungeon levels, designed by Pathfinder superstars Richard L. Baker, F. Wesley Schneider, Wolfgang Baur and James L. Sutter. The Superdungeon will be accompanied by the Emerald Spire Dungeons Flip-Mat Multi-Pack, a set of Pathfinder Flip-Mats presenting each dungeon level in tabletop miniatures scale.

As the Kickstarter funding grows, so does the Superdungeon. When the $250k sub-goal is met, I will come out of game design semi-retirement to add an original dungeon level to the book. As each $100k sub-goal is met thereafter, new levels by superstar designers will be added. By the time the Kickstarter reaches its $1 million funding goal, the Emerald Spire Superdungeon will encompass 12 dungeon levels in 128 pages, accompanied by 6 double-sided Flip-Mats in the Emerald Spire Dungeons Flip-Mat Multi-Pack. But it won't stop there! As additional stretch goals are met, the Emerald Spire will become even larger, and the number of Flip-Mats will grow.

Also, a new RPG Print Pack has been added to the Kickstarter reward tier. Backers at any pledge level can get the RPG Print Pack for an additional $100 (plus $15 shipping outside of the U.S.). The RPG Print Pack includes a hardcover print edition of the Emerald Spire Superdungeon, which will feature an exclusive Kickstarter cover by Wayne Reynolds; a print edition of the Emerald Spire Dungeons Flip-Mat Multi-Pack; a print edition of the Pathfinder Tales novel The Crusader Road by Richard L. Baker, and an Emerald Spire Campaign Cards game accessory.

New WizKids Pathfinder Battles Miniatures will be added to the Pathfinder Online Kickstarter as rewards for all of the Crowdforger backer levels, which start at $100. The miniatures will all be drawn from the Emerald Spire Superdungeon, starting with the Bloodbriar Goblin Raider. A second miniature, the Shadowfire Elemental, will be unlocked when the Kickstarter reaches $300K, with additional miniatures revealed for each $100K raised. This means that starting at $250,000, a new reward will be offered for every $50K reached, alternating between new dungeon levels for the Emerald Spire Superdungeon and new Pathfinder Battles prepainted plastic miniatures!

With the success of this Kickstarter, Pathfinder Online is targeted for a mid-2014 Beta. As stretch goals are reached beyond the base funding level, this target date will move up as more resources are brought to bear on getting Pathfinder Online finished.

The Pathfinder Online Kickstarter Campaign is in progress and concludes at 2:00 GMT on January 14, 2013. We look forward to your being involved in the development of Pathfinder Online – the voice of the fans will be at the core of what we do, and we thank you for your support.

Lisa Stevens
CEO, Paizo Publishing, LLC
COO, Goblinworks, Inc.

Pathfinder Online Kickstarter Now Live!

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

This is an exciting time at Goblinworks, and we wanted you to know about our latest development! As our biggest fans and customers, it is important to us that you are in the loop right away. Your support for Paizo and Pathfinder has allowed us to make Pathfinder the top RPG in the world! That success has lead us to license the MMORPG rights to our sister company, Goblinworks, so they can make a next generation fantasy sandbox MMO called Pathfinder Online. Last May, we launched a Kickstarter to fund a Technology Demo, and many of you supported us there. In turn, that Demo allowed us to get the funding we needed to put Pathfinder Online into production. Right now, a small team of very cool professionals are working very hard on building Pathfinder Online, and we have you to thank for that!

But right now our team is limited in size. There are nine people working on Pathfinder Online—enough to get us to launch in a few years, but not enough to do it with the speed and scope we really want. So we are launching a new Kickstarter for the Pathfinder Online Fantasy Sandbox MMO. The purpose of this second Kickstarter is to get the money we need to make Pathfinder Online bigger, faster and better than we can with our current level of funding. It will let us hire more people and dedicate more resources to Pathfinder Online, potentially cutting the time to launch in half, and massively expanding the content and features available on release.

Could we have gone out and got investment capital to do this? Sure, but with that investment comes costs and entanglements that could very well derail the vision that we have for Pathfinder Online. Investors don't like to push boundaries, color outside the lines, or think outside the box. Instead, they want you to do things only in ways already proven successful for other companies. It is their money, after all.

