Visions of the Pact Worlds

Friday, March 16, 2018

Starfinder Pact Worlds is almost here, so we thought it might be fun to show off some of the cool art you'll encounter as you delve deeper into the cultures and politics of the Pact Worlds. To find out more about these exciting locations and interesting personalities, check out Starfinder Pact Worlds, available this month!

Illustration by Leon Tukker

Illustrations by Roberto Pitturru and Ben Wootten

Illustrations by Mark Molnar and Oh Wang Jing

Robert G. McCreary
Creative Director, Starfinder

It's a Dangerous World

Friday, November 10, 2017

Sure, we can probably all name adventures named after their big, spooky destination—anything from Hall of the Flesh Eaters to Crypt of the Everflame to Ice Tomb of the Giant Queen. Yet for all the gutsy action that takes place in these fanes of dark deities and towers of trash-talking tyrants, a big part of adventuring isn't about where you're going but how you got there. That means crossing the wilderness, the great nameless expanses that for many of us boil down to random encounters and conveniently forgetting to track rations.

So why is there such a dearth of adventures about exploration? One possibility is that location-based dungeon crawls lend themselves to more evocative titles, whereas stories about getting from Point A to Point B could as readily be named "The Ambushes Happen at Midnight," "A Tragic Series of Fortitude Saves," or the ever-popular "We Cast Teleport." Sure, we have some beautiful exceptions to this trend like the Kingmaker Adventure Path, but I'm going to posit we've really been waiting for fun ways to engage with the wilds and weave them more fully into our narratives.

Enter Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Wilderness, which hits shelves later this month. Whereas Stephen discussed shifters and Linda waxed poetic about leshys in earlier blogs, I'm excited to share some highlights from Chapters 4 and 5, which cover wilderness rules and companion creatures respectively.

Chapter 4: Mastering the Wild

I'd break down Chapter 4 into three major themes: travel, resources, and setting.

Travel's all about the making the wilderness experience more interesting. Full disclosure: I'm often a GM, so my definition of "more interesting" quickly gravitates to things that can kill or inconvenience the player characters. Like me, you might adore the Hazards and Disasters section (pages 146–151), which has rules for everything from brambles to volcanic eruptions to something cruel called "vampire orchids." Likewise, the Weather (pages 165–171) and Traps (172–173) sections are quite charming, providing not just a more robust system for determining what the weather's like outside, but also the rules for a swinging log trap that can knock out the party's wizard faster than you can say "martial-caster disparity." When I'm on the other side of the GM screen, I really enjoy being the party cartographer, so I quite like the Discovery and Exploration section (pages 124–127), which provides an easy-to-use, overarching rules system for exploring wilderness expanses, uncovering sites of interest, and turning the experience of reaching a dungeon into more than a brief travel montage. Perhaps the real gem is Spells of the Wild (pages 156–161), which provides a deeper look at common wilderness-oriented spells like pass without trace, diminish plants, and wind walk, particularly with an eye for how these spells can contribute to (but not necessarily bypass) wilderness exploration.

Illustrations by Roberto Pitturru

Resources cover all the great reasons the PCs would want to enter the wilderness voluntarily. Love free stuff (tends to share an answer with "Do you have a character?")? No doubt you'd love to be able to salvage components for alchemical gear, magic items, and costly spell components using the new Foraging and Salvaging section (pages 134–135). How about commemorating your latest kill with the Trophies and Treasures section (page 162–164), which provides ways to collect mementos, skins, claws, and more that you can use to create new items—which vary based on the trophies you collect—and remind you of your awesome deeds? Want to get more mileage out of Profession (herbalist)? Me too! Now you can with the new Herbalism rules (pages 152–155). But wait, there's one more prize awaiting you, and it's one of the requests I've heard most for Pathfinder RPG: Harvesting Poisons (pages 142–145), allowing you to at last extract the poison glands from one beast and jab them into another.

Finally, I'd like to linger for a moment on the setting resources, which cover two easily-incorporated pieces of Golarion lore that bring the wilds to life: the First World (128–133) and the Green Faith (136–141). The First World is the "first draft" of the world as we know it, having been plastered over with a new reality by the gods. That suits the native fey just fine, though every once and a while the boundaries between the two realms grow thin and allow enterprising explorers back and forth. If you like what you see, I recommend also checking out Pathfinder Campaign Setting: The First World, Realm of the Fey. Meanwhile, think of the Green Faith as the venerable religion that doesn't just seem to predate worshipping the gods; it spurns anthropomorphization of nature altogether. Founded when four rival sects of nature-worshippers witnessed a beautiful natural phenomenon and averted destroying each other in a civil war, the Green Faith represents the faceless power that fuels much of druidic magic.

Not enough? Very well...

Chapter 5: Companions and Familiars

What book about nature is complete without a bunch of new animal companions? Ultimate Wilderness has tons of new options for new animal companions, ranging from the eohippus (an early ancestor of the horse) to the marsupial devil to the full-size (read: Large) grizzly bear! Be the first to train a saber-toothed cat. Dive deep beneath the sea in the belly of your pet anglerfish. Relish the sight of your GM struggling to respond when you ask if your paladin's divine mount can be a giant porcupine. Speaking of which, page 178 also incorporates a bunch of these new options into the cavalier's, paladin's, and ranger's list of available animal companions. Author Mikko Kallio did a great job here.

Illustrations by Brynn Metheney and Leesha Hannigan

Animals are great, but what've really captured my attention since Ultimate Magic and Advanced Race Guide were the vermin and plant companions respectively. At long last, in Ultimate Wilderness, I got to write a pile of fun new vermin and plant companions. Some of my favorite plants include the creeping puffball, which explodes in Wisdom-damaging poison when struck; the gulper plant, which lets you recruit a walking pitcher plant as your battle buddy; and the sniper cactus, which can fire its spines at distant targets. There's also an array of vermin companions, including the giant mantis shrimp, which can make iterative attacks with its pincers; the web tyrant spider, which focuses on web-throwing rather than poison; and the giant solifugid, adept at pouncing on anything that moves. Want familiars? You can also recruit the suture vine, a symbiotic plant that survives on blood but also knits your wounds back together as it feeds; the giant tardigrade, an "immense" version of the thoroughly unkillable micro-organism; and the ravenous tumbleweed, a carnivorous plant that attacks by charging into its prey and gains extra speed during windstorms.

There's so much more in here, from companion and familiar archetypes to new animal tricks to new companion feats. There's just not time enough to cover it all, so I encourage you to grab a copy of Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Wilderness today!

John Compton
Organized Play Lead Developer

Sorting Through the Ruins

Tuesday, October 3, 2017

In short time, subscribers will be getting their monthly packages sent out containing Pathfinder Adventure Path #123: The Flooded Cathedral, but we haven't talked about Pathfinder Adventure Path #122: Into the Shattered Continent yet! So, here's my chance.

Illustrations by Roberto Pitturru

In Into the Shattered Continent the PCs continue to explore their new island home after dealing with some of the issues in the previous adventure. This adventure takes the PCs across the island of Ancorato and to one of the neighboring islands as the heroes makes sure that there aren't any more threats to the new colony.

Of course there are more threats, but the PCs also meet some friendly inhabitants that can help make their stay on the island much more pleasant. The adventurers come across these people as they explore the island and find relics of a lost empire, specifically some of the items they used, such as an ioun gauntlet, or places they inhabited, such as a ruined observatory.

Illustrations by Valeria Lutfullina

During the course of the PCs' survey of the island, they are asked to check out a few particular locations—spots that a certain early pathfinder who penned volume 1 of the Pathfinder Chronicles might have visited. If they make it through all of that, the PCs can tackle the end of this adventure in a blaze of glory!

Illustration by Sandra Posada

In addition to the adventure, this volume of the Pathfinder Adventure Path also includes an 8-page article about the region where this campaign takes place, including some other points of interest that a GM could incorporate into this campaign. There's also a look at seven magic items and artifacts left over from broken Azlant that a GM could seed into the adventure for PCs to find.

Keep your eyes on this blog in a week or so when I give some teasers about what's in The Flooded Cathedral and go into some more detail about the gods of ancient Azlant!

Adam Daigle
Managing Developer

Now Taking Applications for an Expedition to Azlant

Thursday, July 27, 2017

Today on the blog I want to talk about Starfinder. Just kidding, I'm here to talk about a Golarion that's still around and some of the things that shaped it thousands of years in its past. I'm here to talk about Azlanti long before they had a star empire. More specifically, I'm here to talk about the Ruins of Azlant Adventure Path that drops this August at GenCon.

The Ruins of Azlant Adventure Path takes place in the Arcadian Ocean in a small cluster of islands hundreds of miles west of the Inner Sea region where the continent of Azlant once stood over 10,000 years ago—before the alghollthu drew meteors from the vacuum of space in an attempt to wipe humanity from the face of Golarion. While most of what was Azlant was shattered and sunk beneath the waves, scattered islands poke above the surface, and some ruins of the ancient civilization remain nearly as they were thousands of years ago. Some islands host an abundance of life that has reclaimed the surviving pieces of the broken continent.

