A Novel Approach to Creating the Pathfinder Tales Character Deck

Thursday, September 14, 2017

The Pathfinder Tales Character Deck required the most research of any of the decks. The Pathfinder Tales line includes dozens of novels and short stories, and a veritable digital mountain of web fiction. At one point I had forty tabs and three ebooks open as I scoured through all of the Tales for our best cards. Surprisingly, in that immense field full of amazing options, the team picked three characters almost immediately.

Let's give a hand for our lovely crew. Maybe two hands—Celeste seems to be missing hers.

I've been a fan of Dave Gross's Radovan and Varian for years. We've managed to sneak his work into Season of the Righteous and the Summoner Class Deck, and he happily helped us out with this set, writing the flavor text for his characters.

"Some choose to wield the sword, others the grimoire. I note that we have two hands."

Count Varian can't memorize spells in the normal fashion. Thankfully, he's more than willing to throw money at solving that problem, and has years of fencing expertise as backup. He's also a renowned noble and ambassador of Cheliax, a graduate of the Acadamae, and a Pathfinder Society Venture-Captain. He's done fairly well, if he does say so himself.

"Listen up, you mooks. You die, makes me look bad. You know how much I like to look good."

Radovan's a wise-mouthed hellspawn, ready to literally jump into the fire to save his boss, Varian. Fortunately, the devil Norge keeps Radovan from burning. Less fortunately, the veritable host of devils whispering temptations to Radovan are just waiting for their opportunity to take control of his body, burst out into the world, or turn him into a gateway to Hell. Radovan really does have all the luck.

The deck also includes several signature boons from Radovan and Varian's adventures. I imagine basically all players of Varian will want Arnisant to accompany them. Just look at this face:

"Of course I am not comparing you to my hound. Arnisant is obedient to a fault."

The third character was selected almost as quickly, as we laid out a slew of major characters and images, and Mike quickly said something like: "And here's a bunch of other characters and THE LUNAR NAGA WE'RE GOING TO MAKE." Artist Eric Belisle really did an amazing job on Celeste and the team immediately agreed we had to bring her to life.

Lunar nagas make the best pirate astrologers!

That settled, what to do with all of the other amazing characters in Tales? SO. MANY. ALLIES. And one very talkative weapon.

Warning: Do not buy this deck if you are allergic to pictures of adorable puppies.

I really wanted to highlight the synergy of characters from the same Tales, so that you weren't just picking the best mechanics, but had a genuine reason to keep Hrym united with Rodrick or Torius Vin with his crew, or Zae and Keren Rhinn with Appleslayer. Also, Mike threatened to shank anyone who stood in the way of Appleslayer's inclusion in the deck.

No previously existing allies were included in the making of this deck.

Of course, some of these folks are amazing all on their own. The Tales deck includes some of the best allies we've ever made. We expect fans of Drelm from the Mummy's Mask Character Add-On Deck will like Elyana, who appears alongside Drelm in the novel Plague of Shadows.

But don't imagine that the 23 all-new allies are the only new boons in the Tales deck. There are plenty more, including legendary weapons and tomes of arcane and powerful lore.

Sometimes you just need to find a really scary book. And steal it.

A lot of these boons interact with specific allies; for example, the ally Eando Kline will let you recharge that Wayfinder from your discard pile.

The hope and goal was always that any Pathfinder Tales fan would have no regrets adding this class deck to each and every set. And maybe a few card players can get some great plays out of the cards, then seek out the stories that spawned them.

Keith Richmond
Adventure Card Game Designer

Interview with Gears of Faith Author Gabrielle Harbowy

Saturday, May 21, 2017

In the madness of the Starfinder launch, I wasn't able to do my usual blog about the new Pathfinder Tales novel, which was a real shame, given that Gabrielle Harbowy's Gears of Faith is a novel that's been so eagerly awaited by fans here on the Paizo boards! Fortunately, Pathfinder Tales author Liane Merciel (of Nightglass, Nightblade, and Hellknight fame) swooped in to save the day, interviewing Gabrielle on what it was like to write the novel. For my part, I'll just say that I knew since the very first installment of "Inheritance," Gabrielle's web fiction story that introduced the main characters of Gears of Faith, that Keren, Zae, and the bold riding dog Appleslayer, were going to star in a novel someday—there was something so deep and genuine about all three of them, and their relationships with each other. So it was gratifying but not surprising that the fans felt it, too! And now, 3.5 years and a new publishing partner later, the book's finally hitting shelves, and I couldn't be happier about it. But enough from me—let's hear from Liane and Gabrielle!

Liane Merciel: What inspired the two main characters in this piece?

Gabrielle Harbowy: I love Pathfinder's take on gnomes, which was why I wanted to feature one in the first place. In Pathfinder, gnomes crave novelty and don't have many hang-ups about how they get it. They're long-lived, fey-tied creatures, so they have an outsider perspective on humanity. I had a great time diving into the gnome mindset. I've come to love Zae's skewed perspective on the mostly human world around her. She gives me an opportunity to take things to their literal extreme, to question things people don't question, to think about the names of things, and to approach a fascinating world with the kind of wide-eyed wonder that we all eventually lose when we live in a place and see it every day.

Illustration by Roberto Pitturru

Keren came into being because a character like Zae has to have a contrast to work off of. Keren gave me an opportunity to explore and chip away at the stereotype in our culture of holy knights as emotionless, unquestioning valor-machines.

When I write Zae, I bring out that playful, questioning side of myself, and I often channel Dr. Walter Bishop from Fringe as my guide. When I write Keren, I bring out that using-cynicism-as-a-shield side of myself. My hope is that both characters ring authentic because both of them are driven by sides of me. There isn't a me-analogue and then "the other main character." This is especially important because the novel is the first time we get to see Keren's point of view.

I originally envisioned Keren as spending more time on horseback, so Zae also needed a mount to ride if they were going to adventure together. I decided early on that I wanted her to ride a dog, but it was a generic dog at first. It wasn't until I met Rufus, a friend's Samoyed puppy, that Appleslayer got a personality and a name. At eight months, Rufus was big enough for a 3'6" child—already taller than a gnome—to ride. He was a goofball, and he wasn't finished growing. (As of now, full-grown, his paws are bigger than my hands.) I knew this was the dog for Zae.

LM: What inspired the story itself? What part of it came first—plot, characters, setting, or something else? And how did you build the rest from there?

GH: The characters got their start in the short story "Inheritance," to really great reader response. When it came time to build a novel I knew I wanted to tailor it around them. I'd only written short stories, though, and I had trouble coming up with a book-sized plot—especially if Keren was tied to Lastwall and her vigilance against the Whispering Tyrant.

James Sutter and I brainstormed quite a bit on where else a Knight of Ozem could go without feeling like she was neglecting her calling, and James suggested Absalom. As a bonus, even though it's the biggest city in the world, it hadn't been featured in a novel yet. I was very excited to have the chance to bring it to life. Especially fun was the Clockwork Cathedral, and the structure of its cognates. Very little is written about it, so I got to think about what it would be like to work there, to flesh it out and make it feel real... all without revealing any of its secrets.

The plot was harder. I'd never written anything as complex as a novel has to be. Just by virtue of having to take up so many words, a novel has to have a lot more going on than a short story does. And I didn't want them to be super powerful, so the threat had to be something they could face, but that still had some far-reaching consequences to make it important. As it stands, the conflict in the story provides a physical, intellectual, and emotional challenge to Keren and Zae, and they have to fight their way into the team that confronts it.

A random aside: the villain got his name from a kid my niece hated at school that year. (I got serious aunt-points.)

LM: What made you decide to pair up Zae and Keren?

GH: What I really wanted most was to normalize their diversity. Here's a couple who've been together a while and aren't in the new romance phase of a relationship, and they've obviously made it work. It's not a coming out story, because coming out isn't the only story. And there's no way to dismiss it with "well, it won't last." It's lasted. It doesn't matter to the story that they're both female, or that they're not both human, or whatever. They're people having genuine emotions and genuine quirks and flaws. It's not the big reveal or the punch line or the plot twist. It's just people being honest with themselves about who they are and/or who they love.

In our world, people are still marginalized for these things. And because they're not who our society sees as its default, it's rare for people who identify in diverse ways to be able to find themselves depicted in fiction. My intent was for diverse readers to find the perspective refreshing, and for readers who hadn't come across much of that sort of thing to maybe find their horizons widened and assumptions challenged.

LM: How exactly did they meet? I've always wondered that.

GH: I think they met in Vigil, while shopping. There's a line about Keren helping Zae by reaching something on a high shelf for her. :)

LM: There was a long gap between the release of the short story and the release of the novel. What kept you enthusiastic through that?

GH: The Paizo forums helped so much. The readers loved Zae and Keren and Appleslayer—Apple in particular has some devoted fans!—and the clamoring for a novel never really stopped. Not to mention the requests for miniature figures, cards, and other accessories. (And yes, I would love to see Appleslayer as a mini.)

Publishing is a strange beast. Between turning in the manuscript for Gears of Faith and seeing it come out in print, I wrote, sold, and published another whole novel (Hellmaw: Of the Essence). And that's honestly pretty normal. Working for publishers, I saw delays happen all the time, and that helped me keep from taking it too personally. They can only put out so many books in a year, and they've got to balance the list, is what it comes down to.

In the end, I think that the experience was good for Zae and Keren. I learned a lot from writing my second first novel, after I had the confidence from having already finished one, and that ultimately helped me come back and strengthen this book.

Illustration by Remko Troost

LM: Where did the title of the novel come from?

GH: From [Pathfinder Tales author] Chris A. Jackson, actually. I'm great at coming up with titles for other people, but awful at coming up with titles for myself. There were words and phrases I had to avoid, because they were either too similar to other titles or because they gave too much away, so of course the moment someone says, for instance, "Don't use the word blood," all your ideas include the word blood. I had a two-column list of Pathfinder-title-sounding words to mix and match, I was so desperate, and I sent it to Chris with a short synopsis of the book. That was the one he came up with, along with a prediction that James Sutter would like it. I sent it along to James with a list of five or ten others, and sure enough, Chris's title was the one.

LM: Do you think there's a central theme to Gears of Faith? If so, what is it, and how do you see it reflected in the story and its characters?

GH: I think at its core, the book is about overcoming fear of failure.

Keren is afraid of failing—failing Zae, failing her father by learning magic, failing her deity by not believing well or strongly enough. The villain is not afraid enough of failing. He's convinced himself that he can become a god. Between the two extremes is Zae. She's never really cared about failing before, but through her relationship with Keren (and the events in "Inheritance") she's learned that failure can impact others and have an emotional cost.

Gabrielle Harbowy got her start in the publishing industry as a Pricing Analyst at Scholastic. Since leaving the corporate side of publishing in 2006, she has edited for publishers including Pyr, Lambda Literary, and Circlet Press, and spent a decade as the managing editor at Dragon Moon Press. She copyedits professionally and is a submissions editor at the Hugo-nominated Apex Magazine. Her short fiction can be found in several anthologies, including Carbide Tipped Pens from Tor. She is the author of two novels: Hellmaw: Of the Essence (TEGG), and Gears of Faith (Paizo). For more information, visit her online at @gabrielle_h or gabrielleharbowy.com.

James L. Sutter
Creative Director

Gears of Faith Sample Chapter

Tuesday, May 9, 2017

In Gears of Faith, Keren is a sworn knight of Iomedae, proper and disciplined in every way. Her partner, Zae, is the opposite—a curious gnome priestess of the clockwork goddess, who loves nothing more than the chaos of her makeshift hospitals. When a powerful evil artifact is stolen from a crusader stronghold, both knight and gnome are sent to the great city of Absalom and immediately drawn into the clandestine search for the stolen Bloodstone. Sure, they may not be the most powerful or experienced members of their organizations, but that's the whole point—with legendary champions and undead graveknights battling in their race to recover the stone, who'll notice one young knight and a gnome healer? All they have to do is stay alive long enough to outsmart a thief capable of evading both gods and heroes. No big deal, right?

Chapter 2: Welcoming Committee

Veena Heliu, the Precentor Martial for Magic, was often described as fiery for reasons that had nothing to do with her red hair. She was deep in an argument when they arrived, her raised voice audible from the other end of a long marble hallway. Pages wearing indoor boots of soft leather shuffled past silently, carrying scrolls in secure tubes and not making eye contact with Zae or each other. Keren, by contrast, had the conspicuous jingle and clank of armor to accompany her every step.

Zae couldn't distinguish Veena's distant words through their echoes, and she was almost disappointed when the yelling cut off abruptly upon their approach, replaced with the sibilant hisses of angry whispers. From the set of Keren's jaw, this wasn't normal; Zae surmised that whatever the source of the buzz Keren had mentioned, it had not been resolved overnight.

Zae had never been inside Vigil's Crusader War College, but Keren's father had taught here, and his children had grown up within Castle Overwatch's walls. Zae and Appleslayer followed as Keren led the way with the familiarity of muscle memory rather than recent experience. She tried a couple times to make conversation, but Keren's face was drawn tight and Zae left her to her own thoughts.

"Keren Rhinn! Right on time." Most people towered over Zae—she was used to that—but she suspected Veena Heliu could tower over people even taller than the sorcerer herself. She radiated such power and certainty that the air was alive with it. Zae looked around, but saw no one else; whomever Veena had been arguing with had left, if they'd ever been physically present at all.

"Reporting as summoned," Keren answered, stopping sharply at a respectful distance. Veena was a half-elf, and though she was not Keren's true aunt, Keren had referred to her as "Auntie Veena" on the walk over. There was no sign of that informality on Keren's part now. "This is Sister Zae, Cleric of Brigh."

The precentor nodded curtly toward Zae, then surveyed Appleslayer, who stood alert at attention in his polished saddle. "And this is your mount, ready for his combat training." More often than not, the people Zae encountered were surprised to see dogs in such a role, but Heliu's life revolved around the art of war and the duty of defense. Her lack of surprise was no surprise. A note of approval hung in her voice, which might or might not have been Zae's hopeful imagination.

Appleslayer's plumed tail twitched back and forth once in a single low, uncertain wag.

Heliu held out her hands, one toward each of them. "Are you ready?"

Keren hesitated.

"Speak freely, Crusader."

Keren cleared her throat. "Excuse me, ma'am, but I'd requested

to be briefed on the reason for the fast transport."

"I didn't receive orders to brief you. I'm afraid your request's

been denied from higher up."

Zae looked between the two women. Keren always accepted

command decisions, even when they left her conflicted—and Zae knew when she was conflicted, because the bottled-in frustration came out in the safety of their home—but Zae had also seen Keren's can't we work around this? face enough to recognize it now.

"Well, thank you all the same," Zae said to defuse the silence. "I would be excited to spend weeks on a boat, but I'm sure Keren's glad to be getting to where we're going."

"Quite so," Heliu answered. "I'll be taking you into a private park. It's discreet, unchanging, and no one pays much attention to how many people are wandering around there. I must return immediately to my duties, so I won't be able to direct you to the Seventh Church myself, but someone from the church will be there to meet us."

They both took Heliu's offered hands, and Zae and Keren each buried their free hands in Appleslayer's fur. The sensation was slight—just an odd weightlessness in Zae's stomach—and then it was over. Her feet were now on grass. Whereas they had left at noon, they arrived in a place where the sun was noticeably lower in the afternoon sky. A copse of trees at the edge of the park made an almost accidental clearing that would be difficult to stumble upon by chance. In different circumstances, it would have been a perfect spot for a moonlit tryst.

Zae checked herself and her companions. No limbs seemed to be out of place. Veena had already disappeared again. Appleslayer whuffed softly under his breath, and Zae shook her head. "No exploring for now. Stay close."

When they stepped around the corner and into the larger park, they found an expanse of lush green meadow dotted with people lounging in twos and threes. In front of them, sitting on a stone bench with a small leather-bound book in her hands, was a woman dressed in the robes of Iomedae.

"I leave you to it." Veena nodded toward the initiate, and exchanged quiet words with Keren. Zae was too distracted studying her surroundings to pay attention.

The priestess stood and tucked the book away into the folds of her robes as Zae and her companions approached, greeting them with a warm smile. Roughly the same age as Darrin's aunt Strella, she had straight honey-brown hair and a particular intensity Zae had often seen in people who were strongly devoted to their gods. "Welcome," the woman said to them, gaze lingering on the white and gold of Keren's armor. "You must be our new arrivals from Lastwall."

"That we are." Keren held up her left palm in greeting,

displaying the sword-mark there. Zae and Keren both bore the shield on their right palms. While Zae had her odd gear-shaped birthmark on her left hand, Keren had received the sword-mark of Iomedae on that palm to identify her as a Vigilant defender of Lastwall. "Crusader Keren Rhinn, and this is Sister Zae. Thank you for meeting us. We're pleased to be in Absalom."

"My name is Kala, initiate of Iomedae. It's a pleasure to be of service to the Knights of Ozem, especially in these trying times. Shall we?" Kala gestured to the path.

They walked along a quiet wooded trail at an unrushed pace that surprised Zae, considering how hasty their departure from Vigil had been once all the gears were in motion. Kala addressed Keren while Zae and Appleslayer followed behind. Keren stole a look over her shoulder, eyebrows drawn in momentary concern, but Zae smiled assuringly in response. She didn't feel slighted. If her organization had greeted them, Zae would have expected the attention to be hers, but it was a pleasant day, with a breeze stirring the tops of the trees, and she was content to walk with her dog, enjoy the weather, and muse about what studying at the Clockwork Cathedral would be like.

"What's the name of this place?" Keren asked.

"Oh! I should be a better guide. I'm sorry. It's always so exciting to meet new people. This is the... well, Greenery Park. We'll be heading west into the center of Absalom from here. It's the best route at this time of day."

Her hesitation sounded like embarrassment, so Zae said, "City planners are strange creatures. Seems like a redundant

name for a park, doesn't it? Does the temple have you on guide duty often?"

"Oh, not often. Well, not until recently. All these servants of Iomedae flocking into the city. I do quite enjoy meeting new members of the order. Not new new, I mean, intending no offense to your possibly extensive and decorated service, but new to me."

They followed a wide carriage road out of the park and entered the bustle of a city headed toward evening. "You mentioned these trying times?" Keren asked.

"Are those camels?" Zae blurted at the same time. While there were a few horses and donkeys to be seen, camels seemed to be the customary beast of burden and transport here. Zae had never seen a camel in person before, and something about them struck her oddly. Maybe it was the spindlyness of their legs, or the long, questing necks, but they just didn't look like they'd been assembled according to an optimal design. Appleslayer stopped in the middle of the road, sniffing the air, and took a few steps toward a narrow side street, whining under his breath.

Zae followed him and peered down the street. She saw an aged pub sign creaking over a narrow doorway, and a shadowed dead end piled with rubbish beyond. She snapped her fingers by her thigh. "Come on, Apple. I know the camels stink, but I need you to stay close."

The dog whined once more, grumbled under his breath, and trotted back to Zae's side. She rubbed between his ears. "Good boy. I know it's all really interesting, but we need to keep up with Keren."

When Zae returned with Appleslayer at her side, Kala was still describing the various troubles the city was facing. Keren, who had never lived in any city but Vigil, listened patiently while the initiate rambled. Zae, who had spent time in several cities, knew the issues to be mostly generic. Sewers not keeping up with rising population; crime in the poorer districts; too much distrust of certain officials and too much trust of others. Meanwhile, there was no mistaking their passage across some invisible border into the next district to the west—buildings were suddenly closer together and more people crowded the streets, all with different destinations. A knot of chaos resulted, which for Zae manifested as a sea of knees and thighs. She noticed armor, leather and metal; women in soft breeches or simple dresses with minimal ornamentation; and very few shoes that had seen a brush or cloth in recent memory. These were commoners by and large, with a few servants shopping for their masters, and a few lawkeepers maintaining order or soldiers doing their own errands. She hopped up into Appleslayer's saddle and then, while stopped at a corner, stood atop it with Keren's arm for balance, at last catching a glimpse of the peaks of market stall tents.

"What's this place?" Zae asked.

"Ah, this? This is the Gold District."

A passing servant with a broad basket at her hip bumped into

Kala and looked at her askance. "It's the Coins, actually," she said, and then moved on.

Kala cleared her throat, ignoring the imposition, but Zae exchanged a glance with Keren. A translation error, perhaps, though Kala didn't have any particular foreign accent that Zae could place. "Whatever you call it, it's the trade quarter, if you will. Anything can be bought and sold here, at any time of day or night. Is there something like it where you come from? Lastwall, wasn't it? They never tell me anything about the arrivals, just when to be at the meeting point."

The constant questions were having an effect on Keren's bearing, though Zae knew no one else would have noticed the shift in her armored shoulders. "Have you always studied here in Absalom?" she asked, redirecting the initiate.

"Oh, I've only arrived recently, myself. It's the home of so many miracles, you know. Legendary for its concentration of relics, too.

I've heard that practically everything of religious significance probably finds its way here eventually. Have you heard that?"

"I hadn't, actually."

"Well, apparently it's true. The Pathfinder Society has its headquarters here, and securing relics is one of the many things it does. And there are so many museums! Both public and private collections. This truly is where antiquities are traded and where history lives."

"Speaking of living history, are you taking us directly to the church, or to our lodgings first?" Keren asked. The row houses here weren't exactly crumbling, but they looked like drunken old men in the small hours, propping each other up as they stumbled home from a tavern. It would be interesting to stay in one of them, Zae thought. She imagined them smelling of booze on the inside and swaying slightly around last call.

"Oh, to your lodgings of course, so that you can freshen up before you present yourselves to the church. You'll be staying just west of here, in the Foreign Quarter, where most of the city's guest housing is. I brought you this way because it's just so important to know where the markets are in a new city, don't you think?" Kala returned her attention to Keren. "Everything can be bought and sold in the Coins."

Keren nodded. "As you said. It's very good to know; you have our thanks."

Kala pressed her point. "Everything."

"Indeed, Sister."

"So, if you were searching for someone who'd stolen something,

perhaps to sell it, this might be where you would look. Wouldn't you say?"

Zae knew the expression that now crossed Keren's face. For a moment, she wore the same one. "I daresay you know the city far better than we, Sister." Keren was only that formal when she was choosing her words carefully. "Surely a city this large has many crevices for people who don't want to be found."

"Yes, surely. But where are they sending you to look?"

"Look for what?" Zae asked, nudging Apple to keep up. Kala didn't spare her a glance.

"It's all right." Their guide shifted closer to Keren. "I know why you're really here. I so desperately want to help, but I'm a new initiate so they've got me just escorting the seasoned ones in. I don't get to see any adventure for myself. Take a little pity on me and let me live vicariously through your mission. The other groups have all told me where they're being sent..."

"I didn't think it was exactly secret," Keren said, and Kala's posture straightened expectantly. "My mission is to train at the Tempering Hall. I'll be deepening my understanding of my faith, studying the Acts of Iomedae, and—"

Kala waved her graceful hand. "There's no need for such pretense."

"Pretense?"

"Your cover story is practiced to perfection. It's completely believable. But I mean your actual mission, of course. The... artifact. You know."

"I'm sure I don't," Keren said. "Perhaps you've confused us with another traveling party."

Kala smiled a smile that was just on the forced side of amusement. "Anyway, it doesn't matter. Tell me, in—Lastwall, did you say?—is torture a part of your training?"

"The giving or the enduring?" Keren answered, her voice just a notch too tight to be joking. Kala tossed her head back and laughed.

"Oh, you're lovely. The enduring, of course."

Keren stiffened again, and Appleslayer's muscles tensed as if he'd caught wind of an unpleasant smell. He knew how to read Keren's body language as well as Zae herself did, or perhaps an actual scent signaled her wariness to the dog's sensitive nose.

"Yes, yes, you're very loyal. I can see why they chose you." Kala turned a corner, leading them down a narrow alley that ended at a crumbling wall. "But unfortunately, that loyalty means you're of little use to me. I've given you plenty of chances to answer me freely, but those answers will be carved out of you if need be. No one can hold out against torture forever." Four shadows dropped from the low roofs on either side of the alley. "This is your last chance."

Zae blinked. At times like this, when the course of events took a turn she wasn't expecting, she felt like a clock that had just started to run down and would be fine again after a bit of winding. While it was a relief to see that, once again, Appleslayer's wary instincts had been correct, Zae felt strangely betrayed. There had been something endearing about the guide who didn't know the city.

Three men and a woman in leather armor and shrouding hoods converged on them, weapons drawn. Rather, they converged on Keren—she had the big sword, and had held Kala's attention. Zae and Appleslayer hadn't registered as a threat. This was something Zae could use to her advantage; she retreated a few steps and dropped her hand to her side, palm back, signaling for Appleslayer to wait. She called upon Brigh to bless her allies, and saw courage surge through Keren and the dog.

Keren drew her long, straight-bladed sword up into a parry, deflecting an attacker's sword with a clang of angry metal. "I don't know what you think I have, but I swear to you I don't have it. We're just here to train."

"Unlikely," Kala said, drawing a sword from the folds of her robe. "We've been waiting for the Knights of Ozem to get involved. How convenient that they always arrive at the same place. So. Lead us to the artifact and we'll spare you. Defy us and we'll kill you both, and the next knights they send after you, and the next."

Zae curled her hand into a fist; Apple, recognizing the wordless command, sprang forth with teeth bared.

"Tezryn—behind you!" one of the attackers shouted, and the robed woman turned. She slashed at Appleslayer with her sword, but the dog sprang out of range. He circled and made a lunge for Kala's calf. The dog had enough bulk to throw an unprepared opponent off balance and enough herding instinct to shuttle enemies toward Keren's blade, but Kala sidestepped, raising her sword to parry Keren's attack. No matter how many times Apple engaged in combat, Zae was always fascinated to see him employ the same leaping and bounding maneuvers that were trademarks of his breed's energetic play.

Zae ticked over the spells she had prepared that morning, without having known she would be teleported to Absalom or dropped into the middle of an alley brawl. She now knew several things about their guide: not only was she not a cleric of Iomedae, but if her first instinct was to strike out with a blade rather than a spell, then she likely wasn't an aspiring priestess of any god at all. Meanwhile, something odd was tickling at her senses, something about the way the rest of them moved that wasn't quite right.

Kala—no, Tezryn—dodged Keren's next attack, but that put her right in the path of Appleslayer's teeth. He latched onto her hamstring, jerking his head from side to side. Keren neatly sliced the back of Tezryn's other leg, bringing her down, then turned her attention to the closest attacker, matching him swing for swing.

Appleslayer released his prey and turned toward one of the other shadowy figures, a fury of sharp teeth and strong paws, nimbly ducking swords and unarmed swipes. He would come in from behind to keep an enemy turning and distracted, and then Keren would take the foe down with one fierce swing. He and Keren fought as one, seamlessly aiding each other with each foe. While Apple's emotional devotion was to Zae, he was equally loyal to Keren. She had trained him well, and their rapport was a beautiful, fluid dance that just happened to result in a certain amount of blood.

But this time, it didn't. Keren sliced a man's arm clean off, and it fell twitching without the trademark arterial gush. Zae cursed herself for not realizing it sooner, and called upon Brigh to bring down her holy wrath upon the attackers. The maimed man fell, and the others cringed and staggered at the sudden assault of light. Though remarkably whole, they were not alive. And neither was their leader. She had struggled to her knees at the periphery of the fight, but she cried out and curled herself into a tight ball under the assault of power.

Appleslayer and Keren tore through the attackers one by one. Their blows rang against Keren's shield. When all of them were on the ground, Zae finished them with another surge of holy power. The initiate, however, had worked her way to her feet somehow, and was stumbling toward the mouth of the alley. In a fluid movement, Keren freed her shield from her arm and threw it like a skipping stone. It scuttled across the cobbled street and cut Tezryn's wounded legs out from under her, sending her sprawling. When Keren pushed the leader onto her back, she was glassy-eyed but snarling.

Keren reversed her grip and held her sword over Tezryn's throat, two-handed. "What do you want from us? Tell me!" Her hands were steady and the swordpoint didn't waver, but Zae knew her well enough to hear the hurt in her voice.

When the mock-initiate only grinned at her with bloody teeth, Keren brought the blade down with such force that it struck all the way through the woman's throat and impacted the pavement beneath. Tezryn gurgled, and was still.

Zae started to call Appleslayer back to her, but the dog was approaching Keren, so she held her tongue. He sniffed at the knight, tail low, pacing around her like an anxious child while she checked the other attackers to make sure they'd been put down for good. Now that they were still, peeking into their hoods showed skin stretched tight over starved cheeks, and the teeth within their parted mouths were longer than they should have been.

Tezryn was dead without a doubt, but that didn't put Zae at ease. She pressed her fingers to the guide's forehead, then brought them to her own nose. The scent was faint, but it held notes of rosemary and clean linen. "Undead, and disguising it," Zae said. "Unguent of revivification, I think. And she's definitely not Iomedae's priestess. She concealed both her appearance and her aura." Beneath the vestments, she wore the same leather armor as the others.

"Are you sure she wasn't just alive and evil?"

"Positive. I called Brigh's light down upon the undead, not the living."

"So the others... ?"

"Probably not under her thrall, but likely she told them where to go for a good feast. None of them bit you, did they?"

Keren shook her head. "Apple bit one of them, though. Should we be worried about that?"

"I don't know. I don't think so, but better to be safe than dog food." Zae motioned the dog over to her and extended a hand. Apple sniffed cautiously at her fingers. They still smelled of the ointment, Zae realized. She wiped her hand on her coat and gave him her other hand instead, whispering to Brigh and sharing a soft, warming light from her fingertips through Apple's fur, concentrating on following the warmth all the way through him. She encountered none of the sorts of obstacles that would indicate disease or corruption. "He's fine."

"Which means that our real welcoming party..." Keren and Zae exchanged a long look.

Zae mounted up on Appleslayer's saddle while Keren took the vestments of Iomedae from Tezryn's corpse and re-shouldered their supplies. "Apple, that alley you were curious about. Can you lead us back there? Good dog!"

As they hurried away, Zae took a quick glance back over her shoulder. Figures were already emerging from the shadows and creeping toward the corpses. Zae had seen squatters and street gangs scavenge what they could from the dead in the seedier quarters of other cities. It felt a little strange to her, knowing that it was happening, but it worked in her favor; there would likely be little left for the attackers' masters to find.

In the alley with the pub sign, Apple's nose led them through a heap of rubbish to the dead end and a broken, upturned crate, underneath which was bundle of bloodied rags that had once been fine cloth; it must have been the actual Kala's underdress. Keren cursed and turned away, but Apple stayed by Zae's side while she peeled back the stiffening fabric. There was little flesh to be found. Small scavengers hovered, drawn by the blood and determined to find a scrap to eat.

"Get, you!" she heard Keren shout, followed by a scattering of refuse and a scuffle of many tiny feet. Half a dozen rats scampered out of range of Keren's sword, but didn't flee from sight, unwilling to give up the chance of a meal. Keren crouched over the cloth, her expression set and cold.

Zae gave her a moment, then asked, "What do you think they wanted so badly that they'd kill a priestess just to ask us questions?" "I don't know," Keren said grimly. "But we're going to find out."

Purchase the whole novel here!

Writing the Through the Gate in the Sea

Saturday, March 11, 2017

I've known Jekka and Mirian Raas for far longer than might be apparent. Their first adventure was published in the 2015 release Beyond the Pool of Stars, but two VERY similar characters with the same names appeared in one of my earliest published short stories more than a decade ago. Jekka was almost exactly the same; it was Mirian who lacked a little something to make her more unique. James Sutter suggested her dual heritage, and once that was added to her character, and I changed the setting to Golarion's Sargava, the rest snapped quickly into place.

Long before I started drafting Plague of Shadows, back when James and I were tossing ideas around about who would star in my first Pathfinder book, I showed him the rough draft of a novel I was working on about Mirian and Jekka. He liked it enough that it stuck in his memory, but back then the line was just getting started, and he understandably wanted something a little less experimental than a book featuring a magical salvage diver and her lizardfolk friend. But after two novels starring Elyana and Drelm I was wanting to try something a little different, and James still liked the pitch starring Mirian and Jekka, so he greenlit a project featuring them.

That meant that the pitch was approved; I still needed to get the details down and make sure any events in the book wouldn't tread on concepts being developed by other authors for other novels. That's why James wisely likes to examine detailed outlines. I'm used to drafting outlines, but not the way I did these. First, I was originally planning just one book, but I was having so much fun that I went ahead and kept outlining another tale right on the heels of the first. Second, a substantial chunk of the outline was written while I was sitting in The Three Broomsticks while my wife and daughter rode and re-rode a bunch of Harry Potter roller coasters. My own enjoyment of roller coasters has waned, you see. While drafting with my notebook I was struck that I was writing the outline for an imaginary adventure in an imaginary location. Or at least, a location that had once been imaginary.

Later during that same Florida vacation I pulled out the pocket notebook again while my daughter was riding The Tower of Terror over at Hollywood Studios and made some more additions.

I'm not sure what James first thought when he got two outlines instead of the expected one, but he liked them both, and signed me on for two new books. I actually wrote them back to back, one right after the other, as they're set only a few weeks apart, but Paizo didn't want to release them one after the other—how many underwater salvage books with lizardfolk co-stars do you need released in a single year, right?

But here the second one is at last. I think I enjoyed drafting it even more than the first. This time I wrote Jekka as one of the point of view characters, and man, did I have fun with that. And I added a new character by the name of Captain Ensara, and his point of view chapters were just as much fun to draft. Hopefully you'll see why when you meet this shady pirate captain, who's not as evil as he thinks he is but isn't as good as you'd like him to be.

I've been a roleplaying gamer since the mid '70s. I've had occasional hiatuses, but I don't think any of them have lasted more than a year. Maybe it's the storyteller in me, but I always come back to it. And I usually end up as the Game Master. I'd like to think all those years of practice have helped hone my storytelling. I've drawn upon some plots and villains to write my Dabir and Asim stories (the villain's plan in The Desert of Souls is straight out of one of my fantasy campaigns). But until these books I've never actually used any characters from my games in my fiction.

Captain Ensara is one of those, a recurring non-player character my players enjoyed who was slightly sinister yet retained a ragged code of honor. And Jekka's cousin, Kalina, is my wife's character, down to her name and even her weapons. If you like those weapons Kalina carts around, and their names, that's all my wife Shannon's doing. I based Kalina's personality upon the way my wife plays her.

Honestly, Kalina is so much fun to see in action that when one campaign with her wrapped up I encouraged my wife to carry her over into the next. Certainly Kalina's one of her all time best characters. I don't know if you've seen this in your own games, but sometimes there's a character that just "sparks" reaction in other characters and helps create situations that deepen the world and provide hooks for other players to hang things on. (I'm not talking about the sort of character who needlessly creates drama or pulls the adventure off track.) I'm actually very fortunate to have a group that's so experienced that they all manage that spark at different times, but so far the rest of those characters haven't made the transfer to my fiction. Who knows, maybe one day the world will be ready for Ash and Kol and Quirok and Tylin...

For now, though, you've got a chance to get to know Jekka even better than you did in the first book. All your favorite survivors from the first book are there as well, including the heroic Ivrian and, of course, the daring Mirian Raas. It's my hope that you'll enjoy reading this new adventure as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Howard Andrew Jones
Pathfinder Tales Author

Through the Gate in the Sea Sample Chapter

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

Mirian Raas and her faithful crew make their living salvaging lost treasures from sunken ships along the coast of tropical Sargava. While retrieving riches from the bottom of Desperation Bay, Mirian and her friend Jekka, one of the last of his lizardfolk tribe, unexpectedly run across the wreck of an ancient magical ship. The discovery leads them on a quest for an arcane artifact called a dragon's tear, which may be the key to locating Jekka's vanished people. But a vengeful sorcerer and a zealous agent of the Child-God Walkena also seek the dragon's tear—and they'll stop at nothing to get it. Can Mirian and her crew pass through the legendary gate in the sea and find the tear before it's too late?

Chapter 2: The Black Ship

As she played the glow stone over the hull, Mirian imagined the vessel surging along the waves in its glory days, full canvas spread from the trio of towering masts, the dragon-shaped prow rising and falling with the ocean current.

And then she was once more staring at a sunken hulk.

She was swimming slowly toward the bow, wand at the ready, when Jekka joined her. She gave him the hand sign for caution. There was no telling what might be using the wreck as its home.

The figurehead was even more lovely than she'd supposed, carved with that minute detail she'd seen on many lizardfolk objects. Upon closer inspection, Mirian recognized it as a stylized rendition of one of her least favorite creatures: a sea drake. She scowled at the thing. One of the monsters had stalked her when she was a child, and another had chased her expedition through the tunnels of a lizardfolk city before killing her friend Ivrian's mother.

Her hand tightened around the wand and she came perilously close to blasting the serpentine image into floating chunks.

But she had better sense. Provided they could get the figurehead free, they'd probably get a tidy sum for it from some collector. As a member of the Pathfinder Society, she knew not to let personal feeling interfere with a historical find.

Mirian drifted away from the figurehead and back along the narrow bow, light from her glow stone glinting off something half hidden in scum. She swam closer to investigate.

A lumpy object was set into the ship's side six feet below the rail and about the same distance from the bowsprit, in the approximate place that Osirian mariners painted eyes on their ships.

Often she wore gloves on salvage runs, but having anticipated recovering nothing more than a ring down here, she'd dived without them. She reached to touch the object gingerly with her left hand, wiping fingers through grime to reveal a large violet jewel.

At that her eyebrows rose. If this were a real gem, it could easily be worth thousands of gold sails.

Realizing she'd been focused single-mindedly upon her discovery, she checked behind, above, and around her. Her father had taught her not to be so intent you forgot your surroundings. Nearly everything under the water is a predator, he'd told her, and some of them are larger than you.

She saw Jekka's light still playing farther back. Time to confer. She swam over to him and the lizard man's slit pupils contracted in her light beam. She shined the light at her hand so he could see her signal to surface.