Our vision for Pathfinder Online doesn't fit those boundaries. It doesn't color within the lines. It doesn't want to exist inside of a box. You already get that—you have believed in Paizo from the beginning and helped us to create a unique community around the Pathfinder RPG. We would rather report to you than to a group of investors who are only interested in making the biggest pile of money and having an early exit strategy. You are with us for the long haul. You believe in our vision for Pathfinder. We would prefer never to sacrifice this vision in pursuit of bigger profits. With you, we can make an MMO that we can all be proud of, and it can happen if we are successful with this Kickstarter. We can do this if enough folks want to become our "bosses" and work with us to make Pathfinder Online.

Another cool aspect of this Kickstarter is that we are finally revealing how YOU can become an Early Enrollee and get involved with the Pathfinder Online Beta. As you probably already know, during the Beta, we are going to limit the number of folks who can enter the world of Pathfinder Online each month, so that we can slowly begin building the society that is going to make Pathfinder Online so successful. The new Kickstarter offers a limited number of slots for each month on a first-come, first-served basis. The earlier you back this Kickstarter, the earlier you will be able to get into the Beta. After the Beta, we'll open the game to everyone, and as part of this Kickstarter, you can preorder your copy of the game at a discounted price.

Because our customers are so important to us, we're contacting you right away. We hope you take advantage of this early notice to become the first to join us as we crowdforge Pathfinder Online. Crowdforge? Glad you asked. Crowdforging is the word that we've come up with to represent the intense process we will use to work with you, our customers, to make Pathfinder Online the best MMO it can be. When you get into the Pathfinder Online Beta, you will become intimately involved with the decisions that go into making a game of this size. If you have helped Paizo playtest our various RPG projects, you understand what we are aiming for here. No other game will give you this type of access and input into its creation. But there are only a limited number of folks who will be able to get into the early stages of crowdforging this game, so make sure you back our Kickstarter soon!

In closing, we would like to thank all of you for helping us make our dream a reality. We wouldn't be here without you, and we very much appreciate your ongoing support. For this Kickstarter to be a huge success, we're going to need your help getting the word out to the MMO and RPG communities. Please tell your friends on Facebook, Twitter, various messageboards, and anywhere gamers congregate. Together, we can grow the legions of fans interested in building our next generation fantasy sandbox MMO. With enough support, we can all make Pathfinder Online faster, bigger and better.

The journey is just beginning!

Lisa Stevens
CEO, Paizo Publishing
COO, Goblinworks, Inc.

Lisa Stevens Gamerati Interview

Thursday, June 21, 2012

A few weeks back Paizo CEO Lisa Stevens joined a hangout on Gamerati+ where Gen Con owner Peter Adkison and numerous other participants asked her a variety of questions about Paizo, Pathfinder Online, her gaming history, and whatever else came to mind. Check out what was asked and what insider info she had to share!

You can check out the rest of the video interview at the Paizo Publishing channel on YouTube. Thanks to Ed Healy for putting this interview series together. You can find more news and interviews from gaming industry luminaries at Gamerati.

F. Wesley Schneider
Editor-in-Chief

The Kickstarter Chronicles

Monday, June 4, 2012

Since Paizo and Goblinworks first announced the Kickstarter project to fund a technology demo of the Pathfinder Online MMO game, one of the most common questions both on our forums and on the Kickstarter project page has been: how will this work with Pathfinder Society Organized Play?

Backers who pledge at least $15 will receive the PDF of Thornkeep, an all-new Pathfinder Roleplaying Game sourcebook written by industry superstar Rich Baker, containing not only a gazetteer of the River Kingdoms “hive of scum and villainy” that will play a prominent role in the online game, but also a massive dungeon with levels designed by Baker, Paizo Lead Designer Jason Bulmahn, Paizo Creative Director James Jacobs, and Paizo Publisher Erik Mona, and if the project nets $175,000, all levels of the dungeon will be included in the printed version of the book with an expanded page count.

And we plan to release Chronicle sheets to give Pathfinder Society characters venturing into the dungeons beneath Thornkeep an in-world benefit for surviving the dungeons within. The fact that all backers will have the opportunity to select the theme of each dungeon layer beyond the first means it’s a rare chance for Pathfinder Society GMs and players to help decide what adventures their PCs will take part in. And by backing the project, you ensure that you’ll have access to those levels when they’re released.