In this Adventure Path, the PCs are part of an expedition to establish a colony called Talmandor's Bounty on an island named Ancorato. This endeavor is a partnership between the nation of Andoran and the Bountiful Venture Company, an Andoren finance company based out of Almas. The company spread the word of the expedition far and wide looking for the best of what the Inner Sea could offer to take part in this groundbreaking venture. Those who answered the call sat for interviews where they explained what they could bring to a fledgling colony to help it not only survive but thrive. Among these hopefuls are the heroes of this tale—your characters. Leadership in the Bountiful Venture Company found something special about the skills and talents of each of the PCs in their vetting process, and selected them to join the second wave of colonists headed for Talmandor's Bounty to bring more supplies and double the population of the colony.

Illustrations by Valeria Lutfullina, Mirco Paganessi, David Franco, and Roberto Pitturru

The campaign begins with the PCs, and other eager colonists, standing on the deck of the Peregrine, the ship that brought them from the port in Almas to their new home. As the ship enters a wide bay and tacks toward the nascent Talmandor's Bounty, something doesn't seem right. The chimneys of the buildings tucked behind a partially built palisade give off no smoke. Peering through a spyglass reveals that no one walks among the wood and stone houses, and as the ship draws closer, the settlement is utterly silent. Something has happened to the first group of colonists.

If you want to find out what happened to the colonists and explore the lore of ancient Azlant, apply now* to the Bountiful Venture Company and see the wonders of a new world reclaimed from cataclysm!

During the course of this Adventure Path you get a glimpse into how some people dealt with the final days of the Azlanti Empire and a chance to see how some parts of Azlanti society worked. Just some of the articles in this Adventure Path include an ecology of the Azlanti's greatest enemy, a look at the gods that the Azlanti worshiped, a gazetteer of the region as it stands today, information on the Mordant Spire, other secrets of Azlant, and much more. The Adventure Path bestiary includes monsters native to the region, weird animals and plants you could find there, and a few newly discovered additions to the alghollthu family.

*Applications available** by pre-ordering, subscribing, hitting up paizo.com on August 17, or swinging by your local game and hobby store.
**Applications are totally fictional. Books are real. Reading is good for you.

Adam Daigle
Managing Developer

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

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!

Onward To Adventure!

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

February has the tendency to sneak up on you when you least expect it, and fly right by! This first month-and-a-bit of 2017 has been chock full of exciting projects and new announcements, including our latest Humble Bundle initiative in partnership with Dynamite and our lineup of Starfinder products launching at Gen Con 2017. Since it's been a minute (or two... possibly three) since we've given folks an update on our product schedule, let's take a look at what the next few months have in store.

The next Pathfinder Adventure Path kicks off in just a few weeks with the first two volumes of the Ironfang Invasion—Pathfinder Adventure Path #115: Trail of the Hunted and Pathfinder Adventure Path #116: Fangs of War. The Ironfang Invasion Adventure Path calls back to classic adventures, focusing on exploring the unknown and confronting the fantastic, all to stop a monstrous enemy from wiping out the good people of Nirmathas and Molthune. The PCs will delve into dungeons, siege well-guarded keeps, explore the wilderness, and battle some of the most iconic creatures from the 40-year history of fantasy RPGs.

Speaking of "iconic creatures", how many of you are excited for even more monsters? This April, pick up Bestiary 6! This sixth monstrous-tome for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game includes over 200 monsters like archdevils, the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, play-character-suitable races, and even the creepy and horrific Krampus himself. While previews for Bestiary 6 are still a few weeks away, I snuck some artwork out for you to feast your eyes upon...

Illustrations by William Liu, Jorge Fares, Jim Pavelec, and Roberto Pitturru

But there are more options for your Pathfinder campaign rolling through! For me, summer means backpacking and in the months leading up to it, geeking out over the latest gear. What better than to prep your next character or tailor your next campaign with with the Adventurer's Guide releasing this May? And, if you're trying to cut gear weight like me, we just announced that both the GameMastery Guide and Advanced Player's Guide will be available in the travel-friendly Pocket Edition format.

To recap, here's the lineup of Pathfinder products releasing March:

• Pathfinder Adventure Path #115: Trail of the Hunted
• Pathfinder Adventure Path #116: Fangs of War
• Pathfinder Adventure Card Game—Mummy's Mask Adventure Deck #6
• Pathfinder Player Companion: Monster Hunter's Handbook
• Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Forbidden Jungle
• Pathfinder Society Scenario #8-16: House of Harmonious Wisdom
• Pathfinder Society Scenario #8-17: Refugees of the Weary Sky
• Pathfinder Legends—Curse of the Crimson Throne #3: Escape from Old Korvosa

August 2017

If you're heading to Gen Con later this summer, you can expect a full compliment of Pathfinder and Starfinder excitement! To get more details about the Starfinder products in this list, you'll want to read James L. Sutter's blog about their announcement. And of course, since this is months in the future, titles are subject to possibly shifting (or being added) to this list.

• Pathfinder Adventure Path #121: The Lost Outpost, the first volume in the Ruins of Azlant Adventure Path
• Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Magus Class Deck
• Pathfinder Player Companion: Elemental Master's Handbook
• Pathfinder Map Pack: Village Sites
• Starfinder Core Rulebook
• Starfinder Adventure Path #1: Incident at Absalom Station
• Starfinder GM Screen
• Starfinder Player Character Folio
• Starfinder Core Pawn Collection (and Base Assortment)
• Starfinder Flip-Mat: Basic Starfield
• Starfinder Flip-Mat: Basic Terrain

As we begin the slow-roll into a jam-packed convention season, more announcements are sure to come! Keep your eyes out, and until next time!

Chris Lambertz
Community & Digital Content Director

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.

Purchase the whole novel here!

By Thunder and Fang!

Monday, November 7, 2016

Illustration by Roberto Pitturru

The Serpent's Skull and Curse of the Crimson Throne Adventure Paths—both of them based around their respectively infamous sets of fangs, to say nothing of one's use of a famous Shoanti fighting style—are now sanctioned for the Pathfinder Society Organized Play program. You can find the rules for running these Adventure Paths as well as Chronicle sheets on the Additional Resources page and on their respective product pages.

The more that Linda and I work on these sanctioning projects, the more interesting we can make the experience. You'll find some handy guidelines for running the sanctioned parts of the adventure volumes and retaining more of the story in each of these sanctioning documents. We're also pretty pleased with the boons in both of these, which allow PCs to ally with clashing factions, redeem cruel villains, affect one or more of your other Pathfinder Society characters, and even dissolve one of the underlying assumptions of the campaign in a way that lets the character still enjoy in the organized play experience. Curse of the Crimson Throne is also an excellent reason to acquire a Harrow Deck, which features in one or more of the boons on each volume's Chronicle sheet.

Have you already started one of these Adventure Paths in your home group? Awesome! Much like we did with Giantslayer and Iron Gods, we're allowing some retroactive credit. If you are still in the middle of playing one of these Adventure Paths but have not yet concluded it, you can receive retroactive credit for all of that Adventure Path's earlier volumes the next time you earn a Chronicle sheet for that campaign. To answer a question that arose in the Hell's Rebels sanctioning blog, yes, this allowance also extends to Hell's Rebels.

There's more sanctioned adventures on the way, though not for a few more weeks. Other adventures like Kingmaker, Council of Thieves, Strange Aeons, and Seers of the Drowned City are still on our schedule.

John Compton
Pathfinder Society Lead Developer

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!

OPC Log—18 Lamashan 4716

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

In the Pacific Northwest, our weather turned and rain now envelopes our Redmond office in a mist. Falling temperatures, transitioning leaves, and blustering winds replaced the bright sunshine and warm weather. The rough storms of the past weekend left us tossed about and quite a bit of debris and detritus blown about, but all are accounted for. For other Pathfinders, the inclement weather patterns of the past few months test their resiliency and survival skills. While we have heard from Venture-Officers and players on the eastern seaboard of the US, they still face difficulties with flooding and power outages. Though divided by location and language, we are all one huge family. If possible, where possible, consider offering a helping hand or a dry towel.

Upcoming Conventions

This Friday, I am off to Book & Board convention in Fairlawn, Ohio. Anyone else heading out to conventions? I know of Pathfinder Society events occurring at:

• What-Kahn 2016 (Loves Park, IL)
• ReaperCon 2016 (Lewisville, TX)
• Dan's Con of the Vale (Milwaukee, WI)
• FlatCon 2016 (Bloomington, IL)
• Asheville Scarefest (Black Mountain, NC)

If you're in the Akron area, consider stopping by to say "Hi!"

Adventure Card Guild

Besides rain, October brings with it Mummies! While some may knock on your door during the Halloween festivities, it is the ones arriving by mail or via your Friendly, Local Game Store that I write about. The Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Mummy's Mask Base Set releases tomorrow! I peeked at a copy in the office and am excited to get playing. Gorgeous artwork, innovative mechanics, new blessings, and a few surprises brought to us by Mike & Co at Lone Shark Games.