His tongue extended, as it sometimes did when he was thoughtful or uncertain, but he followed as she kicked up, and in a few moments they were drifting in the darkness under the stars. Mirian's instinctive sense of direction told her the Daughter of the Mist lay to her left, but she couldn't see it, or even hear the lap of the ocean against its side.

"Isn't it amazing, my sister?" Jekka asked. "A ship of my people!"

"It is amazing. I'd give a lot to know what they painted on the hull to preserve it so well. But there are two things, my brother. Listen well."

Sometimes, when she spoke with the lizard man, Mirian found herself unintentionally adopting his formal diction. She supposed she was learning some of his habits, just as he learned some of hers.

"You have my attention," he answered.

"You must always signal me. And be watching for me, underwater. Don't dart off like that."

He nodded, an exaggerated bob on that long neck.

"We have to watch for each other," she went on, "because there may be something watching us."

"So you have said. Forgive me, Sister."

"No harm done—yet. Don't forget, you need to swim back to the ship and report in. Tell Rendak what we've found and borrow his air bottle."

"I don't need it."

"You damned well do. You can't keep popping up and down the whole time. I want to go inside the hull and look around, and I want someone to back me up. You could get trapped in the hull and drown."

"I don't need it," he repeated stubbornly.

"You promised to defer to me in salvaging. Are you going back on your word?"

He hissed. "You shame me, Sister. Very well. But how am I to watch you if you're going alone to the wreck?"

"You're going to come back quickly. And I'm going to continue my inspection on the outside." Not the safest option, admittedly, but Mirian was an old hand at this, and the seas seemed pretty calm at this drop.

"I will do these things."

"Thank the druid while you're there," she continued, "and apologize to her for the delay. Tell Rendak to turn four points to starboard and come a half mile before dropping anchor. And when he asks if he or Gombe should drop, tell him I'll let them know when we're done scouting."

"I will remember," Jekka assured her.

She was fairly certain he would. The lizard man had an amazing ability to retain oral information and repeat it word for word. Habits, like those of salvaging routines, however, were different from rote memorization.

"Get it done and come find me. I'm as eager as you to see what lies aboard."

Then she raised a hand in farewell and dove below.

On her return trip to the wreck, she wondered what would have happened if she'd descended for the ring alone, or with Rendak or Gombe. Nothing, probably. She'd chosen Jekka in part because he needed to get used to what a salvaging run was like, but also because he'd been so excited to become a salvager. She guessed that was because he now saw the crew as part of his extended clan and wished to contribute to its well-being.

While she waited for Jekka, she carefully surveyed the ship's perimeter, familiarizing herself with the length and breadth of the vessel and searching for telltale warning signs that something large and unpleasant lurked within. Ocean predators weren't especially noted for their intellects. If there were anything nasty living here, there'd likely be discarded carcasses nearby, each crawling with bottom-feeders.

She saw no such indications. That didn't rule out the possibility of more intelligent creatures like aquatic ogres or sea devils lairing there, but she saw no sign of tracks or prints along the rail or upon any of the closed cabin doors leading into the bowels of the ship.

Mirian almost missed the large gash at the vessel's stern, in the shadow of the hull. She studied the damaged wood and realized she was probably looking at the ship's death wound. Most likely the ship had struck a reef.

Illustration by Igor Grechanyi

After a careful examination, Mirian had a pretty clear picture of the ship. It was half again as long as a typical three-master, but perhaps a third shallower across the beam. The decks were high and rose steeply at the prow. Probably there were a good three decks below, and back of the quarterdeck were two more above. Two masts were forward and a mizzenmast stood broken off almost to the deck, right through the wheelhouse itself.

Mirian was looking at the wheel when Jekka finally rejoined her. He took hold of the wheel with one hand to steady himself. Straps of a haversack crossed his chest.

Jekka had slid an object used by the other salvagers in her crew into a side pocket of his haversack. The magic item was colloquially known as an air bottle, and once someone learned the trick of using one, it was possible to spend long hours below the water. Her grandfather had invested in two for the family's help, and hit upon the idea of a tube to affix to the bottle so the fragile object could be kept in a padded back satchel.

The tube worked much better if you had lips to close around it—something Jekka lacked. When he'd first attempted to use it, he couldn't pull air without water coming in as well, unless he jammed the tube so far down his throat he nearly gagged. She understood why he didn't want to repeat the experience, but he'd have to adapt if he was going to be a salvager.

A cool current buffeted Mirian as she examined a peculiar column rising beside the wheel. At first glance, it looked like another mast had been sheared off, but that made no sense. That would have placed it off-center from the rest of the vessel.

She scraped at a layer of blue algae. Instead of a broken mast, she uncovered a diagonal plate resembling a display in an expensive jewelry shop. An array of gems was set into its black metal. She scrubbed harder, exposing tiny symbols incised beside each jewel.

Jekka leaned close, running his scaly fingers over the letters.

The writing certainly resembled the same language Mirian had seen on the lizardfolk book cones, but she knew many languages looked similar to the uninitiated. She pointed to the symbols and then back at Jekka.

The lizard man nodded vigorously and touched a set of characters. "No wind!" he shouted, air bubbling out of his mouth.

He put his fingers beside a flat, violet stone, and it took him three attempts before she could understand him through the water: "Opener of the way."

Jekka paused to suck in the tube, then pulled it out, coughing more air bubbles.

There were four more gems with inscriptions. Mirian spread her hands apart in a silent question.

Clearly perplexed, the lizard man shook his head.

She traced the multifaceted ruby he'd told her meant "no wind." It looked like it might turn in its pitted housing.

Interesting. Slowly, carefully, she set her fingers on the gem and tried moving it clockwise. It didn't budge. When she twisted in the other direction, the gem lit from within.

Mirian looked to Jekka for explanation, but he merely shrugged.

She made a second twist and the deck shook beneath them. Clouds of silt billowed up, and from somewhere below came a loud scraping noise. It wasn't until she looked to port and turned her beam there that she noticed the landscape moving ...

No, the ship was! Mirian let out a colorful oath and quickly twisted the jewel all the way to the right so that it returned to its original setting. It ceased glowing and the ship slowed.

She looked at Jekka as if to say, What the hell was that?

The lizard man stared back at her, reptilian eyes blinking.

This was a major find, but there was no way they'd pry any of the gems out of here. "No wind" apparently meant the ship could be set in motion magically when there was no breeze. She marveled at that, wondering whether a skilled enough magic-worker could remove it from the ship and install it on another. Like, say, the Daughter of the Mist, or that behemoth Ivrian was so set on building.

She pointed to an opening into darkness and directed her glow stone onto a barnacle-encrusted ladder. Apparently only the hull had the special protective coating.

Jekka tapped his chest and pointed into the hold, letting her know he intended to lead, then brandished his own glow stone.

She almost objected, then decided he was at least communicating this time, and remembered he was both an experienced warrior and excited to be searching a ship made by his own people. She allowed him to swim in front, staying a few feet back from the swish of his whiplike tale.

Most of the hold's contents had shifted to starboard. Her light played over brown and green weeds dusted by occasional splotches of red and blue. They obscured the hold's contents in a soft, furry blanket.

Jekka floated above it all, shining his own light on something to the right, then pointed at a long segmented worm with pincers. Mirian's father had always called them rot worms, though to Mirian they looked more like oversized centipedes. Their bite was deadly poisonous and they tended to be aggressive when disturbed, so she moved quickly.

The arm-length creature shifted away at Jekka's spear thrust, rearing up and stirring the water with its legs. Mirian cut it in half with her cutlass. It floated apart, wriggling in its death throes.

Jekka brushed it out of the way and shined his light on the patch of growth where the rot worm had been hidden. It didn't seem to have any nest mates.

She floated on with Jekka, imagining the hold moving with robed lizardfolk, perhaps lashing down that stack of crates over there, or walking on through the narrow archway into the next chamber.

Jekka stopped beside three large chests resting against the hull, each rotten with age. As Mirian played her light over the area, tiny crustaceans swam frantically for darkness. Little silver fish flashed away in alarm.

Mirian signaled Jekka to keep watch and he turned from her to survey their surroundings.

She had never seen a lizardfolk chest before, but the one directly before her proved little different from those built by humans, save that the lock mechanism was inset along the top right. That in itself was of interest. She made a mental note to record the information in her Pathfinder journal.

Normally, she would have simply smashed open a chest this old and rotten, but it was such an odd, rare find she wanted to handle it with care.

The bronze lock was green with corrosion and looked as though it had been designed to accommodate a cylindrical mechanism rather than a key—far beyond her lock-picking abilities, but there were other ways. She removed a small pry bar from her pack and set to work on the hinges.

Illustration by Roberto Pitturru

The tool's teeth sank easily into the rotten wood, and in moments both hinges were floating free. After that, the lid came up easily. Mirian drifted back as she lifted it. There was no telling what might come crawling out.

Nothing did.

She again swam closer, her light settling on a rotted wooden frame inside the chest that kept a dozen blue cylindrical bottles upright and separate. Five were broken along their necks, but the others, though empty, looked intact—more tube than jar, with a peculiar fluted opening at the top.

Mirian played the light over the inside, then carefully lifted one of the vessels free and drew it closer it for examination.

Jekka drifted beside her. His long, forked tongue flicked with excitement.

She looked at him questioningly.

His head cocked in interest and he mimed drinking with it.

Mirian handed it to him to examine, then signed for him to put it in his pack. They could spend months clearing this wreck. It was probably time to fetch Rendak and Gombe.

Desna had truly blessed them. The wreck was a fantastic find. There was no telling what sort of oddities might be left aboard, let alone their value and historical significance. As a salvager, she depended upon scavenging sites like this. But as a Pathfinder, she was dedicated to uncovering the secrets of Golarion's past to preserve and disseminate knowledge. If the magical wind mechanism built into this ship could be understood and replicated, it might very well change the future of sea travel.

Jekka pointed to the chest next to the one they'd opened. He clearly wanted to see what was inside.

She decided to humor him and signaled for him to guard once more.

The hinges on the second chest were even more worn, and yielded with no resistance.

Within stood twelve rows of sculpted lizardfolk heads fashioned from a thin metal alloy and inlaid with jewels. Each eye socket was set with amber stones, the figures themselves rich with the minute symbols of Jekka's people.

The sight so thrilled her blood brother that his frill rose, and Mirian had to remind him to keep watch, though she did acquiesce to setting all two dozen of the sculptures within her pack.

The haversacks they wore had been gifts from Ivrian's mother, and were ensorcelled to contain more space on the inside than was apparent without. All of the sculptures fit easily without altering the haversack's weight in the slightest, another wonderful feature.

Jekka signed to indicate they should open the third chest, but she shook her head and pointed to the surface. Then she looked back to the chests and smiled, trying to reassure him they'd come back for all of it.

Mirian led the way out. Jekka trailed some length after, seemingly reluctant to leave.

Sooner than expected she found the anchor chain and, looming above, the dark bowline of the Daughter of the Mist.

Her hands closed on the familiar rungs of the ladder built into the vessel's side. She felt the magical gills fade the moment she thrust her head above the water and breathed deeply of the crisp salty air.

All was silhouettes and shadows against the lesser darkness of the sky, but she thought she made out Gombe's lean outline near the ladder. She grinned at him as she stepped forward, slinging her bag off her shoulder.

"You won't believe what we've found," she told him.

A man with a sword stepped around Gombe, the point of the weapon at the first mate's throat. "I'm all ears."

Purchase the whole novel here!

Reaper's Eye Chapter

Thursday, January 5, 2017

Daryus Gaunt used to be a crusader, battling to protect civilization from the demons of the Worldwound, before a battlefield mutiny forced him to flee or be executed. Pathfinder Shiera Tristane is an adventuring scholar obsessed with making the next big archaeological discovery. When a talking weasel reveals that a sinister witch is close to uncovering a long-lost temple deep within the Worldwound, the two adventurers are drawn into the demon-haunted lands in order to stop him from releasing an ancient evil. Now both fame and redemption may be at hand... if they can survive.

Chapter 1: The Rescue

Daryus Gaunt eyed the two armored figures over the froth-covered rim of his mug, taking in every detail of the pair. Despite his outward disinterest, he remained on edge until the two crusaders took their leave of the tavern.

They had not recognized him—but then, he hardly looked like the earnest warrior he had been when he had worn their same uniform. Scars etched his oddly narrow features, many covered unsuccessfully by the thin, black beard edged with gray. Some of the jagged marks had been earned when he had been a crusader, but the rest—along with the beard—he'd gotten acting as a sword for hire for whoever was willing to pay.

Daryus could have saved himself so much trouble by simply not making Nerosyan his base. Doing so was like poking the proverbial bees' nest. The Order of the Flaming Lance had a significant presence here. If even one of the crusaders recognized him, he risked losing his head.

After all, the order had very little sympathy for traitors.

He set down the empty mug, then rose. Next to him, the two surly thugs muttering to one another about some future robbery immediately eased out of his way. Contrary to his name and his grandfather's supposed elven lineage, Daryus Gaunt was a mountain of a man, just a few inches shy of seven feet. It made his hiding in a stronghold of the order an even more questionable choice to that handful aware of his situation.

Five ales had done nothing to temper Daryus's mood, but he always stopped after five no matter what a part of him desired. The five drinks represented part of his failing, part of his betrayal. Daryus might have so far escaped punishment, but he couldn't escape his own guilt.

The Crimson Hammer Tavern might not have been one of the best-known establishments in Tumbletown—much less the city of Nerosyan itself—but it was a place where those in desperate need of a practiced sword could find such. "Desperate" was the key. Prospective employers had to be willing to wend their way deep northwest into one of the worst parts of the city.

Tonight, Daryus noted two potential contracts. One was a squat, robed figure who tried to keep his face covered with a scarf. The former crusader guessed him to be a merchant attempting to smuggle something either into Nerosyan or out of it. At present, the rotund man conversed with a pale, eye-patched swordsman who Daryus knew would do his best to part the fool from his money without fulfilling the contract.

The other possible client was a thin young man with long blond hair and furtive eyes who gave Daryus a measured glance before heading toward a grizzled ex-pirate from the River Kingdoms by the name of Divalo. Daryus gave the young man some credit. He had picked one of the more trustworthy swords in the tavern. Despite his background, Divalo would live up to his contract and even make certain that any other swords the young man needed would do the same on pain of death.

Seeing no reason to remain, Daryus made for the door. It had been a fortnight since he had returned to the Diamond of the North, as Nerosyan was also known. The name had little to do with any glamorous aspect of the city and more with the base design of the massive fortress initially built here. There was no better fortified city than Nerosyan—a good thing, since it was close enough to the Worldwound to attract the attention of demons.

Thinking of the Worldwound, Daryus hesitated just shy of the door. It was not out of any thought of adding a sixth ale to his count, but rather the hope that the rumors he had heard might still prove true. The word was out that some Pathfinders were planning an expedition into the demon-blighted land. What insane reason they had for doing so, the former crusader did not care. All he knew was that Pathfinders paid well. They would need a strong arm out in the Worldwound if they hoped to even survive their first night.

Gripping the swinging door carefully, Daryus slowly opened the way. A slight creak accompanied the door's movement. The tavern's owner liked to keep all the doors creaky, the better to know when someone exited or entered. Daryus appreciated that aspect, save now when he wanted to make certain that no one outside might hear him.

But the two crusaders were nowhere to be seen, even to his skilled eye. If they had recognized him and arranged a trap, they had done a fine job. Daryus doubted it, though.

Some might have wondered at his choices, a renegade at the heart of the crusader city. Even the explanation he gave himself—that they would never expect to find him so close by—was one that Daryus knew he wouldn't have accepted from anyone else.

Shrugging off both the obvious contradictions in his decisions and the reasons behind them, Daryus headed deeper into Tumbletown. For all their power, the crusaders did little to clean out the area. It wasn't due solely to the tremendous effort needed, though. The area around the Crimson Tavern and its like allowed the crusaders to have a particular place to find those tools they would not admit they needed at times. Daryus had seen the supposed clients who he knew were actually servants of the various crusader orders. Even the most pious of the orders' higher-ups occasionally needed those they considered scum.

Only a few dim oil lamps and torches lit the way through the grimy streets and the filthy buildings lining each side. There had been attempts in the past to better illuminate the area in a pretense of making everyone safer, but those had lasted only long enough for someone to steal the lamps. The lesson remained. Only those who could defend themselves could walk these streets at night.

A light some distance to the southwest and high above momentarily caught his attention. While not as large as the city's four main defense towers, Starrise Spire—or, more specifically, the magical beacon floating above it—was a useful landmark when trying to wend through the darkened streets toward where he lived. The only other landmark of any use to Daryus besides the city's towers was the great Cruciform Cathedral, situated dead center in the city. More a fortress than an ordinary cathedral, that massive redoubt housed Queen Galfrey and the rest of Mendev's leadership, those soldiers and bureaucrats charged with organizing all the disparate crusader orders into a solid defense against the Worldwound's demons.

As he moved on, Daryus set one gloved hand on the hilt of the longsword dangling at his side. All it would take was one swift motion to ready the blade for battle. He had been forced to draw it three times since arriving in Nerosyan, but not of late. Most of the regulars knew Daryus Gaunt by reputation now and avoided trouble with him.

Help...

He came to an abrupt halt. Cocking his head, he listened.

Silence reigned.

With a grunt, Daryus moved on. Five ales might not be enough to affect his faculties, but exhaustion could. He hadn't slept in three days. As a young warrior, three days awake would have meant little to him, but of late it seemed to Daryus that his strength flagged quicker and quicker. Still, there were few he knew of in Tumbletown with more skill than him, so he wasn't overly worried.

Help!

Again, Daryus hesitated. He listened, only hearing a slight wind struggling through the tightly packed buildings and narrow streets.

Help!

He frowned. It was almost as if he heard the voice in his head.

"Help me! Please!"

That cry he heard out loud. Moving with a speed and grace his form belied, Daryus drew his sword. He took one step toward where he believed the faint cry had come.

The clink of metal against metal made every muscle in his body tense. Daryus considered the possibility of a clever crusader trap, but quickly disposed of the notion. The cry seemed too true, too honest.

"Help!"

Daryus got a fix on the direction. With swift but stealthy steps, he headed toward the pleading voice. Whether it was male or female, he couldn't say, but it didn't matter. Every instinct in Daryus pushed him to helping the unseen caller. A renegade he might be, but he couldn't fight his basic nature.

As he entered a side alley, something just ahead of him moved in the shadows. With his left hand, Daryus brought the sword around, but found only empty air.

A second clink warned him just before the point of a narrow sword would have pierced him through the throat. Instead, Daryus managed to bring up his own weapon in time to deflect the attack. The oncoming tip scraped his cheek, adding to collection of scars.

Daryus's fist followed his sword, striking his adversary hard in the chest. The shadowy figure grunted as the force of the blow sent him back a step.

Despite eyes already attuned to the darkness, Daryus had trouble making out the other swordsman's features. No matter how hard he tried, the face remained indiscernible.

The sword did not. Out of the corner of his eye, Daryus spotted the weapon coming at him again. As he shifted his own blade to meet it, he noted another attack coming from the opposite side.

There was no time to reach the small dagger he wore in his belt. Daryus thrust his other arm up, willing to take a shallow slice on his cloth-covered arm rather than have his head skewered.

Deflecting the first sword, Daryus spun to meet the wielder of the second. He had the satisfaction of feeling his blade cut into the other attacker's arm.

Despite the wound, the second figure made no sound. Daryus knew he faced not only seasoned fighters, but determined ones.

The cry for aid had ceased, making the mercenary wonder if he had arrived too late. However, he knew the point no longer mattered; he was now committed to the struggle, whatever and whomever it concerned.

The first attacker tried to take him again. Daryus's left-handed counterassault kept the shadowy fighter off guard, while at the same time, he kicked at the legs of the second figure. He drove his latter attacker down on one knee, buying time to better deal with the first.

"Beware above!" the same voice that had cried for help called.

Illustration by Vincent Proce

Rather than thrust at his foe, Daryus had to instead leap back. Even then, he barely missed being crushed under the weight of yet a third figure.

Sword already in play, Daryus lunged at the newcomer. He caught the crouching fighter on the side, but the other managed to roll away before the sword could do more than scrape what Daryus guessed to be a light breastplate.

Daryus sensed the movements of the second assailant. Determined to do something to keep the odds from turning further against him, he threw himself against the kneeling figure. As they collided, Daryus twisted his sword around and shoved as hard as he could.

Although the blade sank deep into the other's throat, his foe's only response before dying was a grunt. Daryus began to wonder whether they could even speak at all.

He hardly had the sword free from the collapsing body before the third of his attackers returned. Despite a hint of illumination from the street beyond, the face continued to be as featureless as those of the original pair. Daryus knew magic when he saw it, and hoped that the obscuring shadows were the extent of their abilities. The trio did not strike him as spellcasters, but rather paid assassins given a trick or two. Still, even one more trick might prove too much for Daryus.

Both attackers converged on Daryus. He fended off their initial attacks, at the same time managing to analyze which of the pair was the more dangerous. As for his foes, they seemed satisfied to harass him, almost as if waiting for something else to happen...

A clatter arose from his right. Daryus, already suspecting just what the pair had been waiting for, was startled that the fourth figure seeking his death could be so clumsy. The murky form stumbled into Daryus's waiting hand.

With all the force he could muster, Daryus threw his latest adversary toward the others. One fighter managed to evade the living missile, but the second wasn't so lucky. The two fell in a heap.

"Beware! One more! One more!" came the voice, this time from what seemed somewhere on the ground to the right.

Daryus couldn't see anyone there, but he responded to the warning. Drawing his dagger, he brandished the smaller blade at the most likely direction from which any additional enemy would attack.

It was all he could do to keep his grip as the sword point thrusting out of the darkness clashed against his dagger. Daryus spun around, forcing the barely visible sword's wielder back while still keeping the foremost of his other adversaries at bay.

Lunging toward his latest foe, he slipped past the sword enough to reach the hand gripping it. He drove the dagger as hard as he could into the wrist.

This time, Daryus was rewarded by a pained cry. The sword slipped free. Daryus grabbed the wounded limb, then pulled his opponent toward him.

So near, he finally caught a glimpse of a face, a peculiarly nondescript face that even Daryus's expert eye could not identify by region. A faint beard covered most of the lower half, but that was perhaps the only detail of any note.

A rough hand shoved Daryus back. The face disappeared into the same sort of odd, darker-than-dark inkiness obscuring the faces of the rest.

Daryus used the force of the push to enable him to roll to the side. As he turned on his back, he brought up his sword.

The point caught the attacker coming up behind him under his armored chest. Before the wounded fighter could stagger back, Daryus shoved the sword deeper.

As he did that, a strange change came over his dying enemy. Not only did the inkiness fade, but the attacker's entire body shimmered. A bland face identical to the other fighter's briefly materialized, then itself faded into something else.

And suddenly a pitborn stood before Daryus.

Illustration by Roberto Pitturru

As a crusader, Daryus had come face to face with the demon-tainted creatures before. Generally human in face and form, they bore the curse of some past coupling between a human and one of the foul denizens of the Abyss. Daryus's former order had seen pitborn as little more than demons themselves, though while many were indeed evil, he knew that others could be as pure of heart as the oath-sworn warriors with whom he had served.

The last, it appeared, did not apply to the fanged, thick-browed figure collapsing by Daryus. His dying gaze held only rage, a look that faded a moment later as death took him.

Daryus scrambled back as both the attacker he had knocked over and wounded and the remaining pair regained their footing. He had been fortunate up until now, but even with two dead and possibly two wounded, the odds were still against him, especially if all of the three were pitborn. The demon-touched often wielded some level of sorcerous power, which explained their ability to mask themselves in the midst of a crusader stronghold.

Instead of attacking, though, to Daryus's surprise, the two in front of him retreated. Weapons ready, they vanished into the shadows behind them.

Daryus turned to the last, only to find the disguised attacker sprawled in a heap. Suspecting a trap, Daryus approached cautiously. As vicious as the dagger wound had been to the assassin's wrist, it should not have killed him so quickly, if at all.

In death, the pitborn's true countenance lay revealed. Small, sharp horns curled up from his forehead. His gaping mouth revealed sharp teeth. However, it was the pitborn's throat that demanded Daryus's attention.

Something had ripped it out with animalistic tenacity, something evidently capable of moving swiftly and silently.

Not one to question his fortune, Daryus looked around for the caller. He was not surprised to find himself alone. Whoever had been the intended target of these assassins had wisely fled. Unfortunately, that left Daryus alone to deal with the bodies. Bodies were not uncommon in Tumbletown, but three dead pitborn would certainly stir the attention of the city's crusaders. There would be a search of the area, with questions about who in the area would have the skill to kill not one but three.

It would not be long before someone led them to Daryus.

Daryus knew a spot where he could put the bodies, a place where no one would find them for years, if ever, based on the two skeletons he had discovered there the first time he had stumbled into it. He wiped his sword and dagger off on the body with the ruined throat, then sheathed the weapons and hefted the dead pitborn over his shoulder. He could have carried two at once, but that would have made it harder to draw a weapon should someone come upon him. Besides, a single body he could prop against a wall and pretend in the dark was a drunken comrade.

The hiding place in question was a narrow passage between two old, stone buildings farther to the west of his dwelling. Sometime far in the past, the entrance to the passage had been bricked up to make the two structures seem as one. The only way to still reach it was from the roofs above, which was how Daryus had stumbled on it in the first place. He had not expected to have to slide into it, nor had he expected the skeletons with the telltale chips in their ribs indicating death by sword. Now, though, what had been an unfortunate chance discovery was proving to be of use.

For most people, the time needed to dispose of one body, let alone three, would have been measured in hours. Daryus managed to remove the first two in such quick order that he surprised himself. Only then did he realize just how well he had eased into his current life. His earlier existence suddenly seemed farther away than ever.

Gritting his teeth, Daryus returned for the last. Not once had he seen anyone on the street, but he doubted his luck would hold much longer. With growing impatience, Daryus returned to the scene of the struggle...and found no trace of the last corpse.

What he did find was a small and curious-looking animal sitting near where he had last seen the body. The long, sinewy mammal licked one of its forepaws, upon which Daryus noted small bits of dark moisture.

The brown-furred creature raised its head to look at him. Daryus had not seen many weasels in this region, but knew what they looked like. This one was average in size and slightly wide in the mouth. There was nothing out of the ordinary about it save that its left eye seemed injured and twisted shut.

Without warning, it scampered over to Daryus and started up his leg. Thrusting the dagger in his belt, the former crusader seized the vermin by the scruff of the neck and brought it to eye level.

The weasel wrinkled its nose, but otherwise didn't react. It seemed perfectly at ease dangling several feet above the ground as it stared with the one eye at Daryus.

A quick survey of the area revealed no sign of either the intended victim or the last body. Daryus knew he had risked himself far too long for what he now felt was no good reason. Indeed, he began to wonder if perhaps he had been set up by someone intending either robbery or vengeance. Perhaps he had been the target all along.

Remaining wary, Daryus abandoned the area, taking what precautions he could to keep from being followed. If in fact he had been set up by a rival, or had simply become the object of some thieving gang's attention, he didn't want company joining him at home.

Not certain what else to do with the weasel, Daryus set it down and started off. He didn't get far before realizing that the creature was following close.

Daryus waved it off, but the weasel continued to follow. Its lack of concern for the dead or missing assassins suggested it hadn't been a pet of theirs. Yet if it had belonged to whoever had cried out—assuming there had actually been someone in the first place—Daryus wondered why the animal's owner had left it behind.

Daryus's abode was little more than a shack attached to the back of a warehouse. In the early days of the city, the shack had probably acted as the warehouse guard's quarters. The warehouse had changed hands and functions over the generations, becoming now the front for a merchant of disreputable means. Daryus paid the man's scarecrow of a daughter a month's lodging at a time. He knew that they also saw him as an unpaid guard for their goods, for if something happened to the warehouse, then Daryus would lose his dwelling and the money he had paid out that month.

Other than a creaking oak bed with a blanket to act as mattress, the lone room had only two other pieces of furniture. The well-stained table and accompanying bench were where Daryus spent his time when not sleeping. A half-empty bottle of foul-tasting red wine that reminded Daryus of the swill he had once drank in faraway Sauerton sat atop the table, looking inviting despite his familiarity with its sharply acidic taste.

Just as he shut the door behind him, the weasel slipped through into the room.

"No you don't!" He made a swipe for the sinewy creature, but the weasel twisted out of range. It darted to the bench, leapt atop it, then made its way to the table and the waiting wine bottle.

Daryus pursued, only to pull up short as the weasel suddenly turned its one-eyed gaze back at him. The stare was so intense that the renegade crusader almost expected the animal to talk.

Which it did.

"You save Toy's life!" it piped in the voice Daryus immediately recognized as the one that had called for help. "You save Toy's life, but now we must beware! They will seek to obey their master's will! They will come again with more! We must leave this city!"

Daryus reached for his sword. "What are you?"

Toy impatiently shook its head, its single open eye never leaving Daryus. "No time to waste on foolish questions! Must act! Must act before he acts!"

"Who?"

The weasel hissed. It reared, revealing that it was definitely male. "An evil walking on two legs! An evil that will now come looking for both of us, Master... unless Toy and Master stop him first!"

And then, without warning, the weasel opened his other eye as well—an eye simultaneously of fire and ice, blood red and bone ivory.

A demon's eye.

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Shy Knives Sample Chapter

Thursday, November 3, 2016

Shaia "Shy" Ratani used to be a member of the most powerful thieves' guild in Taldor—right up until she cheated her colleagues by taking the money and running. The frontier city of Yanmass seems like a perfect place to lie low, until a job solving a noble’s murder reveals an invading centaur army ready to burn the place to the ground. Of course, Shy could stop that from happening, but doing so would reveal her presence to the former friends who now want her dead. Add in a holier-than-thou patron with the literal blood of angels in her veins, and Shy quickly remembers why she swore off doing good deeds in the first place...

Chapter 1: Sociality and Shackles

"Shaia Ratani."

This wasn't how I wanted to be introduced.

"Approach."

My chains rattled as I shuffled slowly across the floor on bare feet. Despite the multitudes of burning candelabras stretching down the hall on either side of me, the tattered rags I wore failed to ward off a chill. Even if I hadn't been walking the length of a hall so grand and drenched in opulence, I would have felt small.

"That's close enough, thief."

I stopped. The shackles around my wrists seemed heavy enough to pull my eyes to the ground. In the reflection of tile so polished you'd pay to eat off it, I could make out someone looking back at me, black hair hanging in greasy strands before a face covered in grime.

My face.

"Shaia Ratani," a deep, elegant voice said. "You are accused of a thousand crimes against the aristocracy of Taldor, the most heinous of which include larceny, fraud, extortion, assault, assault with a deadly weapon, assault with intent to murder, unsanctioned use of poison, trespassing, public indecency ..."

I was hard pressed to think of any legends that began like this.

"...and consorting with deviant powers."

Hell, I couldn't even think of a good tavern story that began like this.

But it was bards who were concerned with how stories began. In my line of work, you learned early on that it's only the ending that matters.

"You may look up, thief."

Bold, commanding words from a bold, commanding voice. You'd think, upon looking up, that they'd belong to a bold, commanding man.

Those were not the first words you'd think upon seeing Lord Herevard Helsen. They might have been the thirty-second and thirty-third ones, if you were generous.

Tall and thin as a stalk of corn and with ears to match, the aristocrat who stood upon a raised dais at the end of the hall seemed an ill fit for his fancy clothes. Hell, he seemed a poor fit for his own home.

While his hall was bedecked with tapestries and servants standing at attention and portraits of strong men and women with strong, noble features, Herevard, with his weak chin and shrewd eyes, shifted uncomfortably. Like he could sense his ancestors' disapproval emanating from the portraits and was already imagining what they'd say if they could see him now.

I never knew them, but I imagined they probably wouldn't be pleased to see a filthy Katapeshi girl in shackles dirtying up their halls.

"Understand this, Miss Ratani." Lord Helsen spoke down an overlarge nose at me, as though the dais he stood upon wasn't high enough to separate us. "I have had you brought from my private dungeons at the behest of another. A mission of mercy that relies entirely on your ability to be civil. Do you understand?"

That would have sounded significantly more authoritative if his face weren't beaded with sweat. I chose not to call attention to that, though. I merely nodded and received a nod in exchange.

Lord Helsen glanced to his side.

"She was captured not two months ago. My guards found her robbing my study. She's been serving penance in my dungeons ever since, my lady."

"Penance?" another voice chimed in. A lyrical birdsong to his squawk: soft, feminine, gentle.

I wasn't sure how I hadn't noticed the woman standing beside him before, but the moment she spoke, I couldn't see anything else in the room.

Had Lord Helsen not addressed her as "lady," I might never have guessed her to be a noble. She certainly wasn't what you'd think of when someone mentioned the word, let alone what I'd think of. Her dress was a simple thing of white and blue linens, easy to move in and functional—words that make aristocratic tailors cringe. Her brown hair was clean and washed, but not styled with any particular elegance. She didn't look especially rich.

Pretty, though.

Or at least, she might have been. It was hard to tell, what with the massive spectacles resting upon the bridge of her nose.

"Penance, my lady." Lord Helsen nodded to the woman. "As you know, Yanmass's laws are rather ...archaic when it comes to crimes against the gentler class." He chuckled. "Why, I'm told that Lady Stelvan, upon finding a vagrant in her wine cellar, appealed to the courts to have him walled up inside and—"

"Please!" The woman held up a hand. "Er, that is, Lord Helsen, I do not need to be privy to the details."

"Of ...of course, Lady Sidara." Lord Helsen made a hasty, apologetic bow. "Regardless, I couldn't let her walk away freely. Time to reflect upon her misdeeds in the dungeons seemed adequate." He glanced back toward me. "I suspect that she will be ideal for your purposes."

"Purposes?"

I hadn't intended to sound quite so alarmed when I spoke. I hadn't intended to speak at all.

Lord Helsen hadn't intended me to either, judging from the annoyed glare he shot me. "Yes, thief. Purposes."

I bowed my head.

"The Lady Sidara has need of someone with particular ...talents," he continued.

I nodded, head still lowered. Somehow, I figured it was going to be about this.

The three things nobles hate most, in order, are losing money, bad wine, and being reminded they have the same needs as anyone else. No matter how big your house is or who you pay to wipe your ass, eventually everyone needs a treasure stolen, a throat cut, or something set on fire.

They might have used words like "talents," but nobody needed dirty work done more than a noble.

And they didn't come nobler than they did in Taldor.

Illustration by Ralph Horsley

"She is firmly bound, my lady, and no danger at all." Herevard gestured to me with one white-gloved hand. "You may inspect her at your leisure."

Lady Sidara cast him a nervous look before glancing back at me. I was, at that moment, keenly aware of every inch of grime on my skin, every ounce of weight in my chains, every tear in the raggedy shirt and trousers I wore. Something about this woman, with her drab dress and giant spectacles, made me feel naked. Vulnerable.

Unworthy.

Still, she wasn't the first person to do that to me. Certainly not the worst person, either. I kept my head respectfully low, my body reassuringly still as she approached me.

One dainty hand reached out as if to touch me, but she seemed to think better of it and drew it away. I averted my gaze as she studied me from behind those big round spectacles.

"You're not Taldan," she said. "From the south, maybe?"

Lord Helsen spoke from the dais. "She's Qadiran, my lady."

I stiffened at that. My hands tightened into fists, only relaxing when Lady Sidara spoke again.

"Not Qadiran, Herevard. Her features are a little too fine." She hummed a moment before her face lit up. "Ah! Of course. You're from Katapesh."

Herevard yawned. "Same thing."

Still, I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. Not a lot of people from Taldor appreciated the difference between us southern nations, let alone a noble.

"You poor dear," she said, eyeing the sorry state of my dress and hygiene. "Listen. I know this might seem ...unorthodox. It certainly wasn't my first choice. But I have ...an issue." She glanced around, as though wary of who might be listening. "An issue that Herevard said you might be able to help with."

I cast her a sidelong look but said nothing. As if embarrassed, she turned away and readjusted her spectacles.

"I can't give you the details here," she said. "Nor can I promise it will be easy. But I can promise you'll be adequately rewarded. I'll see you safely exonerated of your crimes and granted a handsome sum besides, in exchange for your assistance." She drew herself up, fixed me with a hard look. "Of this, you have my word, Miss Ratani."

Funny how words, common as they are, seem to mean an awful lot to some people. Nobles and their heritages, wizards and their spells, paladins and their oaths—words mean a lot to the kind of person who woke up one day and heard a higher calling.

I once heard that calling.

Then I put the pillow over my head and went back to sleep.

People like me, we don't put much stock in words. We know how cheap they are. We know how quickly they spin on glib tongues and how swiftly they scatter on the floor. People like me, we needed firmer stuff.

"I know this must sound odd," Lady Sidara said. "Is there ...is there anything I can get you? To help you make up your mind?"

I took a breath and spoke softly.

"A drink."

Lady Sidara nodded and made a gesture to Herevard. Herevard, in turn, gestured to a nearby servant. The servant ran to a table set up against one of the hall's walls and, in a few moments, came rushing up to me with a goblet upon a tray. I took it, nodded my gratitude, first to him and then to her. I closed my eyes and took a long, slow sip of cold, refreshing liquid.

And immediately spat it out.

"What the hell is this?" I snapped at the servant.

"W-water!" he replied, holding up his tray like a shield.

"Well, did I ask for water, Cecim, or did I ask for a gods-damned drink?"

"S-sorry, Shy!" he cried out, cowering. "Sorry, Mistress!"

"'Shy'? 'Mistress'?"

It wasn't until I looked and saw Lady Sidara, her mouth wide open in puzzlement, that I realized I might have just ruined things.

"What did you call her?" The noblewoman glanced from Cecim to me, and the puzzlement turned to irritation. It was a full-blown scowl when she whirled upon Lord Helsen and saw the thin nobleman quaking upon the dais, the sweat on his face having gone from beads to big as moons.

"What did he call her?" she demanded. "What's going on here, Herevard?"

