OPC Log—30 Arodus, 4716

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Hello from Redmond! After weeks of travel I'm back at the Paizo office, catching up on events and developments in the world of Pathfinder. Which accounts for the lateness of this blog, as I tried to touch base and get a status report on some ongoing projects.

So, a few updates!

Pathfinder Society Academy

Thank you to all the volunteers that ran Pathfinder Society Academy events at Gen Con! The youth had a blast and the program received some great attention. In reviewing the feedback, there are a few tweaks we need to make to the program before rolling it out to the general public. So we are pushing back release by a month or two to make sure it is the best program we can offer. For those conventions hoping to run it in the interim, email me and we can discuss options.

Pathfinder Adventure Card Guild Season of the Runelords Adventures 5 & 6

With the departure of Tanis and my extended absence from the office, we had another hiccup in the release schedule. I apologize profusely for the delay and can only say that the goblins have really made a mess of things. We are looking at timelines, processes, and workflow so to minimize (and hopefully remove) the issues that arose this season.

Venture-Officer Appointments/Information Corrections

Now that I am back in the office I can get working on adding volunteers to the Venture-Officer team and updating contact information. If you sent me an email, I am working my way through the requests in the order they were received. For those submitting applications to join the team, I am reviewing them as well and will be in touch as soon as possible. I thank everyone for their patience!

Roleplaying Guild Guide Revision

There is a Guide revision in the works. Thank you to the members of the community who sent feedback on the new format or identified issues. The team is aware of the feedback threads on the forums and the opinions expressed therein. Sifting through the posts and emails will take some time, as well as working the revision into our schedules, so we do not have an anticipated release date, but it will be sooner than the launch of Season 9!

PAX West

Pathfinder Society will be out in force at PAX West this weekend at the Washington State Convention Center, Rooms 201-203. There are still volunteer openings available on Friday Night, Sunday Night, and Monday. If interested, contact Venture-Lieutenant Louis Manko Levite.

Upcoming Events

I'm going to start spotlighting events in the weekly blog. Currently, I am looking at events in December/January, to give enough time for people interested in attending to book travel and accomodations. If you would like your event featured on the blog, please send a one to two paragraph summary of the particulars, including what, where, when, and who to contact for more information to pathfindersociety@paizo.com.

As a corollary, the Pathfinder Society team is putting together our 2017 travel schedule. If you are hosting a convention and would like a member of the team as a special guest at your event, please email pathfindersociety@paizo.com with the particulars. Many factors go into planning our schedules and the more information we have, the easier to plan.

Lots more irons in the fire, but I'm going to pause here for today. For those traveling, stay safe. And remember: Explore, Report, Cooperate!

Tonya Woldridge
Organized Play Coordinator

Rolling Up to Gen Con

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Illustration by Ralph Horsley

There's less than a week until the Paizo crew arrives in Indianapolis for Gen Con 2016! If you're heading to the show, stop by the Paizo booth (#103), the Sagamore Ballroom where we'll be hosting the weekend's Pathfinder Society events, or catch Paizonians at a variety of events taking place throughout the show.

Visitors to the Paizo booth will be able to pick up our latest hardcover, Pathfinder RPG: Horror Adventures! Horror Adventures takes game masters and players into the darkest reaches, where madness and death lurk around every corner. You can catch up with our previews of Horror Adventures blog updates here. And if you pick up your copy at the booth, there will be opportunities to get it and other Pathfinder swag autographed at our signing table. And Pathfinder contributing and cover artist of Horror Adventures, Wayne Reynolds will be joining us in the booth!

In addition to Horror Adventures, we'll be bringing along all of our new releases, including: Pathfinder Adventure Path #108: Hell Comes to Westcrown, Pathfinder Module: Gallows of Madness, Pathfinder Adventure Card Game—Class Deck: Goblins Burn! and Goblins Fight!, Pathfinder Player Companion: Legacy of Dragons, Pathfinder Pawns: Pathfinder Society Pawn Collection, and more! You'll also be able to pick up a copies of our new Pocket Editions of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook and Bestiary—a great product for newcomers to Pathfinder and for travel-sized adventuring. There will also be a loaded complement of other Pathfinder products for you to fill in your collection.

If you're a collector of shirts, we're once again teaming up with Scotty's Brewhouse, the official Pathfinder clubhouse of Gen Con, to bring a new horrifying Goblin and pub themed shirt exclusively for the show. Scotty's will also be serving a special Golarion themed menu, and a limited edition Pathfinder Cthulhu Brew. The new Goblin t-shirt will only be available at Scotty's, but we will be bringing along last year's Ghost Goblin Ale t-shirt to Gen Con for purchase. We'll also have new Year of the Stolen Storm shirts, and for the first time ever: Pathfinder Society Academy t-shirts in kid's sizes.