Illustration by Roberto Pitturru

With the new base set comes a new Season of Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild play. As I mentioned last week, we changed the naming format this time around. We don't have many mummies in the Adventure Card Guild season, so it seemed a bit of a misnomer. Author Amanda Hamon-Kunz suggested the title Plundered Tombs and we thought it the best fit in describing the season. So we exchanged the working title "Season of the Mummy" for "Season of Plundered Tombs".

As for the tombs themselves, this season involves much more integration with the Pathfinder Society and its associated allies and enemies. The Adventure Path introduction, written by John Compton, finds you landing in Sothis with instructions to report to Venture-Captain Norden Balentiir. As with Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild scenarios, the Pathfinder Lodges provide a backdrop and the Venture-Captains a resource for player interactions in the region. From Sothis, author Mark Seifter takes you on a journey in Adventure 1: Serpents in the Deep. Bet you cannot guess what organization features as the henchmen and villains!

Subsequent adventure authors include Linda Zayas-Palmer, John Compton, and Amanda Hamon-Kunz. They take the story up, down, over and under the northern portion of the continent of Garund. While there, characters meet new allies, uncover secrets, and engage in general pandemonium. All of their text supports adventure design by Keith Richmond of Lone Shark. Other team members include Vic Wertz (editing and development) and Sonja Morris (layout and graphic design). My task is project coordination!

Season of the Goblin

But before we debut Season of Plundered Tombs, we must wrap up Season of the Goblin. The second installment in the mini-Season of the Goblin will release tomorrow, Wednesday, October 19th! This time, our goblin friends engage in even more mayhem and madness trying to determine who is the best goblin of them all!

Upcoming Blog

Next week, John introduces us to the newest Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild adventures—#8-06: Reaping What We Sow and #8-07: From the Tome of Righteous Repose.

Here's the first paragraph John wrote introducing the Season of Plundered Tombs, to give you a taste and whet your appetite:

"Catastrophe struck the world 10,000 years ago, and mighty Osirion was one of the first great nations to rise from the ashes. For centuries, its pharaohs oversaw a golden age of expansion and innovation while crushing rivals such as the Tekritanin League and the golem armies of the Jistka Imperium. Eventually, the kingdom began to stagnate, its leaders unable to match the splendid accomplishments of their forebears. Following millennia of decline and foreign occupation, Osirion is once again autonomous and prospers under the Ruby Prince Khemet III."

Until next time—Explore, Report, Cooperate!

Tonya Woldridge
Organized Play Coordinator

A New Look for Classic Encounters

Thursday, September 29, 2016

This week, on my preview for the hardcover edition of Curse of the Crimson Throne, I wanted to talk a little bit about the new art. When preparing this book, Sarah Robinson and I realized something pretty quickly—we were going to have to order a LOT of new art. First of all, for modern Adventure Paths, we've moved away from vertical half-page illustrations, so all of those we used for scenes the first time around were going to have to be re-ordered and recreated. Second of all, in those early days, we were still experimenting with what the "Pathfinder Look" was going to be for our art, and not all of the art styles we tried out in those early days are ones that we've stuck with, so that made for MORE art we had to re-order and recreate. And finally, we didn't want to reprint much art that we'd since used in hardcover books—a fair amount of the artwork from Curse of the Crimson Throne actually ended up in the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook, such as the fight against the giant devilfish (page 185 of the Core Rulebook), the Red Mantis Cinnabar (page 203), or Eva's first design for the Gray Maiden (not only on page 198, but on the back cover of the book).

In short, we found it really easy to find excuses to add artwork to the new book.

Seelah and Harsk do some crowd control and Harsk learns how to dance.
Illustrations by Ben Wootten and Caio Maciel Monteiro

Turns out that this town is not big enough for these two! They ought to look to Seelah's diplomacy as she settles this local dispute.
Illustrations by Caio Maciel Monterio and Ben Wootten

Ezren and Seelah make new friends while Harsk prepares to make his point.
Illustrations by Roberto Pitturru and Richard Suwono

The amount of new artwork in the hardcover edition is enormous, with most of the significant NPCs now getting a full body illustration instead of a simple portrait, and with additional half-page illustrations for key encounters and scenes in the story. And it's those new half-page illustrations I'm going to show off today, without context (so as to minimize spoilers) and in some cases illustrating brand new encounters in this version of the Adventure Path. One thing I will say, though, is that each of these illustrations is taken from one of the six parts of the campaign. If you've played Curse of the Crimson Throne before, see if you can guess which illustrations come from what part! And if you've never played Curse of the Crimson Throne, consider these six images as teasers for the perils and excitement that await you!

James Jacobs
Creative Director

Embrace Elemental Might!

Thursday, September 15, 2016

From the Jade Regent Adventure Path and Dragon Empires Gazetteer that drove the Year of the Ruby Phoenix to the Iron Gods Adventure Path and Technology Guide that inspired the Year of the Sky Key, the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild has borrowed heavily from upcoming Pathfinder literature when designing a new season's setting and feel. About two years ago, the organized play program set a course for storylines independent of the ongoing Adventure Paths, and the elemental planes were always that under-appreciated portion of the campaign setting's cosmology where the Pathfinder Society could make its mark. We're making that happen in the new Year of the Stolen Storm!

Illustrations by Nikolai Ostertag

The trouble is that by divesting our metaplot from the Adventure Paths, we'd entered fairly undocumented territory. The Great Beyond provides valuable information upon which Blood of the Elements built, but we had still written fewer words about these nigh-infinite planes than we had about most countries in the Inner Sea region! This time, rather than react to and incorporate other product lines, the Pathfinder Society team pitched Planes of Power, secured it a spot on the schedule, and outlined it so that players, GMs, and authors alike could learn more about the elemental planes we're featuring over the next year.

Planes of Power also provided us with an opportunity to make the elemental planes stand out as the truly bizarre, wondrous, and primal places that they are. We aimed much higher than simply describing the Plane of Fire as a place that's hot or the Plane of Air as a floating realm. Rather, the nuances of each plane are lovingly detailed in 10-page chapters, which describe the realms' unique histories, inhabitants, places of interest, political intrigues, and more. Each chapter also includes a section of ground-level details about a planar metropolis.

Rounding out the book are chapters full of planar beasts and character options, including tools to help PCs explore the elemental planes and wield elemental energies no matter the setting. We're excited to say that Planes of Power also provides a look at the elemental lords, including the unholy symbols for the evil lords shown above.

Aside from this breadth of information, the book flat out looks gorgeous. From its dynamic cover to its thematic page elements to its beautiful illustrations, we hope that Planes of Power's visuals inspire readers with infinite ideas for planar characters and adventures.

Illustrations by Tomasz Chistowski, Helge C. Balzer, Roberto Pitturru, and Jorge Fares

Take a look at the illustrations above for a taste of what we mean!

John Compton and Amanda Hamon Kunz
Developers

Prepare to Raise Hell

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

I've got a lot of favorite parts of the Pathfinder campaign setting—if you've been following along for the last few years, there's a good chance you already know a few of them. Since we created the Pathfinder world, I've had a chance to explore the pits of Hell in the Book of the Damned, some of Golarion's mightiest treasures in Artifacts & Legends, and the gothic nightmare of Ustalav in both Rule of Fear and Pathfinder Tales: Bloodbound. But in all that time there hasn't been a good opportunity to fully detail my favorite of Golarion's countless organizations. With the Hell's Rebels and Hell's Vengeance Adventure Paths, though, that's changed. This month, at long last, you'll learn more than has ever been revealed about the Pathfinder world's most infamous champions of law: the Hellknights.

Illustrations by Roberto Pitturru

Since their first appearance in the Rise of the Runelords Player's Guide, Hellknights have been a part of the Pathfinder campaign setting. In those crazy frontier days of Golarion's creation, we didn't have all the setting's details fully defined. As a result, part of the goal of the player's guide for our first Adventure Path was to fake it. To that end, I wrote in a whole weave of loose ends, threads suggestive of places yet to be visited, threats without faces, and groups bound to be enemies or allies. One of these organizations—described among the ranks of paladins, if you can believe it!—were the Hellknights. There wasn't much more than a name for the group, but the grim title immediately stuck, so much so that we got our first glimpse of these dark armored crusaders as early as Pathfinder Adventure Path #2: The Skinsaw Murders.

Over time there'd be drips and drabs revealing more on the Hellknights, particularly in our campaign setting hardcovers and in two meaty articles I wrote for Pathfinder Adventure Path #27 and #28. Liane Merciel's newest novel, Pathfinder Tales: Hellknight, also has more than a little to do with these grim mercenaries. But beyond those books, there hasn't been a ton more on the relentless order. It's been too long.

The drought ends now.

Today presents the first of three previews of Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Path of the Hellknight. While my name's on the book's cover as author, this title owes most of its coolest bits to star developers Amanda Hamon-Kunz and John Compton, who not just contributed a host of ingenious new player options, but made me sound like I know what's what. Creative Design Director Sarah Robinson also somehow managed to outdo herself once again, not just by wrangling incredible art, but by creating a gorgeous interior evocative of dark iron and bloody crimson. As for the content, today I'll show you a bit from the first chapter, a section that provides an overview of the Hellknights as a whole, the group's history, methods, philosophies, and the like. Throughout this series I'll also be showing off snippets and symbols of all seven of the major Hellknight orders, starting with the Order of the Chain and Order of the Gate.