"Uh, well ...that is ..." Lord Helsen's tongue seemed two sizes too large for him at that moment, and he fumbled over his words. "You see, Lady Sidara, when ...when we make mistakes and ...and things are said ...and we try to make them right, and ..."

"Ah, give it up, Herevard," I said. "Whatever excuse you're choking on, it's obvious she's not going to buy it."

Lady Sidara turned to me, shock wrestling with outrage on her features as she watched me unfasten the shackles around my wrists and drop them to the floor.

I looked up at her, blinking. "What?"

"You ...you're not a prisoner at all!" She pointed a finger at me that would have been accusing had it not been so dainty. "You lied to me!"

"If you'll recall, good lady," I replied, holding up my liberated hands in defense, "I didn't say ten words to you. Any lying came specifically from that man."

Lord Helsen squirmed under my finger, flailing as though he could pull an excuse from thin air. But instead, all he did was thrust a finger right back at me and let out a rather unlordly screech.

"She was blackmailing me!"

"I was not!" I shouted back. "I asked you specifically what the information was worth to you! You're the one that came up with the number!"

"Oh, don't you turn this on me, you lying Qadiran—"

"Katapeshi!"

"ENOUGH!"

To look at her, you wouldn't have thought such a little lady could come up with such a bellowing voice. But it seemed Lady Sidara, breathing heavily, holding her hands up in a demand for silence, was a woman of more than a few surprises.

"No more lies." She split her scowl between me and Lord Helsen. "And no more blaming. The truth. Now."

The nobleman and I exchanged glances for moment—or rather, I exchanged a glance and he gave me a look that suggested he might soil himself. At that, I just rolled my eyes and sighed.

"All right, fine. What I did might, in some countries, be construed as blackmail." I waved absently toward the dais. "I got some information on Herev—" I caught myself; didn't want to rub salt in the wound. "—on Lord Helsen and asked him what it was worth to him to keep it quiet."

"And what was it worth?" Lady Sidara asked.

"Two months in a nice bedroom at his manor," I replied. "Waited on hand and foot by Cecim here." I shot a glare at the servant. "Who should damn well know by now what I mean when I say I want a drink!"

Cecim squealed and scurried off, still holding his tray up. I sighed and looked back to Lady Sidara.

"Anyway, when he said you had a job that needed doing, we made up this bit about the private dungeon." I gestured to my clothes and grime. "Though had I known it would turn out like this, I wouldn't have bothered painting so much dirt on myself."

Lady Sidara frowned.

"And what information did you have to make ..." She gestured over me. "This seem intelligent?"

"Well, I—"

Illustration by Roberto Pitturru

"You swore you wouldn't tell!" Lord Helsen piped up, his face a red-hot contortion of embarrassment.

"Herevard, what good do you think not telling her would do?" I looked back to the noblewoman and sighed. "I found out about his mistress. A lovely little halfling woman who visits his chambers every other night." I shot her a wink. "Herry likes his short women."

Lord Helsen's mouth hung open. His eyes looked like they were about to roll out of their sockets. I had no doubt that, if I could have read his thoughts, they'd be mostly my name attached to variations of the word "strangle."

Frankly, I wasn't sure what the big deal was. I always thought they looked cute together.

Lady Sidara, for her part, didn't seem particularly upset, either. She slowly turned a sweet, sad smile on Lord Helsen.

"Oh, Herevard," she said. "We've all known about Numa for years now."

"W-what?" Lord Helsen said. "Everyone? All of Yanmass?"

She nodded gently. He made a soft whimpering sound.

"Even Lady Stelvan?"

"She was the first to know, Herry."

"Well, then." I kicked off my ankle shackles and sent them skidding across the hallway. "I guess we've all learned an important lesson about honesty today." I began wiping the painted-on grime from my skin. "And it seems my time with Herry is at an end. Give me a couple of hours to have a bath and I'm all yours, my lady."

"What?" Lady Sidara looked at me, anger flashing across her features. "You assume I'd still hire you now, after ...after ..."

"Oh, what? You were happy to have me when you thought I was a thief, but now that I'm an extortionist, you're too good for me?" I rolled my eyes. "A touch hypocritical, don't you think?"

"It's not that! It's just ..." She rubbed the back of her neck, helpless. "This ...this is a delicate operation, one that I am intent on seeing carried through. I need people I can trust."

"Liar."

She looked at me like I had just slapped her. "What?"

"If you needed people you could trust, you would have found a knight or a brave warrior or some lovesick noble. What you need is someone who can get the job done, and the fact that you're here tells me that the people you can trust simply can't do that."

She fixed me with a long, methodical stare. And though it made me feel every bit as naked as it had the first time, I held my ground and my smile like a sword and shield.

"And can you get the job done?" she asked.

"Are you still going to pay?"

"I will."

"Then I can." I turned to walk away toward the hall's exit. "But, as I said, let me get a bath first. I'm not going to talk business covered in filth."

"Yes, fine, whatever." Lady Sidara stalked behind me. "Glad to be doing business then, Miss ..." She paused. "Is your name even Shaia?"

"Of course it is." I glanced over my shoulder, spared her a wink. "But my friends call me Shy."

Purchase the whole novel here!

The Tyranny of Unsanctioned Material Ends!

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Illustration by Tomasz Chistowski
They Said we were mad to sanction so much content!
Mad! Ah ha ha!

Perhaps that's not entirely accurate—we've been behind largely because we developed and delivered such an ambitious amount of other material over the past year—but it makes for one heck of a battle cry! This week tens of thousands of oppressed words have rallied around their champion, the Hell's Rebels Adventure Path, which has led them to liberated glory with the help of the sympathetic guard captain Pathfinder Module: Down the Blighted Path and the eccentric noble scion Pathfinder Module: House on Hook Street. Together they have founded a new nation on the grand continent of Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild, united by the shared mission of delivering countless hours of content to players everywhere! Of course, you don't need to take my word for it when you can hear it directly from the four Pathfinder Tales heralds of the revolution, united under the banner of the Pathfinder Tales, Volume VIII sanctioning document!

Okay, that extended analogy got weird. Put plainly, we've finished the sanctioning documents for Hell's Rebels, Down the Blighted Path, House on Hook Street, and the latest four Pathfinder Tales novels (Beyond the Pool of Stars, Bloodbound, Pirate's Prophecy, and Hellknight—all of them delightful reads). You'll see the modules' sanctioning documents appearing on their respective pages imminently. All of the sanctioning documents will also appear as part of the upcoming update to the Additional Resources page. We're still busily working on Adventure Paths and Modules both old and new, so more content is on the way!

John Compton
Pathfinder Society Lead Developer

Starspawn Sample Chapter

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Once a notorious pirate, Jendara has at last returned to the cold northern isles of her birth, ready to settle down and raise her young son. Yet when a mysterious tsunami wracks her island's shore, she and her fearless crew must sail out to explore the strange island that's risen from the sea floor...

Chapter 1: Harbor Wave

Jendara put down the file and checked the edge of her blade. She'd worked out the last of the nicks, but the sword could use a touch of the whetstone to bring out the edge. She reached for the bottle of oil at her elbow and paused. It was the kind of autumn morning in the Ironbound Archipelago that she loved. The smoke of her village's fires rose up in straight blue streaks, and the sound of children at play resounded in the crisp air.

"Ho, Jendara!"

She turned from her makeshift workbench, a split length of driftwood balanced on two fat stumps, already smiling. "Good morning, Boruc."

"No sign of the Milady yet?" The big man tucked his thumbs into his belt—nearly hidden under the bulge of his belly—and glanced out at the harbor.

"Not yet, but the tide only turned a few hours ago. The boatyards at Halgrim aren't that close."

"That captain husband of yours ought to hurry." Boruc grinned, and his teeth showed brightly against the red of his beard. A native islander like Jendara, he'd become one of her closest friends in the time since she'd returned to the archipelago. "Doesn't he know it's your birthday?"

"You remembered?" She laughed and got to her feet.

The ground moved beneath her in a sickening shudder.

She grabbed onto the workbench to steady herself. The earth jolted and jumped, and from the cottage behind her came the smashing of glass. A heavy yelm of thatch crashed down off the roof.

Her mind leaped to her son. "Kran!" She stumbled as the ground gave a last shake, then found her footing again. She sheathed the sword and broke into a run. "He went to the beach with Oric and that damn dog."

"You ain't got much time," Boruc warned.

Jendara knew it. She'd grown up on an island not that different from this one, and she'd spent her life on the sea—she'd seen what could happen after an earthquake. She scanned the horizon. It was probably too early for the ocean to rise up, but given the power of the shaking, the tsunami wouldn't be long.

A woman raced out into the street. "Fire! My house is on fire!"

Any other time, the rest of the village would have rushed to help her, but not now. People stumbled out of their houses, running uphill. Jendara could already see the tide turning in the harbor, the water pulling itself away from the shore like a blanket whipped back from a muddy bed.

"Kran!" she bellowed. The boy had brains. He knew he had to get away from the shore.

A man shoved her aside.

"Hey!"

"Gotta get uphill!" he shouted over his shoulder, and she saw the chicken clutched under his arm and the blue beads strung in his beard. The baker, Norg.

His wife ran behind him. "Get out of here, Jendara!"

"Kran!" Jendara shouted again. The boats at the piers were already high and dry.

"Jendara!" A tall man with sandy hair and beard—Morul—caught her by the arm. "Tell me the boys are already headed up to Boruc's house."

"I haven't found them yet." She caught the look of panic in his eyes. "I'll get the boys. You get Leyla to high ground!"

"She can't walk yet—the fever's got her knocked out."

"Then you better hurry!"

She broke away from him, her own fear climbing in her throat. Kran was a smart lad and levelheaded for a twelve-year-old. He should have made it up from the beach by now.

The crowds pressed against her and she found herself shoving aside old men, children—anyone that stood between her and her son. She could already see the ridge of water forming on the horizon. It didn't look like much right now, but she knew these waves to be deceptive. When it hit the island, it could be devastating.

Her boots slid on the mud of the beach. Were they down by the boats or over by the caves? The beach itself was empty, dotted with abandoned clam shovels and buckets.

"Kran!"

He couldn't answer, of course. That only made it all the worse. Her boy, her precious boy, was mute.

"Help!"

But Oric wasn't. Kran's best friend shrieked like a stuck pig, his voice bouncing off the rocks by the caves. Anger lit Jendara's blood on fire. Even on a good day, the caves were dangerous.

She raced toward the rocks.

And then skidded to a stop.

"Oh, shit."

She stared at the two boys on the nearest outcropping of rocks, unable to quite make sense of what was happening. Her son had Oric by the arm, but the other lad was clearly stuck between the two great rocks—a space she herself had passed through a dozen times collecting mussels.

"Help!" Oric screamed again. Kran looked over his shoulder, his eyes black circles in a too-white face. His little dog burst out of the gap between the rocks, whimpering. She was caught in something as well—some kind of thick, sparkly rope had wound itself around her chest, binding her to the stones.

Jendara scrambled up beside Kran. The ocean began to growl softly, the sound of all the rocks and debris it had sucked up now grinding along at the bottom of the sea bed. She could feel sweat prickling in her armpits.

The same tough rope had snared Oric, she saw. Jendara drew her sword. She'd never seen rope like this. It clung to the tow-headed boy with the stickiness of tar, and it shimmered with a pale purple-blue light. It reminded her of a spider's web—if the spider were the size of a small cottage.

She hacked through it, glad she'd sharpened her blade. The roaring was getting louder.

Kran jumped down beside the dog, pulling on its front legs.

"Cut the dog free," Jendara snapped at him.

He shook his head wildly and held up an empty hand.

"Where's your damned belt knife?"

"He must have left it at my house." Oric was nearly babbling. He wriggled and twitched as the words bubbled out. "We were whittling and then we needed mussels for your birthday dinner and—" He broke off at the fury in her eyes.

She seized the boy by the armpits and yanked him free of the rocks. A strip of skin ripped free of the back of her hand, stuck fast to the strange silk, and she hissed.

"Now run!" She slashed the binding on the dog and then sheathed her sword. "Get running, both of you!"

They slipped and slid on the mud. The dog raced past them. It might have been a half-sized, ugly thing, but it wasn't stupid.

Jendara risked a glance over her shoulder. The wave had picked up speed. It towered over the bay, a wall of mud and debris ready to crash down and swallow the island. They were never going to make it to the safety of the hilltop.

She put on a burst of speed to pass the boys. "To the meeting hall!" She stretched her hand behind her and caught Kran's sleeve.

The meeting hall was the largest and sturdiest building in the village, and stood on a knoll of rock above the main street. Decorative finials stuck up from each end of the high ridgeline of its shingled roof, while colorfully painted columns outlined a covered porch. She ran her hands over the green-and-blue surface of the nearest column. Kran wouldn't have any problem shinnying up it.

"On the roof," she ordered. He was up the column in a flash, and then immediately put out his hand to help his friend. Oric leaped onto the column but slid down again. He was bigger than Kran and less agile.

Jendara gave him a shove and let him scramble up onto her shoulders. His boot knocked into her head as he struggled up onto the roof.

The dog whimpered.

Illustration by Jesper Ejsing

Jendara risked a look over her shoulder and felt her stomach twist. The sea had arrived in the harbor. It raised itself above the beach, hoisting longships and sailboats up into its muddy mass with a nasty crashing crunch.

There was no time for shinnying up the column. Jendara grabbed the dog by its collar and flung it onto the porch roof. Then she jammed her belt knife into the column and pulled herself up. Her hand closed on the edge of the roof as the great wave hit the first row of houses.

Walls boomed and crumpled, wooden joints screeching as they ground together. Jendara hung for a second, and then Kran grabbed the back of her jacket. She came up onto the roof.

It wasn't high enough here. They had to get to the top of the building, the ridgeline with its finials—they could hang onto those.

"Up!" she shouted.

Kran was already moving. The next section of roof was much higher and steeper, and for a second she thought he wouldn't be able to get a grip on it, but he did. Oric was right behind him. He caught a shingle and dangled for second. Then the shingle broke free.

The boy hit the roof of the porch and slid down. Jendara lunged for him. Her fingers closed on his wrist and his weight hit the end of his arm with a crack. He screamed in pain and grabbed her with his other hand just as the wave smashed into the side of the meeting hall.

The water slammed down on Jendara, driving out light and air and all sense of up or down. An incredible crackling and ripping resounded around her. For a second, she couldn't breathe.

Then with a powerful crunching, the porch roof ripped free of the meeting hall. Jendara gasped for air as she popped to the surface of the water.

The roof slid along the side of the meeting hall, riding the muddy mass of the wave. Oric clung to her, and she clung to the edge of the porch. If the roof broke apart or sank, the debris caught in the floodwater would crush them.

The wave drove them into the side of the next house. The walls had cracked and buckled against the power of the water. Wood groaned and snapped all around them. Over the powerful stink of mud and brine, the smell of smoke was choking. The earthquake had caused its own damage via fireplaces and woodstoves.

She looked around, desperate for her boy. She made out his silhouette on the still-intact ridgeline of the meeting hall and felt herself relax a little. If he was still all right, she could focus on saving herself and Oric.

"Jendara!" Oric's voice cracked with fear.

Jendara whipped her head around. A wall of debris was headed right for them: wood and rubble and a still-recognizable door, jutting out of the swirling water like a giant knife.

Jendara shoved against the broken house. She wasn't going to die pinned to a cottage, stabbed to death and buried in muck. She'd killed a giant and a troll and faced down a horde of barbarian shapeshifters. She had a family, a business, friends. Damn it, she wasn't going to drown!

The porch roof popped free of the broken house. The figurehead of a longship smashed into the wall where they'd been trapped, and with a groan, the house began to collapse on itself. The porch roof bobbed into the middle of the street. The water had carried them uphill, but it was still up to the bottoms of the windows, at least four feet high, and it would only get higher until the floodwaters withdrew.

Jendara searched for safety. They couldn't stay on this makeshift raft. Another wave would rip it apart or smash it into bits. Her eye caught the building on the far side of the street—the blacksmith's. The only stone building in the village. Its porch wasn't much, but it was the best shelter she could see.

She grabbed a length of board floating beside her and poled hard. The road beneath her climbed the hill, and the current was fighting her now as the water pulled back for its next pounding wave. The raft shuddered as it moved slowly through the churning water.

She drove her pole between the slats of someone's garden fence. The support column for the blacksmith's overhanging roof was just a few feet away. Someplace nearby someone screamed for help, and her heart gave a squeeze.

But she couldn't help anyone if she didn't help herself first.

She jerked her chin at the porch, arms trembling to hold the roof-raft in place. "Get over there!"

Oric grabbed onto the fence with his good hand and jumped off the raft. The water was shoulder deep on him, but he didn't complain. He might not have Kran's stoicism, but he was still an islander through and through.

Jendara jumped off the raft. The water tugged the raft away in an instant, smashing it into a floating log. It sank immediately.

Here on the other side of the sturdy garden fence, there was a little less floating debris. A plow sluiced past, grinding against Jendara's side and bumping up against the fence with a heavy thud. She hoped the fence would hold a little longer.

Wading was hard. The water pulled her back with every step, and rocks and broken tree branches slammed against her chest and legs. Oric slipped and slid, then made it up onto the porch. Though the difference in height was slight, she thanked the ancestors as she followed him up onto the porch. There was less wreckage moving in the water, and the current wasn't as strong. She took hold of the porch column, then frowned.

Oric gripped the column with one arm, but the other hung uselessly at his side. He must have dislocated it when she'd grabbed him on the roof. If another big wave hit, he'd be gone.

She felt for her belt, the leather stiff in the saltwater. Cursing, she got it off and around the column. "Grab onto that," she ordered.

Then the next wave hit, and all she could do was cling to the column and the boy and try to protect her head as mud and smashed stonework and broken bits of everything battered them. She coughed and spluttered.

The next wave seemed a little smaller—or perhaps she was simply used to it. She lost count of them as they came, driving flotsam into the corners of the porch and dragging it back out into the street. A dead duck washed up against the pillar and floated in the eddy, its yellow feet sticking up in the air as the water spun it in a slow circle. Then it sank beneath the muck.

Between the waves, she stared at the roof of the meeting hall and watched Kran and the dog huddle in silent misery as the water slowly withdrew. He had never felt so far away, and she had never been so powerless to help him. She had thrown away her old life—a dangerous life, to be sure, spent serving bloodthirsty Besmara, the pirate goddess—to find someplace safe to finish bringing up her boy. Leave it to nature to prove her wrong.

Oric shivered beside her, and she risked letting go of the column to grip his shoulder. If only he hadn't gotten caught in that stuff down by the rocks, that strange silky rope like spider webbing. They would all be up at Boruc's house waiting for the water to recede, warm and dry and safe.

It was just bad luck, she supposed. As the Varisians might say, it was just a bad alignment of the stars, bringing misfortune down upon their entire village. She shivered and tightened her grip on the column.

The breeze strengthened, pushing aside a few clouds and inviting the sun to play on the surface of the floodwaters. They were receding, she realized. The houses on this stretch of the street were badly battered, and the ones closer to the beach were smashed and ruined, but at least the worst was over.

"I've got to get Kran," she told Oric. "You stay here."

"Don't leave me!"

"You'll be fine. The water's going down. And Kran's been alone this whole time."

"We would have all been out of here if he hadn't wanted to make you that stupid present," Oric grumbled.

Jendara shot him a stern look. "You'll be fine," she repeated. She took a careful step down from the porch. Something shifted beneath her feet and she gritted her teeth. There was no way to see what lay beneath the surface of the water—the stuff was as opaque as milk and as dark as garden soil. The worst might be over, but that didn't mean it was safe.

It was like capturing a rival pirate ship, she thought, setting her foot carefully before taking the next cautious step. They fought hard on the deck and you felt your blood boil as you cut your way forward, knowing every hand was set to kill you. But that was only the obvious danger. Down below was where the real nasty stuff waited: the injured happy to take someone to Pharasma's Boneyard when they went, the vicious cook devoted to his captain, the booby traps some loyal mate had set when all seemed lost.

Back in her pirate days, she'd seen plenty of her crewmates killed after the battle was ostensibly won, and she'd learned a thing or two. She kept her focus on the ground and the debris floating around her knees, and she moved slowly, even if every bit of her wanted to race back to the meeting hall and make sure Kran was all right.

Then she was there. The porch columns were slick with mud, and some stood at odd angles. She didn't trust them. She looked around for an alternate route.

To her left, Kran's dog barked.

She turned. The dog stood on the canted roof of the house beside the hall. At some point, a massive fir tree had toppled down on the broken house, and now lay at an angle, its top driven into the colorful wall of the meeting hall and its roots tangled in the wreckage below. The dog must have climbed down the tree.

"Smarter than you look," she grumbled. The yellow-and-white mutt wasn't the companion she would have picked for her boy. It wasn't a sturdy herding dog or a fine hound bred for hunting, just some stray he'd found by the docks, good for nothing but eating Jendara's venison. "Come here ..." She tried to remember its name. "Fylga. Come."

The dog scrambled onto the tree trunk and began climbing back up to the roof of the meeting hall.

"Or maybe not." Jendara picked her way toward the base of the tree and gave it a shove. It felt solid.

In the distance, wood groaned and crumpled. Someone called for help again, the voice thin and tired. She had to get moving; people needed her.

"Kran!"

The boy peered over the roofline at her. He pointed at the tree and spread his hands questioningly.

"It's safe, I think. But hurry!"

He came down the tree cautiously, clinging to it like a bear cub. Jendara found herself reaching for him before he even made it to the halfway point. Her lip hurt from biting into it. The meeting hall could collapse, the tree could shift, the house could crumple more—

And then she had a hold of him and he was on the ground and she was squeezing him tight, tighter than she'd hugged him in years. He was twelve, after all. And he'd never been a cuddly boy, even when he'd been little.

He kissed her cheek and hugged her back. Then he pulled away, a smile spreading over his face. With his black hair hanging in wet clumps, that smile looked even whiter and broader than usual.

He pointed at the demolished house beside them, and it took Jendara a minute to make out what he saw in the midst of the broken beams and the sludge of mud. There was only the hint of colorful paint to remind her of the meeting hall's porch columns, one of which had been driven through the ruins of the house next door.

And there, jutting out of what had probably been a blue-and-green painted sea star, was the belt knife she'd stabbed into the wood as a handhold just before the wave had hit. Kran wrenched it free with a grunt, and handed it to her, beaming.

Maybe her stars weren't so badly aligned after all.

Purchase the whole novel here!

The Last Pathfinder's Journal

Thursday, August 25, 2016

The year was 2007. The Dungeon and Dragon magazine license had just ended, and all of us in the Editorial Pit were sweating bullets over this new baby called Pathfinder Adventure Path—a baby that was going to need to grow up and get a job quick so that we could all keep paying rent. The first volume had already been put to bed, and we were trying to figure out what to do going forward with this section we'd put in the back called the Pathfinder's Journal. The first volume had featured an overview of the Pathfinder Society, written by Erik Mona, but now we were thinking about Ed Greenwood's old Volo's Guides and wondering if maybe this section could be a chance for us to introduce some fun first-person, journal-style adventure fiction to help show off our new campaign setting. We had a half-empty map of Varisia, a handful of proper nouns, and a couple of characters name-dropped in the first article—Pathfinder Eando Kline and Venture-Captain Shevala. What more did we need?

Since we were short on time, Jason Bulmahn and I wrote the second and third entries simultaneously. I'd published a few short stories other places, but I was still nervous as I turned mine in—a story called "Hand of the Handless," set in a mostly unknown little city called Kaer Maga. A few days later, Wes Schneider and James Jacobs took me aside and told me that not only were they cool with my story, they were putting me in charge of the section. From that moment forward, I'd be the steward of the continuing adventures of Eando Kline, hiring the best authors I could find and helping them showcase the world of Golarion. I was twenty-three years old.

Illustration by Jason Engle

Over the next seven years, the Pathfinder's Journal and I grew together. Somewhere around the start of Curse of the Crimson Throne, we realized that Eando's adventures ought to have a point, and the grand arc we crafted took three whole adventure paths to complete. This odyssey was eventually compiled as The Compass Stone, and from there we gave Eando his well-deserved rest (or rebellion) and moved on to having authors write entire six-part novellas in each AP, including folks like Dave Gross, Elaine Cunningham, Wes Schneider, and more. A few years ago, as my job responsibilities started to include more and more management, I handed the journal off to Senior Editor Chris Carey and Developer Adam Daigle, who took the torch and ran with it.

I can't explain how important the journal has been to us, and especially to me. It was the constant process of developing—and often writing—chapters of those early journals that eventually convinced me I might have what it took to write a novel, and I know I wasn't the only one that learned from it. The Pathfinder Tales novel line grew directly out of the success of the journal, and it's no surprise that many authors—and even characters like Dave Gross's Varian and Radovan—leapt straight from journal to novels, with great aplomb.Yet probably the biggest impact the journal had was on the setting. In those early days, we were still building the Inner Sea region with every story, and tons of iconic characters and locations first saw the light of day there. It's where we learned about bloatmages and orc warbeasts, where we met Shoanti burn riders and Urglin gladiators and heard a serpentfolk's telepathic speech in our heads.

And now, almost a decade later, we're bringing it to a close. Starting with Pathfinder Adventure Path #115, the first of the Ironfang Invasion volumes, we'll be retiring the Pathfinder's Journal. (Fun fact: We were actually going to retire the section half a year earlier, then realized we'd be kicking ourselves forever if we didn't take the chance to let six different authors write six Lovecraftian stories!) The reasons for retirement are many, but in the end, it comes down to the fact that we just don't need it anymore. The journal was always about seeing Golarion through the eyes of its residents, rather than the omniscient overview of a GM. Today, we have the Pathfinder Tales novel line, with far more space in which to bring you the best stories, the most vibrant character, and the most detailed locations. It's the Pathfinder's Journal all grown up.

So what's going to be taking the Journal's place? In short: more! More and longer backmatter articles! Longer adventures! More monsters! More of all the material Pathfinder Adventure Path already provides to help you run your game. It's not my place to spoil what Crystal's got in store for you, but from what I've overheard the developers giggling about, it's going to be awesome. And for those readers who miss the fiction—come on over to the Pathfinder Tales section and let us hook you up.

Thanks to everyone who's read the journal all these years. We wouldn't be who we are without it—and without all of you.

James L. Sutter
Creative Director

Behind the Book—Starspawn

Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Hey there! Josh Vogt speaking... er... typing. I hate to interrupt your regularly scheduled Pathfinder Tales blog post that James Sutter usually provides, but he's so focused on Starfinder these days that I think I can steal his slot without him noticing until it's too late...

Illustration by Eric Belisle

If you ever get the chance to meet Wendy Wagner in person, you'll likely come away a little dazzled by the joyful energy she projects. It's practically impossible to not to get swept up in her enthusiasm about any topic you happen to latch on to, be it a favorite recipe or a fantastic horror flick. Whatever the project, Wendy is sure to bring a real passion to it.

The thing is, this same energy comes through in her writing. In her first Pathfinder Tales novel, Skinwalkers, Wendy introduced us to Jendara, an ex-pirate who'd given up her marauding ways to try and raise her son. However, raids by a brutal clan of shapeshifters threatens the safety of her island home, and Jendara must use her wits and axe-wielding prowess to defend those she cares for at all costs.

Reading Skinwalkers made me realize I'd never want to get into a cage match with Wendy, because she refuses to pull a punch. Her characters feel incredibly vibrant and alive. Her action scenes leave you breathless. Her descriptions can be brutally detailed (did I mention her penchant for horror, both subtle and shocking?). So when I heard that Wendy would be tackling another Pathfinder Tales novel, Starspawn, I was thoroughly excited, even before I found out the premise would be...

Vikings versus Cthulhu.

Vikings. Versus. Cthulhu.

I mean, come on—I could practically see Wendy grinning with glee at being able to pit seafaring barbarians against Lovecraftian horrors. And I knew she'd do a smashing job of it, too.

In Starspawn, Jendara returns, and is once more trying to find a measure of peace in life. Yet the stars are aligned against her, and when an unnatural tsunami devastates the area, it leaves a mysterious island in its wake. Strange structures, murderous cultists, and mind-twisting art are just a few of the disturbing elements Jendara and her crew encounter on exploring the new island—but these are hardly the most terrifying things they'll be forced to face before the end.

So get ready for Wendy to ramp up the adventure, the horror, and the thrills, all while delving into the sanity-skewing intersection of the Elder Mythos and Golarion—a perfect appetizer to get you in the mood for the new Strange Aeons Adventure Path. I know I'll be enjoying the adrenaline rush the whole way.

Josh Vogt
Editor

Behind the Book—Liar's Bargain

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

It's no secret that I find Tim Pratt hilarious. I first got a taste of his snarky humor back in 2012 in his first Pathfinder Tales novel, City of the Fallen Sky—and Skiver remains one of my favorite supporting characters—but it was in 2013's Liar's Blade that he introduced the charming con man Rodrick and his talking sword Hrym and won my heart forever.

Illustration by Eric Belisle

See, humorous fantasy is really, really difficult to do well. If you're not careful, it can end up feeling juvenile or corny, or else become a farce—a wink-nudge pastiche that is as much laughing at fantasy as with it. Tim's humor, on the other hand, comes from the characters he creates. The world isn't designed to be humorous—it's as serious as our own—but the characters find the humor inherent in even the bleakest circumstances, often at their own expense. This is Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser territory, as well as that of glorious 80s action-comedies like Die Hard and Lethal Weapon, and the snappy self-aware dialogue of a Tarantino or George Clooney character. It's bombastic action that understands the frequent absurdity that goes hand in hand with being awesome.

Which is why, when Tim pitched me on the idea of a new Rodrick and Hrym novel with the phrase "Rodrick and Hrym join the Suicide Squad," I was hooked. Where Liar's Island had been a chance for us to check out Jalmeray in a way we hadn't since the module Cult of the Ebon Destroyers, this book would focus on some of our more familiar settings: Lastwall and Nirmathas. It'd also give Tim the chance to invent a bunch of high-end criminals, and make them all try to work together, which goes about as well as trapping a bunch of cats in a sack. (When Rodrick's starting to sound like the reasonable one, you know you're in trouble.) Add in a favorite monster from the very birth of Pathfinder, and I was sold.

I deeply enjoyed the chance to ride along with the Bickering Duo again in Liar's Bargain, and I hope you will as well!

James L. Sutter
Creative Director

Liar's Bargain Sample Chapter

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

When caught stealing in the crusader nation of Lastwall, veteran con man Rodrick and his talking sword Hrym expect to weasel or fight their way out of punishment. Instead, they find themselves ensnared by powerful magic, and given a choice: serve the cause of justice as part of a covert team of similarly bound villains—or die horribly. Together with their criminal cohorts, Rodrick and Hrym settle in to their new job of defending the innocent, only to discover that being a secret government operative is even more dangerous than a life of crime...

Chapter 3: A Conversation Through Bars

Rodrick's experience of the nations around Lake Encarthan had given him the impression that it was a land of timbered buildings and towering trees and dirt floors, so he'd expected Vellumis to be basically an immense fort.

It was with great surprise, then, that he turned his head to see a gleaming city of marble domes, immense archways, glistening white walls, and elaborately carved eaves. While Vellumis didn't match the majesty of Absalom, or even his home city of Almas, it was without a doubt a real city, and Rodrick felt himself begin to relax for the first time in weeks. Yes, he was a prisoner, and if he couldn't talk his way out of his predicament, Hrym would have to freeze a great number of noble crusaders to allow Rodrick to escape. But still, this was a city, the kind of place where he was most at home, the kind of place where great things could happen, the kind of place where fools and their money could be most expeditiously parted.

The cart curved around the outskirts of the city until it finally approached a domed fortress of stone surrounded by a high wall. "The Bastion of Justice," the guard said. "Some of the best dungeons in all of Lastwall down there, I'm told."

Rodrick thought about that. "Best... as in... most pleasant for prisoners? Or best as in most effective at destroying a prisoner's will to live?"

The guard just smiled.

The gates opened, and the cart rolled into a courtyard full of military bustle: crusaders training, grooms doing things to horses, people running to and fro with urgency. The clash of steel on steel, the clang of hammers shaping metal, the smell of forge fires—Rodrick found it all terribly depressing. They were so organized. How could anyone stand it?

A crusader with a round helmet jammed on her head approached, frowning. "Do you have a prisoner for us?"

The captain nodded. "One for Underclerk Temple, I think."

The crusader whistled. "Really? Let me see." She climbed up onto the cart, and instantly drew her sword, leveling it at Rodrick. "Why does the prisoner still have a weapon?"

The captain sighed. "Because his sword is sentient and magical and promised to murder anyone who tried to disarm his master."

"It's true," Hrym said. "Except he's not my master. We're partners. He's the junior partner, really."

"No one needs to murder anyone," Rodrick said. "This is just a misunderstanding, and it can all be worked out. I'm a fighter for the side of good myself, mainly, just fallen on hard times lately."

The official nodded slowly, but didn't sheathe her sword. "Yes. One for Temple, indeed. Sir, you do realize you're in the middle of Vellumis, a city of battle-hardened crusaders?"

"I've noticed, yes. Lovely city, too. Much nicer than I expected."

"Will you hand over the sword, so we can talk without quite so much... tension?"

"It's not up to me, I'm afraid. Hrym, would you like to go with this nice crusader?"

"No," Hrym said.

Rodrick gave an apologetic shrug. "Sorry. He can be very stubborn."

The woman rubbed her jaw with her free hand. "All right, then." She shouted "Clear the courtyard!" in a booming voice, and then sat staring at Rodrick for three full minutes, the force of her attention entirely withering his attempts to dazzle her with a charming smile. After the courtyard had emptied of all personnel, including the big priest and the friendly-ish spear-carrier, the crusader leaned forward and cut the ropes tying Rodrick's feet. She stepped out of the cart and beckoned him to follow. Rodrick struggled upright and climbed out of the cart, his hands still bound in front of him, but both resting on Hrym's hilt.

She led him through deserted hallways of dark stone and down spiraling stairs, deep into the Bastion of Justice. "Not very well staffed, are you?"

"Everyone is avoiding the area until I have you secured, so if your sword does anything... inadvisable... casualties will be minimal."

"Good for everyone else. Not so good for you."

She shrugged. "Rank has its drawbacks."

"What if I froze you solid and we ran away?" Hrym said.

"Your wielder would be filled with crossbow bolts the moment he poked his head outside," she replied.

"Ah. That's what I thought," Hrym said.

"Here we are," she said eventually, gesturing.

"Ah," Rodrick said. "Yes. Only the best dungeons for me."

∗ ∗ ∗

Rodrick didn't need long to explore his new home: a small room of bare stone with straw thrown on the floor, furnished only by a bench carved from a single piece of wood, so there were no nails to pry loose or legs to break off to use as weapons. Before he had time to become too bored, a guard opened the barred door and let in a gray-haired, sour-faced man carrying a black bag.

"Hello," Rodrick said. "What's in the bag?"

"Tools of the trade."

"You aren't a torturer, are you?"

The man barked a laugh. "Depends on who you ask. I'm a chirurgeon. Mostly I cut off infected arms and legs to keep the rot from spreading, but I'm just supposed to see if you're healthy or not."

"If you try to give him a sleeping draught or harm him in any way, I will bring terrible destruction down on this place," Hrym said.

The man frowned. "A talking sword, they said. I thought they were playing a joke. Oh well. Doesn't matter to me. Swords never need tending on the battlefield, at least not from me. Stand up, would you, and stick out your tongue?"

Rodrick had undergone the occasional physical exam in the past, and this was less invasive than some: the doctor listened to his heart and lungs by pressing an ear to his chest, peered into his mouth and ears and nostrils, made Rodrick cough, prodded at his gums, asked him disgustingly personal questions about his recent bowel movements and whether he had any pain when he passed water. For the most part, Rodrick answered honestly.

"All right, I'm done." The doctor picked up his bag, which he'd never even opened.

"What's the verdict?" Rodrick said.

The man shook his head. "You don't pay me. Why should I tell you?"

A guard let the chirurgeon out, and closed the door, and that was all that happened, for a while.

∗ ∗ ∗

"I could pick the lock, if there was a lock." Rodrick examined the door of the cell. "The door seems to be sealed by magic, which isn't very sporting."

"Rodrick, I can freeze the bars and you can break them with a kick."

"True. A bit loud, though. Might bring the guards running."

"So I'll freeze them, and you kick them as well."

"I see a few flaws with that plan."

"You're softhearted, Rodrick. You should be more like me. I don't have any heart at all, soft or otherwise."

"Even if the prospect of indiscriminate murder didn't give me pause, I'm still hoping for a more elegant solution than destroying the Bastion of Justice and bringing the wrath of the entire nation of Lastwall down on us. They can be quite persistent, I understand, and I'd rather not be pursued across the continent. Though I accept that as a tactic of last resort."

The door at the end of the hall opened with a squeal of rusty hinges. Rodrick wondered if the door made that noise naturally or if they'd worked on it with dirt and sand and steel wool to create the right ominous tone.

A short, stout woman of middle age walked down the hallway at a brisk, no-nonsense pace. Her skin was dark brown, her hair curly and cropped short, with a great deal of gray mixed in with the black. She wore vaguely official-looking black robes with baggy sleeves, and carried a burlap sack in one hand. Rodrick thought she looked rather matronly, until she stopped outside the bars and smiled at him; then she looked more like someone who might eat her young, if the need arose. "My name is Underclerk Temple. I am a humble servant of the Bastion of Justice, and I've been chosen to oversee your case."

In Rodrick's experience those who described themselves as humble servants were usually neither—they tended to be zealous priests or power-mad dictators—so he nodded politely. "Very pleased to meet you. I hope we can straighten this out. It's all just a misunderstanding, really."

"Oh? You didn't try to steal a horse from a group of crusaders?"

"I did, but there were mitigating factors—"

"You needed the horse to escape the consequences of an earlier crime, yes, I heard. I don't think there's any misunderstanding. It's a simple case, hardly worthy of my attention. I don't usually bother meeting with horse thieves. I concern myself with a better caliber of criminal. But word reached me of your supposed exploits in the Lake of Mists and Veils, and of course about your wondrous sword, and my curiosity was piqued."