Of course we'll have our collectable buttons, a new design each day, available on a first come, first serve basis, no purchase required. Attendees who make a $50 or more purchase at our booth will receive a free Pathfinder Battles promotional miniature, limit one per customer while supplies last.

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game fans will be able to demo this year's upcoming Mummy's Mask set in a space near the Paizo booth all weekend along. And, if you stop by to demo the latest ACG hotness, you'll be able to pick up a new convention promotional card, We Be Goblins! recurring fighty, toothy goblin, Reta Bigbad! Reta Bigbad will be a great addition to your Card Game Goblin hijinks, especially in combination with this month's Goblins Burn! and Goblins Fight! decks. Reta is a Mummy's Mask promotional card.

Over the course of the weekend are our partners from Lone Wolf, Obsidian, and Trapdoor Technologies will also be showing off their latest Pathfinder licensed projects. Build a character in Hero Lab or try out the Pathfinder features in the Playbook app near the Sagamore ballroom to enhance your Pathfinder Society experience. Or, if you're more into the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, Obsidian will be near our booth's demo area showing off the Pathfinder Adventures app. Stop by and check out these awesome projects!

Organized Play Coordinator, Tonya Woldridge, and our crew of awesome Venture-Officers and volunteers are throwing down with a full lineup of Year of the Serpent and Season of the Runelords Pathfinder Society adventures, including the following Specials: The Cosmic Captive on Friday night (seats are still available for the Adventure Card Guild tables!), Serpents' Ire on Thursday and Sunday (seats still available for Thursday evening), Through the Maelstrom Rift on Saturday and Sunday. We're also launching the new Pathfinder Society Academy program at the show. This program is designed to introduce kids ages 6 and up to the world of Pathfinder through Kid's Track scenarios and Transitions lessons. There are still tickets left for many of the Pathfinder Society event slots, so if you plan on attending, check out the listings on the Gen Con website to grab a spot!

Other than the robust schedule of Pathfinder Society games, we'll also be hosting a number of panels in seminar room #212, near the Sagamore ballroom. There are still opportunities to reserve yourself a seat for: The Art of Pathfinder, Ask the Paizo GMs (on Friday and Saturday, Developing Pathfinder, Secrets of Golarion and more. And if you weren't at PaizoCon 2016 and want to get more information about Starfinder, our recently announced foray into space's geat unknown, you'll want to check out Pathfinder in Space! on Saturday. You can find all of Paizo's seminars here!

We're also partnering up with our friends at Lone Wolf Development and Syrinscape for this year's "LiveRPGPlus!" event, featuring Jason Bulmahn, Crystal Frasier, Erik Mona, and F. Wesley Schneider, and tickets are still available!

This year we're excited to announce that a number of Paizo's rockstar creative team submitted and have been selected to be part of Gen Con's Industry Insider program! Gen Con insiders are featured presenters and minds behind select seminars and panels at the show. Please join me in congratulating: Developer Crystal Frasier (author of In Hell's Bright Shadow, The Harrowing, and We B4 Goblins), Developer Amanda Hamon Kunz (contributing author for Ships of the Inner Sea and co-author of All for Immortality, Part 2: All the Gods Beyond), Project Manager Jessica Price (contributing author for Pathfinder RPG Strategy Guide and Inner Sea Gods, co-author of Qadira, Jewel of the East), and Editor-in-Chief F. Wesley Schneider (author of Bloodbound, Path of the Hellknight, and In Search of Sanity)! Be sure to look out for their events, which include:

• Thursday: Worldbuilding, Starting Out: Getting Into the Games Industry, It's a Jungle Out There: Safety for Gamers, Beyond 101: Evolving Discussions of Women in Games
• Friday: The Freelancers 10 Commandments, Inclusive Gaming: How to Host & Create a Safe & Welcoming Space for All, 5 Ways of Finding Your Spark, Storytelling & Self-Censorship
• Saturday: Writing Trans Characters for Games & Fiction
• Sunday: Gaming Needs You!

Find more information on the Gen Con Industry Insider program and check out all Insider events here.

Finally, if you've been interested in joining our pool of freelance artists, there will be opportunities to have your portfolio reviewed by Creative Design Director Sarah Robinson. She'll be conducting these over by the Artist Alley (not at the Paizo booth) Thursday 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM, Friday 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM, Saturday 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM, and Sunday 1:00 PM to 3 PM. Signup sheets for portfolio reviews will be available at the show.