Order without Mercy

Path of the Hellknight's first chapter focuses on the Hellknights as an organization, their history, their unyielding philosophy—the Measure and the Chain—and more of the traditions and trails that bind their distinct orders. There's also a fantastic piece of art depicting the Hellknights' founder, Daidian Rhul, along with details on his deeds and mysterious disappearance. The section also includes a discussion of what it means to play a Hellknight character. Being zealots, Hellknights are similar to paladins in some ways and bring with them some of the challenges one might expect with inflexible heroes. To that end, the section includes big picture advice for players and GMs alike planning to bring Hellknight characters into their games—such as the following.

Hellknight Philosophy at the Table: Hellknights seek to embody supreme order, refuse to compromise their ideals, and do everything they can to uphold their philosophies. People and circumstances that don't fit into their definition of order must be stamped out to meet their vision of progress. For some, this extends to whole religions, cultures, or philosophies. When making a character, discuss with your group whether a Hellknight character is right for your party—Hellknights and law-breaking characters are unlikely to work well together. Also, discuss with the group and GM how appropriate themes of intolerance are in your game. Behaving in ways that make other players uncomfortable simply because your character is a Hellknight is neither respectful nor fun. Consider that lawful neutral Hellknights of any order tend to focus on the harsh judgment of societal vices, while lawful good characters usually work at the organization's fringes, hunting down criminals and bringing justice to civilization's frontiers. Lawful evil members are the ones who tend to commit acts of prejudice and intolerance. Remember that every Hellknight order has members focused on different tasks, meaning that it's your choice whether your member of the Order of the Nail is either a righteous traveling judge or a vicious murderer—make the character that's right for your entire group.

Beyond this introduction chapter, the book spends considerable space focusing on the various Hellknight orders. Each section features details on the order's organization, philosophy, citadel, prominent members, tenets, suggested rules for Hellknight characters, and new options for Hellknight heroes and villains. Every one of these chapters begins with an overview of fundamental information, including rules elements that tie in with the new Hellknight Obedience feat—an option similar to Inner Sea Gods' Divine Obedience feat—which grants a host of new powers to an order's most fanatical members. All one has to do is take the feat... and perform an excruciating daily reckoning. I'll show off the reckonings here, but the powers themselves can wait for now.

Illustration by Daniel Lopez

After this first chapter, Path of the Hellknight turns its attention to each of the major Hellknight factions. For this first preview, here are a few glimpses of the Order of the Chain and the Order of the Gate.

Illustration by Damien Mammoliti

Order of the Chain

Symbol hand wrapped in chains
Headquarters Citadel Gheradesca, near Corentyn
Leader Lictor Uro Adom (LN male human fighter 5/Hellknight^ISWG 7)
Members guards, sleuths, trackers, victims of outlaws
Armor Features lock-and-chain design, manacle-like gauntlets, helms reminiscent of iron prisoners' masks
Favored Weapon flail
Reckoning Crush your limbs with tightened chains. Gain a +2 bonus on combat maneuver checks when attempting to disarm, grapple, or trip opponents.

The Order of the Chain counts among its ranks the greatest Hellknight bounty hunters and jailors. Believing that everyone has a vital role to play in society, the order seeks to remove those who irredeemably deny their place and who actively impede civilization's progress. Rather than slaying criminals and nonconformists outright, the Order of the Chain forces most of its captives into lengthy terms of service in work camps. The most dangerous malefactors are sequestered in the order's fortress-prison, Citadel Gheradesca. Few criminals surrender easily, and so members of the Order of the Chain train in a variety of fields: tracking, criminal psychology, investigation, and interrogation, to name a few. Little strikes greater dread in a lawbreaker than knowing she's become a Hellknight of the Chain's quarry.

Along with details on the structure and fugitive hunting techniques of the group, players of Order of the Chain Hellknights can also expect a variety of new rules and uses for restraints, from fetters and iron masks to new uses for common manacles.

Illustration by Damien Mammoliti

Order of the Gate

Symbol infernal eye staring out from a swirling portal
Headquarters Citadel Enferac, east of Pezzack
Leader Vicarius Giordano Torchia (LE male human wizard 11/Hellknight^ISWG 2)
Members devil worshipers, intellectuals, planar-blooded outcasts, spellcasters
Armor Features helm with a vortex-like pattern, crimson robes
Favored Weapon dagger
Reckoning Etch complex symbols of penitence into your flesh with a dagger. Gain a +4 bonus on Will saving throws to resist divination spells and spell-like abilities.

Punishment is a response to the failure of law. To the members of the Order of the Gate, true order can be achieved only when criminal behavior is quelled before it is committed—preferably before it is even considered. The Order of the Gate doesn't seek to convince every free-willed creature of a lawful society's virtues, because its members believe that forces stronger than rhetoric must be used to prevent the sickness of criminal impulse. Thus, the Order of the Gate employs magic to enforce its vision of law.

Would-be Order of the Gate Hellknights can look forward to learning a measure of this spellcasting order's secrets, including invasive new scrying techniques, methods for shielding spellcasters, and the order's connections to planes beyond.

Keep on the lookout for more previews of Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Path of the Hellknight, as I'll be covering the rest of the major Hellknight orders soon, along with plenty more glimpses of the dreads to come.

Thanks for reading!

F. Wesley Schneider
Editor-in-Chief

PaizoCon 2016 Pathfinder Society Announcements

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

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

Pathfinder Society Academy

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

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

Adventure Card Guild

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

Illustration by Roberto Pitturru

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

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

Roleplaying Guild

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

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

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

John Compton
Pathfinder Society Lead Developer

Illustration by Roberto Pitturru

Do Not Underestimate the Sneakiness!

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Working on Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Inner Sea Intrigue brought out our inner deviousness—this book has so many ways to inject a little craftiness into your Golarion games, especially for players and GMs who are using the recently released Ultimate Intrigue. Now that Inner Sea Intrigue is about to hit the streets, we thought we’d show you some of our favorite toys from the book!

Illustration by Konstantin Vavilov

Inner Sea Intrigue riffs seamlessly off of Ultimate Intrigue in that much of its content showcases these new rules as they affect and exist in Golarion. One of many examples is the specific archives presented. Using the research rules found on pages 148–153 of Ultimate Intrigue, the book presents four places of research that feature prominently in the setting. They are Forae Logos, located in the Wise Quarter in Absalom; the Jeggare Museum, located in Korvosa in Varisia; the Magaambya, located in Nantambu in the Mwangi Expanse; and the Quarterfaux Archives, located in Caliphas in Ustalav.

Illustration by Konstantin Vavilov

By making Research checks and reducing the archives’ knowledge points, players can discover many of the fascinating truths kept in these libraries. Many such discoveries are in-world details that pertain to the history of the archives’ locations, the magic that has thrived there, and other key elements. Some of the most difficult-to-unearth discoveries, though, are adventure seeds in and of themselves.

Take this gem, found in the depths of the Jeggare Museum, for example.

"A small island in Lake Skotha on the Storval Plateau is known as Chorak’s Tomb, and is rumored to be the home of an ancient weapon that belonged to a runelord rival of Karzoug. However, no one has been able to get close enough to verify this story, as all trespassers are driven away by bombardments of boulders and rune-covered ballista bolts."

As with other "Inner Sea" hardcover tie-ins we’ve done in the past (including Inner Sea Magic and Inner Sea Combat), we also had the opportunity to present dozens of new character options, from new talents for investigators, rogues, and vigilantes, to new archetypes and prestige classes directly tied to the intriguing elements of the Inner Sea region. The prestige classes included are the Lion Blade of Taldor (updated from its 3.5 iteration) and the enchanting courtesan (inspired by the character Vreva Jhafae in the Pathfinder Tales novel "Pirate’s Promise"), while the new archetypes include the Anaphexia thought-killer, the bonded investigator (who gets a familiar to aid him in his research), the Nexian spell-spy, the tinkerer (who learns to craft a clockwork familiar that she can adapt to an increasing number of situations as she levels up), and many more!

Whether you’re a GM running a campaign with intriguing elements, or a player whose PC prides herself on her sneaky, duplicitous ways, there’s no better supplement to an Inner Sea campaign than Inner Sea Intrigue!

Amanda Hamon Kunz and Mark Moreland
Developers

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

Tools of Mischief

Thursday, March 17, 2016

Ultimate Intrigue has plenty of feats, spells, and magic items that help your character get herself into all sorts of trouble—and out of trouble as well!

The Brilliant Planner feat lets you make a fund that you can use to pull out the item or resource you need in a particular situation, which can be pretty useful in clutch situations. The fighter gains several new combat feats that enhance his bravery (both against all mind-affecting effects and against social attacks like feint and demoralize) and even allow him to share his bravery with nearby allies. Legendary influence lets mediums choose one feat for each legend and accept influence to gain the feat they chose when they channel that legend (so you can pick things that only help you with one legend, like Selective Channel for hierophant, which has channel, Arcane Armor Training for archmage, and so on). Feats like Subtle Enchantments are great for manipulating others (in this case, it makes it harder to notice the target is enchanted with Sense Motive and gives a 50% that a target who succeeds on the save doesn't notice it had to make a Will save). The three new styles are Fox Style, which lets high-Int characters master feinting, dirty tricks, and the like, Owl Style allows martial characters to use their fighting skill to maneuver around the battlefield fluidly, and Street Style lets urban characters create combo attacks using the environment around them. And that's just a few of the feats you'll find in the book!