"My wondrous sword and I are happy to answer any questions you might have."

"Oh, I may have some later, but I spent much of last night in correspondence with some associates of mine in Andoran and Absalom—we have magic mirrors, much faster than relying on couriers to carry letters—and I think I have a full understanding of your capabilities and history. I haven't found much in the way of confirmation regarding your claim to have defeated a demon lord, but there's a certain amount of circumstantial evidence, and I have assurances that you at least believe your story to be true."

"I'm either a hero or a madman, then?"

"The difference between those two can be very slight," Temple said. "I don't think you're either one, personally. You're a thief, a confidence trickster, and an opportunist who occasionally does the right thing, when there's no more profitable alternative available. You also have a loyal friend who happens to be a magical sword as dangerous as an ancient white dragon."

"Pleased to meet you," Hrym said.

Illustration by Raymond Swanland

"Oh, good. I was afraid you might say, 'Ice to meet you,'" Temple said. "I loathe puns. But, yes, it's... interesting to meet you, too, Hrym. We don't usually lock prisoners up with their weapons, but I suppose in this case you qualify as a prisoner, too."

Hrym harrumphed. "Are you a wizard, then? Can you stop me from doing the things I do? Because if not, you should be aware I'm a prisoner for only as long as I consent to be a prisoner. Otherwise I'm just a guest in very poor accommodations."

"I am a simple bureaucrat," Temple said. "My talents are organizational, not arcane. Here, Rodrick, catch." She tossed something small and glittering through the bars, and Rodrick snatched it from the air without thinking. He opened his palm and looked down at a ruby the size of his thumbnail.

"Usually I'm the one bribing my guards, not the other way around."

"Burrow," Temple said, and Rodrick screamed as the ruby sank into the flesh of his hand with a sensation like a thousand biting insects swarming across his palm. The gem moved under his skin, and he clamped his other hand tightly around his wrist, but it did no good: he felt the gem slide beneath his gripping fingers and watched as it traveled under the skin along his inner forearm, past the crook of his elbow, scurrying over his bicep and vanishing beneath the sleeve of his shirt. He could still feel the ruby moving, like a chip of swallowed ice moving down the throat, but this icy sensation traveled to his shoulder and then down into his chest, stopping in the vicinity of his heart—at which point the sensation vanished entirely.

Hrym was shouting from the bench: "Rodrick! What's wrong? Should I kill everyone?"

"I wouldn't," Temple said mildly. "That gem is... let's say... an encouragement to good behavior."

"She gave me a ruby, Hrym." Rodrick stared at his palm, which no longer hurt, and which was entirely unmarked. "It crawled under my skin like a burrowing insect and scuttled next to my heart."

"I told you having a heart was a weakness," Hrym said.

"I always thought you meant that metaphorically." Rodrick rubbed at his chest, the banter coming weakly and automatically.

"Metaphorically too. Let me guess, Underclerk Temple: if Rodrick disobeys, the gem will, what—explode into crystal fragments, shredding his heart?"

"Not technically accurate, but practically accurate, yes. Disobedience equals death."

"And if, say, I flung an icicle through your heart right now, and blew a hole in the wall, and Rodrick and I ran off?"

"That would be rude. It also wouldn't help. If I don't speak a particular phrase each morning, the gem will do its work regardless. Killing me now would sentence Rodrick to death tomorrow."

Hrym chuckled. "This is a promising development, Rodrick."

He stared at the sword. "I... disagree. Weren't you listening?"

"Yes, but you weren't, or at least, not closely enough. If she's threatening you with death, that means they aren't planning to put you to death."

"I'm not sure slavery is preferable to death, Hrym." He still had his hand over his heart, trying not to think of crystal shards ripping him apart from the inside.

Temple clucked her tongue. "No, no. You misunderstand. It's not slavery at all. Think of it as community service. In your home country of Andoran, some minor offenses are punished not with beatings or fines or years in a dungeon, but simply by making the guilty party clean up horse dung on the streets or scrape barnacles off naval ships for a few weeks, yes? This is a similar situation. You will assist me with certain projects, and after a certain period, you will be set free, your debt to society paid. The program is quite enlightened and civilized. I have concluded that you'll be more useful to Lastwall alive than you would be dangling at the end of a rope."

"Ah," Rodrick said. "I see. You want to hurl my body into the teeth of some horrible problem you don't dare risk one of your own people on. Or is it more interesting than that? Perhaps you want me to embark on some mission that no legitimate member of Lastwall's government can undertake. If I succeed, I get no credit, and if I fail in some spectacular way—well, I'm just a rogue criminal, and your government can't be blamed for my reprehensible actions."

"What a marvelous grasp of the situation!" Temple said. "Of course, there's no reason it can't be both. I can already tell working with you will be a delight. Would you like to meet the rest of the team?"

"You mean I'm not the only luckless bastard you've roped into this scheme?"

"No, merely the latest. I'll let you out of the cell, but I'll need you to sheathe Hrym in this." She held up a long scabbard made of green crystal.

"I've had less attractive accommodations," Hrym said.

"But not more restful." Temple tapped a ring on her finger against the crystal, which rang like metal. "This scabbard is made of rare skymetal, brought at great expense from Numeria."

"I knew a man with a skymetal chainmail shirt once, and saw it turn an arrow as big as a spear fired from a giant's bow—it would have pierced plate mail." Rodrick frowned. "Of course, the impact still cracked all his ribs, and one of those punctured his lungs, but still, I was impressed. The shirt wasn't made of green crystal, though."

"Probably adamantine," she said. "This is made of noqual, and though it looks like crystal, it can be forged like iron. Noqual has fascinating properties—mainly the suppression of magic. When we sheathe Hrym here, he'll fall asleep, more or less."

"I don't like the sound of that," Hrym said.

"Nor I," Rodrick agreed.

Temple shrugged. "Consider my situation. I'm trying to make an enforceable bargain with a pair of desperate criminals. I can compel Rodrick's good behavior with that gem, but you, Hrym, are a trickier beast to reckon with. Threatening Rodrick seems to make you behave... but can I count on that to work forever? In this sheath, you can do no harm. You'll be returned to Rodrick when you're needed to help him with a mission. In the meantime, you won't be bored, and I won't have to worry about you burying the Bastion of Justice in a mountain of ice because you're offended that Rodrick stubbed his toe."

Rodrick shook his head. "Why should we believe you? What's to stop you from selling Hrym off, or presenting him as a gift to some high-ranking crusader?"

"Know this, Rodrick of Andoran." Temple leaned forward, her dark eyes fixed on his face. "I will never lie to you. Our relationship depends on my absolute power over your life and death, and that relationship renders most lies unnecessary. I may not tell you the whole truth, but anything I do tell you, you can believe. If you consent to put Hrym away in this scabbard for now, you will be reunited with him later—sooner than you think—and in the meantime, I'll introduce you to the other recruits, and explain the particulars of your new situation."

Rodrick touched his chest. He couldn't feel the ruby, but he knew it was there. "Hrym, our choices seem to be either going along with the esteemed underclerk's plans, or dying in a courageous but pointless last stand."

"I wouldn't die," Hrym said. "But I would be trapped at the center of a mountain of magical ice. Killing everyone would be satisfying, but the consequences would be boring."

"I have one stipulation, Temple. I assume these little errands you want me to run will be dangerous?"

Temple shrugged. "For someone with your skills? Not very. But accidents do happen."

"In the event of my death, Hrym is to be offered retirement on a pile of gold coins, not an eternity of dreamless sleep in a magical scabbard."

"And if I refuse?"

"Everyone has to die someday, Temple," Rodrick said. "If my day has come, I would at least have the satisfaction of taking you with me."

Temple nodded. "Very well. I'll make that amendment to your agreement. You'll have a chance to review the contract." She slid the scabbard through the bars of the cell.

Rodrick took it—the sheath was heavier than it looked—and knelt by the bench. "We'll figure something out, Hrym."

"We always do. Worst case, we can just do what she says. Perform a few tasks, and then take our freedom."

"You believe her?"

"I do. She has a trustworthy face."

"I thought all humans looked alike to you."

"Stop stalling," Hrym said. "At least in that sheath I'll get a moment's peace from your prattling."

Rodrick slid Hrym into the scabbard, which was too long for him but otherwise a good fit, and then passed him through the bars.

Temple tucked the scabbard under her arm like it was a rolled-up broadsheet. She spoke a word of magic and the cell door swung open. She beckoned, and Rodrick followed her out. He briefly considered hitting her over the head, grabbing the scabbard, and fleeing, but it was idle speculation. It was possible she was lying about the gem, but it was hardly a risk he was willing to take.

Temple took him down the familiar corridor, then through a nondescript wooden door and down a spiraling stone staircase that descended below the earth, every landing lit with a magical glowing orb. "The Bastion must be quite well funded," he said. "Most places just use lanterns."

"Ah, but with a single word I can extinguish all these lights, or cause them to flare to blinding brightness, or even to explode in cascades of fire. We're very conscious of security here in the Bastion." She didn't sound threatening at all, which was somehow even more threatening.

After taking the rest of the descent in silence, they reached a heavy door of oak banded in iron, also lacking a keyhole. Temple pressed her hand against it, and the door swung inward.

Beyond was something between a spacious apartment and a palatial office. Amazingly, natural light suffused one corner of the room, which at first Rodrick took to be magic, but then he realized there was a light well: a narrow shaft running all the way from the surface to these subterranean depths, shining on a small plot of flowering and leafy plants. The floor was stone, but liberally covered with rugs. The walls were hung with a strange assortment of items: a broken sword, the stuffed head of an orc with unusually prominent fangs, a horned iron helmet with a star-shaped hole in one side. A desk was set up against one wall, beside an apothecary's cabinet full of hundreds of small drawers and a shelf filled with volumes and scrolls. In the middle of the room there were several chairs and settees arranged around a low wooden table. There was even a kitchen of sorts: a woodstove with a teakettle on top, a cabinet full of cups and dishes, another full of dry goods, a large stone basin, and even the handle of a water pump. There was a hallway not far from the light well, with closed doors on either side and one at the end, open to reveal a set of bunk beds. This was a fully contained set of living quarters, then. As far as barracks went, he'd seen worse.

Rodrick took in the surroundings at a glance, but he spent more time looking over the people, though he tried not to make his examination obvious. The most striking of the group was a devilkin woman perched on the edge of the desk, looking entirely human apart from her crimson skin and dark blue lips. She was quite shapely, and dressed to show it off in high boots, tight breeches, and a blouse unlaced halfway down her cleavage. She had long black hair bundled into a ponytail, a pretty face, bright eyes, and a smirk that was several degrees beyond "insufferable": she looked immensely pleased with herself, and as if you should be pleased with her, too, if you had any sense.

Standing in a corner behind her was a tall man wearing a heavy brown winter cloak despite the warmth of the room. His skin was the color of curdled cream, and judging by the gauntness of his face, he must be calamitously thin and cadaverous under that cloak. His eyes were the same muddy brown as his clothing, though the whites were more like yellows: Rodrick thought of piss in a snow bank. The man looked ill, but also like he'd been ill for a very long time, and was getting along fine despite it.

The others sat by the low table, one lounging in an armchair, and the last sitting stiffly upright on a bench against the wall. The lounger was a woman of perhaps twenty-five with the features of someone from Jalmeray or the Impossible Kingdoms—dark skin, dark eyes, dark hair—but dressed in Inner Sea garb, a pale blue blouse and skirt over dark leggings and boots, with a sheathed dagger at her waist. The last was an old man in a baggy shirt with ink-stained cuffs and the attentive and acquisitive eyes of a crow, wearing a pair of pince-nez spectacles. Even so, he looked less like a scholar and more like one of those hard, sinewy old men you saw in the country, who could heave hay bales and slaughter cows all day long and still have energy left over to chase away perfectly harmless trespassers with a pitchfork.

"Welcome," Temple said, "to the first meeting of the Lastwall Volunteers."

Purchase the whole novel here!

Behind the Book—Hellknight

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Later this month the new Pathfinder Tales novel, Hellknight by Liane Merciel releases! So, I wanted to drop in and tell you all why this book might just be your new favorite in the line.

If you've been following the novels for a while (and if you aren't, you can subscribe right here and stop missing out), you probably know Liane best from Nightglass and Nightblade. Through the adventures of Isiem and his companions, Liane did more than anyone to establish the dark yet terrifyingly realistic flavor of Nidal's society, as well as much of our understanding of the winged strix. I make no secret of my admiration for the work she's done fleshing out that part of our world, so when she proposed turning her attention to Cheliax and the Hellknights, I knew that I could trust her to bring some of the most important pieces of our campaign setting to life.

And did she ever! See, without realizing it, Liane had been training for this book for years. She had spent countless sessions playing through the Council of Thieves Adventure Path, steeping in the lore of Westcrown and the surrounding region until she was an even greater expert than those of us who created it. She's meticulous with the canon, and running across all the tiny cameos and easter eggs in this novel made the setting feel alive in the way only the best tie-in books do.

Illustration by Roberto Pitturru

Yet the best example of that skill comes in the main characters themselves. You've got Ederras, a Chelish paladin of Iomedae struggling to reconcile his calling with his rightful place in Cheliax's aristocracy. You've got Velenne, a spellcasting scion of House Thrune who can scheme with the best of them. And you've got Jheraal—illustrated here by Eric Belisle—a tiefling Hellknight specialized in solving crimes whose devotion to her order is trumped only by her dedication to the secret daughter she gave up for adoption. While far from perfect, these people are all heroes, and together they show better than I've ever seen how Chelish society can emerge from the actions of fundamentally ordinary people. Velenne in particular fascinates me, because she exemplifies how someone can be part of an evil organization like House Thrune and still be human, relatable—even likeable. A person with hopes and dreams and loves... and profane compacts with Hell.

It's a tribute to Liane's work that even Erik Mona, who created Cheliax and House Thrune, came away from the novel saying he felt like he understood that part of our setting much better now. So if you're playing in a Cheliax-based adventure path—such as, say, Hell's Rebels or Hell's Vengeance—there's really no better primer for the flavor of those campaigns than Hellknight.

So there you go! A paean to the ambiguities of society and the human condition, and—

Wait, what's that? You want to know what the book's actually about?

Oh, well, there's somebody hideously murdering tieflings in Westcrown and stealing their still-beating hearts. And shadow monsters. And graveknights. And an exploration of the Hellknights' greatest shame, one so sinister that an entire order was destroyed to keep it quiet. Sound good? Yeah, I thought so too.

Anyway, please give the book a read, then come back to the forums to let me and Liane know what you think—we'd love to hear from you!

James L. Sutter
Executive Editor

Hellknight Sample Chapter

Wednesday, March 30, 2016

In Hellknight, dive deeper than ever before into the brutal organization of warriors and spellcasters dedicated to maintaining law and order at any cost. For devil-blooded Jheraal, a veteran Hellknight investigator, even the harshest methods are justified if it means building a better world for her daughter. Yet things get personal when a serial killer starts targeting hellspawn like Jheraal and her child, somehow magically removing their hearts and trapping the victims in a state halfway between life and death. With other Hellknights implicated in the crime, Jheraal has no choice but to join forces with a noble paladin and a dangerously cunning diabolist to defeat an ancient enemy for whom even death is no deterrent...

Chapter 1: The Scholar's Murder
Jheraal

Birds cared nothing for murder.

Sweetly they sang from the branches of the fig and lemon trees that wreathed the grounds of Vaneo Celverian, the city manor of proud, ancient House Celverian. Under the elegant tile roofs and gilded balustrades, all might be in panic, but nothing disturbed the birds among their sun-dappled leaves. They sang and sang, bright as joy, while down below, mortal men and women struggled to grasp the enormity of loss.

They'd suffered a staggering one, Jheraal knew. Master Othando Celverian, second and favored son of Lord Abello Celverian, heir to his house and hope of his family's future, had been murdered in the night. Others had been killed, too, but in Cheliax, only one of those deaths really mattered.

Out on the grand lawn, a semicircle of maids, grooms, cooks, and washerwomen in white and gold-slashed blue stood where they'd been turned out for her inspection. Every one of House Celverian's servants was a picture of shock and grief. The younger maids held handkerchiefs to their tear-puffed eyes, while the older servants muttered about what they'd do when they found their master's killer.

Both the sobbing and the plotting died abruptly when Jheraal rode into the servants' view. One did not cry before Hellknights, and one certainly did not conspire to commit crimes. A sullen hush fell over the Celverian household as Jheraal's chestnut destrier trotted across the graveled path, coming to a halt before the chief steward.

He was a tall man, spare and elegant and silver-haired, and although Jheraal was framed against the sun, he looked up into its full glare without blinking. "Sir?"

"I'm here to investigate the murders." Jheraal removed her fearsome, devil-visaged helm, allowing the servants to see her face.

It caused a stir, as she had known it would. House Celverian's people were well trained, and other than a gasp from one of the youngest grooms and a few tightened mouths and half-steps backward, none showed an overt reaction to her appearance. But Jheraal read their shock all the same.

The hellspawn taint ran strong in her. Jheraal's skin was white as snow and covered with fine, soft scales, each one edged with a faint shimmer of copper. A pair of four-inch horns, curved and sharp as a goat's, poked through her bronze-streaked black hair. They fitted into the hollows of the horns in her helm, and had indirectly served as inspiration for the same.

It was not unheard of for the devil-blooded to serve among the Hellknights, but neither was it common. In Cheliax, hellspawn were widely considered to be no part of proper society, and few of them received the training in arms or spellcraft needed to gain acceptance into the Hellknight orders' ranks. Yet here she was, armored in the scarred breastplate and horned helm that marked her as a full Hellknight sworn to the Order of the Scourge.

The chief steward, a consummate professional, tipped his head downward in an extremely correct nod, affording Jheraal precisely the degree of courtesy that her status warranted. "It is our honor. Should we be expecting any of your associates?"

As he spoke, his eyes flicked to the star of bleeding lashes painted on Jheraal's shield. That was the Scourge's sigil, and the steward's unspoken query was clear: Will the Order of the Rack be coming?

It was a delicate question. The Hellknight Order of the Rack, based in Citadel Rivad near Westcrown, was the primary order of Hellknights in the city. Jheraal's order, the Scourge, was less well known and much less strongly represented, which was both advantage and disadvantage: it gave her greater independence, but fewer resources to call upon.

Less currency with the common people, too. As Westcrown had long been troubled by rumblings of dissent, Her Imperial Majestrix, Queen Abrogail Thrune II, had granted the Order of the Rack wide-sweeping authority to detain, question, and even execute suspected rebels in the city.

And although the Order of the Rack held the preservation of peace to be its highest duty, the methods it chose to achieve that duty were not always peaceful. In much of Westcrown, the order had a fearsome reputation. Few Wiscrani were glad to see them coming.

House Celverian, Jheraal recalled, might have more reason than most to be wary where the Order of the Rack was concerned. There had been some trouble with the eldest son, who'd gotten caught up in the idealistic fervor of the young. He hadn't been accused of any serious wrongdoing, and his father's influence had hushed any whiff of scandal, but nevertheless the boy had been sent packing to a crusader's exile in Mendev.

That had been years ago. Well over a decade, in fact. But fear could take a long time dying, and Jheraal couldn't blame the servants of House Celverian for being cautious.

"The Order of the Rack has no part in this investigation," she said. Some of the servants relaxed visibly at her words. Out of long habit, Jheraal noted their faces, as well as those of the servants who didn't blink at all. "The dottari will assist in whatever capacity they can, but they will not send a separate investigator. In this matter, I serve both the throne and my order. All of us wish to see your master's killer brought to justice. You have my condolences for your loss."

"We are grateful for your kindness. I have the honor of being Belvadio, chief steward of this house. Lord Abello Celverian should be arriving late tonight or early tomorrow. In the meantime, the household staff is at your disposal." The chief steward clapped his hands, signaling the end of the assembly. In a flurry of curtseys and bows, the maids, cooks, and house servants dispersed. Jheraal dismounted, and one of the grooms led her horse away. Two servants, a pair of boys who looked no older than fourteen, remained behind at the steward's signal.

"Achio and Tirol were the first to discover the... the... what had been done," Belvadio said, clearing his throat. "They found Nappandi, one of our guards, lying in the hedges and came together to wake me a little after midnight. I hastened to wake the young master, and that is when we found him. Master Othando had been murdered in his study, where he was accustomed to read nearly until dawn. There are still two servants unaccounted for. We have not found their bodies, but I fear the worst." The chief steward took a breath, quavering only slightly. "Where would you like to begin?"

"Show it to me as you found it." Jheraal had no reason to doubt the steward's honesty, but if there were any gaps in his story, she expected that it would be easiest to find them by walking alongside Belvadio and seeing whether the evidence matched his words.

"Of course. Please, this way." With a courtly bow, Belvadio led his armored guest through the gardens' fragrant shade toward the honeysuckle-threaded hedges that encircled the vaneo. Overhead, the birds continued their merry, oblivious song.

Although House Celverian's main seat lay in the hinterlands, and its manor in Westcrown was not as grand or expansive as the sprawling estates called vira, it took several minutes for them to reach the bloodstained spot by the walls where Nappandi's body had been found.

There wasn't much blood. Only a few brownish drops, already mostly soaked into the earth, and a patch of crushed clover near the base of the hedges where the body had lain. In the darkness, screened by the dense thorned shrubs, it might have been a long time before anyone noticed a body at night.

Jheraal crouched and looked for tracks that might have been left by the killer, but found none. Either Nappandi's assailant had known how to hide them, or the servants had already trampled out those traces.

She straightened with a clanking of steel and leather. "Your guard kept a regular patrol?"

"Yes. Every hour on the hour. Nappandi was extremely diligent. He would never have missed a round, nor been a minute late on his circuit."

Predictable, then. Easily evaded. The lack of struggle suggested that the killer had never been seen. He could have slipped by if he'd wanted, but instead he'd chosen to kill the guard.

"Was anything taken from his body?" Jheraal asked.

"Yes. A ring of keys. Nappandi had keys to most of the vaneo, other than the master's private rooms and the wine cellar. That was the only thing I could see that was stolen. Do you wish to examine the body?"

"Later. Show me where you went and what you did after you found him."

Belvadio glanced at the two boys behind him. They hung back nervously while Jheraal examined the blood-speckled grass. "After Achio and Tirol told me what they'd found, and I had confirmed with my own eyes that this was no prank, we went together to inform the master. I also sent word to the captain of our household guard that there was a murderer at large in the vaneo."

"How many guards do you have?"

"Four." The steward grimaced, shaking his head. "Three, with Nappandi dead. But none of the others saw whoever did this."

Jheraal nodded. Three household guards were unlikely, in her estimation, to present much difficulty for someone who could kill one of their number so easily and silently. That they had seen nothing meant little. There was no need to insult their honor by saying so, however. "Show me to Master Celverian's study."

"At once." With another neat bow, Belvadio strode toward the manor, the two younger servants trailing him like puppies. A few steps from the servants' door, he hesitated. "Do you wish to follow precisely the same path we took? These halls are... not grand enough for guests, I fear. I would not wish to cause any insult."

He is worried about offending the Hellknights. Belvadio's concern about ushering her through the servants' door might have been reasonable if he'd been dealing with the touchiest of high Chelish lords, but she had no illusions that a steward who'd spent his entire life in service to a great house really believed that her rank was so exalted, or her skin so thin. This was caution and nothing but.

Jheraal snorted. "I'm not a duchess, Belvadio. I won't be insulted by walking through the service door. Just show me where you went."

"Forgive my presumption." Producing a ring of keys from some unseen pocket inside his blue coat, Belvadio unlocked the door and stepped aside to hold it open. "The young master's library will be up the stairs and to the right."

"Lead on."

Illustration by Jason Rainville

He took her past the larder and buttery, through the kitchens, and up a flight of well-worn wooden stairs. No footprints stood out here, either.

At the top of the stairs, they reached the discreet little door that separated the servants' quarters from the nobles' halls. Quilted padding covered the servants' side of the door, insulating their superiors from any unwanted noise or smell that might drift up from the kitchens. The other side of the door, Jheraal noted, was painted white and adorned with gilded scrollwork. All the unsightliness—and all the function—was on the servants' side.

Although the servants' halls had been lit only by the daylight that streamed through their small, cloudy windows, enchanted lights shone serenely along the ceiling and upper walls of this corridor. Wide picture windows overlooked the manor's gardens, while carpets in faded blue and white sank under Jheraal's booted feet. The carpets were lush at the periphery but worn in the centers. That they hadn't been replaced suggested that House Celverian wasn't as rich as it had been in years past. No surprise. Failing fortunes were common among the old nobility that had declined to align strongly enough with House Thrune.

Nevertheless, it was lovely. The airy beauty of the upper hall was marred only by the faint whiff of blood that grew stronger as they approached an open door on the right.

"In there," Belvadio whispered. The color had drained from his face.

They hadn't moved the body. The mortal remains of Othando Celverian remained in the overstuffed armchair where he had presumably died. A linen sheet covered his slumped form imperfectly, trailing over part of the desk in front of him. A carafe and half-full wineglass rested on a silver tray near his elbow. Papers spilled across the floor by his side, along with a fallen candle stub trailing a comet's tail of wax spatters.

Jheraal stepped forward to examine him, taking care not to disturb the papers. "This is all as you found it?"

"Almost. There was... a cleric came before you. Udeno of Abadar. He looked over the master and said there was nothing he could do. Other than his examination, and the sheet I placed over the master, nothing has been touched."

The Hellknight nodded without looking up. With as much delicacy as she could muster, she lifted the sheet that covered Othando Celverian.

He had been a young man. Twenty-five, she guessed. Maybe a year or two to either side. Slim, handsome, with the soft hands and pale skin of a scholar who spent little time outdoors. Drying blood spilled from a single deep puncture wound on the side of his neck and darkened his sleeping robe in a crooked fan that widened as it stretched toward the floor. More blood painted the carpet behind him and to the side, and a single brownish-red fingerprint smudged his right arm near the elbow.

Othando's own hands were clean. That bloody fingerprint had come from someone else.

His face was buried in the pages of the book he'd been reading. When Jheraal lifted Othando's head, she saw that his eyes were wide and his lips slightly parted. The breeze from an open window fluttered dark blond hair across his brow. She couldn't tell if he had been talking, trying to cry out, or just gasping for breath in his last extremity, but it seemed that he'd been looking at someone when he died. The spill of blood from his wound suggested that he had turned toward, and then away from, something or someone at his back.

The killer? It was tempting to conclude that Othando must have seen his assassin. If he had, his shade might answer a cleric's prayer and identify his attacker.

Jheraal had been an investigator long enough to know that such hopes almost always proved futile. Something as simple as a mask or hood sufficed to prevent recognition, as every professional killer knew, and the dead were blessed with no more knowledge than they'd had in life. The Hellknight had worked on dozens of murders in the twelve years of her investigative career, all across Cheliax and its vassal states, and never once had she seen the spirit of an assassin's victim able to identify his killer. Amateurs might be named by the dead. Professionals never were.

That didn't mean she had no use for magic. Only that its use had to be less easily anticipated by her target.

She glanced at the open book. Drying blood gummed its pages and darkened the illustrations, but the lettering remained clear. It looked to be a collection of Taldan heroic stories—disgraced knights winning back the honor of tarnished houses, second sons and valiant daughters carving names for themselves in savage lands, heroes who vanquished monsters and won the love of their people. Tales to stir excitement into a quiet life.

The letters that had blown onto the floor appeared to be correspondence: invitations to various social events from other Wiscrani nobility, orders from his lord father at the family estate, and an unfinished letter from Othando himself to his exiled brother in Mendev.

Drawing the sheet back over the body, Jheraal stepped sideways to examine the desk. Two of the drawers were partly opened. One held signets in gold and bronze, sticks of sealing wax, unsharpened quills, a paring knife, and a wrinkled paper sachet of sugar-rolled mints. The other was empty save for a few faded stains at the bottom. The remaining drawers were locked.

She motioned to the desk. "Was anything taken from here? Or from Master Celverian himself?"

"I cannot be certain," Belvadio admitted. "The master's study was private. I did not notice anything stolen, but some small theft might have escaped my notice."

"How busy would the household have been at that hour?"

The steward took a moment to think it over. "We had no guests at the vaneo, and no entertaining planned for the next few days. Other than one or two of the under-cooks in the kitchen and the guards making their rounds, everyone should have been sleeping. Achio and Tirol were out only because they were making mischief."

"Was it Master Celverian's custom to leave that window open?" Jheraal gestured to the skylight, although she already knew the answer. That window was too high to be opened without the aid of a ladder, and she had seen none in the study.

Belvadio frowned, confirming her guess. "Pleasant as the weather is, no. The master was concerned that nothing should damage his books—not rain or sun or snow. The window was only to admit light to assist his reading. He never opened it."

"You said there were two other servants missing?"

"Chiella and Nodero." The steward fidgeted with a button, then caught himself and stopped, smoothing his coat. "Chiella was here when I sounded the alarm. I saw her with my own eyes. No one recalls seeing Nodero after he retired to his room last night. Both were gone by the time I found the master, or soon after."

"Do you believe they might have played some role in this?"

Belvadio shook his head vehemently. "Impossible. No one loved House Celverian more than Nodero and Chiella. Their loyalty is beyond question."

"You're sure of that? How?"

The silver-haired man exhaled. With a quick, uncomfortable glance at Jheraal, he said: "House Celverian has always been adamant that everyone in its service is to be dealt with fairly, as fits each person's talents and disposition, and that no one is to be slighted on account of their ancestry." Belvadio's eyes flickered to the carpet, avoiding her, on the word "ancestry."

The missing servants were hellspawn, then. No other reason for that discomfort. And not everyone on the staff was as accepting as their master had been, judging from the reception she'd gotten on the lawn.

"Those who offend this policy are dismissed without references, which is a death sentence for employment among the great houses. The young master, like his father, was an uncommonly enlightened man, and he was fiercely beloved by all who had the good fortune to serve him. It is inconceivable that either Chiella or Nodero would ever have done anything to hurt him, or to damage the honor of his house."

"As you say." It sounded like burnishing the virtues of the dead to her, but perhaps Othando Celverian really had been a saint among men. "I'll visit the church of Abadar to speak with the cleric who examined Master Celverian, and then return to the Order of the Rack's garrison. Please send word when his father, Lord Celverian, arrives in Westcrown."

"Of course." He followed her back out of the manor, keeping always two paces behind and a half-step to the side, like the most discreet of ghosts. As they reached the servants' door, however, the steward took a small step forward.

"Truly," he said, dropping his reserve for a moment and letting her see the real anguish beneath, "I don't believe Chiella or Nodero could have had any part in this horror, let alone both of them together. Never. In my bones, I know they are innocent. But I do believe someone might try to use them to discredit their kind. Not everyone approved of the master's views on hellspawn, and some of the servants I was forced to dismiss might seek revenge for their disgrace."

No servant could afford to hire an assassin with that much skill. They might have aided in the killer's plots, but they couldn't have been the driving force. "Did he have enemies among the nobility?"

"The young master? No. He was being courted by some of the lesser houses with marriageable daughters, but as yet he had chosen none, so no one had reason to be insulted by his refusal. He had no position at court and no place in political schemes, and his hobbies were harmless. Master Celverian was a dreamer and a scholar. He was no threat to anyone."

"What about the rest of his house?"

Belvadio opened the door. Outside, the sun was a glory and the birds were singing, and Westcrown's life went on. Even within the vaneo's walls, the rhythms of the day were returning. A washerwoman pinned damp sheets to her lines. Across the yard, a stocky, freckle-faced boy carted muck from the stables. Already, the night was beginning to recede in their memories.

"Their mistakes are in the past," the steward said, returning Jheraal to the city.

∗ ∗ ∗

The cleric of Abadar had little to tell her. Yes, he had gone to the vaneo that morning. Yes, he had seen Master Celverian's corpse. No, he had no suspicions regarding how the murder might have been carried out, nor about who would have had a motive to strike at House Celverian's younger son.

"It's what they do, isn't it?" Udeno shrugged. "The courts are snake pits. No surprise when one gets bitten by a viper."

Jheraal hadn't argued, but as she walked down the temple's steps back into the canal-lined streets of Westcrown's Rego Sacero, she'd thought, Not like this.

It was true that the Chelish nobility spent an inordinate amount of time plotting against each other, and that espionage and assassination were well-used weapons in their arsenals. But it was also true that blatant, barefaced murder was considered extremely bad form.

Cheliax prided itself on being a nation governed by law. Its killers might disguise their doings as hunting accidents, food poisoning, or highway robberies gone wrong. The more cunning and ambitious might even go so far as to trump up criminal charges and let the royal executioners take their enemies' heads.

But they did disguise their murders, because otherwise they invited the full wrath that Cheliax visited upon all those who broke its laws.

The assassination of a well-born scholar in his study was precisely the sort of crime that offended Her Imperial Majestrix and insulted her rule. That it had happened in Westcrown, which chafed at its loss of prominence under House Thrune and needed little provocation to stoke its smoldering discontents into new flame, made the investigation more urgent. And that the victim had been an eligible young bachelor who was actively courted by several Wiscrani houses added an edge of intrigue. Jheraal guessed that there were several furious dowagers who were eager to learn which of their rivals might have destroyed their daughters' prospects.

For all these reasons, it was exceedingly important that she find the killer.

No one had said this, of course. Not explicitly. The mere fact of her assignment made it clear enough. Jheraal was of the Order of the Scourge, and she had been chosen to investigate a crime in a city where the Order of the Rack held sway. There were any number of messages bound up in that, but the key one was that Her Imperial Majestrix expected results. Failure was not to be countenanced. That was why Jheraal, of all the investigators available to the Hellknights, had been singled out and sent to serve. The Queen wanted answers, and Jheraal was meant to find them.

The obvious course was to question Lord Celverian. But the lord hadn't yet arrived in Westcrown, so Jheraal returned to Taranik House, the Order of the Rack's base of operations in the city, to see whether any messages had come.

There was one. The courier, a towheaded halfling boy, was standing in the foyer and filling his satchel with new missives when Jheraal arrived. He dropped the packet he was holding and waved excitedly when he saw her. "Jheraal! Hellknight Jheraal!"

Jheraal raised a hand to calm him. "What?"

"I have a message of utmost urgency. Utmost! From Durotas Tuornos. His rundottari found bodies in Rego Cader. Two from House Celverian. The durotas said you'd want to know immediately. Here—he wrote this for you, but it only says the same thing." The boy held out a folded slip. It had been hastily written. The ink soaked through the cheap paper.

"He was correct." The Hellknight took the letter, gave it a cursory look, and put her horned helm back on. Rego Cader, the long-abandoned Dead Sector of the city, was infamously perilous, full of thieves and murderers and worse. Even the dottari, Westcrown's city guard, didn't like to linger in those blighted ruins. Rego Cader was so dangerous that it had its own division of the guard—the rundottari, or "ruin wardens"—dedicated exclusively to holding back the threats that proliferated in that sector. "Bodies, you said. Where, exactly? Are they still there?"

"I don't know." The halfling said, fumbling to pick up the packet he'd dropped, "but Durotas Tuornos is on the Obrigan Gate. He hoped that you would hurry. He hoped, also, that you would send word to the capital. For a wizard."

"Why? Aren't there enough wizards in Westcrown?"

"I don't know." The boy shook his head in helpless confusion. He closed his overstuffed bag and went to the door. "The durotas didn't tell me, not really. All he said was that there was magic in this. Deviltry. And... " he swallowed, "and that the dead might not be dead."

Purchase the whole novel here!

Behind Pirate's Prophecy

Thursday, February 4, 2016

We interrupt this blog for a special announcement: The Pathfinder Tales novel Death's Heretic is still totally free in audiobook form on Audible.com until February 16th! Grab it now before the offer expires!

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog post.

At this point, with three books in his Pirates series, you might think I'd be sick of talking about Chris Jackson's books. But you'd be wrong.

Illustrations by Eric Belisle

See, Chris is one of those authors that editors like me dream about. Not only is he a fabulous writer, perfectly balancing action and character development, but he also lives and breathes Pathfinder. He knows Golarion inside and out, and has a mastery of the rules that never ceases to amaze me. (Seriously, if you only knew the number of times he's brought up an interesting corner case or rules exploit that caused hours of discussion among the designers and developers...) Combined, those two aspects of his writing make his books a delight to read, both as a reader and as a gamer. How would naval combat work in Pathfinder? What kinds of magical defenses would a Chelish ship have? How could a naga best disguise herself as human? How might a sorcerer use magic to infiltrate a coven of paranoid witches? Chris uses the rules of magic not just as a storyteller looking to forward a plot, but as a person living in that world would, which means there's always something I can take away from his books for use at the gaming table.

Yet really, it's Chris's characters that get to me. At this point, I feel like I know Torius and Celeste and Snick and Vreva as well as I know Chris himself—maybe better, since I've spent so much time in their heads. They feel like real people to me, in a way that only the best characters do. When I suggest an edit to Chris, it's usually phrased like "Celeste wouldn't say that"—as if she were a mutual friend, rather than someone he made up out of whole cloth. That's the power of a good character.

So in Pirate's Prophecy, it's exciting to catch up again with the crew of the Stargazer, to see them settling into their new roles as abolitionist privateers for Andoran. While the crew may be perfectly happy to steal from slavers and spirit the freed slaves away to freedom, being involved in the world of international politics comes with a whole new heap of troubles. When expert spy Vreva Jhafae uncovers a Chelish plot to unleash a terrible weapon on Andoren ports, only the crew of the Stargazer can stop it without blowing her cover. Yet even as Vreva puts herself in harm's way with a series of Mission: Impossible style infiltrations, Celeste finds herself suddenly speaking in tongues and wrestling with the appearance of strange new powers...