Not attending the Gen Con this year? Track #paizoatgencon or #goblinhorde for pictures and updates by attendees and Paizo staff!

We still can't believe it's only 8 days until the Best Four Days in Gaming are here! Safe travels to all making the trek to Indy! If you have Gen Con stories to share or things you're excited to see from Paizo at the show, let us know in the comments.

Chris Lambertz
Community & Digital Content Director

So Much New Material!

Monday, July 25, 2016

Gen Con is in less than two weeks, and Paizo always pulls out the stops with new publications to wow the crowds in Indianapolis. This year we're bringing a big pile of exciting titles, including Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Horror Adventures, Pathfinder Player Companion: Legacy of Dragons, and of course the much-anticipated Pathfinder Society Pawn Collection. You'll see even more at the end of August, with Pathfinder Player Companion: Haunted Heroes Handbook, as well as Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Planes of Power, which serves as a key sourcebook for the upcoming Season of the Stolen Storm!

Illustrations by Hannah Boving

But why stop there? Gen Con's traditionally the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild's opportunity to release a few extra adventures. This year, thanks to the July release date being so close to the convention itself, it's almost as though they were one and the same—at least that's how it's felt around here! As a result, we have 11 exciting adventures we're featuring at the convention. Let's take a look!

Nearly six years ago, the Pathfinder Society traveled to a promising archaeological site known as Azlant Ridge outside Bloodcove at the edge of the Mwangi Expanse. Ever since then, I've heard players ask what became of that site and if the Society had uncovered more of its mysteries. At long last, we've returned, guided by contributor and veteran Pathfinder Society author Ron Lundeen, taking your Tier 3-7 characters deeper into the Terwa Uplands in Pathfinder Society Scenario #7-27: Beyond Azlant Ridge! This was also our opportunity to depict the unflappable Juliet Dias, the expedition's manager shown below.

Something's rotten in the state of Thuvia, and although the Pathfinder Society has uncovered a vile plot and helped thwart it, the mastermind is still on the loose. Thankfully, a key member of the plot has reconsidered her loyalties and has reached out to the Society for help, as she has learned that the villains intend to cast the Thuvian city-states into civil war in a bid for personal power. Political intervention isn't the Society's standard practice, but if a band of elite agents can thwart this conspiracy, avert disaster, and also eliminate the ringleader of the Korholm Agenda, it's worth entering hostile territory. Luis Loza brings Season 8 to a climatic, Tier 7-11 close in Pathfinder Society Scenario #7-28: Ageless Ambitions in Aspenthar, domain of the ambitious Prince Zinlo (pictured below)!

In April we began a grand undertaking with Pathfinder Society Scenario #7-20: All for Immortality, Part 1: First Taste of Eternity: the reintroduction of dedicated, high-level content in the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild. So far the feedback we've received has been really encouraging—certainly making us consider more Tier 12-15 content in the future—and working on the series (including some ludicrous hard mode options) has been a lot of fun. Of course, high-level content benefits from high-level settings, and what better place is there for a Pathfinder to go than the heart of the Aspis Consortium. I've left the fate of the Consortium is in your hands in Pathfinder Society Scenario #7-29: All for Immortality, Part 3: Serpents Fall!

And because I'm a glutton for punishment, I took on a second adventure during this busy time: an exciting sequel to last season's Pathfinder Society Special #6-98: Serpents Rise that sends a motley band of 8th-level Aspis agents and misfit hirelings deep into Nidal to infiltrate a threat to the Consortium's authority. We debuted Pathfinder Society Special #7-98: Serpents' Ire at PaizoCon 2016, and it's undergone some polishing since then to trim its run-time, making it a great fit for Gen Con this year.

The pregenerated character adventure model has proven an exciting way to tell stories happening outside the Grand Lodge—especially when showing what's in store for the campaign's next season. Developer Linda Zayas-Palmer has also worked behind the scenes on many of our best scenarios and the Campaign Clarifications document, and this time the stars aligned for her to apply her narrative mastery and author the spectacular Pathfinder Society Special #7-99: Through Maelstrom Rift. An organization known as the Concordance of Elements has sensed a dangerous anomaly on the Plane of Air, and the ruling council (including one of its representatives pictured below) has dispatched an eclectic team representing the united elemental forces to avert the looming disaster and discover its cause. If the idea of playing a proud genie, a miniature dragon, or an elemental serpent made of living lava strikes your fancy, don't miss this great adventure for 6th-level pregenerated characters.