On to spells: Intrigue spells in general lend themselves to sneaky and clever usage, but there's plenty of choices for all sorts of characters, even the most straightforward ones. One of the cool new things for spells is the ruse descriptor, which allows you to cast a spell that seems to be another spell unless the person identifying it succeeds by 10 or more. Things like the false resurrection spells, where you pretend to bring someone back to life but actually revive the body with a possessing demon or devil inside, hollow heroism, which works as normal for a while, but then you can change the effect from +2 to -4 at any time, and treacherous teleport where you send the other passengers of the teleport somewhere different than where you go. The entice fey spells allow you to bargain with fey and potentially earn their service and conditional favor lets you call take-backs on a beneficial spell you cast, so you could say "Sure, I'll cast this spell and remove your blindness, but only as long as you promise to follow the paladin code." There's all sorts of other fun measures and countermeasures in the spells so that PCs and their foes can escalate things like reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance, and then there's such fun spells to show off the bling of your magic, like resplendent mansion, which creates an actual mansion on a flat area that last for weeks!

Illustrations by Roberto Pitturru, Jaime Martinez, and Mark Molnar

Finally, items: There's a variety of fun nonmagical intrigue items like a book with a hollow compartment in it and a wrist-launcher that shoots darts, as well as some suggestions of some top tools of the trade from Ultimate Equipment. Some of the cool magic items include a shield that can pick a lock for you while you stand by the door fighting with your other hand, a weapon property that makes your weapon invisible, an armor that lets you redirect divinations meant for someone else to yourself, an erasable book that appears innocuous but secretly records everything people say around it, a pouch that erases the writing within it if anyone else tries to open it, a deck of cards with various doors on them that turn into doors when you put them on a wall, and the quick-change mask, a consumable that lets a vigilante instantly switch identities in a tight spot, and that's just a few of them.

Next week I'll cover the various special subsystem in Ultimate Intrigue, like verbal duels and influence, so be sure to keep a careful eye out; the blog might be plotting a heist to nab your prized McGuffin while you read it!

Mark Seifter
Designer

Give 'Em Hell

Thursday, February 25, 2016

An order of Iomedaean knights called the Glorious Reclamation is stirring things up in Cheliax and House Thrune needs your help fighting them in the Hell's Vengeance Adventure Path—the first Adventure Path specifically for evil characters.

To help people get ready for this diabolical campaign, we've released the Hell's Vengeance Player's Guide. This free download provides a wealth of hints, tips, and advice to help players make the best decisions possible for their evil villains. In addition to this character advice, this Player's Guide includes some basic information about Cheliax and House Thrune, six pregenerated evil characters from the covers of Hell's Vengeance, as well as 11 new campaign traits perfectly suited to this Adventure Path.

Don't waste any time! Grab the Hell's Vengeance Player's Guide and get ready for Pathfinder Adventure Path #103: The Hellfire Compact—the introductory adventure for the campaign! Strap on your armor, pick up your weapons, and get ready to be bad!

We acknowledge that folks are having trouble accessing downloads (as evidenced by the big red notice all over the site), and are so appreciative of the support that's been pouring out for the Humble RPG Book Bundle: Pathfinder benefitting Extra Life. While you're waiting for your copy of the Player's Guide, check out some of the awesome artwork below featured in the first two volumes of the Hell's Vengeance Adventure Path!

Illustrations by Bryan Sola and Roberto Pitturru

Illustrations by Firat Solhan and Roberto Pitturru

Adam Daigle and Chris Lambertz
Developer, Community & Digital Content Director

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

Weapon Training—And So Many Weapons!

Monday, October 19, 2015

Illustration by Roberto Pitturru

The array of armaments available to archers, armigers, assassins, and the like has grown considerably since Paizo first published the fighter and the categories of weapons used in the class's weapon training ability. Ultimate Combat, Ultimate Equipment, and Melee Tactics Toolbox all did admirable jobs of cataloging to which category each of the new weapons belonged, yet some implements of destruction have never received this treatment—especially those that are iconic weapons in on Golarion.

For the majority of these—by my count—290 weapons, there's little doubt as to where a given weapon falls (at least I hope we agree that a barbed spear does, in fact, fall into the "spears" category). For some it's a little less clear. In the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild, players have done an admirable job of making educated guesses when wielding battle poi or a ripsaw glaive regarding which category to use. However, it's nice to have confirmation about these things to minimize any table variation that might otherwise hamper the PC. In fact, players have requested this clarification time and time and time again.

For those participating in the organized play program, this blog is going to appear as one of the legal sources on the Additional Resources page. If you're running a home game, you're certainly welcome to use it or disregard it as befits your campaign and play style. Especially in light of the upcoming Player Companion: Weapon Master's Handbook, I hope that perusing the list inspires you to use some obscure weapons you hadn't considered and build even more exciting characters.

Any weapons that appear in Ultimate Combat, Ultimate Equipment, or Melee Tactics Toolbox have not changed categories, though following discussions with the Pathfinder design team, a few more weapons were added to the Double Weapons and Thrown group. Any other weapons originate from Campaign Setting: The Inner Sea World Guide, Campaign Setting: Distant Shores, Player Companion: Adventurer's Armory, Player Companion: Cheliax, Empire of Devils, Player Companion: Dwarves of Golarion, Player Companion: Gnomes of Golarion, Player Companion: Halflings of Golarion, Player Companion: Humans of Golarion, Player Companion: Ranged Tactics Toolbox, Pathfinder RPG Advanced Player's Guide, Pathfinder RPG Advanced Race Guide, and Pathfinder RPG Monster Codex (and possibly another book or two I didn't note while listing references).

Thanks also to Andrew Christian, Dave Higaki, and Robert Thomson for their assistance in reviewing these lists and tracking down a few weapons I missed.

Weapons!:

Axes: Bardiche, battleaxe, boarding axe, collapsible kumade, dwarven double waraxe, dwarven longaxe, dwarven maulaxe, dwarven waraxe, gandasa, greataxe, handaxe, heavy pick, hooked axe, hurlbat, knuckle axe, kumade, light pick, mattock, orc double axe, pata, throwing axe, and tongi

Blades, Heavy: Aldori dueling sword, ankus, bastard sword, chakram, cutlass, double chicken saber, double walking stick katana, elven curve blade, estoc, falcata, falchion, flambard, great terbutje, greatsword, katana, khopesh, longsword, nine-ring broadsword, nodachi, rhoka sword, sawtooth sabre, scimitar, scythe, seven-branched sword, sharpened combat scabbard, shotel, switchscythe, temple sword, terbutje, and two-bladed sword

Blades, Light: Bayonet, blade boot, brass knife, butterfly sword, chakram, dagger, deer horn knife, dogslicer, gladius, hunga munga, kama, kerambit, kukri, kunai, machete, manople, pata, quadrens, rapier, ratfolk tailblade, sea-knife, short sword, sica, sickle, starknife, switchblade knife, sword cane, swordbreaker dagger, tailblade, wakizashi, and war razor

Bows: Composite longbow, composite shortbow, longbow, shortbow, and thorn bow

Close: Armor spikes, barbazu beard, bayonet, blade boot, brass knuckles, cestus, dan bong, dwarven boulder helm, emei piercer, fighting fan, garrote, gauntlet, heavy shield, hook hand, iron brush, klar, light shield, madu, mere club, punching dagger, rope gauntlet, sap, scizore, shield spikes, spiked gauntlet, tekko-kagi, tonfa, unarmed strike, wooden stake, and wushu dart

Crossbows: Crank crossbow (heavy), crank crossbow (light), double crossbow, gastraphetes, hand crossbow, heavy crossbow, launching crossbow, light crossbow, repeating hand crossbow, repeating hand crossbow, repeating heavy crossbow, repeating light crossbow, slaver's crossbow (heavy), slaver's crossbow (light), stonebow, tube arrow shooter, underwater light crossbow, and underwater heavy crossbow

Double Weapons: Battle ladder, bo staff, boarding gaff, chain spear, dire flail, double walking stick katana, double-chained kama, dwarven double waraxe, dwarven urgrosh, gnome hooked hammer, halfling double sling, kusarigama, monk's spade, orc double axe, quarterstaff, taiaha, two-bladed sword, and weighted spear

Firearms: All one-handed, two-handed, and siege firearms

Flails: Battle poi, bladed scarf, cat-o'-nine-tails, chain spear, dire flail, double chained kama, dwarven dorn-dergar, flail (light flail), flailpole, flickmace, flindbar, flying blade, gnome pincher, halfling rope-shot, heavy flail, kusarigama, kyoketsu shoge, meteor hammer, morningstar, nine-section whip, nunchaku, sansetsukon, scorpion whip, spiked chain, urumi, and whip