So make sure you check out the Kickstarter project, consider backing it, and spread the word to your fellow Pathfinder Society members. The project ends this week, so don’t wait. This is your chance to help make the Pathfinder Online game a reality, and decide the flavor of an all-star multilevel dungeon that promises to go down in Pathfinder history!

Mark Moreland
Developer

Kicking Off Pathfinder Online

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

You've probably heard that Paizo is working with Goblinworks to produce Pathfinder Online, a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game. Goblinworks has been giving you snippets of our plans in the biweekly blog posts on goblinworks.com, and we've been getting your feedback on the Pathfinder Online messageboards here on paizo.com. Well, we're now ready to kick off the next phase of Pathfinder Online.

Today we announced a Kickstarter project to help us build the Pathfinder Online Technology Demo. Go take a look at the press release or visit the Kickstarter project page to find out what this Kickstarter is all about, and then come back here so I can share some details you'll want to know. Don’t worry, I’ll wait right here...

...Did you read it? Pretty darn cool, huh?

Goblinworks.com has its own blog today talking about the Kickstarter, so head over there when you're done here for more details on that. What I want to talk about here is the Thornkeep book!

Since the Pathfinder Online Technology Demo itself isn’t something that we can offer to Kickstarter patrons, we had to go outside the box for our Kickstarter rewards, and the Thornkeep book seemed like the perfect answer.

Thornkeep has a Pathfinder Online logo on the cover, but make no mistake—Paizo is handling this book just like any of our other Pathfinder products. It's set in the very same world of Golarion as our other roleplaying products, and contains 100% official Pathfinder campaign setting material for use with the Pathfinder RPG.

The first half of the 64-page Thornkeep book is a Pathfinder RPG sourcebook covering the town of Thornkeep and its surrounding area. Thornkeep is part of the River Kingdoms area, which is the setting for Pathfinder Online. (You could also drop Thornkeep into almost any wooded area in your own campaign setting.) As we mentioned in one of our earliest Pathfinder Online blog posts, Thornkeep is one of three starting locations for PCs in the MMO—it's the chaotic frontier town that Ryan dubbed our "hive of scum and villainy" (think a fantasy version of Deadwood). (You even helped us name Thornkeep in our first online poll!)

We thought it would be cool to allow folks to explore Thornkeep's various dark corners in their Pathfinder RPG sessions before Pathfinder Online is released. We will be using this book as our guide when we're building its digital equivalent. We're even going to have a small dungeon in this book that will map directly to the one featured in the Technology Demo. So not only will you be getting a guide to one of the towns in Pathfinder Online, but you'll also be getting the first look at how content from the RPG transitions to Pathfinder Online, as well as how content from the MMO might find its way to your gaming table!

Rich Baker, author of Thornkeep!

When we were looking for somebody to write the sourcebook material for us, we went to our good friend Rich Baker. This is Rich's first time working on Pathfinder, but he has been involved with classic D&D campaign settings from the Forgotten Realms to Birthright, and we figured it would be fun to see how he would approach Thornkeep! I've seen his partial turnovers already, and they're awesome!

So what about the second half of the book? That's going to be a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of Pathfinder Online, including excerpts from our internal design document, plus design sketches and early artwork for the MMO, as well as essays from Goblinworks and Paizo team members designed to give you insight into the making of the MMO. Consider this a backstage pass to all of the goings-on at Goblinworks!

Of course, we couldn’t have a cool product like this without a Wayne Reynolds cover. The cover image you see here is a mock-up—Wayne should have the real Thornkeep cover done by PaizoCon, and we plan to unveil it at our banquet!

Thornkeep isn't the only Kickstarter reward, though. There are lots of fun rewards for folks at all levels of pledge support! You could even come to Paizo for a day, play a Pathfinder game with your dream Paizo GM, and have a four-hour dinner with your GM, Goblinworks CEO Ryan Dancey, and myself. Check out all of the Kickstarter rewards and help us get to the next step in the development of Pathfinder Online. We wouldn’t be here without you!

Lisa Stevens
Paizo CEO
Goblinworks COO

I've Come Full Circle!