Phew! Time to catch my breath for a moment.

Illustrations by Sebastian Rodriguez and Dion Harris

In Season 4 of the campaign, the Society spent a lot of time in Varisia. We've taken an extended break in the years since, but with the imminent release of the updated Pathfinder Adventure Path: Curse of the Crimson Throne, the prospect of visiting Korvosa again was just too good to pass up. You may recall that the Society has a good friend, Zeeva Foxglove, who runs the nearby Green Market, and she's contacted Venture-Captain Sheila Heidmarch with a desperate plea for assistance. Scott Sharplin spins us an engaging urban adventure with mysteries, plots, and just a hint of pseudodragons in the Tier 1-5 Pathfinder Society Scenario #8-01: Portent's Peril.

One of the greatest strengths of Pathfinder Society scenarios as a medium is that they allow us to explore such a wide variety of places in the course of a year. I'm always looking for more ways to feature Tian Xia, and we planted a pretty significant plot hook near the end of Season 6 in the hope of traveling to the sorcerer kingdom of Dtang Ma. An unlikely ally (the friendly disembodied head pictured below) has pointed the Society to an abandoned temple that still contains historical records dating back a millennium or more. The PCs tread on sacred ground, though, and they must watch their step if they are to scale a mountain, study this lost site, and save a lost soul. Contributor Mikko Kallio shows off his story-telling talents in Pathfinder Society Scenario #8-02: Ward Asunder, a Tier 3-7 adventure.

Two years ago, hundreds of Pathfinders gathered in the halls of the sky citadel Jormurdun to reclaim it for study. The Society turned control of it over to the dwarves of the Five Kings Mountains shortly thereafter, and they have industriously worked to restore their ancestral home. The duergar of the nearby Darklands are none to thrilled about this development, and in a recent attack, they captured a host of dwarves, put them in chains, and began driving them south toward a future of slavery or sacrifice. Jormurdun has asked the Society to intercept the duergar before they escape, but taking on such a large force won't be easy. Mike Kimmel takes the PCs deep underground to gather allies and launch a daring rescue in Pathfinder Society Scenario #8-03: Captives of Toil, which has special opportunities for members of the Liberty's Edge faction.

Wait, you want more? Sure, I've got three more gems for you.

We're debuting a new set of six 1st-level quests by Eleanor Ferron, and Jenny Jarzabski, and Landon Winkler. In Honor's Echo, the PCs assist a disenfranchised Taldan nobleman, the descendant of the heroic Honaria Alcasti whom the empire used as a scapegoat centuries ago. In order to restore the family's name, he and the PCs search Taldor, Andoran, and Qadira for evidence of Honaria's good deeds and make a case before one of Taldor's most influential figures. Like past quest series, Honor's Echo is for 1st-level pregenerated characters, but we are decoupling past quest series (i.e. The Silverhex Chronicles and Phantom Phenomena) from the pregenerated character requirement.

Gen Con is also the debut of Pathfinder Academy, an extension of previous years' Kids Track program. This year we're adding a five-quest series dubbed Transitions that teach players key lessons—attacks of opportunity, splash weapons, combat maneuvers, conditions, and more—as they graduate from the Beginner Box to the full Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. After each short lesson is an adventure that highlights those rules and follows the story of the heroes tracking down villainous Aspis agents who have stolen holy relics from Magnimar. By the end, the players are ready to participate in some Pathfinder Society adventures. In fact, we've dedicated several tables to kid-friendly games—some even run by young GMs! Seth Brummond, Andrew Hoskins, Bob Jonquet, Nathan King, Lucas Servideo, and Michael VonHasseln contributed a combination of adventures, lessons, and wisdom to make this project a reality.

Finally, there's the big interactive event: Pathfinder Society Special #8-00: The Cosmic Captive by Matt Duval! The asteroid known as Aucturn's Tear flies through the solar system every 56 years, but strangely it has begun glowing brightly in the night sky while opening portals to another realm as it passes by planets. Hmmm... the more I talk about the story, though, the more I spoil the adventure. Let's boil it down to a few key points. First, we're exploring new design territory for interactive adventures, combining both traditional aspects of the interactive experience with a host of new ways to affect other tables. Second, it's loaded with elemental goodness—and not just the “I'm immune to critical hits” elementals, but also fun elemental themes and locations. Third, it's the first interactive adventure to combine the Roleplaying Guild and Adventure Card Guild into one giant event. Finally, it's a stellar debut to an incredible new season: The Season of the Stolen Storm!

We'll see you at the Best Four Days in Gaming!