Hammers: Aklys, battle aspergillum, club, combat scabbard, dwarven longhammer, dwarven maulaxe, earth breaker, greatclub, hanbo, heavy mace, knobkerrie, light hammer, light mace, mere club, piston maul, planson, taiaha, tetsubo, wahaika, and warhammer

Kobold Tail Attachment: Long lash, pounder, razored tail attachment, spiked tail attachment, and sweeper

Monk: Bo staff, brass knuckles, butterfly sword, cestus, dan bong, deer horn knife, double chained kama, double chicken saber, emei piercer, fighting fan, hanbo, jutte, kama, kusarigama, kyoketsu shoge, lungchuan tamo, monk's spade, nine-ring broadsword, nine-section whip, nunchaku, quarterstaff, rope dart, sai, sansetsukon, seven-branched sword, shang gou, shuriken, siangham, tiger fork, tonfa, tri-point double-edged sword, unarmed strike, urumi, and wushu dart

Natural: Unarmed strike and all natural weapons, such as bite, claw, gore, tail, and wing

Polearms: Bardiche, bec de corbin, bill, boarding gaff, crook, fauchard, flailpole, glaive, glaive-guisarme, guisarme, halberd, hooked lance, horsechopper, lucerne hammer, mancatcher, monk's spade, ogre hook, naginata, nodachi, ranseur, ripsaw glaive, and tiger fork

Siege Weapons: Ballista, bombard, catapult, corvus, firedrake, firewyrm, gallery, ram, siege tower, springal, trebuchet, and all other siege engines (see Ultimate Combat for more details)

Spears: Amentum, barbed spear, boar spear, boarding pike, chain spear, doru, elven branched spear, flask pike, javelin, harpoon, injection spear, lance, longspear, orc skull ram, pilum, planson, sarissa, shortspear, sibat, spear, spear-sling, syringe spear, tiger fork, totem spear, trident, and weighted spear

Thrown: Aklys, amentum, atlatl, blowgun, bolas, boomerang, chakram, club, crystal chakram, dagger, dart, deer horn knife, dire bolas, doru, flask thrower, grappling hook, Halfling double sling, halfling sling staff, harpoon, hunga munga, hurlbat, javelin, jolting dart, lasso, kestros, knobkerrie, kunai, light hammer, net, phaleros, poisoned sand tube, rope dart, shortspear, shrillshaft javelin, shuriken, sibat, sling, sling glove, snag net, spear, starknife, stingchuck, syringe spear, throwing axe, throwing arrow cord, throwing shield, trident, wahaika, and wushu dart

Enjoy!

John Compton
Developer

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

Hell Unleashed: 10 Infernal Secrets

Friday, July 10, 2015

Just in time for the Hell's Rebels and Hell's Vengeance Adventure Paths, Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Hell Unleashed hits later this month. For this entry into the Unleashed series, Jerome Virnich and I broadened the book's focus to encompass more than just dragons, just undead, or just any one creature type. Instead, we investigate a spectrum of Hell's servants, be they immortal fiends, damned mortals, or more terrible things in-between. Also expect a few other nasty tricks you've never seen in an Unleashed book before.

So you're as prepared as you can be for the coming blasphemy, here are 10 infernal topics in Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Hell Unleashed that your party paladin doesn't want you to read.

1. Roads to Hell: Before you can face the horrors of Hell you have to get there. Learn more about gates, spells, ferrymen, and talismans that provide direct routes to Hell—or that bring it to you!
2. Manifestations: Learn how to conjure forth manifestations, new haunt-like dangers that allow divinities—both fair and foul—to exert their wills upon the mortal plane. Along with these new rules you'll find examples of foul miracles for all of Hell's archdevils, and more.
3. The Book of the Damned: Learn more than ever before about Golarion's most infamous tome, The Book of the Damned, including its history, its lingering masters, how to conduct research within the book, and the god-like being that guards its secrets.
4. The Cult of Lies: Hell has many allies in the mortal world. In once such case, a cult of Asmodeus on the cusp of breaching the border between the mortal world and Hell. This elaborate encounter features customizations to make it a threat for a wide range of play, making it an appropriate climax to either an adventure or an entire campaign.
5. Exorcism: Fiends sometimes wear the fairest of faces, and their disguises aren't always illusions. Can you defeat a zebub devil? What if that disgusting devil is firmly rooted inside the body of a 12-year-old?
6. Everything has its Price: Whether you're striking a deal with a contract devil or your trading artifacts in the legendary Market of Breaths, everything has a price. Yet Hell rarely accepts currency as mundane as gold. What would you trade for power, immortality, or a chapter from the Chronicle of the Righteous? Once you've decided you're buying, it's just a matter of finding who's selling.
7. Living Blasphemies: Not all of Hell's denizens are devils. Asuras, immortal beings with grudges against the gods, also strike from Hell's depths against pious mortals. The Flowering Jasmine Monastery has fallen to one such living-heresy. Can you, and your faith, survive what that holy place has become?
8. Test of the Hellknights: Before any armiger can call herself a Hellknight, she must survive a lethal test: defeat a devil in single combat. Learn more about the Hellknights' most infamous rite of passage, with details on its strictures, testing grounds, and devils to confront would-be Hellknights of all levels.
9. The Gate to Dis: The passage between Hell's first layer, the wasteland of Avernus, and its second, the metropolis of Dis, is one of the most traveled routes in all the planes. The Forked Pyre guards that passage, twin spires flanking an endless volcanic cascade. Infernal Duke Furcas oversees the orderly passage of the damned through his realm to the torments beyond. Learn more about one of Hell's most notorious warlords, his eon-old fortress, traits for all infernal dukes, and details on their infernal demesnes.
10. Visions of Hell: Glimpse the face of Hell with one of Pathfinder's most METAL covers ever, by Remko Troost. Inside, you'll also see more of Dis, depictions of infernal personalities, and maps for every diabolical locale.

Illustrations by Eric Belisle and Roberto Pitturru

Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Hell Unleashed debuts at the end of this month. Pick it up, and put the fear of Hell back into your players.

F. Wesley Schneider
Editor-in-Chief & Author

I Smell the Blood of a Player Character

Thursday, June 11, 2015

The first three volumes of the Giantslayer Adventure Path are out in the wild, and in a short time the fourth volume, Pathfinder Adventure Path #94: Ice Tomb of the Giant Queen will be hitting stores and subscribers' doorsteps (and downloads). Hopefully, if you're not playing though this campaign, some of you have been living vicariously through the Order of the Amber Die by reading along and looking at all the amazing pictures they have been sharing with us all from their marathon sessions. (If not, go check it out now: Giantslayer Marathon: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.)

Download Standard | Download Widescreen | Download Mobile
Illustrations by Johan Grenier and Miguel Regodon Harkness.

It's been a wild and dangerous ride so far filled with towering odds and heavy hitters, and that's not about to stop. In fact, things are just going to get harder for your PCs as we step up the ranks of the giants.

Illustrations by Johan Grenier and Ekaterina Maximovich

Here are some of the things you'll encounter in the second half of the campaign. In Pathfinder Adventure Path #94: Ice Tomb of the Giant Queen the PCs have to take on a frost giant village and later on they come across one of the more rare types of giants in the Inner Sea.

Illustrations by Johan Grenier and Eric Belisle

Then, in Pathfinder Adventure Path #95: Anvil of Fire, the PCs assault an elite fire giant training facility in their way to finding the Storm Tyrant. The PCs also get a chance to put a hellhound in a headlock.

Illustrations by Aleksey Bayura and Yigit Koroglu

Wrapping things up (assuming everyone is still alive) Pathfinder Adventure Path #96: Shadow of the Storm Tyrant gives the PCs a chance to finally put an end to the Storm Tyrant's ambitious push at starting a new giant empire and subjugating the smaller folk of Avistan. Along the way the PCs encounter evil cloud giants and some new strange creatures, and hopefully emerge alive and victorious.

Illustration by Roberto Pitturru

Oh, remember when we said that there were more than just giants in this Adventure Path? Yeah, there are dragons too.

Adam Daigle
Developer

Of the Occult and Psychic Obscura!

Thursday, May 28, 2015

The content we showed off from July's Occult Adventures hardcover at the PaizoCon Preview Banquet whetted some appetites for a few more details. I know many of you are looking forward to sinking your teeth into the book even more, especially after we previewed all of the art of the new iconics—and don't worry, you'll be seeing more of them soon! But for now, enjoy this curated selection of art from Occult Adventures!

Illustrations by Tomasz Chistowski and Caio Maciel Monteiro

Illustrations by Nickolai Ostertag and Roberto Pitturru

Illustrations by Tomasz Chistowski, Emiliano Petrozzi, Roberto Pitturru, and Suzanne Helmigh

Liz Courts
Community Manager

Honor the Hold!

Thursday, September 18, 2014

Illustration by Caio Maciel Monteiro

The treacherous Hold of Belkzen is a savage place for outsiders as well as its own residents. We've said a lot about the region, but a lot of this information is scattered throughout different books and product lines. For those who are new to Belkzen or who just can't get enough of the orc nation, here's a brief breakdown of some of the most interesting aspects of this savage region as well as links to where you can find more information on these topics.