James L. Sutter
Executive Editor

Pirate's Prophecy Sample Chapter

Wednesday, January 27, 2016

In Pirate's Prophecy, Captain Torius Vin has given up the pirate life in order to bring freedom to others. Along with his loyal crew and Celeste, the ship's snake-bodied navigator and Torius's one true love, the captain of the Stargazer uses a lifetime of piratical tricks to capture slave galleys and set the prisoners free. But when the crew's old friend and secret agent Vreva Jhafe uncovers rumors of a terrifying new magical weapon in devil-ruled Cheliax—one capable of wiping the abolitionist nation of Andoran off the map—will even their combined forces be enough to stop a navy backed by Hell itself?

Chapter 3: Prophecy and Deception

Water as dark as a devil's soul slipped past Stargazer's hull. The hiss of foam, creak of wood, and occasional flap of canvas would have been soothing to Celeste if not for the low scudding clouds that blocked the moon and stars. She felt stifled, as if a blanket of ignorance had been pulled over her head. Even the steady, familiar scuff of Torius's boots as he paced the quarterdeck couldn't assuage her frazzled nerves.

Without the stars, I'm blind.

They were following their usual indirect route to Almas, first sailing southeast toward Osirion to avoid any encounter with the Chelish navy, but had yet to make their turn northeast toward their true destination. Unfortunately, with the continuous low overcast, Celeste had been unable to accurately fix their position for several days. She only knew that they were approaching the Garund coast. Dead reckoning put them somewhere north of the Alamein Peninsula, but without the stars, her estimate could easily be off by fifty miles. Even if they missed the peninsula itself, such an error could put them on the unforgiving rocks of the Coast of Graves.

Who names places like that? She stared southward and saw nothing but blackness. Where was the light at Djedefar? Could the monks have let it go dark for some reason? Celeste tried to keep her tail from twitching. Generations of mariners had used the light of the tower for navigation—not because it was a designated lighthouse, but because monks faithful to Irori kept the Stepped Tower lit for their own inscrutable reasons. Had she missed some significant date or convergence of the stars that would signify a darkening of the beacon? Not seeing the stars for two days was bad enough. Approaching an unseen shore only made her more nervous.

Torius paused behind her, so close she could taste his intimately familiar scent on her sensitive tongue. The brush of his hand along her smooth scales eased her anxiety a little.

"Don't worry, love. The mercury in the weatherglass has been rising since sunset. The stars will show themselves soon." The confidence in Torius's voice might have been affected, but it was welcome."

"Right now I'm more worried about rocks than stars. I hate approaching a shore in the dark with no solid navigational fix."

"It's quiet enough to hear surf from a mile off, and we can tack in a heartbeat if we spot the shore. I just want to get a solid position fix so we can set a proper course."

"I know." Without the stars, a sighting of shoreside landmarks was the only sure way to know where they were. "It concerns me that we haven't seen the light of the Stepped Tower. If there's fog on the coast—"

"There!" Torius pointed low on the eastern horizon. "A break in the clouds."

Celeste caught sight of a single star glimmering to the east through the overcast for a moment before it vanished. More gaps in the clouds gave tantalizing glimpses of the heavens, but were too fleeting to distinguish constellations or identify individual stars. Celeste glanced at the rack of hour and minute glasses she used to keep time, and quickly calculated where the planets would be in the sky. Those she could identify even without constellations, but none of them shone through the overcast yet.

Bretheda, Verces, Castrovel ...where are you, my dears?

Celeste floated up her silver sextant in preparation. All she needed was a clear sighting on two of the three planets, and she would have their position.

"There!" She caught sight of Bretheda and raised her sextant to take a sighting.

A glint of red light on the instrument's polished silver caught her eye. At first she thought it was a reflection of the lamp from the binnacle compass, but the helm was behind her, blocked by her body. Lowering the sextant, she stared into the darkness, scanning the invisible horizon from windward to leeward. Nothing. What the... Then she looked up. A faint glow pulsed red through the thick, low clouds directly in front of the ship. Even as she opened her mouth to cry out a warning, the color shifted to purple, and Celeste knew exactly what it was.

"Torius! The Hor-Aha light!"

At the same moment, the lookout shouted down, "Light off the port bow! Up in the clouds!"

The Hor-Aha tower loomed out of the heavy mist not four ship-lengths ahead. Deadly stonework soared hundreds of feet high, a line of white surf frothing about the razor-sharp rocks at its base.

"Wear ship!" Torius thundered. "Sheet in the main! Man the braces!"

"Helm's hard astarboard!" Windy Kate called out as she hauled the big wheel over.

The crew responded like a well-oiled machine. Feet pounded down the deck, and callused hands pulled frantically on lines. Surf rumbled over black rocks a stone's throw off the port side. The deck leveled briefly as Stargazer turned downwind, then the heavy mainsail boom swept overhead with a lurch, and the deck heeled sharply to port as they rounded to the north. The rack of finely calibrated sand glasses and the small leather bag with Celeste's instruments started to slide toward the edge of the deck. She snatched the bag up with magic, and slithered to block the heavier rack of sand glasses with her coils.

As the brigantine steadied on her new course, slipping easily through the sea once again, Celeste watched Hor-Aha's lurid red shift to deep purple, then vanish into the mists in the ship's wake. The ancient lighthouse had once served as a navigational aid and warning for pending storms to Osirian ships, but the light had gone dark ages ago. Only recently had the light renewed, though it now only showed red and purple, the chromatic code for violent gales. Rumors about haunts and curses abounded, and the weather and currents around the spire were unnatural and unpredictable.

"Well, that was close." Torius plucked the rack of sand glasses from Celeste's coils and put it down on the upwind side of the quarterdeck. Nervous laughter sounded around the middeck as the crew settled from the near catastrophe.

"Too close." She put her bag of instruments down beside the rack, and glared down at the chart she'd pinned to the deck. "We're forty miles east of where I had us plotted. There must have been a countercurrent off the Alamein Peninsula that pulled us off course."

"Don't fret about it. I told you we could turn in a heartbeat." Torius caressed her scales and smiled.

Celeste fought to still her pounding heart as she looked to the east. More stars winked in the sky along the horizon as the overcast broke up. "Of course, now I can get sightings, since I no longer need them." She snatched a pencil out of her bag and marked an X on the chart right next to the symbol representing the ancient lighthouse.

"Gozreh's luck." Torius brushed her cheek with the back of his knuckles. "Good eye spotting the light."

"Thank you." Celeste smiled and leaned into the caress. Between her lover's touch and the stars now twinkling overhead, her stress slowly ebbed away. She drew a deep, calming breath and gazed skyward.

"After days of clouds, it's no wonder you're tense... " Torius pulled her close. "I'll leave you to enjoy the stars. We're headed for open sea, so I won't need a fix for the rest of my watch."

"Very well, my captain." Grogul wouldn't come up for the morning watch for an hour, so Celeste tucked her instruments back into her case.

Raising her face to the sky, she took in the beauty of the emerging stars. As the blanket of clouds swept to leeward, the heavens unfolded like a mound of glittering treasure. Overhead marched the constellations of the Cosmic Caravan, the planets scattered among them like brilliant escorts. For a little while, she tried to put aside her worries and just enjoy the view.

Spies... Never had Celeste thought that they would one day be trafficking secrets in a covert war for freedom. She remembered when freedom meant sailing the sea in search of plunder, taking fat merchant ships, stealing their illicit or smuggled cargo, and selling the ill-gotten prizes in Katapesh's dark markets. Now freedom meant fighting to free others, sailing the same circuitous route from Almas to Ostenso month after month, living in a ship full of lies. Glancing at the crew toiling about the deck, she wondered if any shared her misgivings. Torius's choice to get involved in Andoran's covert war against slavery had very nearly destroyed them all, but not a single member of the crew had abandoned ship.

They'll never abandon their captain, and neither would I, but... is this the only life for us?

Panged by guilt, Celeste gazed up at the stars. She often sought guidance in the heavens, seeking answers among the paths of the planets among the constellations. She had faith in the cosmos. It wasn't capricious or vindictive, and didn't take sides in right and wrong, good and evil. Its message might not always be easy to interpret, but the stars never lied. Tonight, Bretheda—the Cradle—shone from within the Stargazer, Celeste's birth sign, which had no immediate significance, and Castrovel approached the Lantern Bearer, which was Torius's. Celeste smiled. She'd never really noticed an increase in her lover's libido when the planet of lust and fertility crossed his sign.

Perhaps I'll start taking data.

The only other planet in the sky, Verces, glimmered between the constellations of the Stranger and the Follower. Interesting... Verces, the Line, signified choice. Between a stranger and a follower? How might that apply to us? The answer was there, if only she could discern it. If I could just see it clearly in the stars, hear it in the song of the heavens.

The celestial chorus sang through her soul...

"Sails!"

Celeste blinked. To the east, the sky glowed with the light of dawn. Hours had passed since Torius had left her to her musing. She'd lost herself among the stars yet again, oblivious to the bustle of sailors around her, undisturbed even by the changing of the watch. Damn it... Celeste felt as if a piece of her life had been stolen away, angry at her lapse, but also frightened at her loss of control.

"Where away, and what type of sails?" Grogul's bellow to the masthead lookout rattled Celeste's eardrums.

"Southeast," came Lacy Jane's answer. "Lateen rig. Two masts, but it's too dark to tell the color. She's hull down. Could be a felucca or a galley."

A felucca meant a merchant or fisherman. A galley could be a slaver.

Celeste opened her case and lifted out her telescope with a flick of magic. It was a far finer instrument than any other aboard. "Grogul." She floated the telescope to him. "Do you want to send this up to Lacy?"

"Sure, if you promise not to bite me if it goes overboard." He knew she cherished the instrument, and obviously appreciated the offer.

Celeste knew he was joking, but smiled to show her fangs. "I promise. I haven't bitten anyone in days!"

"Thanks." Grogul turned to his bosun's mate. "Kalli, run this up to Lacy."

"Aye!" Kalli the gillman tucked the telescope through her belt and climbed up the ratlines, her webbed hands and feet sure on the ropes.

In moments, Lacy Jane called down, "Galley! Yellow sails! She's turning north!"

"They're turning to follow us."

"Seems that way." Grogul's predatory grin spoke volumes. He shouted orders to the crew. "Maintain course, but slack the sheets to slow us down a bit. Someone wake the captain."

Celeste looked to the sky, but the light of dawn had already dimmed the stars. She would get no more guidance from there, but she remembered her earlier observations. Verces between the Stranger and the Follower. A choice... As usual, the signs could be interpreted numerous ways. If the ship they'd spotted was the follower, who was the stranger? Or perhaps the choice wasn't between a follower and a stranger, but between fleeing or fighting the stranger who followed them? If they chose to fight, they risked more than the ship and their lives, for they carried Vreva's coded logbook, a repository of secrets invaluable to the Andoren cause. They could never let slavers get their hands on that book.

Torius and Thillion hurried up to the quarterdeck. Snick followed, rubbing her eyes, her sea-green hair sticking up at all angles. She dyed it blue for her disguise in Ostenso, but insisted on washing it clean every time they left port, just like she insisted upon changing the identity of the ship from Sea Serpent to Stargazer.

"Looks like an Okeno slaver, sir," Grogul reported. "Still hull down, but they've turned to follow. I slacked sheets to slow us, and in this light wind, they'll catch up quickly. We should get a better look soon."

"Thanks, Grogul."

"Couldn't you have waited until after breakfast to bellow like a bull elephant?" Snick glared up at the bosun and tried to smooth her hair.

"Sorry to interrupt your beauty sleep. I know you need it." Grogul grinned down at her, showing his tusks.

The gnome made a face. "You should get some, too."

"We could lure them in and take them, Captain." Thillion squinted to the south, his elven eyes sharper than theirs by far. "Unless she turns out to be as big as the Bloody Scourge, of course."

Celeste could only agree. That ship had very nearly been the death of them all.

"We may have to let this one pass." Torius squinted at the sea and sky, obviously gauging the variables that might affect their chances. From his frown, he was also undoubtedly thinking about Vreva's logbook. He turned to Celeste and cocked an eyebrow. "Unless you have some insight from the stars?"

"I don't... " Celeste paused and considered the choice that faced them. Should we fight and risk Vreva's book?

"Yes." The answer came out of Celeste's mouth before she knew what she was saying. She had no idea where the overwhelming feeling of promise had come from, but it couldn't be denied. The song of the heavens sang it loud in her soul, a familiar rightness, just as when she'd considered facing Lothera Cothos.

Everyone looked at her in surprise.

"You do have some guidance from the stars?" Thillion sounded dubious.

Torius had learned to respect her astrological prophecies, but knew better than to ask for specific information. Long experience had taught him that her predictions were fraught with uncertainty, often only becoming clear in retrospect. The rest of the crew still often saw her prophecies as more troublesome than accurate. But this time, she was certain.

"Yes, I have. The choice is clear. We should take them."

"Captain!" Lacy Jane called down from the foretop. "She's hull up! One deck of oars, and she's pulling hard! They're coming after us!"

Torius turned to Celeste. The slaver wasn't so large that Stargazer couldn't take her, but there was still doubt in his eyes. "You're sure?"

"I'm sure, my captain." Celeste reared up, more sure of this than she had been about anything lately. "We should take that ship. Trust me!"

Torius grinned. "I was hoping you'd say that." He turned to his officers. "We take them! Thillion, I like your idea of luring them in. Let's make like we're a merchant fleeing in panic. Grogul, something aloft is going to break. Nothing catastrophic, just enough to foul the rigging and kill our speed. You'll command the main boarding party amidships."

"Aye, sir!" The half-orc hefted his axe and thumbed the razor edge.

"Snick, put the Sea Serpent placards back on, and load your babies with the usual tricks. We'll take them by surprise."

"Surprises are my specialty, Captain!" The gnome scurried off to tend her ballistae. Stargazer would look like a benign merchant until the cunningly disguised firing ports opened and the tips of six of Snick's specialized ballista warheads nosed out.

"Thillion, you and your archers will rake their deck from our forecastle as they come alongside, then board and continue the barrage from their own foredeck."

"Yes, sir."

Illustration by Remko Troost

"Celeste, you, Windy, and the bosun's mates will board aft with me. Once we've cleared their quarterdeck, I want you to rake their middeck with your spells."

"It'll be my pleasure." Celeste's heart raced in anticipation of the battle. Having suffered in chains herself, there were few things in life she enjoyed more than blasting slavers with destructive magic.

"Good! Windy, start steering wild. Grogul, tell the crew to handle the sheets and braces like lubbers. Thillion, pick your archers and stand ready. Remember, we're merchants until the trap is sprung!"

Canvas and tangled cordage flapped in the wind, and sailors scurried around the deck in apparent panic. The slaver was closing fast, near enough now that Torius could read the placard on her bow. The Golden Chain bore a figurehead of a woman bound in gilded manacles and a collar.

"Keep coming, you bastard." Torius lowered his glass and turned to shout panicked orders to his crew. They had to play this right. If the slaver got a whiff of the trap, they would rake Stargazer with arrows and ballista bolts from afar. But Torius had learned how to play on slavers' greed by appearing vulnerable. To traffickers in flesh, sailors were potential merchandise, not to be damaged unless they resisted. Few merchantmen could offer much of a fight. Most would choose slavery over death.

Torius knew better. He'd die before he became a slave again.

"Yaw to starboard, Windy. We're panicked, remember."

"Shakin' in my boots, sir." She grinned at him and hauled the wheel to starboard, her strong right hand working in concert with the hook-and-pike combination that had replaced her left. A slaver had taken that hand some months ago. Already, Windy had filed five notches in the pike for the slavers she'd killed as payback.

"Sea Serpent! Heave to and nobody dies!" The bellowed command from the bow of the Golden Chain brought a cold smile to Torius's lips.

Glancing over his shoulder, Torius assessed their foe. Slavers armed with nets, grapples, and cutlasses crowded the galley's middeck, ready to board. On the forecastle, a ballista crew stood ready beside their engine, but the adjacent catapult wasn't even loaded. There were no archers. There were, however, more slavers than Torius had counted on. He hoped he hadn't underestimated this foe.

"Kalli, ready the colors. I want to scare yesterday's breakfast right out of those bastards!" The instant the slavers saw Andoran's flag, they'd know they were in for a fight, and Stargazer had a deadly reputation in Okeno. "Dukkol, pass the word down to Celeste. Two minutes."

The two bosun's mates hurried to comply, the gillman clipping the flags to the mainmast halyard, and the one-eyed dwarf thumping down the stairs to where Celeste hid inside the sterncastle door. Moments later, the dwarf returned, and Torius heard the rasp of scales on the deck beside him.

"Ready, my captain." Celeste's disembodied voice sounded like music to his ears.

"Good. You know your target."

"Anyone who looks like they're about to cast a spell."

"Right." Recently the Okeno slavers had begun contracting powerful wizards to protect their ships. Torius winced as he recalled the Gray Corsair Gold Wing, sunk by a blast of magic before their eyes. That was another reason he chose to lure their prey in for the kill. Up close, a caster was an easier target. With any luck, Celeste could neutralize the threat before they had a chance to blast Stargazer to kindling.

Torius glanced over his shoulder again, trying to look scared as he gauged the angles and distances between the two ships. He muttered a prayer to Gozreh that Celeste's guidance on this battle would prove true. They were taking a serious risk in this venture. He'd probably catch hell from Marshal Trellis for putting Vreva's logbook at risk, but they did have to maintain their reputation as privateers. That meant actually taking on a slaver now and then. Besides, Torius never tired of killing slavers and freeing slaves. The looks on their faces—the horror of the slavers and the amazement of the slaves—when they realized what was happening made him feel more alive than just about anything else in the world.

"Yaw to port, Windy! Keep them guessing."

"Aye, sir!" Stargazer slewed to port. The slaver shifted course accordingly.

"Sea Serpent! Heave to, or we'll fire on you!" The crack of a ballista backed their threat, but the warning shot flew harmlessly overhead, a holed sail the only damage.

"Don't shoot! We surrender!" Torius dashed to the taffrail, waving his arms in a panic. "Let fly sheets! Helm to windward!"

Stargazer turned to starboard and Golden Chain back-paddled her starboard sweeps to come alongside. Torius scanned the galley's deck, noting the satisfied smiles and laughter among the slavers. That's right, just keep laughing... The two ships closed to barely ten yards.

"I have the caster, Torius." Celeste's voice came from right beside him.

"Do it."

Arcane words flowed, harsh and garbled to the captain's ear. Celeste materialized as lightning lashed out toward Golden Chain's quarterdeck. The bolt struck a robed woman there, blasting her to the deck in a flutter of smoldering cloaks.

"Stargazer!" Torius drew his sword and thrust it high, the familiar rush of adrenaline surging through his veins.

Two flags flew up the mainmast, the golden eagle of Andoran on a blue-and-gray shield, and directly beneath it, Stargazer's own long black-and-silver pennant bearing a serpentine silhouette of a naga with flowing white hair. Thillion's archers leapt up from hiding to rake the galley's forecastle with a deadly volley. The crew of the enemy ballista fell, riddled with arrows. Stargazer's deck shuddered beneath Torius's feet as six ballistae cracked in perfect unison. The bolts cleared the galley's rail by mere inches, and the triggering tethers came taut, detonating the ceramic warheads. Blue-white liquid splashed forth onto the astonished slavers, encasing them in freezing alchemical ice. Grogul and his boarders boiled up from the main hatchway, heaving grapples to pull the two ships closer.

"Celeste, Dukkol, Windy, Kalli, with me!" The helmswoman and bosun's mates drew weapons and ran with him to the rail, but Celeste didn't move. When he glanced back, she just stared at him with a questioning look. "Come on!"

"Que towlre nokta?" Celeste gaped at him wide-eyed.

Torius stared at Celeste, trying to interpret what she'd said. "Celeste! Come on!"

She blinked at him, uncomprehending, and spoke again, but her words came out as a string of gibberish.

What the hell language is she speaking?

The two ships met with a crash. Torius couldn't wait, even for her. He leapt the rail onto the enemy quarterdeck, parrying a pike thrust even before his feet touched the deck. Windy gutted the pikeman as she landed beside him, and parried a cutlass with her hook. Kalli lunged to skewer a slaver officer through the neck with her rapier. Dukkol bellowed a curse as he took a pike in the leg, but his axe clove through his opponent's arms in riposte. More slavers closed in on them, pressing them hard. Torius parried wildly, glimpsing the slaver captain beyond the flashing blades. The officer knelt over the smoldering form of the fallen wizard, a blue glass bottle in one hand. The caster reached up for the bottle with one charred hand.

"The caster's still alive!" The Stargazers were holding their own so far, but if the slaver captain healed the wizard, they'd be in trouble. "Celeste!"

Torius couldn't break through the flashing blades before him, but the answering crackle of lightning was all he'd hoped for. The bolt caught both the wizard and the captain in its fury. The caster was reduced to a smoldering corpse, but the captain rolled to his feet and drew a pair of hooked silvery hand axes from his belt. Ignoring the smoke trailing from his singed jacket, the man charged to the attack.

Torius pressed his opponent hard, slashing through her guard to open a horrible gash in her leg. The woman stumbled, and Windy took the opening to slash her cutlass across the slaver's neck. The helmswoman took a cut to her other arm from her own opponent, but Kalli put her rapier in the slaver's ribs. Dukkol, though limping, guarded their flank as more slavers charged up the steps from the middeck to reinforce their officers.

Torius kicked away the twitching corpse and met the captain's attack, parrying one gleaming axe and dodging the other. The man was quick, however, and Torius missed his next parry. The slaver's blade ripped through the fine mail beneath his shirt, gouging a furrow down his ribs. Pain took his breath away and weakened his knees.

"Gozreh's guts!" Torius was no stranger to injuries, but this felt like he'd been plunged into boiling oil. He managed to evade the other axe and slash at the man's legs, driving him back.

The slaver captain grinned maniacally and flourished his weapons, which glimmered strangely. "You're no match for—"

A beam of searing energy from Celeste caught the man square in the face. The axes clattered to the deck and a horrible scream rose from the slaver captain's blistered lips, his hands clawing at eyes charred to cinders in their sockets.

"Match that, asshole!" Torius silenced the captain's screams with a slash of his sword. Clutching the wound in his side, he clenched his teeth against the excruciating pain and turned to face the enemy charge.

Then Celeste was beside him, her scales shimmering with a starry radiance. At first, Torius thought it was the mesmerizing shimmer she often used to distract an enemy, but the effect was different. Instead of her scales shimmering, it looked as if she wore a luminous cloak of glittering motes. A slaver lunged at her, and Torius thought the cutlass would surely rake her, but the starry nimbus turned the blade before it touched her side. Celeste struck like a viper, sinking her fangs into the slaver's throat. His screams died in a gurgle, and she flung the twitching corpse aside with a twist of her body.

Torius spared a moment to assess the battle. Thillion and his archers had taken the foredeck, and their bows sang a song of death, shots picking off slavers as they struggled against Grogul's boarders. Two Stargazers had turned the enemy ballista around to fire down upon the slavers crowding the middeck. Snick's ballista crews now fired crossbows from the conjoined rails, and Torius spotted the shock of the gnome's green hair as she scrambled toward the enemy forecastle. The surprise of their assault had given them a foothold, but they were still outnumbered. Here on the quarterdeck, slavers poured up two flights of steps to oppose them. Even with Celeste's aid, they were being pressed hard.

"Rally!" he called out in encouragement. "We've got to take the quarterdeck!"

Celeste shouted something unintelligible, but her tone bespoke urgency.

"I can't understand a word you're saying, Celeste!" Had the wizard gotten off a spell to tangle her tongue? Torius swallowed his worry for her and slashed to drive the enemy back. If they could take the quarterdeck, Celeste could rake the middeck with her spells, but not while fighting at close quarters.

A flight of glowing motes shot from the naga to riddle the enemy, and Torius breathed easier. Two dropped their weapons, and were instantly skewered, and Dukkol hacked the legs out from under another. The Stargazers surged forward, and Torius drove his opponent over the forward rail.

They had taken the quarterdeck.

Lightning lashed out from Celeste, arcing the length of the deck to blast a furrow through the enemy force. Arrows streaked from the rear of the slaver ranks in reply. Kalli took a shaft in the shoulder, and Torius felt a burning sting as one creased his thigh, but the one aimed at Celeste glanced off her starry shield.

"Nice spell, Celeste!" He slashed at another slaver trying to regain the quarterdeck, sending her tumbling down the steps. "Dukkol, block the stairs! Don't let them get a foothold! We've got to give Celeste cover!"

Celeste yelled something else, but still he couldn't understand her. Fortunately, she knew her role. Another searing bolt of lightning blasted the enemy force. Grogul and his fighters were pressing the slavers against the far rail now, so reduced were their numbers. Celeste slithered quickly to the port side of the quarterdeck.

"Guard the stairs!" Torius commanded the others. "Nobody gets—" His orders died on his lips as a burly slaver with a hooked falchion leapt down at Celeste from the ratlines. The full force of the man's falling mass backed the two-handed stroke. "Celeste! Look out!"

Celeste turned to Torius, eyes uncomprehending as the blade fell like a guillotine toward the back of her head.

An iron-tipped ballista bolt struck the slaver the instant before the blade would have cloven her skull. The heavy falchion sheared away a lock of the naga's platinum hair, then skittered down her scales. The glancing blow brought her around in a flash of fangs, ready to strike, but the shaft had spitted the slaver through the chest. Her would-be assassin lay twitching on the deck, clutching the wrist-thick bolt and gasping for breath.

With a sigh of relief, Torius traced the bolt's trajectory back to the foredeck, where a grinning gnome leapt with delight at her life-saving shot. He'd have to remember to thank Snick, but the battle wasn't over yet.

"Celeste!" Torius pointed to the deck, since in her current state she seemed incapable of understanding him.

Celeste turned away from the dying slaver and cast her lightning yet again, blasting the tightly pressed slavers and thinning their remaining ranks by half.

The devastation shattered the enemy's waning morale. Some dropped their weapons to plead for mercy, while others, rightly assuming that none would be given, leapt over the side. This proved a poor tactic, however, for the school of sharks that often followed slave galleys had been alerted to a pending meal by the blood running from the ship's scuppers. The water roiled, and shrill screams rose above the din of battle.

The surviving slavers fought grimly on—ravaged by Grogul's boarding party, Thillion's archers, and Celeste's spells—until the last fell in a welter of blood. A cheer rose up from the Stargazers, and Torius thrust his bloody sword to the sky in triumph.

"Grogul, search the ship and free the slaves! Snick, see to the wounded! Thillion, pick a prize crew and take stock of all she's carrying. You'll be taking her into Almas as usual." As the three hurried to follow his orders, he turned to find Celeste coiled over the slaver who had attacked her. She had ended his suffering with a bite to the throat, a kindness Torius doubted the slaver would have returned. Her cloak of starlight had vanished, and her black scales were spattered with blood, but she seemed unhurt. "Celeste! Are you all right?"

She turned to him with a startled look. "I'm... fine." She glanced down at the gash in his side. "You're bleeding."

"I'll live." He winced as he flexed his side. It still hurt abominably, but the crippling pain was gone. The blade had skittered across his ribs like a stick along a picket fence, but the wound wasn't life-threatening. "What happened to you? I couldn't understand a word you said."

"I... don't know. I couldn't understand you, either." She gazed at the charred corpse of the slaver wizard. "Maybe she cursed me."

"Well, it's lapsed, at least." He ran a hand down her truncated hair. "Though it cost you a haircut."

"Yes... I didn't see him." She looked forward. "Snick saved my life."

"Yes. She's certainly got a way with ballistae. That was an amazing shot. I'll have to give her a bonus. But that cloak-of-starlight saved you as well. That's a handy spell." He laughed, but was surprised to see that his mirth wasn't mirrored in her eyes. Instead, she looked rather shaken. "You sure you're okay?"

"Just a little rattled, I think." Celeste smiled weakly. "Close call, you know. But we won."

"That we did." Torius surveyed the deck. "Your prophecy was spot-on!"

The Stargazers were hard at work, and already the deck looked less like a slaughterhouse and more like a ship. Snick and her ballista crews tended the wounded with a satchel full of potions for those close to death and bandages for the rest. At a glance he saw only two dead Stargazers. They'd be in Almas in just a few days, and there was enough in the death fund they all paid into to have them brought back by the priests there. Torius looked over his crew with a surge of pride; taking on such a superior force with only two deaths was an amazing feat.

He cleaned his sword on a dead slaver's shirt and slipped it into its sheath. "Yes, it's a good day to be a pirate."

"Privateer, you mean," Celeste corrected.

"I suppose." He gave her his best piratical grin and laughed. "Doesn't have quite the same ring to it, but I must admit there are advantages."

The first of the freed slaves stumbled onto the deck, pale and blinking in the sunlight. That look of delighted astonishment on their faces made all his pain worthwhile.

I still think I should go in with you. Mathias rubbed up against Vreva's leg and lashed his tail. You might need my help.

"Not this time, love." Vreva took a calming breath and peered out the window of the carriage as it turned onto Ostenso's waterfront. She loved Mathias and might have used his help, but having him along would distract her. In the belly of a Chelish flagship, surrounded by a thousand sailors and marines, the last thing she needed was a distraction. "It's just dinner. I'll be in and out in a trice."

Dinner with you is never just dinner. Mathias knew better than to be put off by her assurances. Tell me you're not planning to befuddle his brain with your feminine charms, drug his wine, break into his mind with magic, and steal his every secret right down to his mistress's favorite color.

"Mathias!" She reached down and scratched him behind the ears. "Never all of that on the first date."

Right. He didn't sound convinced.

The truth was, Vreva didn't have much of a plan other than to make her best possible first impression on Admiral Ronnel. She'd done some digging on him, of course, and deemed him a hard man, a brilliant naval tactician, a political hawk, and—thank Calistria—a ladies' man. The only way she could get more information about him and this Kellid witch and her weapon, neither of which they had seen in several days of Mathias spying from the waterfront alleys, was to meet him in person. Unfortunately, her letter of introduction and invitation to a private dinner at the Officers' Club had been answered with regrets and an explanation that his duties would not let him leave his ship—but also with a return invitation to visit him aboard his flagship, Devil's Trident. If she got him alone, and detected none of the magical precautions so common among the powerful and paranoid, she might risk casting a spell on him or drugging his wine. Then, with some careful suggestions, she might attempt to discover what this secret weapon was. Vreva was experienced enough to know that things like this took time. Besides, the admiral wasn't going anywhere soon. Rumor had it that Devil's Trident would be tied to the dock for some time yet awaiting an unknown deadline.

The carriage rumbled to a stop, the iron wheels sounding hollow on the thick wooden planks of the wharf. Vreva smoothed her dress, and then cast a spell on Mathias that made him vanish from sight. Her familiar would skulk about the docks within range of her empathic messages. If something untoward occurred, at least he would know.

Vreva stepped from the carriage and tamped down her trepidation. She'd been in many dangerous places in her career, but never had she stepped aboard such an intimidating ship. This close, the sheer immensity of Devil's Trident made her feel as if she stood before the ramparts of a castle. Looming over lesser ships, the flagship's four towering masts soared so high they seemed to pierce the evening sky. Three rows of ballista ports checkered the hull, more than she'd ever seen on one ship. The gangplank looked more like a drawbridge than a simple ramp, sporting gilded rope handrails and carpeted steps that led up to a wide boarding hatch on the middeck.

Vreva approached with an easy, fluid gait that belied her tension. She had taken great care with her attire for the evening, remembering one of her very first lessons as a courtesan: you have only one chance to make a good first impression. Her gown—deep crimson silk brocade with gold accents—plunged low at both neckline and back, though a shawl clasped at her throat currently hid the full effect.

Security around the ship was tight, especially since it was docked not at the naval pier, but rather at the main commercial pier of the port. A score of Chelish marines were stationed all along the dock, and another ten in formation at the base of the gangplank, all of them resplendent in black-and-red uniforms. An army couldn't have easily breached the flagship's defenses—but Vreva could. She'd done some careful reconnoitering earlier in the day, looking for magical defenses, wards, traps, and the like. Though she'd found none, her skin crawled with unease. She had no doubt there were spellcasters aboard. For this first incursion, she'd taken great care to leave all of her magical trinkets and lethal poisons behind—nothing that would raise suspicions if discovered.

The marines at the gangplank snapped to rigid attention, but couldn't hide their covert glances at the admiral's guest.

"Madame Korvis." A tall lieutenant bowed stiffly, his face a mask of propriety. "Lieutenant Draell of the Imperial Marines at your service. The admiral's expecting you."

"And he's supplied me with quite a dashing escort." She proffered a silk-gloved hand. "Delighted to meet you, Lieutenant Draell."

He took her hand in a formal fingertip grasp and bowed again, his unsmiling face flushing slightly. "You'll excuse the formality, ma'am. We're under very strict security." He placed her hand on his arm and gestured to the gangway. Four of the marines fell in around them, their faces chiseled from stone.

"Well, I'm honored to receive such royal treatment." She wasn't really. Five soldiers surrounding her meant she couldn't make any haphazard observations en route to the admiral, but that wouldn't stop her from learning as much as she could. "I've never been aboard a flagship before. Perhaps you could point out a few things on the way."

"I'd be happy to, ma'am."

At the boarding hatch, another squad of marines stood around a man in a black jacket with two silver emblems on his lapels, a pair of crossed lightning bolts and a junior officer's insignia. He was young and good-looking, and Vreva knew instantly that he was a spellcaster. Here, it seemed, was the magical security.

"One moment please." The darkly clad caster stepped forward and held up a hand, his fingers bent in a crooked gesture as a whisper of arcane words issued from his mirthless lips. His hand shimmered briefly in the dim light of the deck lanterns.

"Magic?" She cocked an eyebrow at her escort. "You are being very careful, aren't you?"

"Just a precaution, Madame Korvis." Draell's face remained impassive. "I'm sure you understand."

"I understand perfectly." She fixed her features in a facade of mild affront. "Will there be a search of my person, as well?"

Draell looked momentarily horrified. "No, ma'am. We just look for magic."

That's good to know. She sighed as if mildly put out.

"Nothing." The caster nodded respectfully and tipped his tricorne, but remained impassive. "Your pardon, ma'am."

Vreva smiled sweetly at him, then turned back to Draell. "Now, about this wonderful ship, Lieutenant... "

Vreva feigned rapt interest as Draell happily spouted nautical mumbo-jumbo, drowning her in meaningless details about buntlines, cat-harpins, and double-preventer stays. Only once they entered the lofty sterncastle did the deluge of sailor-speak ease to a trickle, and her attention sharpen. She memorized every twist and turn of the corridors in case she had to make a quick escape. Surviving such an escape, however, seemed unlikely with all the sailors and soldiers about. Dour marines stood at many of the doors, and every passage branch. If she had to flee, she'd need to sprout wings and go out a porthole.

Finally, they came to a pair of double doors guarded by two more marines and narcissistically emblazoned with the crest of the Admiral's house. Cheliax's queen had granted Ronnel the title of baronet for his service to the empire, which barely qualified as nobility. At Lieutenant Draell's knock, a white-jacketed steward opened the door and stepped aside.

Draell escorted Vreva inside, and executed a crisp military bow. "Milord Admiral Vaetus Ronnel, Madame Virika Korvis."

A slim man of perhaps fifty years wearing an immaculate dress admiral's uniform turned from the broad expanse of stern gallery windows. "Madame Korvis, how very delightful of you to accept my invitation." Ronnel approached with a smile and a conspicuous brush of the golden epaulets atop his shoulders. "I regret terribly that I couldn't meet with you at your establishment, but the duties of command never end, and my presence is required here." The admiral executed a precise quarter-bow, the proper formality for a noble greeting a guest of lower standing.

Ronnel was surprisingly handsome, which didn't matter in the slightest. What did matter was his obvious arrogance. She could use that to her advantage. From her youth in Egorian, Vreva was all too familiar with the propriety and pomposity of the new nobility. She'd be living in that world still, had she not abandoned her true name, family, and heritage. She also knew enough about Ronnel to be on her guard. The man was skilled, intelligent, and ruthless. He was also an idiot when it came to money. Without a war to supply him with prize money from naval conquests, his lavish habits had resulted in a considerable debt. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, he enjoyed female company.

"Milord Admiral." Unclipping her shawl, Vreva handed it off to the steward and curtsied gracefully, giving the admiral a delicate smile and a perfect view of her daring neckline. "It's such a pleasure to finally meet the commander so highly spoken of by his officers. I'm thrilled to be invited aboard such a fabulous ship!"

The last part, at least, was the absolute truth; she was thrilled by this opportunity to spy on a fleet admiral, and the ship was indeed fabulous. The great cabin was nothing short of palatial. Polished brass lamps hung from every beam, bathing the teak-paneled walls in a soft golden glow. The decor was both masculine and military. A large desk stood to the right, emblazoned with yet another coat of arms, a pair of crossed swords displayed on the wall behind it. A table set with burnished silver plates and sparkling crystal stood in front of high, gilt-framed windows that arched along the entire back wall, providing a glorious view of the harbor. White-gloved servants stood behind each chair, ready to attend.

Not exactly intimate. I'll have to get him alone somehow.

"Everything's so lovely and bright." She beamed at Ronnel and placed her hand on his proffered arm. "I expected a military vessel to be stuffy and cramped."

"We keep Devil's Trident in fighting trim," he said, puffing up his chest, "but I also enjoy my comfort. As Admiral of the Ostenso Fleet, I do require accommodations to entertain guests." He dismissed Draell with a wave and gestured toward the table. "A glass of wine before dinner?"

"I'd prefer whiskey, if you have a single malt handy."

"Whiskey?" Ronnel looked at her as if she'd asked him for a cup of freshly drawn blood. "Really?"

"Really, Milord Admiral." Vreva curved her lips in a licentious smile. Her request had caught him off guard, accomplishing exactly what she intended. "A dear friend introduced me to the pleasure of a finely crafted single malt whiskey." Memories of that friend and their ill-fated romance muddled her mind for a moment, but she thrust them aside and focused. "The flavor is so very... smoldering, don't you think?"

"I've never really tried whiskey, but I think my steward might be able to find something you'll like." Dragging his eyes away from hers, the admiral snapped his fingers and his steward hurried off, doubtlessly to delve the flagship's cellars. "You're a woman of eclectic tastes."