John Compton
Pathfinder Society Lead Developer

PaizoCon 2016 Pathfinder Society Announcements

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

PaizoCon 2016 has come to a close, but the Pathfinder Society team is gearing up for tons of new programs and material that we showed off at the Paizo Preview Banquet Saturday evening. Organized Play Coordinator Tonya Woldridge announced these to a packed ballroom, and today I'd like to share the news with you.

Pathfinder Society Academy

What better way is there to begin a blog than with a great way to begin one's roleplaying experience? Back in January, Tonya first announced Pathfinder Academy, an expansion of the "Kid's Track" games offered at Gen Con for the past several years. We've since contracted authors for new scenarios, worked with Venture-Captains Michael VonHasseln and Lucas Servideo to create new lesson plans, and have a complete set of new quests on the way for eager young gamers to play. These will debut at Gen Con, and afterward we're exploring ways to distribute these adventures to convention organizers to provide kid-friendly content at events worldwide. In addition, we are working on a scenario rating system that identifies adult themes and ways to adjust the scenarios for our younger players.

As a sign of things to come, we're excited to share the new product's temporary logo (still a work in progress)!

Adventure Card Guild

There's a lot in the pipeline for the Pathfinder Adventure Card Guild. A few weeks ago, Tanis announced the upcoming Season of the Goblin (or, We Be Card Goblins, as it's affectionally referred to in-house), which not only provides use two months of goblin carnage but also ties into the upcoming Goblins Fight! and Goblins Burn! Class Decks. Tanis tends to giggle evilly and then show off preview art every time we bring up this topic, so it's only right that we introduce you to one of the upcoming goblin "heroes," Zibini, the Great and Goobly. As you might guess from her art, she's a powerful diviner able to foretell what goblins will fight and what they will burn—which is to say everything. Season of the Goblin will combine Tanis' dastardly mechanics with story from author Jason Keeley, whose work most recently featured in #7-23 Abducted in Aether.

Illustration by Roberto Pitturru

As the Season of the Goblin winds to a close, the long-anticipated Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Mummy's Mask will be hitting the shelves. Once it does, we'll be launching the Season of the Mummy, sending Pathfinders into the tombs of Osirion to do battle with the evils that sleep beneath the sands.

Finally, PaizoCon was an excellent opportunity to refine and introduce special convention rewards for playing the Adventure Card Guild at conventions. For about five years, the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild has offered special "convention boons" at registered events of 15 sessions or more. Last year Tanis and I worked together to create a handful of similar rewards—can't quite call them boons, as that's an existing game term—to distribute at Gen Con, and we've since honed the process to present a set of special rewards for each season of Guild play. We're especially proud of not only the smaller page format (much easier to pack alongside your Class Deck) but also of the thematic tie-ins to the season. At PaizoCon you may have spotted the Thassilonian Ritual rewards, which allow your character to gain a long-term benefit at the cost of leaving her vulnerable to that sin's foibles. We're designating several of these for distribution to events worldwide, and several are going to be special rewards available at only a handful of conventions such as PaizoCon, PaizoCon UK, Gen Con, and Origins.

Roleplaying Guild

Finally, we announced the next season of the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild: Year of the Stolen Storm. The organized play program has always been an excellent way to present adventures in a wide variety of places, including those yet to be seen in Adventure Paths or Modules. With this mission, the Society has extensively—but not exhaustively—explored the Inner Sea region over the past eight years, but beyond regular visits to Tian Xia and the Hao Jin Tapestry demiplane, it has traveled beyond this region only rarely. For years I've looked for ways to dabble in some extraplanar travel, and for Season 8 I proposed not just dipping the Society's toes in the water but diving in completely.

During the Year of the Stolen Storm, the Society turns its sights to the Elemental Planes of Air, Earth, Fire, and Water. There, agents can not only recover extraordinary treasures but also embroil themselves in extraplanar politics and clash with otherworldly organizations. Over the course of the season, we've planned at least two adventures in each of the Elemental Planes, and in defiance of what I consider the conventional wisdom of planar adventures (i.e. it's only for high-level PCs), we've found some fun ways to let PCs of all levels get in on the action. In anticipation of the adventures to come, Paizo's releasing Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Planes of Power in August 2016, expanding on the current elemental lore many times over as well as providing new character options that could come in handy while traveling so far afield.

Even as we send Pathfinders to distant realms, we'll still have business at home to handle. Look forward to exciting adventures on the Material Plane that continue ongoing stories, travel to unseen lands, and uncover forgotten secrets. The Year of the Stolen Storm is looking to be the best season yet!

John Compton
Pathfinder Society Lead Developer