Illustration by Roberto Pitturru

Beasts: Orc rangers and beastmasters have "domesticated" many animals and monstrous beasts native to the valleys of the Tusk and Kodar Mountains, though in most cases this simply means caging wild animals until they're to be released on the field of battle. From dire wolves to the strange and tempestuous gorthek, orc tribes rear a number of different monsters to serve as their mounts or hounds. Beyond these brutes, even fiercer beasts lurk in the hills around the Hold of Belkzen (including a number of all-new Belkzen animals detailed in the forthcoming Giantslayer Adventure Path bestiaries).

Half-Orcs: The progeny of orcs and humans are treated somewhat paradoxically among the orcs of Belkzen. On one hand, orcs treat their half-blooded brethren as weak, and bully or abuse them to prove their inferiority. On the other hand, talented half-orcs (especially spellcasters) can achieve statuses among their tribe as seers or witch doctors. Many half-orcs consider themselves prisoners in their own homelands, and wrestle with the inherent savagery that flows through their blood. Others flee the Hold as soon as they are able, becoming storied adventurers or even founders of peaceful settlements that they can fearlessly call home.

Atrocities: The horrors of war are not solely restricted to the orc side of Belkzen's borders, and the human knights and soldiers who clash with these monsters sometimes inherit more of the orcs' savagery than any would care to admit. Servants of Zon-Kuthon often go to the ravaged battlefields of Belkzen to commemorate the unfathomable acts of savagery that transpired there, and rumors persist of orcs being held prisoner and brutally interrogated in such Lastwall border strongholds as Castle Everstand.

With a slew of orc-related products coming out this winter—including Pathfinder Adventure Path #91: Battle of Bloodmarch Hill (written by yours truly), the much-anticipated Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Belkzen, Hold of the Orc Hordes, and Pathfinder Module: Daughters of Fury (written by Viktoria Jaczko, winner of the 2014 RPG Superstar contest)—you can be sure we're going to be posting a lot of Belkzen banter on the blog in the coming months.

Patrick Renie
Developer

Play Iron Gods, Read Iron Gods!

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

As someone who spends most of his time living in the Pathfinder campaign setting, I think one of the coolest things about the Pathfinder Tales novels is their ability to give players and GMs a deeper understanding of Golarion. As GMs, we may have read the sourcebook on a region, but the novels give us a chance to see that place through the eyes of the people who live there, to get the sights and smells in a more immediate and visceral fashion. As players, the novels are even more important, as they represent a chance to get that feel for an area without reading an adventure or sourcebook full of spoilers. That's one of the reasons we included the Pathfinder's Journal way back in Pathfinder Adventure Path #1—so that GMs could hand those pages to their players and say, "Here's a story about the place you're adventuring in." Now that we have the novels, I wouldn't think of starting a campaign in, say, Nidal without pointing my players toward Liane Merciel's Nightglass as inspirational reading.

Which brings us to the newest Pathfinder Tales novel, Reign of Stars. While it doesn't follow the storyline of Iron Gods—no spoilers, remember?—this book is very much a prequel to that AP. Tim Pratt first introduced us to his ex-Technic League apprentice Alaeron back in City of the Fallen Sky, but this time, he's gone whole-hog and taken us on a tour of Numeria, complete with first-hand insights into the insidious dealings of the Technic League and the Black Sovereign. What's more, when developing both this novel and the Iron Gods Adventure Path, James Jacobs, Mark Moreland, Tim Pratt, and I all worked closely together to make sure that not only did the flavor of the various books match, but that characters and critters from the novel showed up in the Adventure Path and the Numeria sourcebook, and vice versa.

In short, I think we've created the perfect fiction companion to Iron Gods. So whether you're looking for something to read between sessions of the AP, or simply itching for robots and techno-rays from beyond the stars, consider giving Reign of Stars a shot! You can read the first chapter for free here.

Also, since we weren't able to run it last week, here's an awesome new illustration of the absentminded alchemist Alaeron himself, courtesy of Roberto Pitturru!

James L. Sutter
Managing Editor

PaizoCon 2014 Announcement Round-Up

Sunday, July 6, 2014

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

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

Advanced Class Guide

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

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

Monster Codex

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

Illustrations by Jason Rainville

Check out more monsters from the Monster Codex!

Illustrations by Roberto Pitturru

Illustrations by Alexandre Chaudret

Illustrations by Ben Wootten

Illustrations by Maichol Quinto

Illustrations by Jason Engle

Pathfinder Unchained

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

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game

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

Sketch by Wayne Reynolds

Giantslayer Adventure Path

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

Licensed Products

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

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

Pathfinder Battles: The Lost Coast

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

Pathfinder Online

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

Here's a look at the video.

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

Keep rolling 20s, everyone!

Erik Mona
Publisher

Art Blog: Inner Sea Gods

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Welcome to the first monthly blog post directly from the art department. This first preview is for Inner Sea Gods coming out soon. Enjoy!

Illustrations by Roberto Pitturru

Illustrations by Yu Cheng Hong, Jorge Fares, Maichol Quinto

Sarah Robinson
Managing Art Director

Lost in the Labyrinth

Thursday, December 19, 2013

This month's volume of the Wrath of the Righteous Adventure Path comes from the mighty Wolfgang Baur! Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth pits the heroes of Kenabres against more demonic forces as they journey once again into the Abyss. This time the PCs take the fight against Baphomet's cultists to their front door as they siege the Ivory Labyrinth to rescue the herald of Iomedae. At this point in the Adventure Path, the PCs are going to the highest level that we've ever had in a volume of the Pathfinder Adventure Path, and this adventure shows it with its encounters. If you're playing in this campaign, good luck. If you're running this campaign, keep your hyena-like laughter to a minimum—that's just rubbing salt in the wound. I'll leave you with a few pieces of art to whet your appetite until you can get your hands on Pathfinder #77: Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth!

Illustrations by Roberto Pitturru, and Maichol Quinto

Adam Daigle
Developer

Stalking the Beast Sample Chapter

Wednesday, November 6th, 2013

by Howard Andrew Jones

In Stalking the Beast, Howard Andrew Jones returns to the story of Elyana and Drelm from Plague of Shadows as they defend a frontier town in the River Kingdoms from a marauding monster. In order to track a deadly beast that can turn invisible at will and strikes with cunning intelligence, they'll need to pull together the best team of adventurers their backwater corner of the River Kingdoms has ever seen. Yet can everyone they recruit be trusted?

Chapter Three: Too Good to Miss

Lisette

Most of Delgar's buildings were fashioned from rough-hewn timber, lacking exterior plaster or even a second story. Unless you enjoyed the smell of fish scales and muddy water, there was little to recommend the place, although Lisette appreciated the community's nod toward organization. A lot of river communities couldn't be bothered to fashion straight roads—or straight houses, for that matter. Delgar at least had been built on a grid plan, and as she and Karag climbed out of the barge that afternoon, she was able to take quick stock of the little town.

For the last week of her journey she'd heard rumors about a hunting expedition jointly sponsored by several of the famously uncooperative River Kingdoms. Delgar was to be its launching point, which was probably what had drawn her bounty so far north. Apparently, experienced hunters were to be paid good coin, and the old rogue probably hoped he could pass off as one.

She and Karag blended in fairly well with the crowds thronging the little village, for no one could guess by looking at their gear that they earned their coin hunting men, not beasts.

She scanned the faces they passed, taking the place in, ignoring the return appraisals from knots of varied martial types who wound their way through the muddy streets.

Dark of eye and dark of hair, which she'd cut to the nape of her neck, Lisette had the pale complexion of a Chelaxian. Her pants were dark, loose, comfortable, and tucked into well-worn, calf-high boots sewn from lizard hide. A pair of pistol butts stood out from the sash tied at her waist, weapons of fine iron and dark, highly polished wood. Her single mark of flamboyance was the slim red feather thrust into the side of her brimmed cloth hat.

As Karag finished unloading their gear, he handed a matching flintlock rifle up to her. She shouldered the weapon without remark, the brown strap sliding across the long black sleeve of her shirt and the rim of her black vest.

The burly dwarf hefted a second rifle on his own shoulder, the long muzzle poking three feet above his blond locks. He then lifted a huge leather bag as thick around as himself and propped it on the other shoulder.

"Let's get this over with," she said, and they started forward.

The two made an odd pair. Karag was Lisette's physical opposite in nearly every way, for he was blond and pale and sturdy. Where she strode with pantherish grace, he swaggered. If passersby even recognized the rifle he carried for what it was, they would probably have assumed it was his, but it belonged to Lisette just as much as the powder bag slung across Karag's back, the rifle over her own shoulder, or the brace of flintlock pistols thrust through her belt.

"You ever hear what they're really supposed to be hunting?" Lisette asked him. She ignored the appreciative whistle of a leather-clad barbarian leaning against the side of a building.

"It's some monster the elves drove out of Kyonin," Karag answered in his low rumble. "If the long-ears can't be bothered, they'll just chase a beast out and let everyone else..."

Karag's voice trailed off, and Lisette's gaze swung to follow his own.