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Not many people would guess this, but my love of roleplaying actually started because of a computer game. In 1980, I discovered one of the first computer roleplaying games, Akalabeth: World of Doom. It had very simple graphics, and gameplay amounted largely to wandering through computer-generated dungeons, killing things, and taking their loot. But I was hooked! I used to go down to my local computer store—Computer World, in Appleton, Wisconsin—and I'd play the game on their Apple II demo setup for hours. (The Computer World staff tolerated my incessant play because it attracted lots of attention to the computer!)

In 1981, I went off to St. Olaf College, leaving Computer World—and Akalabeth—behind. I soon needed to scratch my adventuring itch, so put I up a message on the bulletin boards asking if anybody at St. Olaf was playing Akalabeth. That didn't pan out, but it did lead someone to contact me about a game that was new to me: Dungeons & Dragons. Of course, I fell in love with D&D, eventually leading me to a career of more than 25 years in the gaming business, including working at Wizards of the Coast on the launch of D&D's third edition in 2000!

My boss on that 3E team was Ryan Dancey, and when I left Wizards, I told Ryan that I'd love to work with him again someday. But our lives diverged; I started Paizo, and Ryan went to CCP in Iceland to be the Chief Marketing Officer for the EVE Online MMO. We stayed in touch over the years, and after Ryan left CCP earlier this year, I asked him what he was going to do next. His answer: "How about a Pathfinder MMO?"

Visit goblinworks.com for more information about Pathfinder Online!

At first I was skeptical. I'd heard horror stories about hundreds of millions of dollars lost developing games that were never released. Or games that launched with a big splash only to become zombies within months, their subscriber base dwindled down to a barely sustainable number. But this was Ryan, and I really wanted to work with him again. So I challenged him to convince me—to make me a believer. Over the next few months, Ryan started developing a plan for this Pathfinder MMO, and I started to believe. The plan wasn't 100%, though, so I brought the resources of Paizo to bear on it. Erik Mona, Vic Wertz, James Jacobs, Jeff Alvarez, Gary Teter, Wes Schneider, Sarah Robinson, and more each contributed unique insight to help us come up with a plan for the game—now christened Pathfinder Online—that we could all believe in. What we are announcing today is the result of that work.

Pathfinder Online's journey is just beginning. We've started a brand-new company called Goblinworks to create the game. At the moment, it's owned by myself, Ryan, Paizo, and Mark Kalmes. Mark is one of the top tech guys in the MMO field, and he'll be Goblinworks' Chief Technical Officer. (And we're currently looking for additional investors to help us move forward with Pathfinder Online.)

Traditionally, projects like this are developed in secrecy, with information leaking out in whispers for months before a formal announcement. But we don't want our loyal customers to find out about Pathfinder Online through rumored half-truths; we want you in on the ground floor.

A lot of big picture work has already been done on Pathfinder Online, and it's going to be a bit different from your traditional fantasy MMO. It's going to focus around the characters you create, in a world that will grow out of your interactions, developing the way you choose to develop it. It takes place in the River Kingdoms of Golarion, with our own Kingmaker Adventure Path providing some of the inspiration. There will be an overarching storyline, and dungeons aplenty to explore, but where Pathfinder Online is going to thrive is in the ability of each of you to leave your mark on the world. Do you want to build a castle that you own and control? Go for it. Want to start a town and rally folks to your banner? Do that. Do you want to ally with the neighboring villages to form a new nation—or perhaps wage war on them instead? The choice is yours. Want to become the most feared bandit in the River Kingdoms? The path is available. Want to become the greatest armorer that Golarion has ever seen? All it takes is hard work. If you can imagine doing something in the world of Golarion, we want you to be able to do that in Pathfinder Online.

The fun is just starting! Please use the discussion thread here on paizo.com to interact with Ryan, Mark, myself, and the rest of the Goblinworks crew as we start this new adventure. We're going to be very interactive with you, the Pathfinder community, because we want this game to be YOURS. Stay tuned for blogs, trailers, and other teasers as we move forward. In true Paizo fashion, we will keep you guys in the loop, and listen to your feedback as we progress.

Things have come a long way since Akalabeth. Join me for the ride and help make Pathfinder Online the best MMORPG ever!

Lisa Stevens
CEO, Paizo Publishing
COO, Goblinworks

Something is coming...

Tuesday, November 22, 2011