"Eclectic?" She shrugged and squeezed his arm. "Not to my thinking. I like my liquor like my men, strong and straight up."

Ronnel gaped at her for a moment, then laughed out loud. "By the stones of Asmodeus himself, you really are something!" He laughed again, fully and without reservation. "Quite refreshing! Quite refreshing indeed after so many simpering shrews. A real woman, not afraid to speak her piece to someone above her station. Quite refreshing!"

"Why, thank you, Admiral." First task accomplished. Vreva had just set her first impression in stone, distinguishing herself from any other woman the admiral might entertain. Squeezing his arm again, she joined in his laughter. "Not every man has the self-assurance to recognize me for what I am, but you've hit the proverbial nail on the head with the first stroke. No doubt one of your officers has told you of me."

"They have not. I swear it on my honor." Ronnel placed his hand over his heart and bowed. "Please, let's forget all this propriety and simply enjoy ourselves. I can't think of a single person with whom I'd rather spend an unabashed evening of frivolity."

"Unabashed frivolity just happens to be one of my favorite pastimes, Admiral." Vreva beamed up at him, enjoying the blush that rose to his cheeks. She had him exactly where she wanted him: mirth up, inhibitions down, and his libido ready to jump out of his pants and prance around the cabin.

"Very good!"

The steward arrived with a bottle that looked like it had spent several years rolling around the ship's bilge. The label was barely legible, but when the steward proffered it for inspection, she recognized the crest of a New Stetven distillery in distant Brevoy.

"Ah, you have good taste, Admiral! Let's give it a try."

"Damn the ballistae and full sail ahead! Ha ha!" The admiral snatched up two tumblers from the sideboard and clapped them down on the table. "I do believe I'll join you!"

"Please, allow me to serve your first taste!" Vreva plucked the bottle from the startled steward's hands, expertly cracked the seal, and twisted the stopper free with a resonant pop. She poured a measure into each glass and held one out to Ronnel. "To a night of unabashed frivolity."

He took his glass and glowed at her. "To that, Madame Korvis, I will drink!"

And they did.

The heady flavors of smoky peat and malt exploded in Vreva's senses, but she was prepared for the shock of it. She gasped in a cleansing breath, enjoying the liquid fire that warmed her throat and stomach. The admiral's gasp evolved into a fit of coughing, his face turning an astonishing shade of scarlet before he managed to draw a full breath.

"Rather takes you off guard, doesn't it?" She relieved him of his tumbler before he dropped it.

"Like a summer squall!" He coughed again and tried to smile.

"It's an acquired taste."

"I think I'll stick with wine." Ronnel motioned the steward forward.

"To each his own poison." Vreva strolled around the vast cabin, brushing her fingers lightly over the requisite portrait of Queen Abrogail II, and peering in admiration at the crossed swords mounted on the bulkhead behind Ronnel's broad desk. "This cabin is positively lovely! Would it be possible to get a tour of the rest of the ship?"

"After dinner we can take a turn on deck, but I'm afraid most of the ship's off-limits to visitors." The admiral joined her, sipping a glass of deep-red wine. "This cabin is for formal dinners and meetings, mostly. I sometimes host dinners for the captains of the fleet here, but I generally use it as an office. I have more intimate quarters for entertaining... special friends."

Not too subtle, are we, Admiral? Vreva gave him a sultry smile. "I'd love to see them."

"After dinner, then." He guided her back to the table with a hand at the small of her back as two stewards entered bearing several covered dishes. "I've arranged quite a feast for us. I have one of the finest culinary slaves money can buy, you know."

"Really?" Vreva wondered about people who used slaves as their personal chefs. Didn't they realize how easy it was to poison someone?

Hoping that tonight wasn't the night the enslaved chef decided to rebel, Vreva took the seat a servant held for her. Just as Ronnel took his own seat, however, a knock sounded at the door. When the steward answered, a harried lieutenant burst into the cabin, gasping for breath and dabbing a handkerchief at four parallel scratches etched across his cheek. Vreva recognized him from the Officers' Club—the disgruntled lieutenant.

"Milord Admiral!" The officer saluted stiffly. "I beg your pardon, but there's an emergency, sir."

The admiral flushed crimson, the veins in his neck and face bulging. "Pardon me for a moment, my dear. The drudgeries of command again, I'm afraid."

"I understand perfectly, Admiral." Vreva smiled sweetly and sipped her whiskey as her host thrust himself out of his chair.

Ronnel stalked over to the injured lieutenant and backed him up against the door, his voice harsh and low. "This better be important, Lieutenant Emero, or you'll be scrubbing the bilges for a month!"

"It's that witch again, sir!"

Vreva could just make out the officer's hushed words. She gazed out the window as if entranced by the view, covertly watching the two men's reflections in the glass. She longed to cast a mind-reading or eavesdropping spell, but didn't dare with a servant hovering at her elbow. Even casting a silent spell might be noticed.

"What's she done now?" the admiral demanded.

Emero lowered his voice further, and Vreva strained to hear.

"She's... with that... and that bloody devil hit my... the infirmary... and when I... blood on my... immediately... "

"Right now?"

In the window's reflection, Vreva saw the admiral cast her a quick glance, then turn to glare at the poor lieutenant.

"I'm sorry, sir, but she... "

"Oh, fine! Wait here." Ronnel returned to the table and bowed to Vreva. "I'm very sorry, my dear, but I'm afraid I'm being called away."

"Oh, how dreadful!" Vreva put on her best pout and stood. "Can I wait for you here?"

"I don't know when I'll get back, but if you like, please stay and enjoy the meal. I'll be an hour, at least, but could be longer."

"Oh, I could never accept your hospitality without the pleasure of your company, Admiral." Vreva leaned forward to brush his cheek with her own, her voice a sultry whisper. "There's no hurry. An unabashed evening of frivolity must be done properly, you know." She trailed her nails down his taut waistcoat.

"Oh, I agree." Ronnel stepped back and took her hand in his, bending to kiss it. "I'll arrange another dinner, and we'll do it properly. You have my pledge of honor."

"I'll hold you to it, Admiral." Vreva curtsied again.

"Jensen, escort the lady off the ship and hail a carriage." The admiral cast Vreva one more longing glance before stalking out of the cabin, Lieutenant Emero at his heels.

Well, that was a waste of time! Smiling sweetly despite her disappointment, Vreva accepted her shawl from the steward and wrapped it around her shoulders. She looked wistfully at the dishes on the table. The covers hadn't even been removed, but the tantalizing aromas made her mouth water. Maybe she should have taken Ronnel up on his offer and dined alone, but it would have given the wrong impression. She'd done the right thing. She did, however, finish her whiskey before she followed the steward back through the labyrinthine passages. She caught the faint sound of distant raised voices, and considered what she'd overheard. Devils and witches and blood, oh my...

As her carriage approached, Vreva felt a surge of urgency. Mathias. She sent him a nudge of affirmation, and feigned a misstep as she boarded the hackney. Her marine escort caught her arm, and she pressed against him long enough for Mathias to slip ahead of her, his black fur rendering him virtually invisible in the darkness. Thanking her escort, she stepped up and settled into the carriage.

What the hell happened? Mathias mewed as they jerked into motion.

"The admiral was called away. Something to do with this witch of theirs. There might also be a devil involved, too, though it could have been just a turn of phrase."

Are you kidding me? This is Cheliax! If someone says devil, they're probably talking about a real one!

"Regardless, I think we need a different strategy."

A little feline reconnaissance?

"Exactly." Vreva scratched Mathias under the chin, but he was already purring with excitement. "One more ship's cat should go unnoticed, though getting you aboard might be tricky. They scan everyone who comes aboard for magic."

As long as you don't use a cat-apult, I'm in!

"Oh, my love, that was dreadful." She picked him up and nuzzled the back of his neck. Born an ordinary cat, Mathias had only been speaking since becoming her familiar less than a year ago, and was still learning the finer points of language. Unfortunately, he was also learning how to pun. "Stick to chasing rats."

I'm so unappreciated...

"Celeste?"

Something brushed through her hair, shattering the song of the heavens into a thousand shards. Celeste whirled and lashed out, fangs extended.

"Celeste!" Torius jerked his hand back. "Gozreh's guts! What's gotten into you?"

"Torius!" She slithered back, her panic receding, though her heart still raced. Then she saw the blood on the back of his hand. "By the stars! Torius, I'm sorry! I didn't... Clean it! Quickly!" If any of her venom got into his bloodstream, his addiction might flare back to life. Lunar naga venom was dangerously habit-forming, and that dependency had nearly destroyed their relationship once before. He'd all but accused her of trying to enslave him, and she'd thought he wanted to be rid of her. The last thing either of them wanted was to go through that again.

"I'm fine. It's just a scratch." He wiped the tiny trickle of blood away and sucked on the wound. "Be more careful, will you?"

"You startled me!" Dread descended on her like a shroud. Once more, she'd lost herself so deeply in the stars that she'd been oblivious to her surroundings. What's happening to me? Maybe I have been cursed...

Celeste didn't know what to think. Her inability to speak or understand a word of Taldane during the battle with the slavers might have been a spell cast by the dying wizard, but she wasn't sure. The shimmering cloak of stars that shielded her from enemy blades and arrows, however, had come from within her. She had felt the magic arise from deep inside her. It hadn't been a spell, at least not in the way she was used to casting spells, but something... internal. The magic might have protected her, but it also scared the hell out of her. And now she had bitten Torius.

"You're sure you're okay? How do you feel?"

"I'm fine." He sucked again at the tiny scratch and spat over the rail. "No venom got in. Believe me, I'd know."

"Thank the stars!" She felt a flood of relief, but still the nagging worry. Cursed... "Don't touch me like that when I'm stargazing. You startled me."

"Well, you can bet your scaly tail I won't do it again!"

"I said I was sorry."

"Forget it. No harm done." Torius reached out to touch her again, but she reared back out of reach. He stopped and stared at her. "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing. I'm just rattled, I guess." Celeste glanced around the quarterdeck, but nothing seemed amiss. They were still sailing northbound, though the lights of Almas weren't yet visible. In fact, the only lights other than the stars were those of the captured galley following a mile in their wake. "What's going on?"

"Nothing serious. I just need our position. It's almost midnight."

"Of course." She had apparently been lost for hours again, and hadn't even heard the ship's bell tolling the watch change. Cursed... She took quick sightings on Bretheda and Castrovel, and ran through her calculations, grateful for something to occupy her mind for a while. Only after marking the chart and jotting down the time did she realize that Torius was staring at her. "What?"

"Nothing. You just seem jittery." He noted their position on the chart, ordered a minor course change, then returned to her. "You're sure you're all right?"

"I am a little jittery, I guess. I don't know. Perhaps that close call aboard the slave galley unnerved me." She wanted to tell him about the strange spell, that she felt it might be linked to her inability to communicate during the fight, but couldn't force herself to form the words. Celeste glanced about the quarterdeck at the sailors bustling about in their duties. Sailors were notoriously superstitious, so later might be better, when they could talk privately. Or maybe she shouldn't tell him at all. Should I tell him about this?

A curious feeling washed over her. The song of the heavens resounded in her mind, but unlike the feeling of rightness she'd felt when she suddenly knew taking the slave ship was the correct thing to do, she now felt a swirling uncertainty, a morass of good and bad, benefit and detriment, boon and bane. She shook her head at the strange sensation, and thought for a moment she heard musical laughter. She twisted, scanning the deck for the source, so clear and loud, but it wasn't any voice she'd ever heard. Now I'm hearing voices in my head! What the hell's happening to me?

"Celeste!" Torius reached out to her again, and she couldn't shy away. Not from him. His warm hands felt good on her scales. Soothing. Familiar. "What's wrong? You look like you just saw a ghost!"

"I... don't know." That was the truth at least. Hearing voices, strange spells, speaking in tongues... Her mind whirled with potential causes, none of them good. Is this what it feels like to be possessed by a spirit or demon? "I just... feel strange. I can't explain it."

"Just try to relax." He pulled her into a comforting embrace. "We'll be in Almas today, and it'll take at least a couple of days to get the ship straightened out. Snick said we sprung a few joints coming up against that galley, and they'll need to be repaired. We can afford to take a little time for ourselves."

"Time—you mean a few days off?" Maybe that was all she needed.

"Sure. We'll have to meet with our contact, of course, but after that... how about a night on the town? Almas is a big city. There are lots of places you haven't visited yet."

"That would be nice." Celeste smiled and leaned into Torius's warm arms. Almas also undoubtedly had innumerable wizards and clerics who might be able to discern what was wrong with her. Maybe I can even find someone to lift this curse...

Purchase the whole novel here!

Free Pathfinder Tales Audiobook!

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Audible has just released the second wave of Pathfinder Tales novels, which means that every Pathfinder Tales novel published to date is now available on Audible.com! Yet there's even a bigger announcement that I've been waiting for months to spill, and now I finally can:

For the next month, Paizo and Audible are giving away the audiobook of Death's Heretic for free!

Yeah, you read that right—there's no subscription or purchase required. Just follow the link above any time between now and February 16th to grab the audiobook version of Death's Heretic—the Pathfinder Tales novel that Barnes & Noble called the third-best fantasy release of 2011—for free.

Of course, it's our hope that once you listen to one Pathfinder novel on Audible, you'll want to check out the rest. But first and foremost, we're just excited to have all the Pathfinder Tales available, and from such a wide range of awesome narrators—it's been an exciting project that we've been working on for a very long time.

On a personal note, as the author of Death's Heretic, well... it's a rare privilege to be allowed to give the book out for free. So please take a listen, review it, and spread the word. After all, who doesn't need more free audiobooks in their life?

And if you're not already an audiobook addict like me—this is your chance to give it a try for free, and fill those boring parts of everyday life with sweet, sweet fantasy action! Listen in the car! On the bus! While exercising! While grocery shopping! While waiting at the altar for your fiancé to walk down the aisle! The possibilities are endless.

Go grab the free Death's Heretic audiobook, then hit the comments below and let us know what you think!

James L. Sutter
Executive Editor

Bloodbound Reddit AMA—Ask Wes All Your Questions!

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Paizo's Editor-in-Chief and Pathfinder Tales: Bloodbound author, F. Wesley Schneider is taking all your questions over on Reddit's r/fantasy today. Hop in on his Ask Me Anything thread and pick his brain about writing Bloodbound, the creepiest corners of the Pathfinder campaign setting, fantasy world building, what's coming next, or whatever—anything goes!

The AMA thread is up now and ready for your questions. Wes will be answering live starting at 4:00 PM Pacific time.

Hope to see you all there!

Chris Lambertz
Community & Digital Content Director

Authors Playing Pathfinder, Round 1!

Thursday, January 7, 2016

Over the summer, we had the opportunity to run Pathfinder games for a bunch of amazing fantasy and science fiction authors—folks like Max Gladstone, Elizabeth Bear, Scott Lynch, Wesley Chu, Django Wexler, Brian Stavely, and James L. Cambias! Those games got filmed, and over the coming weeks we’re going to be making the full footage available for folks who want to see some of their favorite authors kick ass as heroes (and goblins!). A teaser for the first game, recorded in Boston, just went live, and you can check it out below.

James L. Sutter
Executive Editor

Behind Bloodbound

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

It's time for the second installment in the new blog series I started two months ago with Beyond the Pool of Stars, in which I explain why I commissioned each new Pathfinder Tales novel, and what made me fall in love with it.

This month, we're looking at Bloodbound, a book that's both harder and easier to write about than any other—because its author is none other than Paizo Editor-in-Chief F. Wesley Schneider!

Wes and I have been working together—and writing together—for more than a decade at this point. Fun fact: While Wes had previously published adventures with other companies before he started here, we both made our first adventure sale to Dungeon in the same issue—and the same adventure! We co-wrote "Shut-In" in Dungeon #128, and teamed up again on "The Lightless Depths" in the Savage Tide Adventure Path. Though creative differences on the latter almost resulted in parking lot knife-fights, I've learned a ton from him over the years, and I like to think he'd say the same for me. (Though probably not if I'm in the room—we have to maintain some standards.)

Illustration by Roberto Pitturru

So when we started publishing Pathfinder fiction, I encouraged him to audition. It can be intimidating to try something new under the eyes of your colleagues—just because we work here doesn't give any of us a free pass to a novel, and we're often each other's harshest critics—but Wes persevered. He started out with a web fiction story, "Shattered Steel." Then he wrote the Pathfinder's Journal Guilty Blood (also starring Ailson Kindler) in the Carrion Crown Adventure Path. At that point, I knew without doubt that he could write an amazing novel, and told him as much.

I'll let Wes talk about the more than two years that passed between the final outline of Bloodbound and the completion of its manuscript, but suffice to say, Wes worked extremely hard on this book, and it shows. The dialogue is snappy. The landscape—Ustalav, of course—is lovingly rendered, providing the perfect introduction to the gothic cities and streets Wes has been building for years. The characters are fun and compelling—and not just the protagonists! The book focuses on Larsa (illustrated here), a royal investigator and dhampir, and Jadain, a young priestess of Pharasma, as they track down a deadly rogue vampire. As you might expect, their odd-couple dynamic is fascinating. (After all, Pharasma hates undead, but a dhampir's only part dead... right?) Yet my favorite characters were the side characters—the crotchety former adventurer Ailson Kindler, and the delightfully snarky, foppish vampire Considine. (Seriously, if you like characters like Seltyiel—or Wes himself, for that matter—you're going to love Considine.)

So now, many years after we first started talking about it, Bloodbound is out in the world. I couldn't be prouder of how the book turned out, nor of Wes for writing it (even if it does rob The Redemption Engine of the coveted "longest Pathfinder novel ever" award).

I hope you enjoy the book as much as I did—and if you check it out, please post reviews! Books live or die on the strength of their reviews, and this one deserves a long life (though as Considine shows us, undeath is pretty okay, too).

James L. Sutter
Executive Editor

Bloodbound Sample Chapter

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

In Bloodbound, Larsa is a dhampir—half vampire, half human. In the gritty streets and haunted peaks of Ustalav, she's an agent for the royal spymaster, keeping peace between the capital's secret vampire population and its huddled human masses. Meanwhile, in the cathedral of Maiden's Choir, Jadain is a young priestess of the death goddess, in trouble with her superiors for being too soft on the living. When a noblewoman's entire house is massacred by vampiric invaders, the unlikely pair is drawn into a deadly mystery that will reveal far more about both of them than they ever wanted to know....

Chapter One: Deserving Victims
Larsa

Both were victims.

She ground against him, forcing hips away from the soot-smeared stone of the alley wall, hands grasping, mouth gnawing.

His breath came as a gasp but left as a growl. Hands struggled with her dress's collar. Hairy fingers dug in her skin.

Had I been a passerby, glimpsing them sidelong from the street, I might have been envious. Even knowing what they were, some voyeuristic urge stopped me on the slick shingle overlook. The appeal of hard and soft flesh aside, I wondered which of the pair was more the monster.

Clothes fell away, hardly barriers at all, the straps of her provocatively innocent dress following his tailored coat. Peasant cloth dangled from her waist, skin milky in the alley's slats of mist-webbed moonlight. He barely spared a hungry glance before diving back to her kisses, a coarse hand pinning her shoulder to the bare brick. Her own light touch played him like the moist rim of a wine glass, the results just as audible.

I couldn't hear their words, but the timbre of their murmurs gave away a predictable script. Gravelly whispers threatened pleasures. Feigned naivete filled her response with blushes. His hand slipped behind him, reaching for the grips of the tool jammed in the back of his belt, no longer hidden under his big coat. The steel of workman's shears scored the gloom—shears that had, in preceding weeks, pruned at least four similar alley flowers. Her slitted eyes didn't see, her head falling back under an assault of bruising kisses. The blades came up.

Here it was.

Like a whip crack, the motion was too fast even to blur. With a snip and splash the shears clattered to the boggy cobbles.

There was no pleasure in his second gasp.

Pale arms that had strained to enfold him a moment earlier now bit into his skin like viciously pulled reins. Her kiss on his neck was deeper now, sharper and hungrier. He struggled, but only now, with jaws at his neck, did he realize that he wasn't the predator.

A shame. I'd hoped she'd be the one surprised. Few humans could match her experience, though—she'd likely been hunting in the city for decades. She might have continued, too, if she played by the rules. Now she'd become a problem.

My problem.

I dropped from my vantage. Heavy with the night's cold mist, my cloak slapped the stained cobbles. Her eyes were on me even as her mouth worked her lover's neck. Greedy thing, she was more chewing than drinking—obviously not of the sort of stock anyone taught manners. I straightened and pulled my sword, its silvered length catching a glimmer of moonlight through the dull haze.

Her eyes locked on mine, watching but obviously not considering me enough of a threat to risk losing her meal. The struggling in her grip was weakening, the man gradually accepting a warm, lethargic futility—the best part. I closed cautiously.

She came up, as if for the air she didn't need, gasping lewdly as she did. Sweat and blood trailed from her mouth in ribbons. She'd been sloppy, blood coursing down her jaw and chest. Daintily, she touched her hand to her lips, stained fangs glistening behind her fingers. A practiced pout poured over the shoulder of her current beau. "You can be next."

Very sloppy. My blade leapt up, obviously faster than she'd expected. A slender white digit arced into the air and plunked into the mud. It didn't bleed.

Her scream was not that of a blushing maid. Shrill with shock, it cracked, reaching a pitch like a shrieking hawk. Her lover barreled into me, thrown backward as she extracted herself from his embrace. I spun out of the way, surprised to hear him grunt as the muddy cobbles met his face.

My sword came back up for the milkmaid. The alley was empty. My eyes went higher, and so did a missile from my belt. The dart sounded like a wasp for the instant it flew, jabbing its silver stinger into a blood-drenched neck. She'd leapt up one of the alley's crumbling tenement walls—an elementary trick.

"Bitch!" Pain growled through the word. She sprang. I slid back. Even with a belly full of blood she was likely faster than I, but I was still quicker than she thought. Nails like claws sliced past my face, digging into filthy alley stone. It wasn't a jarring miss, though—she landed like a bounding cougar and pounced again.

My sword was between us, its hilt wrapped with the copper chain of an angelic ankh—the holy icon of Sarenrae, goddess of the sun. She skidded and reeled, expecting the symbol to flare with divine light.

"You are forbidden to hunt in this part of the city." I brandished the talisman as though I had faith in it. "Explain yourself."

"I have refined tastes." Even stained and exposed, she postured. "I hunt where I choose."

"You hunt where your master allows. You hunt where his truce isn't threatened."

She tittered, again raising a coy hand to her mouth. It came back wet. "I have no master."

"Your arrogance threatens more than you understand."

"You mean we threaten you mortals." She started to circle me. "Had that old coward not betrayed his kind with his truce, the only humans in this city would be mindless casks, waiting to be drained."

"Overestimation is a disease of the lowborn."

Illustration by Lucas Graciano

She sneered. "Your end could have been pleasant, had you the sense not to insult your betters."

It was my turn to laugh. "You had to trick a human into an alley. He wasn't under your control—he was planning to kill you. Was his mind too difficult to overpower? Or perhaps your will was too weak?"

Her eyes smoldered in the gloom. "How dare—"

"Speaking of control, not even a rat has come to your aid. Where are your minions, mistress?" I produced a match and ran my nail across its head, the crisp white flame dramatically lighting her snarl. She was ready to pounce.

"But most pitiful," I dropped the match into the muck between us, "is that."

On the ground between us lay her dainty, mud-stained digit.

"There's no magic in this blade, Your Ladyship. So apparently you're still mortal enough to be cut up by our weapons." I leveled the sword at her face. "You're not my better. You're hardly even fit to call yourself vampire. You're just some bored immortal's stray spawn."

Baring her fangs and screeching, she rushed me, crushing the match underfoot.

She wanted me dead. Good. There'd be no tricks now. She might not be a true vampire—at least, not as the full-bloods would consider it—but she was still deadly enough.

She lashed out wildly, claws blurring. I kept ahead of her, scoring several nicks across her forearms. The bloodless wounds knitted shut with unnatural speed, but her reckless rush gave me plenty of opportunities to make more.

Her chirping laugh echoed off the alley walls as I gave ground. A stroke across her stomach killed the noise, the gash deep enough to make her gush blood that wasn't her own. With a sound more gurgle than growl, she grabbed the blade as it freed itself from her midsection. The silver bit deep into her grasp. I thrust to impale her, but the sword didn't budge. Death lent her unnatural strength, and she yanked the blade from my hands. It clattered down the alleyway, toward her forgotten meal. My emptied hands snapped up, one covering my heart, the other reflexively trying to hold her off as she came. She slammed into me, pinning me against the wall just as her lover had trapped her moments before.

She locked her nails around my neck. "Scream!"

The chill of her hands caused my breath to catch. Death, palpable and endless, washed over me, an arctic wave seeking to erode my soul. While blood kept vampires fed, the chill of their lifeless essence leeched mortal life, freezing a living spirit to death.

Fortunately, I liked the cold.

"What?" She blinked, baffled as to why her touch wasn't sapping my life. I flashed her a smile, and in that last moment she understood.

I twisted, pulling a hawthorn stake from my bandolier, then lunged. The sharpened wood drove home, her weak, wet skin splitting like a reptile egg. A rigidity more appropriate to the deceased seized her body, freezing her face in a look of wide-eyed realization.

I pushed, and black locks trailed her stiff fall. She struck the stone with hardly a thud. The stake quivered, but stayed firmly planted through her heart.

She wasn't dead—or, rather, she wasn't destroyed. The stake would hold her paralyzed and unaware so long as it remained in place. A final destruction required a bit more effort.

At the other end of the alley, I was surprised to find the big man weakly struggling to pull himself against a wall, blood oozing between thick fingers clasped to his neck. I paid his groans no mind and retrieved my blade.

Back with my quarry, I performed the necessary field dressing—removing her head. It was a practiced grotesquery, and I hacked through the cold meat with a butcher's half attention. A trickle of gore—none of it her own—reminded me why I hated doing this right after the creature had fed. Finishing the work, I dragged the decapitated corpse to the alley's eastern mouth, propping it against a wall sure to be hit by the morning sun. The dawn would reduce the vampire's body to ashes, assuring no second resurrection.

A whimper drew my attention back to the bleeding man. Dropping the vampire's head into the stained sack I used for exactly that purpose, I turned back to the would-be murderer.

Past him, a carriage soundlessly pulled up at the far end of the alley.

I didn't hold back any of the curses that leapt to mind.

Stiff black clothes held a stiff-backed driver, a human in his late fifties who regarded the bodies and incriminating stains with disinterest.

"He's expecting you," he said in his perpetually bored voice. Despite the formality, I knew it was an order.

Damn. This was sure to further ruin an already perfectly unpleasant night. "I'm almost done."

The driver's expression didn't so much as twitch, yet I could tell he disapproved.

To hell with him.

I retrieved the bleeding man's heavy shears and knelt at his side. He couldn't resist me pulling his hand away, uncovering his torn neck. The spawn had been brutal, but he'd survive.

He let me scrutinize the wound closer, obviously mistaking my intentions. He hardly whimpered when my mouth clapped over the deepest wounds, fangs tearing the tortured flesh back open. I pressed his arm against the wall and drank fast, draining him like I was throwing down a shot. I didn't like sharing from the same flask as my quarry, but if the evening was taking the turn I feared, I wouldn't have another chance.

Anyway, he deserved it.

Purchase the whole novel here!

Hunters of the Dead, Assemble!

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Just in time for Halloween, GoodReads.com has your free ticket to a holiday in Ustalav, Pathfinder's land of gothic terror. GoodReads has 10 copies of Pathfinder Tales: Bloodbound and is giving them away through November 2nd. All you have to do is visit GoodReads and let them know you want one, and you'll be entered into a drawing for a free copy. It couldn't be easier.

Bloodbound follows Larsa, a dhampir and one of Ustalav's mysterious Royal Accusers, as she hunts an undead outlaw who threatens the nation's people—both the living and the dead. Along the way, she's joined by Jadain, a priestess of Pharasma, who some fear might not be cut out for the harsh, life-or-death realities of the priesthood. Their journey takes them from the streets of Caliphas to the slums of Ardis, where their path intersects with famed author and former Pathfinder Society member, Ailson Kindler. Together with an Osirian swordsman and a deathless dandy, they'll have to unlock a secret from Kindler's past if they're to prevent the rise of a new vampire tyrant.

If you've been waiting for more dark fantasy, vampiric intrigue, and mist-bound dread in your Pathfinder Tales reading, Bloodbound has you covered. And even if you don't win the GoodReads give away, you can pick up Bloodbound once it releases in December, available from paizo.com, your local bookstore, or in digital formats (include Audible audiobook!) from a variety of retailers. Hope you'll all check it out!

F. Wesley Schneider
Contributing Author & Editor-in-Chief

Welcome Our New Editor—Josh Vogt!

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Greetings, fellow mortals! This is Josh Vogt, and I'm delighted to announce I've taken on the role of a Wielder of the Red Pen (aka Editor) here at Paizo!

I've journeyed long from Denver, CO, to be here and am excited to join the team. Ever since college, my career has always involved writing and editing in some fashion, veering from journalism to copywriting to my own fiction and full-time freelancing for RPG developers and otherwise. Some of you might also recognize me as the author of the Pathfinder Tales novel Forge of Ashes, as well as several of the stories in the Web Fiction series. Alongside that, I continue to work on my own wordsmithing, including The Cleaners series, with "Enter the Janitor" and The Maids of Wrath bringing a little supernatural sanitation twist to urban fantasy.

I'm a lifelong gamer, avid reader of speculative fiction, and lover of all geeky things, so getting the chance to adventure along with the fine folks here at Paizo is amazing, to say the least.

Thanks to the Paizo team for having me!

Onward and upward,

Josh Vogt
Editor

Audible and Kindle!

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

I'm a huge fan of audiobooks, so you can imagine my excitement as both an author and an editor to say the following words:

Paizo and Audible have partnered to release the entire Pathfinder Tales novel line as audiobooks—and the first wave is available now!

Along with Publisher Erik Mona and various other staff members, I've been working on this deal for more than a year, and it's been torture keeping it secret. We've just released slightly over half of the Pathfinder Tales backlist, with the rest releasing in mid-January. And of course, Tor/Macmillan will continue to produce new audiobooks as they come out. Which means that very soon, every Pathfinder novel ever released will be in audiobook form! You can find all 17 books currently available and listen to samples at audible.com/pathfinder.

These awesome stories and more of our Pathfinder Tales novels are now available through Audible!

One of the best things about the way Audible has approached these books is the amazing team of narrators they've assembled. For the last several months, my phone's been ringing day, night, and weekends as the narrators make sure they get pronunciations right for every character, city, and monster. (I actually spent a whole layover on the flight home from Gen Con sitting in an airport carefully speaking monster names into my phone—I'm sure the folks sitting near me thought I was summoning a demon via teleconference.) Not only is it fun to have a huge range of voices reading the books, but it's gratifying to see the narrators equally passionate about the work—not only are they all skilled voice artists, but some were already playing Pathfinder!

Yet that's not the only announcement I've been dying to make. While I mentioned it a bit on social media when it first went live, all of the Pathfinder Tales novels are now available on Kindle through Amazon. It's something I've been working on since literally before the first novel released, and I'm thrilled that our relationship with Tor has allowed us to finally get every Pathfinder Tales novel released in all the major formats—including the biggest contender in the ring.

It's a proud day for Pathfinder Tales. So whether you prefer to read in hard copy, on an e-reader, or while driving to work*, I hope you check out the novels!

James L. Sutter
Executive Editor

* Actually, that last one only applies if you're reading via audiobook—otherwise you should probably keep your eyes on the road.

Why I Love Beyond the Pool of Stars

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

The Paizo Editorial Pit can be a busy place sometimes. And by sometimes, I mean all the time. So much so that it's easy to get so focused on polishing and printing books that you look up one day and realize you don't get to geek out publicly about them anymore! Such was the case for me, when I realized I hadn't written any sort of behind-the-scenes blog in months. So I petitioned Paizo's illustrious Blog Queens and asked them to give me a digital soap box every two months, from which I can try to pull back the curtain a little on the Pathfinder Tales novels. After all, there are a million authors out there, and a literally infinite number of ideas. So what makes me choose a particular book to invest in and see all the way through the Paizo process, from concept to final printing?

Fortunately for me, this first one is easy. You want to know why I decided to publish Beyond the Pool of Stars? Take a look at the illustration accompanying this blog.

Illustration by Roberto Pitturru

That's Mirian Raas. She's a deepwater salvager out of Sargava, and as soon as Howard sketched her out for me, I knew we had a winner.

See, Mirian is a classic swashbuckling, two-fisted pulp hero, an explorer and Pathfinder who's part Indiana Jones and part Han Solo. She's also a woman of color—half native Mwangi, half colonial Chelaxian. That combination appealed to me deeply. Not just because we need more representation of rad women and heroes of color in the genre (though we absolutely do—one of the reasons I'm happy to see people connecting with characters like Seelah, or Alahazra, or Jiri from Firesoul). But because Sargava isn't just some adventure site full of monsters and ruins (even if some Avistani may see it that way). It's a society that's defined by racial tension, and Mirian and her brother occupy a unique place within it, neither truly a ruling colonial nor one of the native Mwangi people. That sort of conflict—both internal and external—makes for interesting characters, and provides a unique perspective from which to view that society. One of the best things fantasy can do is hold a mirror up to social issues in our own world, in a way that draws us in and lets us see ourselves more clearly. (And it's not just about skin color, either—that central idea of clashing societies and building bridges across cultural divides only multiplies when Mirian and her crew team up with a tribe of lizardfolk.)

But while I love it when fantasy addresses important social issues or interesting philosophical concepts, that's not enough to make a book for me on its own. (I can read blogs for that!) Pathfinder is a game about adventure, and so too do the novels need action to draw us in. Fortunately, that's something Howard Andrew Jones knows well, being a scholar of adventure fiction both old and new. After outlining Mirian to me, he promptly hooked me on the book's plot with the idea of an underwater lizardfolk city hidden in a cenote—one of those beautiful sinkholes filled with water. The idea of doing a deepwater dive in the middle of the jungle was so novel that I signed off on it immediately, and Mirian and her crew were forced to step off the rolling deck of the Daughter of the Mists and into the sweltering, unpredictable jungle.

As an interesting bit of trivia: this isn't a new story for Howard. When he originally sent me a writing sample, many years ago now, it also featured a deep water salvager—one who shared an eerie number of similarities with Mirian Raas. At the time, doing anything underwater seemed too unusual—how often do you actually run campaigns underwater?—and I was eager to have him write a more iconic "adventuring party" novel, which resulted in Elyana the elven ranger and her band of heroes. Yet that image of the bold salvagers stuck with both of us, and it's been really fun to see the characters come back around again. Some ideas just don't take no for an answer!

You can check out the first chapter for free here!

James L. Sutter
Executive Editor

Beyond the Pool of Stars Sample Chapter

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

In Beyond the Pool of Stars, Mirian Raas comes from a long line of salvagers—adventurers who use magic to dive for sunken ships off the coast of tropical Sargava. With her father dead and her family in debt, Mirian has no choice but to take over his last job: a dangerous expedition into deep jungle pools, helping a tribe of lizardfolk reclaim the lost treasures of their people. Yet this isn’t any ordinary dive, as the same colonial government that looks down on Mirian for her half-native heritage has an interest in the treasure, and the survival of the entire nation may depend on the outcome...

Chapter One: Homecoming
Mirian

Every day, dozens of transport ships plied the waters between Sargava's southern port and its capital, Eleder. Stacks of square-cut logs, crates of ivory, and packets of dried medicinal plants came north. Baskets of luxury goods and bright bales of Mulaa cloth went south.

These goods were shepherded by folk who sailed the route several times each week, so accustomed to the trip they scarcely came out from under the sun-bleached awnings or looked up from their deck benches. Although the occasional wanderer, pilgrim, or explorer might admire the rocky surf or the lush coastline, it was rare for the regulars to give much heed to either, and unheard of for them to crowd the rails.

But then, it wasn't every day they saw a pirate ship. When the Red Leopard's lookout cried warning, the passengers surged for a view of the doom to come.

Mirian Raas pushed her way through the throng. Despite the more pressing concerns, muted cries of outrage followed her wake. A pasty colonial woman openly scowled at her.

Mirian ignored them. She reached the Red Leopard's starboard rail with the bulk of the mob to her right. She gripped it tight, searching through the tattered mist hung above the uncharacteristically dull waves. The fog had risen on the heels of afternoon rain, graying the turquoise waters and throwing a smoky curtain across the horizon. It lent a more fearsome aspect to the fast-moving raider astern—a two-master flying a snapping black banner with a sword in a skeletal hand.

Mirian scanned the pirate vessel swiftly, only to have her attention stolen by a startlingly familiar little ship beyond it, just visible through the fog.

The pirate ship had swung out from beyond the bluff, emerging only a quarter league aft, and the other passengers hadn't the wit to see from its trajectory that its target wasn't the Red Leopard. Mirian glanced back to the quarterdeck and read the same conclusion in the eyes and activities of the crew there. The raider was aimed for the little caravel flying Mirian's family pennant.

Mirian would have recognized the lines of The Daughter of the Mist anywhere, even if the blue flag with a golden swordfish weren't waving from its main mast. The ship's sails were reefed, so Mirian knew the salvagers were below water searching for treasure, her brother Kellic probably leading.

The Daughter was swift and nimble when underway, but her crew was about to be caught flat-footed. They didn't stand a chance against the surprise attack.

Not unless...

Mirian turned and fought back through the frightened crowd. She'd spent long years inland, but her sea legs were still good, and she had no trouble running the rolling deck once clear. In moments she stood near the wheel and Captain Akimba.

The captain cocked a skeptical eyebrow at her arrival. He was a spare, dark-skinned Ijo man with a blunt nose; he cut a rakish figure with his tricorne hat and well-tended light blue coat. He'd struck Mirian as both perceptive and good-natured as they'd traded pleasantries earlier that day.

She greeted him with a sharp nod. "Captain, we've got to help that ship."

Akimba shook his head. "We can't, Miss Raas."

The stubby helmsman beside him goggled at the notion.

She continued her argument. "Between the Leopard and the Daughter, we'll have enough men to stop her. I'm sure there's a bounty on that pirate—"

Akimba's mellow voice held little warmth. "You can't know how many that pirate's fielding, or how many are on that caravel."

"Fine. Just get me close, then."

His brows furrowed. "What?"

They were running out of time. Mirian struggled to keep her impatience checked. "Damn it, Captain, tack a few degrees starboard! You'll pass close enough for me to swim for it."

He blinked, dumbfounded, his broad-voweled accent more pronounced. "You want to go over the side? Alone?"

Illustration by Tyler Jacobson

"Aye!" And from the pouch at her side she withdrew a small emerald. She grabbed his right hand and placed the gem in his calloused palm. "For the risk."

He frowned, clearly weighing her sanity.

"That's my family's ship, Captain. My brother's aboard." He was probably below, but she was striving to be succinct.

Understanding dawned on Akimba even as his frown lines deepened. "I'm sorry, Miss Raas." He sounded sincere. "There's nothing you can do."

"There's little risk, and you're being well compensated."

Akimba stared at the gem. His voice softened as he met her eyes. "I can't take this. Not in good conscience. You'd be killed."

She showed teeth in a mirthless grin. "That's my look-out, Captain."

He stared at her only a moment longer before his fingers closed over the emerald. His voice deepened as he roared an order. "Helmsman, tack us four points to starboard!"

Even as the thickset man at the wheel growled acknowledgment, Akimba was shouting orders to the men in the masts. The cluster of passengers shifted along the deck and a handful advanced toward the helm, presumably to protest at a course change that even they could see put them closer to the pirate's line.

"I've got to get my gear," Mirian said.

"Make it fast," Akimba growled.

She dashed for the port gangway, threw herself down the ladderlike stairs, and pushed through the tiny door to her cabin. Precious seconds flew as she unlocked and opened the curved lid of her sea chest.

Mirian withdrew the weathered sword belt and the sheathed cutlass that hung from it. After a moment's hesitation she pulled off her blouse, leaving her torso garbed only in a tight undershirt. She dropped the garment into the chest.

She fumbled off her sandals, then slung her sword belt over one shoulder, put the key to the lock, and bowed her head briefly. Eyes closed, she asked for blessings—from Desna, goddess of luck, and from her ancestors. For the first time, she realized the latter now included her father. "Guide my hand," she finished.

She dashed barefoot up to the weather deck. Chilton, the handsome first mate, addressed a gaggle of middle-aged colonial merchants and their families. Akimba was at the wheel, the air of immersion in his duties shielding him from the protestations below. A steady wind belled the sails and tore holes in the mist. The pirate was slowing as she neared the Daughter. For a moment the view was clear enough that she saw marauders readying swords along the pirate's taffrail. The numbers indeed looked daunting.

Akimba glanced at her. "Closer than I dare, Miss Raas." He looked almost apologetic. "You know my first duty is to the people and property entrusted to the Leopard." He continued before she could thank him. "I'm sure you have some special salvaging gear, but think: what can one person do here?"

"Never underestimate the element of surprise, Captain. You'll ship my dunnage to my mother at the Raas estate?"

"Aye, woman. You've paid me for both shipping and your suicide. May Gozreh bless you. Go!" He sounded angry, but she touched his shoulder in gratitude, for he'd brought his ship to within four cable lengths. She held off promising him a drink when next she saw him. Like most Ijo, Akimba probably had a healthy belief in sea ghosts. She didn't want to sound like she planned to haunt him.

Mirian felt the eyes of the ship's crew and passengers as she ran for the rail, and heard them speculating about the mad native woman.

She'd show them mad.

Mirian dove neatly over the side and passed seamlessly into a white-capped wave with the tiniest of splashes.

The water of Desperation Bay in the spring was only a little cool. The salt in her eyes was the worst transition, though one she'd expected. She kicked on, swimming steadily as her eyes adjusted.

Already the twin rings she wore had powered into effect. In appearance, they were virtually identical—plain black bands etched with sharp-tipped waves. Above water they seemed unremarkable. Below, they were something else entirely.

The ring on her right hand granted her the ability to move through water with the same ease she moved through air. Though she could still push against the water to swim, there was somehow no drag or delay in her actions.

More obvious were the magics activated by the ring on her left hand. The moment she'd struck the water, yellow translucent gills had blossomed along her neck. Matching flippers encased her naked calves, and glowing fins extended from her elbow to her wrist, tapering as they went.

These rare items were her heritage, one of two matched sets of arcane tools handed down from her eccentric great-grandmother. When she'd last seen the other pair, they'd been in her father's possession. She assumed they were now worn by her brother, likely somewhere underwater nearby.

Mirian surfaced to get her bearings, rising only far enough to see the Daughter's hull, dead ahead.

She kicked onward, felt her curly hair streaming out to brush her shoulders. A school of silver minnows darted past, pursued by a trio of hand-sized yellow arrow fish. Far below, a sea turtle browsed in a patch of sea grass waving on the edge of the drop-off to deeper waters

She spotted the pirate's hull as it swept up beside the Daughter, a dark shape that blotted light. Grimly, she kicked with her full strength, willing herself to swim with all her might. Every moment she delayed might cost a life.

Agonizing minutes later she reached the pirate ship's side. There were no sharks, the gods be praised. Maybe these pirates weren't the sort who threw bloodied victims overboard.

Or maybe they just hadn't gotten started yet.

Mirian focused on the pirate's hull, looking for weakness as she kicked along. It probably lost a knot or two whenever it moved, owing to the barnacles encrusted everywhere. Yards of seaweed dangled from the keel like weird undersea banners.

Mirian opened the stiff pouch that dangled from the left side of her belt and grasped the haft of the third tool that was her family legacy. Here in the shadows, the wand was only a slim dark stick the length of her forearm. In direct sunlight it was a dull ivory banded in green. According to family record, her great-grandmother Mellient had waded into battle with a sword in one hand and her wand in the other. But Mirian Raas had little to no magical aptitude. Sometimes the wand refused to work for her, even when she gave it her full concentration. It was the most challenging of all her magical tools—and the most deadly. It was also the only one that required maintenance. After that Bandu assault outside Kalabuto, she had only seven charges remaining in the weapon. She'd have to make every one count.

She leveled the wand and concentrated. A stream of bubbles left her mouth as she said, "Sterak."

A line of green energy streamed from the wand's tip, striking the tarred planks with an audible hiss, burning a head-sized hole through the port hull halfway between keel and waterline. The rupture sent more bubbles streaming toward the surface. The expanding edges glowed green as the acidic energy ate into the wood.

She swam on. Three more times she struck. By the last she thought the ship might truly be listing: an undeniable distraction.

Mirian swam straight on to the smaller hull of the ship she knew so well. The Daughter showed little sea growth, but then her father and Rendak always meticulously saw to her care. Mirian had so often navigated to the starboard ladder that she could practically reach it with her eyes closed. She hung suspended beneath it for an agonizing minute to undo the jute knot securing her hilt, hoping her delay didn't mean people were dying above. But there was no going forward until she had her sword free.

As the twine drifted, she saw a flash of movement from below the pirate ship. A distant creature swam toward her with a glowing yellow eye.

She readied the wand.

Only when she saw a second light behind the man carrying the first did she understand. She was looking at salvagers returning from the deeper water, each carrying a glowing, fist-sized stone. The man in front was a shirtless, paunchy colonial with a black fringe beard and receding hair: Rendak, the Daughter's first mate and a seasoned salvager. His mouth enclosed one end of a tube that stretched over one shoulder. Mirian knew it was attached to one of the enchanted air bottles her grandfather had purchased when the salvaging team grew larger.

Rendak halted a few yards from her, his expression torn between pleasure and concern. He'd obviously noted the strange ship, as well as Mirian. Perhaps he thought she'd arrived on it. The second figure swam up beside him, his lips likewise about a tube that led to a shoulder pack—Gombe, the broad-shouldered Mulaa salvager who'd joined the team a year before Mirian left. Where was Kellic?

Explanations and a reunion would have to wait.

She pointed to the hull and gave the salvagers a hand sign that signified pirates. Rendak's eyes widened. He was a little heavier, a little grayer than she remembered, but he still looked more than capable. Bald Gombe was trim and fit.

She then pointed to the lights and brought her hands together. Rendak nodded and dimmed the glowing stone. That was new equipment. Gombe hesitated before doing the same.

Three against forty or so was better than one against forty or so... Mirian pushed the odds from her mind and focused her attention on the ship. She thought she heard shouts above. Hopefully that was the pirates expressing outrage at the calamity overtaking their foundering vessel.

She indicated herself and the ladder, then pointed the salvagers toward the ship's prow. Rendak gave a thumbs-up.

Mirian waited just below the surface, watching as the two men swam for the Daughter's prow. Despite the irk of additional delay, she judged it best to time their attack to occur at the same moment as her own.

She breathed out while still underwater, then took a slow breath after breaching the surface. It was a hard fight not to cough. Magical assistance or no, her lungs had to acclimatize once more to air. She steadied herself with the ladder.

From the deck came the sounds of men shouting for others to stand still, the clomp of boots.

There was no telling how many pirates were really up there, or whether they'd actually been inconvenienced by her attack on their ship's hull. She might have overestimated the damage, or it might not yet have been noticed.

She supposed she'd find out. She started stealthily up the ladder, through the mist.

Purchase the whole novel here!

Liar's Island Sample Chapter

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

In Liar's Island, when Rodrick and his talking sword Hrym are summoned to the royal court of Jalmeray, the con men—well, con man and con sword—sense the opportunity for easy money. Yet while the legendary island is as fantastic as the stories tell, and the thakur's treasury as full as either man or sword could hope, there's more to this summons than a simple social visit. As intrigue mounts and the island's deadlier residents begin revealing themselves, Rodrick and Hrym quickly realize that the most important treasure they can escape with may be their own lives...

Chapter One: Cornered

Kresley was head of the little lord's household guard, a position that seldom required more than standing around looking good in a polished breastplate at interminable balls and occasionally kicking priests, beggars, or solicitors who somehow made it past the lord's gates back out into the streets of Absalom. Today, unfortunately, he'd been sent on an errand that was really more the province of the city guards... but the little lord wanted it handled personally, because the city guards were interested more in the law than in allowing the lord to exact a terrible revenge.

Kresley cleared his throat and tried once more to do it the easy way. "Rodrick! Come out! None of us want to see blood spilled." This gray street in a rough part of the city had probably seen plenty of blood spilled, though the predominant scent was actually urine.

"Especially our blood," muttered Haverford, a grizzled veteran with a long scar down one cheek who'd been hired onto the household guard because he'd once saved the little lord's cousin from getting a crossbow bolt in the face on one battlefield or another. Haverford was fond of wine and didn't respect Kresley's authority at all, even though Kresley's breastplate always far outshone Haverford's own.

Kresley, Haverford, and three other men—and the wizard, but Kresley didn't want to think about the wizard; they weren't the sort of people you wanted standing behind you, because what if one of their spells went off by accident?—were arrayed in a loose semicircle before an abandoned storehouse in the Coins. The wizard had tracked their quarry this far, through the winding streets of Absalom, and there was no doubt they'd found their prey, and that he was trapped. Kresley had scouted for other exits, and this door was the only way out, since the storehouse was built right up against the similarly dilapidated buildings around it on all sides.

But the thief, Rodrick, wasn't acting like he was trapped, and showed no interest at all in giving himself up. Kresley wasn't keen to bash his way into a building full of who knew what, through a door only large enough to admit one man at a time, against an enemy who'd had time to set traps or an ambush.

Especially this enemy. Kresley had seen the damage done by Rodrick's sword, the holes blasted in the little lord's wall, ragged gaps still rimed with frost. He knew the wizard was here to take that icy advantage away, but what if the man's magic missed?

The front door of the storehouse was even hanging askew, practically an invitation to enter, which surely meant some terrible preparations had been made beyond. Kresley had never served in any organized military force, but he knew attacking an enemy on prepared ground was harder than kicking a beggar down the little lord's front steps.

"Why don't you come in?" Rodrick called, voice muffled. "It's nice in here. Plenty of room. We can sit and chat."

"If we have to come in after you, there will be violence!" Kresley said. "Give yourself up, and it will go easier on you!"

"I see," Rodrick called, but his voice seemed to come from farther away. What was he doing in there? "So, if I come out, you won't harm me?"

"That's right!"

"But you'll take me back to the little lord, who will harm me?"

"He... hasn't told me his plans for you... "

"Oh?" Rodrick's voice was bright, and now sounded closer. "He could want me for anything, then. Perhaps I'm to be guest of honor at a feast, or he wants to play a game of towers. Sit with me and sip brandy by the fire and discuss the peculiarities of Osirian funeral rites or the philosophies of the Mammoth Lords, just us, two men of the world. I suppose that's the sort of hospitality he offers thieves? Though to be accurate I'm not a thief at all, because I was discovered before I had a chance to steal anything. The indignity of fleeing the palace—of running from you—isn't that punishment enough, especially considering I made no profit off this endeavor at all?"

"You did get your wages for serving as security at the ball," Kresley said. "Those are ill-gotten gains." Why was he arguing with the man? Oh, yes: Because it was better than rushing someone who had a magical sword. Or indeed any kind of sword.

Rodrick and Hrym are always up for a job, provided it doesn't involve any actual work.
Illustration by Eric Belisle

"Are you claiming I didn't provide adequate security?" Rodrick sounded outraged. "Was the dance floor attacked by hordes of ravening demons? Did ogres overturn the punch bowls? Did a bugbear eat the goose liver off a rich man's plate? Were the musicians torn apart by werewolves? They were not, and I'm sure my presence made all the difference. I gave good value for those meager coins."

Haverford spat and, to Kresley's surprise, spoke up loudly enough for Rodrick to hear: "The little lord paid you for your loyalty, thief. Just for one night, but you took the coin, and you made the deal, and so were bound by it. You betrayed him, and a man who'd betray another is no man at all. Treachery's a worse crime than theft."

"Oh, in that case, I'll be right out," Rodrick said. Something clattered, and someone else inside the warehouse swore.

Kresley frowned and leaned over to Haverford. "Is that... is there someone else in there? Does he have an accomplice?"

"It's the sword." The wizard rolled his eyes. He was fat and robed, but he wasn't old, and didn't look like a proper wizard at all, being entirely beardless. "You know, the whole reason I'm here? The reason this Rodrick was hired to provide security at the ball in the first place? He's just a man, but that Hrym is a wonder. A talking sword of living ice."

"I knew about the ice," Kresley muttered. There'd been something about the sword talking, too, but he'd dismissed it as exaggeration. The sword certainly hadn't said anything back at the little lord's manor house.

"I can also sing!" the second voice called. He—it?—sounded jovial and curmudgeonly all at once, like a drunken grandfather at the wedding of a relative he didn't like much.

"No, Hrym, don't sing!" Rodrick cried. "We want them to leave, not die!"

Kresley pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. He was getting a headache, and this street really did smell like every cat, dog, and vagrant in the Coins used it as a latrine. "All right. This is nonsense. We're going in. Rodrick, this is your last chance—"

"Oh, well, if you really want to die, I can't be blamed," Rodrick interrupted. "But I have to wonder if you've thought this through. Say one of your men manages to get a sword into my neck before Hrym freezes him solid. What have you accomplished, really? You can kill me, but you can't kill Hrym. He's a sword. And a magical one, at that—you can't even melt him down. Believe me, many have tried."

"I daresay the lord would be pleased to have a... a talking sword... to add to his collection."

"Ha! You don't want this sword." Rodrick's laugh was booming and hearty. "He's cursed, you know."

Kresley blinked. "I... what?"

"My sword. Ooh, look, a magical sentient sword of living ice, everyone's always so impressed. But, yes: he's cursed. Cursedly cursed."

"You have, by all accounts, traveled with this blade for many years," Kresley said. "In what way is it cursed?"

"What? Look where I am now," Rodrick said. "I'm about to be murdered by a bunch of household guards, of all things! Hrym's obviously cursed. It's just a slow-acting curse."

The wizard sighed. "The sword isn't cursed. Are we going to stand around here much longer? It's only, I've got plans."

"Cursed or not, the very idea of Hrym languishing in your master's collection disgusts me!" Rodrick said. "Hrym thrives on open air, long roads leading to nowhere in particular, and a general life of adventure!"

"I wouldn't mind resting on a pile of gold coins somewhere cool and dry, actually," Hrym said. "If anyone's asking me. Which no one ever does."

"Honestly!" Rodrick said more loudly. "Doesn't the thought of such waste, of turning a majestic creature like Hrym into an ornament—doesn't it sicken you, Kelso?"

"It's Kresley," Kresley said automatically.

A long pause. "If you say so. I'm sure you know best. But your confusion about your own name aside, doesn't it trouble you? The way your lord and master keeps such wonders—none as wondrous as Hrym, but still, quite wondrous—locked up, out of sight in a vault, made useless? Is it any wonder I wanted to take a few of them away with me? Those relics deserve to be appreciated, not kept sealed away for one rich man's pleasure."

"You were just going to sell them," Hrym said. "And for sums only another rich man could afford."

"Yes, true, but I was going to sell them to several rich men, to sort of spread the joy around, you see."

"I get the sense that Rodrick isn't taking us very seriously." Haverford looked Kresley up and down. "I can't imagine why."

"Fine," Kresley snapped. "Men, let's go in."

"The first man who comes through that door," Rodrick called, "will be frozen into an ice sculpture of himself. The process is generally fatal, but at least you'll make a beautiful decoration at your own funeral."

"Don't worry about it," the wizard said. He muttered something and made a series of complex gestures. He stepped forward, tapping each man briefly on the back of the neck. "There," he said. "Protection from ice, cast on all of you. Go forth and do whatever it is people like you do. As you should have ten minutes ago."

"Protection from ice won't help if they've got traps set up in there," Haverford muttered.

The wizard rolled his eyes again. "I wouldn't worry about it. This Rodrick probably hasn't had to think his way out of a problem since he first got his hands on that sword. This building, it's just an old storehouse, not an armory. They might try to push a pile of crates on top of you, but otherwise I wouldn't fret."

"Did someone out there say 'protection from ice'?" Hrym said.

"You're still a sword," Rodrick said. "We can, you know... cut them. Stab. What have you."

"But you're no swordsman," Hrym said. "No offense, but if it's just you against, what, three of them?"

"Four!" Haverford called, and drew his blade. "Five, counting our illustrious leader." Now he was smiling. "Things are looking up. These are the sort of odds you like, eh, Kelso?"

Illustration by Michal Ivan

"Kresley," Kresley muttered. But, yes—he did like these odds. He considered sending Haverford in first, in case there were traps, but the man would look at him with even more scorn than usual if he did that. Kresley strode forward and kicked the door off its hinges. The interior of the storehouse was visible in light streaming through the dusty skylights, and the space was almost entirely barren, apart from a few cobwebbed shelves near the back.

Rodrick stood in the center of the space, sipping from a flask and holding a crystalline longsword that shimmered like diamonds and sent up faint curls of icy vapor all along its length. Rodrick lifted the sword, and a blast of white wind spiraled toward the door. Kresley winced and closed his eyes, but apart from a cool, damp breeze, he felt nothing, and when he opened his eyes, Rodrick was making a face like he'd bitten a lemon.

Haverford shouldered in, followed by the other men. The wizard seemed content to wait outside. "How bad of a beating do we put on him before we drag him back to the little lord?" Haverford asked.

"Medium bad," Kresley said. "Feel free to break his arms and hands, but leave the legs and feet—otherwise we'll have to carry him the whole way back."

"You are cursed, Hrym," Rodrick said.

"You're cursed," the sword replied, voice emerging from the empty air in the vicinity of the blade. "Oh well. It's been a while since I was owned by a nobleman. As I recall, they hardly ever sleep in ditches or haystacks."

The guards advanced.

They were quite surprised when a djinni appeared before them in a swirl of mist and wind, rising nearly eleven feet tall, its lower body a swirling funnel of air, its upper body that of a muscular dark-skinned man, with a very solid-looking scimitar gripped in each hand.

"You will not harm this man," the djinni intoned, dust and filth swirling around in its whirlwind. Kresley stepped back, and even Haverford retreated a few steps. Kresley looked at the sword in his hand. He considered dropping it so the creature wouldn't mistake it for a threat.

"Ha," Rodrick said from behind the genie. "You didn't expect that, did you, Kelso? I can summon djinns. Djinn. Djinnis? One of my many skills."

"No it's not," Hrym said. "You've never even seen a djinni before. The plural is djinn, by the way."

"Shh," Rodrick said. "This is a marvelous opportunity to embellish my already considerable legend."

Kresley swallowed. "Ah... wizard? Do you... is there such a thing as... protection from... djinn?" He stole a glance through the open door and saw the wizard running away as fast as his sandaled feet could take him.

"Guess not," Haverford said, and ran away too, followed by the other guards.

Kresley waited a moment longer, as befitted his position as head of the household guard, and then he ran away as well.

Purchase the whole novel here!

Live Audience-Participation Author Game at Gen Con!

Thursday, July 23, 2015

Illustration by Andrew Hou

To celebrate the new partnership between Pathfinder Tales and Tor, this Gen Con we'll be hosting a live audience-participation Pathfinder game with a bunch of celebrity authors! Join me and Editor-in-Chief F. Wesley Schneider as we run acclaimed fantasy and science fiction authors Max Gladstone, Elizabeth Bear, Wesley Chu, and Scott Lynch through a pig-riding, fire-setting, dog-slicing goblin adventure!

Yet this won't be just any celebrity game session. Everyone who shows up to watch will be given a Plot Twist card, and every 5 minutes, Wes will select someone from the audience to play their card, forcing me to rewrite the story on the spot. It'll be a madcap improv adventure—but what else would expect from goblins?

Come play with your favorite authors (and maybe snag an autograph afterward), and learn once and for all whether Wes's audience-fueled heckling can cause me to spontaneously combust! (WARNING: The test-run of this game was so intense that at one point my glasses actually flew off my head and smashed against the wall. So anything could happen!)

The game will take place in the Paizo seminar room (Room 233) on Thursday, July 30th from 5:00-7:00 PM.

Mark your calendars, and we'll see you there!

James L. Sutter
Executive Editor

A Hellishly Good Winter Ahead: July and Winter 2015 Releases!

Thursday, July 16, 2015

As we double- and triple-check our Gen Con prep lists, our warehouse is also busily sending out the latest and greatest Pathfinder releases to your doorstep! Check out this overview of this month's releases, as well as what's heading your way this winter!

There are creatures in the world that even giants fear.
Illustration by Jason Rainville, from "Shadow of the Storm Tyrant"

Subscribers have already started receiving their July products, and in a little less than two weeks, they'll be available to retail stores everywhere, as well as at Gen Con in Indianapolis! Here's a roundup of this month's releases:

• Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Occult Adventures
• Pathfinder Adventure Path #95—Giantslayer 5 of 6: "Anvil of Fire"
• Pathfinder Adventure Path #96—Giantslayer 6 of 6: "Shadow of the Storm Tyrant"
• Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Giantslayer Poster Map Folio
• Pathfinder Adventure Card Game—Wrath of the Righteous, Adventure Deck 3: "Demon's Heresy"
• Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Character Mats: Ekkie
• Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Hell Unleashed
• Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Museum
• Pathfinder Flip-Mat Classics: Village Square
• Pathfinder Flip-Mat Classics: Woodlands
• Pathfinder Map Pack: Camps & Shelters
• Pathfinder Comics—Origins #5: Harsk

Of course the big release this month is one that our staff has been super-excited about, and we've been filtering out sneak previews and stories about the six new iconics featured in the newest Pathfinder RPG hardcover—Occult Adventures! Over 250 pages long, it's got everything you want to be a master (or mistress) of mysticism and explore new realms of adventure with psychic magic.

November 2015: One Hundred Volumes of Pathfinder!

There was a time in the not-too-distant-past where the idea of Pathfinder (and Paizo) reaching a volume in triple digits was a distant dream—but it is a reality, and "A Song of Silver" is it! This special volume contains more than just our usual assortment of support articles for the adventure—it also contains more new monsters, revelations about the god Aroden, and a retrospective covering all of our previous Adventure Paths!

Additional releases in November include:

• Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Bestiary 5
• Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Occult Realms
• Pathfinder Player Companion: Weapon Master's Handbook
• Pathfinder Adventure Card Game—Class Deck: Barbarian
• Pathfinder Pawns: Summon Monster Pawn Collection
• Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Winter Forest

December 2015: The Thrice-Damned!

Unsurprisingly, we've got Hell on our minds (and I am firmly placing this blame on the Overlord of Words Wes Schneider), and this December, Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Cheliax, The Infernal Empire gets its due with more details on this infamous country. For both freedom fighters of the Hell's Rebels or Thrune supporters of the Hell's Vengeance Adventure Paths, this will be an essential guide!

Additional December releases are:

• Pathfinder Adventure Path #101—Hell's Rebels 5 of 6: "The Kintargo Contract"
• Pathfinder Player Companion: Agents of Evil
• Pathfinder Adventure Card Game—Class Deck: Oracle
• Pathfinder Map Pack: Marsh Trails
• Pathfinder Tales: Bloodbound

As always, the release dates are subject to change, but you can see the most up-to-date information on the Product Schedule page, or on each individual product page.

Liz Courts
Community Manager

Lord of Runes Sample Chapter

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

In Lord of Runes, when Count Varian Jeggare is bequeathed a dangerous magical book by an old colleague, he and his hellspawn bodyguard Radovan find themselves on the trail of a necromancer bent on becoming the new avatar of an ancient and sinister demigod—one of the legendary runelords. Along with a team of mercenaries and adventurers, the infamous investigators will need to delve into a secret world of dark magic and the legacy of a lost empire. But in saving the world, will Varian and Radovan lose their souls?

Chapter One: The Acadamae

Radovan had placed seven pebbles on the sundial between the shadow and the next hour. As darkness covered the next tiny stone, he flicked it away. It skittered across the plaza, narrowly missing the toes of a woman hurrying east. By her well-made dress of common cloth, the basket trailing a few errant threads, and the distinctive callus on her finger, I took her for a seamstress. She frowned at Radovan. He offered her a wink and the smirk he refers to as "the little smile." She turned away an instant too late to conceal her own smile.

"A servant will bring me the keys at any moment," I said. "Go."

Radovan stretched, pointing his wicked elbow spurs at the sky. His red leather jacket hung loose on his broad shoulders. The tongue of his belt lolled out from the tighter cinch. In the months it had taken us to reach Korvosa, I estimated he had lost seventeen pounds. He nodded toward the gate. "I don't like the way those guys are looking at you."

I turned to see a trio of students emerging from the Acadamae, the girls laughing at the boy's quip. I could only presume that Radovan referred to the hellspawn guarding the gate. The devil-blooded sentries were notorious throughout Korvosa for abusing students and visitors alike.

One of the guards snarled as the students emerged. "What's so damned funny?"

Unlike Radovan, who boasted he could pass in dim light so long as he avoided the "big smile," these hellspawn would never be mistaken for human. One had vestigial gills and an eel's snout; the other could barely see out from beneath a pair of coiling horns.

The students lowered their heads and hastened past. The horned hellspawn whistled after them. The other turned toward me. His piscine eyes lingered on the sword on my hip and the Ustalavic wolfhound at my heel. He weighed the danger and looked away.

Suppressing a smug smile, I turned to Radovan. "As you can see, 'those guys' know better than to menace a count of Cheliax."

"Not those guys," said Radovan. He plucked another pebble from the sundial and made a catapult of his thumb and middle finger. He aimed at the top of the gate. "Those guys."

A spotted raven, a chimera cat, and a potbellied imp peered down at us.

"Radovan, it would be prudent not to—"

Radovan flicked the stone. The half-black, half-orange cat shrieked and fled along the wall. The raven flew into the safety of the Acadamae grounds, but the devil flew toward us, cursing in the guttural tongue of Hell. It demonstrated an impressive vocabulary and a flair for simile.

"That cat might have been a professor's familiar," I said. I drew the Shadowless Sword and plucked a riffle scroll from my pocket. "Or, worse, a master's."

Radovan shrugged, but I saw by his posture he was prepared to produce a razor-sharp throwing dart or star from one of the many secret pockets in his jacket sleeves. "I was aiming for the imp."

Hovering just beyond reach of my blade, the devil hissed, revealing a mouth full of needle-sharp fangs. Radovan hissed back through his big smile, revealing a jumble of teeth a Mendevian general once compared to a demon's armory.

The imp peeped and flew after its cohorts.

Radovan popped his jaw back into joint. He turned to see where the seamstress had gone.

"Go."

"You don't mind if I take the night?"

"Look for me at Upslope House tomorrow. I will return there after I finish cataloging Ygresta's library."

"You got too many books already."

"One can never have too many books. Still, I doubt I shall find any worth keeping. Just strive to remain inconspicuous. Stay out of Thief Camp and Old Korvosa."

"Old Korvosa, huh?"

I should have known better than to present Radovan with a forbiddance. By naming the two districts I most wished him to avoid, I practically ensured he would visit them. "The important thing is to avoid Chelish attention. The moment I receive the queen's summons, I am duty-bound to return home."

Thanks to warnings from military friends in Sarkoris, I had thus far avoided the heralds of Her Infernal Majestrix. I knew what message they must carry: Queen Abrogail would demand to know why I sent her a copy of the Lexicon of Paradox rather than the original. I had prepared several excuses, but none would withstand a rigorous interrogation by the inquisitors of Asmodeus. How could I admit that I trusted the crusader queen of Mendev to use the book for the good of all Avistan? How could I conceal my fervent belief that the queen of Cheliax would use it only to further her own power? One sharp question was all it would take to condemn me to impalement upon the tines.

Self-preservation was not my only motive for remaining abroad. What began as a self-imposed exile to escape scandal had become an adventure. Radovan and I had faced many horrors, and wonders too. Some came not from the fabled lands we visited but from within ourselves. One of the wonders—or horrors—within myself remained an unsolved mystery.

And I hoped to find the answer to that mystery soon, here at the Acadamae in Korvosa. Yet as Queen Abrogail's impatience grew, it was only a matter of time before she instructed one of her sorcerers to contact me with a spell. There were ways to avoid such communication, but none I could safely explain to her inquisitors. When I received the summons, by writ or dream, I would answer.

"You'd think she'd cut you some slack now the war's over," Radovan said.

Despite the sun warming my shoulders, I felt a gloom. "The war is never over."

"Come on, boss, lighten up. Take a picnic over to Jeggare Island. Go for a stroll around Jeggare Square. There's a Jeggare Museum, isn't there? You like museums. You like stuff named after you."

"How many times must I tell you—?"

"Yeah, I know. They named those places for your uncle Monte."

"Montlarion Jeggare the explorer, one of the esteemed founders of Korvosa, my accomplished great-great—"

Arnisant pricked up his ears at the sound of irritation in my voice. I patted his shoulder. A sly smile grew at the corner of Radovan's mouth. He was trying to be amusing. As usual, he succeeded more at being trying than at being amusing.

"I just wish you could relax is all," he said. "Ever since we hit town, you've been tense."

"Tense" was too small a word for the vexation I felt since meeting with Toff Ornelos. What I sought from the headmaster was an explanation of why the Acadamae had failed to detect my magical bloodline, which I had discovered only recently. For reasons of their own, the proctors allowed me to engage in a futile struggle to master the science of wizardry when they should have turned me away to develop my innate talents under the tutelage of a sorcerer.

Instead of answers, what the headmaster gave me was news that one of my oldest friends had died having named me executor of his meager estate. Headmaster Ornelos would hear none of my complaints until I had dispensed with what he deemed the more urgent matter.

Yet none of that was Radovan's fault. I looked him in the eye and said, "There is a park."

"Huh?"

"Jeggare Green. It is a modest size, but Queen Domina dedicated it to me, not my ancestor."

"'Jeggare Green,'" Radovan mused. "I'll look for it. If you're all right, then I'm going to—" He jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the vanished seamstress.

"Go!"

Radovan departed at a jog.

I turned back to the hellspawn gatekeepers. They glowered but kept their tongues still. I wondered whether their caution had more to do with my sword or my hound. The Shadowless Sword was swift and Arnisant fearless, but the guards had more to fear from my spells—both those inscribed on the riffle scrolls concealed throughout my coat and those I could summon by force of will, now that I understood that I was a sorcerer rather than a wizard.

The guards turned at the approach of another student from inside the Acadamae grounds. Rather than taunt the woman, they bowed as she passed.

The hem of her skirt swirled about her ankles as she strode toward me with swift grace. Upon each hand she wore a jeweled ring, and around her throat a cameo on a black ribbon. Across her hips hung a plaited belt holding a pair of holstered wands and a tooled-leather pouch, to which she had pinned the silver Acadamae badge that granted her access to the campus. To my surprise, I could not estimate her age more precisely than mid-twenties to mid-thirties. Ordinarily I could make a guess accurate to within two years.

On impulse, I uttered a brief cantrip. The spell indicated powerful magic on the woman's cameo, rings, pouch, and wands, but none on the woman herself.

"Count Varian Jeggare." Her eyes registered surprise as she drew near. "Why, you look entirely rejuvenated, if a bit underfed. You must come to my father's house and let us give you supper."

Unable to recall her name, I bowed and fell back on a banal courtesy: "You are as lovely as ever, my lady."

Her lips quirked—with pleasure or amusement, I could not tell. My inability to read her expression irked me.

My gaze slipped from the woman's deep purple eyes to the cameo at her throat. Carved into the stone was an exquisite death's head moth, its wings dappled in tawny shades fading to ivory.

"Did I see you cast a spell as I approached?" she said.

It was bad form to cast a spell on a fellow noble. "A minor divination, lady, nothing to violate your person. Forgive me. I must strive to shed my wartime habits."

"No apology necessary. We are all grateful to those who held back the Worldwound demons. Besides, no one can cross the campus without being subjected to a few divinations, if not a transmutation when the upperclassmen feel prankish. I just didn't think you could do that."

"Do what?"

"Cast a spell."

"Ah." My disability was not a well-kept secret, but few were bold enough to mention it to my face.

With a gesture for me to follow, the woman led me through the gates. As we strolled along the gravel path, Arnisant snuffled at her shadow and growled.

"Arnisant, heel!" The hound returned to my side, his gaze locked on the lady's feet. "I beg your pardon. He is usually better behaved. Perhaps he too must shake off the rude habits of war."

The woman lifted her skirt a few inches and examined the soles of her boots. They were of a fashion popular decades earlier, one that I found uncommonly fetching. "Perhaps I stepped in something as I passed the conjurers." She appraised Arnisant, who remained calm. "May I pet him?"

She showed no fear, so I nodded.

The hound remained still as a statue as she stroked the curly gray fur on his head. "What a handsome fellow. And what a fine name for him."

Since I was in Ustalav when I found Arnisant, I named him for the famous general who martyred himself to defeat the Whispering Tyrant. "My grandfather always said, 'Give a dog a good name.'"

"Because others will think you a brute if you call him 'Fang'?"

"For that reason too, but also as a practical blessing. When you give a dog a brutal name, your tone grooms him to become a brutal animal each time you call to him. But a dog hears respect as well as scorn. Call him by a hero's name, and he may become a hero himself."

"In that case, Arnisant must be ready to give his life for you."

That notion troubled me more than it ought, for I had grown fonder of Arnisant than of any other dog I had raised.

We continued our walk across campus. Plots of ornamental foliage provided a Chelish order to the grassy swards between the academic buildings. The spring flowers perfumed the grounds. A bell from the Hall of Summoning tolled the hour. Moments later, students spilled out to enjoy a few minutes outside before their next classes began.

"They look so young, don't they?" said the woman beside me. Her smile should have seemed familiar, yet it did not. Still I could not place a name with her face.

In my memory library, the mental construct I have nurtured for nearly a century, I perused the gallery of every Korvosan aristocrat I had ever met. The woman's black hair and purple eyes suggested she shared my mother's Azlanti heritage, the rarest of bloodlines. She bore none of the other Jeggare features, which my father's elven blood muted in me.

I nodded agreement and smiled before looking away, pretending to take in the scenery while wracking my memory for her identity. As we passed the statue of Acadamae founder Volshyenek Ornelos, I found a clue in his countenance.

I last met unfamiliar members of House Ornelos at the funeral of Fedele Ornelos, one of the finest men I ever had the privilege to call friend. After the memorials, I remained in Korvosa to attend to business. In the evenings I renewed old acquaintances and established new ones. Among the new were young scions of the noble families, including House Ornelos. Children seldom leave an impression on me, but I record their names and ages in my memory library nevertheless.

My escort was surely one of Fedele's nieces, making her the grandniece of Toff Ornelos and thus accounting for the deference the hellspawn guards showed her. No doubt the headmaster had sent his grandniece to keep me and my hundred questions out of his office.

Arnisant woofed as a raven swooped near. Once more I drew the Shadowless Sword from its scabbard, but not to strike. In addition to its swiftness, the blade revealed the truth beneath any illusion. It revealed the raven's true form as that of another imp.

"Don't let them frighten you," said the woman. "The familiars are worse bullies than the guards. Professor Ygresta had the right idea. Each term he would destroy one as an example to the others. They never harried him as they do some of the timid professors."

The Shadowless Sword revealed no illusion on the woman. I put away my blade. "Was he not concerned he would kill a colleague's familiar?"

"Oh, no," she said. "He always summoned the imp himself."

Her anecdote brought a nostalgic smile to my lips.

"So it's true he learned that custom from you?" she said.

"Not the idea of a warning demonstration, but I might have provided the inspiration." Even before the rise of House Thrune, summoning a devil was a mandatory exercise at the Acadamae. There was no requirement to keep the fiend as a familiar, however, nor to let it free to torment the citizens of Korvosa, as so many reckless students do. Though the convulsions I suffered while casting the spell were agonizing, I gladly suffered them again to destroy the fiend after the proctors recorded my success. One less devil in Korvosa. One less inch of the world surrendered to Asmodeus.

As we passed the Hall of Whispers, a stench of boiling urine from the necromantic laboratories wet my eyes. I plucked a scented handkerchief from my sleeve and offered it to the lady.

She waved it away. "After four years among the cauldrons, I became quite immune to the stench."

"Ah." The significance of the moth on her cameo struck me. "You specialized in necromancy."

"Your favorite subject." Her tone indicated that she knew of my disdain for her specialty.

"Ah."

"Ah." She softened her mimicry with a smile. "Uncle Toff warned me that you despise necromancers, but I know that can't be universally true. After all, Professor Ygresta was your friend."

Despite our social disparity, Benigno Ygresta had been a friend of a sort. In fact, he had been perhaps my oldest living friend, although I had seldom seen him in the seven decades since we left the Acadamae. I decided not to mention that we first met when I hired the lowborn Ygresta as my bottle-washer, a menial job he gladly accepted to supplement his paltry income.

"You studied with Ygresta?" I asked.

"He was the one who persuaded me to join the Hall of Whispers. I'd always thought only ghouls and grave robbers would study the art, but he caught my attention by demonstrating the best spell I had ever seen. Eventually, his lectures on the ethical applications of necromancy won me over. His life-matter theory alone should have earned him distinction, if only he could have won over the masters."

I nodded sadly, remembering one of Benigno Ygresta's many shortcomings: he had little talent for the subtle politics of wizards, especially the more conservative masters of the Acadamae. "Ygresta always struggled to express his fancies as proofs the traditional necromancers could embrace."

"I'm more than half certain they were more than fancies," she said. "But you're right: He could never satisfy the masters that they were more than eccentric ideas. Everyone always thought it was another part of his hopeless quest to improve the Acadamae's reputation."

I was familiar with Ygresta's arguments that necromancy was not inherently evil. His points were cogent enough, sometimes even compelling. Yet even if I could overcome my disdain for the ghouls and grave robbers, as my enigmatic companion described her colleagues, I would never break a promise to my mother.

"The professor once told me that you could have been one of the best necromancers at the Acadamae, if only you'd chosen to pursue our specialty."

"Arcane theory was my best subject." It was in practice that I had failed, not in principle. Even through the long decades when I barely dared to cast a meager cantrip, my knowledge of the arcane served me well.

"Let me guess: you studied evocation."

There's nothing Varian loves more than a good book—except maybe an evil one.

"Did the headmaster tell you that?"

"No one told me anything."

"Why do you guess evocation?"

"Am I wrong?"

"No," I admitted. Not only had I failed to read her expressions, but she seemed singularly capable of reading me. "But I still want to know why you guessed it."

"You strike me as the fire-and-lightning type."

Much as I despise being categorized, I held my tongue. One does not wish to seem defensive.

She continued leading the way to Ygresta's rooms. I continued to worry at the knot of her identity.

Realizing she was Toff Ornelos's grandniece narrowed the possibilities. When I had met them, the girls had ranged from ages six to fifteen. This woman was surely not Nicoletta, who married an ambassador to Sargava and likely resided there still. I did not think she was Letizia, whose constant yawning was her singular attribute. Of the others I remembered only names and relative ages. The youngest was Ambra, and her sisters were Filomena, whom Shelyn had blessed with exceptional beauty, and Illyria, whom the goddess had overlooked.

With that thought, I knew the answer.

By virtue of my half-elven longevity, I had seen generations of human children grow to adulthood. Lady Illyria was not the first ugly duckling to become a swan, but hers was the most pronounced transformation I had witnessed. The nose that seemed thin in childhood had grown regal, the fey cheekbones elegant. As a girl, she had barely spoken to me, yet I could now envision her watching the adults in silence while her sisters chattered among themselves.

Past the Hall of Whispers, we came to a row of faculty cottages. At the farthest, she climbed three steps up onto the landing and unlocked the door. Turning with a flourish, she offered me the key.

Also with a flourish, I held the door for her. "After you, Lady Illyria."

"Ah!" she said, still mimicking me. She straightened a pin holding her hair in a display of purple-frosted roses. "I knew my name would come to you eventually."

I recalled that Illyria's mother lived in Westcrown while her father—Fedele's sickly brother, nephew to Headmaster Toff Ornelos—kept a home in Korvosa. "How is your father's health?"

"I am making sure he eats properly before I sail to Riddleport next month."

"To Riddleport?" The city was more popular with pirates than with gentlewomen.

"Some friends are throwing an eclipse party beneath the Cyphergate."

I resisted the impulse to correct her use of the term. The phenomenon is more accurately an occultation of the sun, not an eclipse. Yet one does not wish to seem pedantic.

Inside, the cottage appeared largely undisturbed since Ygresta's death. Someone had stripped the sheets from the sagging mattress in the bedroom. We shooed flies from unwashed dishes in the kitchen but were relieved to discover the pantry had been cleared. A film of dust had accumulated on the furniture.

The sitting room featured a pair of overstuffed chairs beside the hearth. A deep depression in one seat indicated Ygresta's favorite. On the wall behind it hung a portrait of the man. His tall figure was much as I remembered, if withered. It had been decades since we last met, so I had never seen Ygresta's thinning gray hair, his round spectacles, or his sunken cheeks. Recognizing the portrait as the work of a painter who had died twenty years ago, I wondered how much more time had ravaged Ygresta before death. Considering he was the same age as I, and wholly human, he had enjoyed an exceptional life span.

"They say he slipped away in his sleep," Lady Illyria said. Sorrow tinged her voice.

"Then the Tender of Dreams kissed his face." I sketched the wings of Desna over my heart.

Illyria drew the spiral of Pharasma over hers. How strange, I thought, for a necromancer to invoke the Lady of Graves, whose priests abhor the undead. No stranger to the paradoxes of character, I found this anomaly deepened my curiosity about the woman.

After a moment, we broke our separate reveries.

"The library?" I asked.

"Between the dungeon and the torture chamber," she said, her voice sinister yet whimsical.

We descended a spiraling iron staircase. Magical flames sprang up in glass fixtures, casting our shadows behind the bars of the railings. Arnisant followed us down to the wooden floor and sniffed the corners of the room. Again he growled.

"Arnisant!" He came to heel.

Lady Illyria sniffed. "I can't blame him. This place is full of weird stinks."

That was so. The library smelled more like an alchemist's laboratory. Shelves lined the walls, except where they parted for a fireplace and two doors. One door stood open, revealing a cluttered storeroom. Judging from the odor, the closed door concealed a privy.

Librams, chapbooks, scrolls, folios, and loose manuscripts crammed the shelves. The collection was smaller than expected. At a glance, I estimated I could complete the inventory within a day. The sooner the cottage became available for another tenant, the better pleased the headmaster would be. Pleased enough to answer my inquiries, I hoped.

Knickknacks interrupted the ranks of books. Apart from a devil's skull and a brass candelabrum resembling a hand of glory, I spied few tokens of necromancy. Between the shelves stood a pair of tables. One lay empty, one stacked with crates overflowing with packing straw. A ledger, brush, and paste-pot lay beside a stack of blank labels, as the custodians had promised.

Ygresta's desk stood across from the tables, before the little fireplace. Beside it hung a birdcage, empty but for a dry water dish and a carpet of hardened fecal matter. At my approach, a brass lamp flared to life, spilling light on the desktop.

There in the center of the desk, upon a discolored paper blotter, rested a teak box beneath a calling card inscribed with my name.

Without disturbing the card, I scanned the box for magic. Detecting none, I scanned the room. The lamp above the desk and the lights on the stair radiated steady magic. On a few of the shelved books I discerned traces of metamorphosis spells. The latter were likely the residue of simple preservative spells, but their presence suggested more valuable tomes. Those I set aside for further study.

"The professor left his entire library to you?" said Illyria.

"His will names me his executor but indicates no beneficiaries, so in effect he did. After gathering the collection into lots, I will circulate an inventory to the Acadamae librarians and entertain their requests."

"You won't keep it for yourself? I thought you liked books."

"Perhaps one or two volumes." My library surely already contained any interesting volumes I might find here, but I did not say so. One does not wish to boast.

"In that case, may I be the first to lodge a request?"

"On behalf of the Hall of Whispers?"

"On behalf of myself."

So, I thought, Illyria was not merely smoothing over her uncle's sour greeting. She had her own agenda as well. "Name it."

She indicated a shelf of chapbooks. "Professor Ygresta's collection of the Pathfinder Chronicles."

My own collection was the most comprehensive I had ever seen. It included volumes dating from the very founding of the Pathfinder Society, with many annotated duplicates. In the unlikely event I should find one I lacked on Ygresta's meager shelf, I would claim it. But I saw no harm in giving Illyria the rest. "Is that all?"

She averted her eyes. "If you aren't taking them, perhaps also your letters?"

"My letters?"

"Please."

Her blush appeared genuine, but a sincere appearance is the goal of every ruse. "My letters to Professor Ygresta?"

"Exactly." She withdrew a pasteboard box from a shelf and lay it before me. I opened the drawer and saw it was full of letters, all addressed to Professor Benigno Ygresta in my handwriting.

Out of a sense of collegial obligation, I had always responded to his letters about current affairs at the Acadamae with some account of my latest excursion. The letters contained nothing not also reported to the Society. Naturally, I never mentioned military, political, or personal matters to someone beneath the aristocracy. I could not fathom what interest they might hold for Lady Illyria.

The foremost letter was my most recent message, a request for Ygresta to speak on my behalf to Headmaster Toff Ornelos, for whom I had so many questions about my admission and education at the Acadamae.

"I'm sorry." Lady Illyria winced. "I knew it was too much to ask."

For a moment I considered whether she was flirting with me. Long before I reached the age of maturity, my mother armored me against the attentions of women attracted more to my wealth than to myself. Yet Illyria did not strike me as the type. An Acadamae graduate would be far too intelligent to expect me to succumb to such manipulation.

Whatever her agenda, I could think of no harm that could come from giving her the letters. Moreover, a favor to her was a favor to the headmaster. I still required answers to my questions.

"You will understand that I must review the letters before deciding."

She brightened. "Naturally."

"Then let us revisit the matter after I have finished cataloging the library."

She rubbed her palms together. "In that case, let me help."

Before I could protest, she drew a wooden disk from her pouch. She wound a string around a slot in its circumference and flicked the disk away. As she uttered the spell, the whirling disk reached the end of the string and vanished. In its place, a whirlwind stirred the loose pages on the nearest shelves.

"Start in there." She directed her invisible servant toward the storeroom. "Dust every surface, but move nothing."

While I appreciated her careful instructions, I preferred to discharge my duty in solitude. "Lady Illyria, I assure you I require no assistance."

"You'll choke to death on these cobwebs before we can have you to dinner." She fanned away the cloud already emerging from the storeroom. "There must be a window in one of these rooms."

She cast a light on the palm of her hand and entered the storeroom.

With a resigned sigh, I sat before Ygresta's desk. The chair felt too large, but so did my coat. Radovan was not the only one who had lost weight during our journey. Arnisant sat at my foot, sniffing to confirm I had no food to share. I admonished him with a look, and he laid his head on his crossed paws, the guilty beggar. During the worst of our privations on our journey from the Worldwound, I had succumbed to pity and secretly fed the hound a portion of my ration. He learned to linger whenever I ate. Now I had to be strict with him lest he learn to beg whenever I sat before a table.

The box on Ygresta's desk appeared to be of recent construction, no more than a year or so old. The golden teak was of a type commonly imported to Varisia from eastern Garund, but in the carving I spied the iconography of ancient Thassilon.

I lifted the card bearing my name. Engraved on the box's lid was the sihedron, a star with each of its seven points notched like one of Radovan's throwing blades. I had seen the symbol etched on artifacts recovered from the demesnes of the long-lost runelords and their predecessor, the great King Xin, Emperor of Thassilon.

Illyria emerged from the storeroom with a bottle of wine. "Was 4690 a good year?" She presented the bottle like a sommelier.

The label had begun curling at the edges. The bottle was from one of my best vineyards, but an early frost had bruised the grapes that year. "That vintage has not aged as well as others."

"There's plenty more where that came from. What's a good year?"

"Is there any '84?"

"I see bottles dated back to the Age of Enthronement. You could open a shop with all of these."

Since I left Korvosa upon my graduation from the Acadamae, it had become my custom to send a gift of each year's wine to friends and associates in the city. Benigno received only one bottle annually, so I was surprised so much remained. "Did Ygresta stop drinking wine?"

"We didn't exactly run in the same social circles."

"No, of course not." Despite his academic accomplishments, modest though they were, Benigno Ygresta remained a vintner's son.

"What have you found there, a sihedron?" Illyria sat on the corner of the desk and peered at the box. "You see all sorts of adventurers with those lately."

"Do you?"

She nodded. "Fortune-hunters have been dredging up Thassilonian artifacts all across Varisia. So many Pathfinders have been exploring the region that they opened a new lodge in Magnimar. Oh, but of course as a venture-captain you already knew that."

In fact, I did not know of a new lodge, but I had no desire to discuss my estrangement from the Society and its ten anonymous leaders whose motives I no longer trusted.

I opened the box. Inside I found a thick stack of unmarked parchment. The pages fit perfectly inside the box's velvet lining, suggesting the container had been made to size. I retrieved a magnifying glass and a pair of clean white gloves from the satchel. A cursory inspection offered no clue as to the parchment's age or origin. Even with the aid of my glass, I could not identify what animal's skin constituted the material. Removing the parchment, I felt its substantial weight. Its outermost pages, only slightly thicker than the rest, formed its only binding.

"It's a book," said Illyria. "A codex, to be precise."

The study of ancient manuscripts remained one of my abiding interests, so I appreciated her specificity. "You must have earned full marks in Paleography."

"One of my best subjects." She made no attempt to disguise her pride.

I flipped through the pages. The interior was as blank as the covers.

"A gift of stationery?" said Illyria. "The professor often said how much he enjoyed reading accounts of your travels. Maybe he intended you to use it as your next journal."

"Perhaps. But if it was a gift, why not send it to me?"

"Maybe he wanted to give it to you in person."

"Then why leave a calling card with my name upon it? Except for a recent message I sent him, we had not corresponded in several years. He never told me I was to execute his will. He left me no instructions."

She picked up the calling card I had set aside. "Perhaps he had just begun making arrangements."

That was as reasonable a suggestion as any, but it hardly satisfied the questions of the carved box and the blank pages. Setting aside the box, I began to lay down the codex but paused when I noticed the stains on the blotter. Among the usual ink spots and food stains lay a dark spatter surrounding a rectangular void.

"Let me tear that away for you." Lady Illyria reached for the blotter page.

"No, leave it." I laid the codex in the blank space within the spatter. Its corners fit one side of the blank. I opened the pages to lie flat, and it fit perfectly within the unblemished space.

"He must have spilled wine," said Lady Illyria. "Later he cleaned the pages with a spell."

That was possible, but I did not like the color. I rubbed a gloved finger across the stain. Faint granular residue remained on the white cloth. "Not wine. Blood."

"How interesting."

I raised an eyebrow.

She wrinkled her nose. "I mean, how gruesome."

The stain was beyond interesting. Ygresta had left me far more than a codex of blank pages. He had left me that which I love best: a mystery.

Purchase the whole novel here!

Illustration by Eric Belisle.

Hidden Depths: Delving into Dwarves and the Darklands

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

There are certain figures within fantasy tales that are immediately recognizable or familiar when they appear in a scene. Wizards... dragons... elves...

Dwarves.

Ask most people to describe a dwarf and they'll likely touch on many similar points: short, gruff, warriors, lovers of gold, gems, and frothy mugs of ale. We see this time and again throughout books, movies, and video games. It's an iconic image, and it might be easy to leave it at that since it's such a familiar representation—as well as one many have come to love.

But just as with a true dwarven city, those surface level identifiers conceal many hidden depths. With Forge of Ashes, I wanted to be true to particular iconic elements while also delving beyond the "typical" and providing greater insight into unique parts of dwarven lore, culture, and passion. Yes, there are still aspects that make dwarves... well... dwarves! Their earthen origins. Their predilection for mining and turning the stones themselves into grand works of art that are equally fantastic and functional. The beards.

But what I love about the world of Golarion and Pathfinder itself is the emphasis on diversity. There's the recognition that even while certain races or species might share baseline characteristics there's going to be infinite opportunity for variety among them. Yes, dwarves can be warriors. But they can also be scholars and artists, commoners and royalty, priests and scoundrels. They can be courageous... brash... broken... greedy... selfless...

The central figure of Forge of Ashes, Akina, holds a questioning perspective about her kin and her place among them. After years fighting abroad, she's lost her way somewhat and is coming home to try and regain a sense of self and purpose (though that hardly goes as well as planned). So her interaction with dwarven culture and environs is both familiar and yet an exploration in itself. That was part of why I had immense fun writing Forge of Ashes! It was an opportunity to go deeper, both literally and figuratively.

Beyond the focus on dwarves, Forge of Ashes held many delights for me as an author. The chance to venture into the Darklands and bring its many strange denizens to life was a great creative challenge and adventure in itself. I loved getting to peek into the enigmatic nature of the dark stalker, Izthuri, and her people, as well as the maddening chaos found within a derro warren. There's a unique discourse with a roper that... well, let's just say it boggled my brain to write. And even the infamous rust monster has a small-yet-vital role in certain scenes!

So, join me in an adventure full of monsters, magic, and mayhem. Where some things are immediately recognizable but then quickly take a turn to devious and deadly ends. It's time to discover deeper levels of dwarven identity...

... and deeper levels of the Darklands, where someone or something is always waiting around the next tunnel corner—most likely to eat you!

Josh Vogt
Pathfinder Tales Author

Josh Vogt's debut Pathfinder Tales novel, Forge of Ashes, just released and is available from paizo.com now!

Forge of Ashes Sample Chapter

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

In Forge of Ashes, the dwarven warrior Akina returns home to the Five Kings Mountains after years as a soldier and mercenary, accompanied by Ondorum, her silent companion of living stone. What she finds there is far from what she remembers: a disgraced brother, an obsessive suitor, and a missing mother presumed dead. Yet the damage runs deeper than anyone knows, and when Akina’s brother is kidnapped by ancient enemies from the legendary Darklands, she and Ondorum must venture below the surface—and into danger as old as the stones themselves.

Chapter Four: Contemplation of Stone

Ondorum watched the snoring dwarf for a little while after Akina left. He looked for any sign that Brakisten might wake, or even be sensible enough to work the door latch if he did. He studied Brakisten's twitches and briefly wondered what he might've been like before drink, deception, and grief took such a harsh toll. Little use, however, in questioning what might have been. Better to focus on what could be.

Ondorum searched the rooms for stashed alcohol, but the den lacked any hiding places he could discern. He guessed it'd be a while yet before Brakisten woke. Perhaps he could use the time to explore a bit on his own.

While he'd encountered other dwarves besides Akina, he'd never visited one of their kingdoms before. What glimpses he had so far proved fascinating. He'd been looking forward to meeting Akina's family—at least, the brother and mother. She'd told him how her father had died while she'd been in battle training, buried in an avalanche during a Kingtower Pass patrol. In the years they'd traveled and fought together with the swords-for-hire, she'd occasionally spoken of her home and remaining kin. Her tone had initially been dismissive, but had grown increasingly wistful until her return had been inevitable. Her asking him to come along had been one of the great joys of his existence, but he possessed no certainty of how long it'd last.

Best to make the most of it, then.

Believing it safe to stroll for a bit, he bowed to Brakisten and prayed to Irori that the dwarf might have a soothed mind and soul when he woke. Then he stepped outside and took a moment to orient himself. Fortunately, he had an excellent sense of direction, a talent the mercenaries had often put to use when navigating unknown territory.

As he wound through the district, he admired the roads and bridges. The dwarves had fashioned well-situated thoroughfares, yet their constructions retained the sense of having sprung whole from the earth. Studying the dwarves themselves, he almost believed the legends that their earliest ancestors had been formed of living stone with fire baked into their hearts. He sensed their joy and peace in knowing who they were and where they belonged—a peace he knew Akina no longer held. Even though she'd never said it outright, he reckoned she'd hoped to regain that centering of herself by coming home. Could she still, he wondered, despite the unfortunate beginnings?

An inconsistency nagged him as he wandered. Something about the city itself...

Ah! Of course. The light. He should've realized. Akina said her people worked all hours, taking shifts to ensure the forge fires never dimmed, the mining carts never rolled in empty, and the tunnels and buildings never stopped being strengthened or lengthened. While Ondorum knew dwarves could see in the dark just as well as he could, the artificial light displayed their handiwork in far greater glory.

He paused on the corner of a four-way intersection atop a rise. From here, he could see down one of the massive rifts dividing the city. Structures appeared to be built into the depths of the rift itself, with chain-and-pulley lifts providing transportation up and down. Mining entrances? Homes?

He gazed upward and let himself feel the weight of the cavern. Not a claustrophobic press like many humans or elves complained of after spending time underground. To him, it offered a soothing weight, like a warm blanket beneath a frigid sky.

It seemed a city an oread might be right at home in. Oread culture was a loose thing, in itself. They had no central government. No real inclination to congregate with others of their kind. Most, like him, chose their own paths. He'd heard of other oreads finding homes among dwarven settlements, their inclinations toward stone helping them blend in well enough. He'd even heard of oreads and dwarves who'd married and had children, though he and Akina had never discussed such. Not that they'd been talking much lately.

Akina doesn't control her temper, so her temper controls her.

Guilt cracked his concentration at that thought. He knew Akina detested his self-imposed vow, sometimes opining that he must've taken it just to provoke her. But did she realize how much it tormented him as well? Ever since they'd first begun traveling together, he'd enjoyed the steady way they'd drawn ever closer. Now he'd distanced them in a way neither of them could bridge. In the pursuit of perfecting himself, did he now fail her?

Trying to restore a more contemplative focus, he shut his eyes and visualized his ki as a golden ball at the core of his being. Palms opened to the ground, he imagined lines of ki stretching out into the stone, connecting him with the essence of the city. A futile effort to gain a sense of the place, perhaps, since he'd only seen a fraction of Taggoret, but all lessons began somewhere.

As he attempted to meditate, a memory of screams teased his thoughts. Past mistakes and failures rose to taunt him, as they so often did. The golden ball of ki turned to granite. He fought to corral the riot of sudden emotion and steady his breathing, but everywhere he turned, regret threatened to overwhelm him. Akina. The monastery. The village. All of them hurt or lost despite his best efforts. The wrong words. The wrong actions. Yet he still struggled to know what he could've done or said differently in the circumstances.

Irori, please. I'm trying. Truly. I've ever believed yours is the hand that should guide my path, but it can be so difficult to know which way you're pointing. Is Akina's solace more important than my silence? Is my vow meant to be broken? Or is this a test to refine both of us?

He waited, listening for an answer, memories still haunted by screams. Then he opened his eyes, realizing some screams weren't in his mind. A faint roar sounded nearby, followed by a cry and crash. Someone in trouble?

He reached into his robe and drew out an iron rod no bigger than his thumb. He carried a small collection of such metal rods and chips to be employed when circumstances required. While he could fight decently enough with empty hands, he knew better than to overlook the advantage of an extended reach.

Calling on his elemental heritage, he let earthen power flow through him and infuse the metal, giving it the potential to be so much more than it appeared. The rod lengthened into a full quarterstaff. While it was a temporary transformation, and one he could only repeat after a lengthy delay, it could help if he needed to intervene in a scene of violence.

So armed, Ondorum stepped out into the middle of the street, looking for the source of the disturbance. A dwarf walking by jumped aside, fists cocked. Then he gave a grating laugh.

"Flaming beards, boy. Thought you were a statue."

Ondorum pointed down the road and cupped a hand to his ear. The dwarf frowned, but then brightened."Oh, that's the Scarred Knuckles. Best fighting hole in all the mountains. There's a tournament tonight. Was on my way, myself." He sidled up and nudged Ondorum."My bet's on the Silver Skewer, but it'll be a good fight either way. For some of us, blood gleams brighter than gold, eh?"

Quarterstaff tapping along, Ondorum fell in step with the dwarf, who talked as they went. The dwarf didn't seem to notice the oread's failure to reply as he guided Ondorum to one building and ushered him inside. The noise quadrupled in force, and Ondorum tried to let the cacophony flow over and past him. At least two hundred dwarves crammed into multi-tiered seats surrounding four sunken arenas. Each ring held a pair of fighters. The crowd loosed another roar as one combatant hit the ground and didn't move.

His dwarven escort cackled."Remember! All bets on the Silver Skewer."

Others called out names such as The Haunch and One-Nostril. Ondorum shifted through the crowd as the audience slapped and pounded one another in revelry, celebrating with what would've been bruising—or bone-breaking—force for many other races.

Ondorum's attention fixed on a cage set off in a corner. At first, it appeared to contain nothing but darkness; then the slightest movement suggested a figure huddled within. Ondorum got closer until he discerned the captive.

Clad in filthy rags, the person looked dwarven in shape and size. However, his skin was a dull gray, and what hair remained in his beard hung in white patches. He lay curled up beside a chamber pot, withered arms and legs weighed down by chains bolted to the stone wall. The wrinkles and heavy folds of his forehead and cheeks made him seem practically ancient.

Duergar. Ondorum had heard of the dwarves' fallen cousins but never seen one before. By the look of him, this one had been kept there as a spectacle for many years. The duergar stared out past the cage bars, dark eyes unblinking, face slack.

Ondorum frowned, uncomfortable with seeing any creature imprisoned. Akina had once entertained the mercenary band with tales of the outcast race. Once dwarves themselves, they'd rejected the call of Torag to seek the surface millennia ago. They'd remained below and, to survive in the treacherous Darklands, sworn themselves to Droskar, the Master of the Dark Furnace. Now the duergar continued to toil down in the Darklands, ruling their fell kingdom in cruelty and malice.

After a few minutes, he moved on, realizing he wasn't about to solve the ancient enmity between the two races with a little sympathy for a prisoner. He approached one of the nearer rings and looked easily over the heads of those crowding around it. The two fighters exchanged a barrage of hits and kicks before stumbling back from each other. The brief pause gave him a clear view of one bare-knuckled combatant and her platinum-streaked hair.

Akina.

The crowd might as well have vanished as he focused on her in dismay. Her half-crazed eyes, the flex of her jaw, and the hunch of her shoulders told him she rode the edge of fury. Ondorum gripped his staff, uncertain. Even if he broke his vow to shout her name, his voice would be lost in the riot. She always thought she could control her rage, and so often proved herself wrong as she rode the swell up and over into temporary madness. The others here didn't know the danger, and would find out too late.

∗ ∗ ∗

Akina howled in glee as her fist cracked across her opponent's cheek, sending him somersaulting. Every landed blow meant more coin added to the wagers on the bout. She didn't know her enemy's name. Didn't care. She bounded after and forced him up against a wall to pummel his belly while he beat at her skull. Might as well have been knocking stones against stones.

Here. She belonged here, dealing pain to any and all.

The longer her blood boiled, the more the world altered around her. Her nostrils flared as she picked out others by their sweat, by the auras of smoke clinging to them, by their reeking fear. The air itself felt like a rich current of magma through which she flowed as easily as thought, while those around her slogged and stumbled and burned.

With an incoherent battle cry, her opponent sprinted in. She took the hit and tangled fingers in his thick hair. Turning with his momentum, she drove him face-first into the wall. He rebounded, and she threw her weight into another slam. Then another. He went limp after the fourth, but she held him upright and cracked bone to stone, wanting to smash his skull through and beyond. Blood spattered her and the wall. He gargled in her grip as she reared back for a final thrust.

A hand grabbed her shoulder. She dropped her victim and spun, aiming a blow, but something slapped her fists aside and threw her off-balance. As she recovered, the newcomer scooped up the fallen dwarf and threw him out of the ring.

Akina shook bloodstained fists."No! I was winning!"

Cheated on the brink of victory. For a moment she thought she recognized the new enemy, but then it didn't matter. Yet as she charged, he stood solid and took her strikes as they came. Open palms intercepted her fists; his arms didn't even as tremble at the hits. When she tried to grapple him to the floor, he stepped aside and let her sweep past.

"Stand still!"

Each missed attempt stoked the fires higher.

"Stand—" One moment to the next, the flames in her belly turned to a block of ice. The cold weight of it dragged her to her knees. She shook her head, hands planted, trying to rise."No, I was winning..." Quivering limbs refused to support her.

As she collapsed, a pair of hands caught her. She blinked away the gray haze long enough to focus on Ondorum before a curtain of ashes enveloped her.

"Sorry," she said."It's the only way I know how to pray."

Purchase the whole novel here!

In addition to Forge of Ashes, Josh Vogt is the author of the Pathfinder Tales stories "The Weeping Blade" and "Hunter's Folly," as well as the forthcoming creator-owned novel Enter the Janitor. His short fiction has been published in such venues as Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show and Shimmer. For more information, see his website at jrvogt.com.

Illustration by Davi Blight.

Pulling Back the Veil: Fall 2015 Releases!

Monday, May 11, 2015

One of my favorite parts of my job is getting to add upcoming products to the website. Often it's the first time that I'm hearing about the latest adventure, realm to explore, or new player options, and now we're going to round up all the announcements to make sure you don't miss out on the latest additions to Pathfinder, coming to you this summer and fall!

Welcome to Kintargo—hope you survive your stay!
Illustration by Shen Fei

This month is going to be a triple feature, as we're going to talk about not one month's releases, but three, starting with August.

August 2015: Hell's Rebels Adventure Path begins!

With Gen Con a wee bit earlier this year than normal, we won't be starting the Adventure Path at the show, which means that the Hell's Rebels Adventure Path will begin in August, starting with "In Hell's Bright Shadow" by Crystal Frasier! With the city of Kintargo under martial law, what starts as a protest turns into a riot, and your hero is at the center of it!

Other August releases include:

• Pathfinder Adventure Card Game—Wrath of the Righteous, Deck #4: "The Midnight Isles"
• Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Class Deck: Paladin
• Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Occult Bestiary
• Pathfinder Player Companion: Heroes of the Streets
• Pathfinder Tales: Liar's Island by Tim Pratt
• Pathfinder Flip-Mat Classics: Forest
• Pathfinder Flip-Mat Classics: Swamp
• Pathfinder Map Pack: Forest Dangers

September 2015: Hail and Well Met, Traveler!

The feature of this month is one that we've all been waiting for—Inner Sea Races! Filled with details on all of the races common to the Inner Sea, this also gives you juicy tidbits on rarer denizens like aasimar, tieflings, and ooh, do I spy a [[REDACTED]]?!

More September releases include:

• Pathfinder Adventure Card Game—Wrath of the Righteous, Deck 5: "Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth"
• Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Class Deck: Monk
• Pathfinder Adventure Path #98—Hell's Rebels, Part 2: "Turn of the Torrent"
• Pathfinder Player Companion: Occult Origins
• Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Slum Quarter
• Pathfinder Flip-Mat Classics: City Streets
• Pathfinder Flip-Mat Classics: Prison

October 2015: The Night is Dark, and Full of Terrors!

We like spooky things—turns out, they are a grand thing when writing adventures and designing campaigns, and what could be grander than returning to one of our earliest Varisian stomping grounds? As anybody who's visited Elm Street can attest, dreams can be a dangerous thing, and "The House on Hook Street" promises to make a pleasant afternoon nap into a nightmare in this Pathfinder Module for 6th level adventurers. Written by Brandon Hodge, one of our own key resources when Occult Adventures was first on the drawing board, would-be heroes attempting to survive this adventure may want to stock up on their elixir of choice to stay awake through the night!

Additional releases in October include:

• Pathfinder Adventure Card Game—Wrath of the Righteous, Deck 6: "City of Locusts"
• Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Class Deck: Druid
• Pathfinder Adventure Path #99—Hell's Rebels, Part 3: "Dance of the Damned"
• Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Distant Shores Gazetteer
• Pathfinder Player Companion: Black Markets
• Pathfinder Tales: Beyond the Pool of Stars
• Pathfinder Map Pack: Slum Quarter Alleys
• Pathfinder Pawns: Giantslayer Adventure Path

As always, the release dates are subject to change, but you can see the most up-to-date information on the Product Schedule page, or on each individual product page.

Is there any particular release you're excited for? Have a hankering for learning more about the denizens of the Inner Sea with the Inner Sea Races hardcover? Maybe want try to divine the details of Occult Origins? Let us know in the discussion thread!

Liz Courts
Community Manager

PS: With PaizoCon just around the corner and adventures to wrap up before then for our GMs, the Pathfinder Society team is busily developing and editing the May releases. The regular PFS blog will return next week! And if you're attending PaizoCon, be sure to attend the Pathfinder Society Q&A on Saturday, May 23 at 2:00 PM!

What Inspired Firesoul?

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

This afternoon we're taking a break from our regularly scheduled Web Fiction, "The Gem" to have author Gary Kloster talk about the elements that were brought to life in our latest Pathfinder Tales release, Firesoul. "The Gem" will return with it's third installment next Wednesday!

I always have trouble answering questions like that. The problem is that I'm pretty chaotic neutral when putting together a new project. I start out with a mess of random ideas, plot, and characters, churning around in my head until it all clots into something that vaguely resembles a story. Then I get to spend a lot of quality time with a word processor prettying things up. So I'm going to pretend that I'm really a lawful good book planner, and slap a false veneer of organization over my chaos with the classic five question approach: who, what, where, why, and how.

What class should my protagonist be? I wanted this story to be rooted in a place, with a main character that had a strong connection to that place. A druid fit that well. And druid happens to be the class of the first character that I ever role played, which means I have a huge soft spot for them.

Where, in all of Golarion, should this story take place? The Mwangi Expanse. I wanted someplace rich in history, cultures, and nature. And I wanted a place that I haven't seen a lot of yet in Pathfinder fiction, especially from the viewpoint of the people who live there. Also, just to be honest, there are dinosaurs in the Expanse. And dinosaurs are awesome.

Who should the story be about? Like I said, I wanted someone with a strong connection to the place she is from. But I didn't want that connection to be easy. Jiri Maju, the young woman who is the heart of Firesoul, comes from a part of the Mwangi that bears a curse. Fire burns hotter and more eagerly there than it should. That curse runs through Jiri, and is a part of her gift for bargaining with the nature spirits that share their magic with her. Some of those spirits, the ones that burn hot and bright and dangerous, have always been too eager to serve her. Especially when she loses her grip on her emotions.

Why does the story begin? What happens when a group of adventurers find the Pyre, the hidden ruin that lies beyond Jiri's village of Thirty Trees? What happens when they ignore the warnings and break into that ruin and release something terrible that had been imprisoned there long ago? For the adventurers, the answer is simple—they grab the loot they came for and run. This place isn't anywhere they care about.

But it's Jiri's home.

How does it all end? Well that's the plot, and I don't want to give too much of that away. So instead, I'm going to talk about how I tried to prepare for writing this story, which, as usual involved a lot of reading. There was the background information, of course. Besides the Inner Sea World Guide, I drew from the Heart of the Jungle source book and the Serpent's Skull Adventure Path. For setting details, there was a lot of googling about jungles, along with questioning friends of mine who had lived or grown up in Africa and southeast Asia. Finally, I read books like Ocatavia Butler's Wild Seed, and Nnedi Okorafor's Who Fears Death, hoping that a little of their talent would rub off on me.

Despite the chaos of its beginnings, I really like how Jiri and her story finally came together. There's discovery, meaning, and growth—and monsters, magic, blood-drinking spears, and snark.

Oh, and of course there are dinosaurs too.

Gary Kloster
Pathfinder Tales Author

A Pirate's Life

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Award-winning author Chris A. Jackson talks about writing his latest Pathfinder Tales novel, Pirate's Promise, and how living full-time aboard a 45-foot sailboat in the Caribbean inspires his tales of love, espionage, and high-seas adventure:

A night as black as a devil's soul. No moon, no stars, only a light breeze in the sails and the roar of surf off the bow. We can't see it, but we can hear it, each successive crash of the sea against razor sharp coral a death knell that grabs your gut and gives a little twist. Our chart is crap, no radar, no GPS, only a compass and a depth sounder, and the soundings keep getting shallower. Did I mention the engine had quit? All we wanted was shelter from the seas for the night, but we didn't arrive until after dark; now we're committed. When it feels right, you turn into the wind, furl the sail, and drop anchor. It holds. We're safe. Deep sigh of relief, and where's the rum?

This is how I researched "approaching a shore in the dark" for Pirate's Promise. I don't recommend it. I researched "heavy weather" off the Oregon coast in 60 knot winds and 35 foot breaking seas. When one of those waves hits the boat, every item in the cabin becomes airborne and slams against the wall, including you. Your face is pressed against a window as the boat lies on its side, a thin layer of Lexan between you and a mile deep ocean, ready to take you... greedy, hungry. I don't recommend that either.

Okay, so this wasn't exactly research, but I use these experiences when I write nautical fiction. There have also been plenty of beautiful nights with skies so full of stars you can't see the constellations, and whales, and dolphins, and palm trees... and rum for the times both good and bad.

Looks like I've found my niche, or at least part of it. The other part seems to be making romance part of the plot, but better... because it's Pathfinder! Yes, she's a snake! So what? Beauty isn't just scale deep, you know!

How did I do my research on the romance? Well... I do recommend falling in love, and not just for literary research interests. Yeah, I can hear that one: "So, you wanna research a novel with me?" Still, there's nothing like experiencing that exquisite stupidity of being in love to add some realism to your romance writing.

I'm not telling how I researched Vreva Jhafae...

But if there's something else you want to know about Pirate's Honor or Pirate's Promise, let's discuss it. I'd like to hear what everyone thinks, likes, or wants. With a lifetime's worth of sea stories, there must be something you want to know.

To quote 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: "It's a whale of a tale, and it's all true. I swear by my tattoo!"

Chris A. Jackson
Pathfinder Tales Author

Be sure to catch Chris A. Jackson on tonight's Know Direction podcast at 5:30 PM Pacific time and look out for Pirate's Prophecy, the next volume in the series, in February 2016!

Jenny Bendel
Marketing Director