A thickset man with a full beard had just stepped from the sprawling, two-story building ahead of them and stood now under a hanging placard carved with a leaping fish. The hood of his light traveling cloak was cast back to reveal a balding pate peppered with red hair. Beside him were two younger men of similar build, their receding hair heavy with grease.

Lisette cursed in disbelief. It was never, ever this easy. She'd tracked the man for the better part of two months, always staying just behind him. And now he was there before her within a few moments of reaching Delgar.

"Velmik," Karag whispered.

Even as her hand swept toward her right pistol, Velmik spotted her. With a deep-throated shout he dove back through the doorway. His sons hurried after.

Lisette wasted no breath cursing. "Back entrance," she ordered Karag, then leapt to the wooden porch to push into the throng of men Velmik and his sons had stumbled through.

The fugitives left a wake through the middle of the tavern's crowded common room, a wide space crammed with long wooden tables and broad-shouldered men and women, many of whom were now cursing, their heads turned toward Velmik. The murderer ploughed toward a closed door beside the stairs to the private rooms. One of his boys was ahead of him; the other was looking back at Lisette. His hand went to his belt, and fastened not around the sword hilt, but an axe haft. Lisette knew then that she faced Gern, who had a reputation with his throwing axe. That meant the one starting up the stairs ahead of Velmik had to be the eldest, Hadek, against whom there was a minor bounty. Not half the size of the one on Velmik, and it wouldn't have brought her out to the wilds, but with him so close by she wouldn't dream of passing up the opportunity.

Gern charged up the creaking steps after the others. "Hurry, Dad!"

A man and woman at the top of the stairs froze at sight of Hadek and backed off.

Lisette elbowed a gawking servant girl out of the way and pulled her pistol free, cocking the hammer with her off hand. As she brought the muzzle in line with Velmik's broad, retreating back, Gern sent the axe flying at her head.

She sidestepped, firing as she felt the passage of the haft brush her hat brim. She missed by only a little, hitting Hadek instead. The man dropped with a girlish scream and his father whirled. Behind Lisette, the axe smashed into a row of glasses at the bar, and there was an uproar from the bartender and any number of patrons. She thrust the smoking pistol through her belt and drew its twin even as Gern pulled a second axe.

Velmik crouched by his firstborn, who whimpered on the stairs. The older man bared teeth as he faced her, drawing steel.

She notched back the hammer of her second pistol and snapped off a shot. She grinned through the swirl of black gun smoke—she'd known even as the weapon kicked in her hand that it had been true. Gern staggered and jerked as a leaking red hole materialized in the center of his forehead. He sprawled.

The thunderous pistol shot set women screaming and men shouting in terror. Many dove for cover or rushed the door. Lisette calmly shoved the smoking pistol back through her sash and drew her short sword.

Velmik charged down the stairs, eyes mad and rolling, lips peeled back to show stained and crooked teeth. He brandished his long notched sword like a cleaver.

"You killed my boys, you bitch!"

Lisette snatched a tankard from the abandoned bar and hurled it at Velmik's head. Her aim was not as accurate with her off hand, but the bald man swerved. The tankard banked off the stair rail, spraying sour-smelling ale. The instant's distraction was all Lisette desired. She lunged forward, slicing rather than thrusting, and cut Velmik across his neck and upper chest. The old fool was wearing leather armor but no neck guard.

It was not a deep strike, but it was enough to spoil Velmik's own and set him clawing instinctively for his throat. He looked down, wide-eyed, as she drove the sword through his hand and out the back of his neck.

Blood spurted forth, and Velmik gurgled a bit as he wobbled, then sank, finally flopping onto the floorboards like a fish. His sword struck the stained planks a second later with a dull clang.

There came a brief silence, over which she heard the labored breathing of Hadek, collapsed with glassy eyes upon the stairs.

She wiped her blade on the back of Velmik's shirt.

Karag burst in through the back doorway, panting, and suddenly found every pair of eyes in the whole tavern staring at him and the musket he carried in two hands.

The silence lasted only a moment longer, and then the buck-toothed bartender demanded to know who she was, how she dared, and, most loudly, who would pay for the damages.

"I am a bounty hunter," Lisette told him calmly, "and two of these men are wanted in Andoran, Druma, and Isger. Karag will pay the damages." At this the dwarf stepped to her side, a little red-faced.

"They never came out," he explained swiftly, softly, "and I heard gunshots."

She had surmised that. "There was no real trouble," she told him so his dwarven pride would remain uninjured. "Bag these two up, and pay this gentleman for his trouble. Your pardon, sir," she said to the proprietor with her prettiest smile. "I'm afraid I must leave your fine company."

The bartender and the others gawped. She didn't mind the attention at all; it might make her stay in the place a little simpler.

The crowd broke into low murmurs, talking among themselves and staring darkly. A few were even moving back toward their tables, though they were cautious about it. The bartender was actually scowling.

"This is Delgar," he said with a drawl. "You can't just wander into the town and kill people in my bar! We have laws!"

Karag stepped up to the counter, his head just clearing its edge. "Lisette has full authority—"

"This is my inn!" The barkeep's face reddened. Lisette heard angry murmurs from the crowd behind her. Curious. She hadn't anticipated this at all. Quietly, methodically, she took up one of her pistols and cleaned the inside of the muzzle with a rag she pulled from a vest pocket.

From behind came a loud clump of steps, and a lull in the mutters as a deep, male voice demanded silence.

Lisette paused in the loading of her pistol and turned.

A peculiar figure strode through the doorway. At first glance he was just another broad, powerful man-at-arms. And then she saw so many incongruities that she was not sure which to consider first.

It was not so remarkable that she faced a thickly built member of the city guard bearing a sheathed sword. What was remarkable was that he was a half- or at least quarter-blood orc. Even out here in the uncivilized wilds, most folk didn't trust their kind, and there was no missing the greenish hue or the foreword thrust of the thick jaw and upward-pointing teeth. Yet here was no coarse brute, either, for his garb was immaculate, from polished helm to the glimpse of leather armor she perceived beneath the spotless blue tabard with its black, crenelated tower. Her eyes shifted briefly to the tall figure striding in behind him, likewise immaculate, likewise wearing leather armor and a white-and-blue tabard with a stone tower, but his long mustaches and slanted eyes were merely peculiar as opposed to extraordinary.

"What has happened here?" the half-orc growled.

"Captain," the barkeep began, and once again Lisette started. Captain? The barkeep pointed at her. "This woman just killed those three men on the stairs with some kind of magic."

The bright, rather small eyes in the half-orc's face shifted immediately to her, then to the gun.

"You need to set that down," the captain growled.

Karag stomped over from the bar to stand at Lisette's side. He glowered up at the orc, who seemed careless of the dark look, for he gave the dwarf little attention before focusing again upon the gun.

"Who are you?" Karag growled.

The tall, mustached guardsman had stepped to the half-orc's side, and it was he who answered in a mellow voice with the faint trace of a Brevic accent. "You are addressing Drelm, captain of the Delgar guard. And he has given your...associate a command. Put aside the strange wand. Immediately."

Lisette's smile did nothing to change Drelm's expression; it remained grim even as she passed the still unloaded pistol on to Karag. "I am a bounty hunter," she said, "fully licensed in five separate countries, and at least as many municipalities, including Tymon. Two of those men were known bandits and murderers; the other was a relative. I was not after him, but he attacked."

"Proof?" Drelm asked.

Lisette was used to thinking on her feet, but it took a moment longer to decipher the captain's short command.

"I have posters for them here," she said, "in my vest pocket."

"Pull them slowly," Drelm told her.

"Of course."

The captain's eyes never left her hand as she produced two quarter-folded pieces of parchment. They crinkled as she passed them across to one large, greenish hand. The knuckle on his first finger was scarred with a long, slightly paler line.

She watched as his eyes tracked across the likenesses of Velmik and Gern—not perfect, but fair enough—and then the words beneath. And she kept the smile upon her lips, knowing that he would demand some sort of fine, or impose some other penalty to enrich himself. She knew better than to object. Here was a "man" clearly used to getting his own way by physical intimidation. The curious thing was how the barkeep and two barmaids were both focused upon the "captain" expectantly. She would have thought they would view any interaction with him with fawning politeness, as you had to do in larger cities when the gangs shook you for protection money.

Drelm finished what must have been a somewhat labored examination of the words, for he was long about it, and handed the papers off to the Brevan. "Compare them."

"Yes, Captain." The Brevan stepped around Karag, walking with a horseman's swagger. His boot heels, she noticed, were silver.

"They did a lot of damage." The barkeep pointed to a row of smashed glasses sitting on a dark shelf behind him. Lisette glanced over the bar top and saw a trio of broken bottles lying on the dark floorboards amid a spreading pool of sweet-smelling wine.

"We will gladly pay for the damages," Lisette told them. "Although all of this was because Velmik's son threw an axe."

That didn't hold any sway with the barkeep. "He wouldn't have thrown an axe if you hadn't followed him into my inn!"

The Brevan had climbed the first two stairs and was glancing back and forth between the two pieces of paper and the bodies. "Captain," he called, "two of these look just about right. And the third must be a son of the older one."

Drelm's small eyes flicked to the barkeep's. "What will repairs cost?"

Lisette could see conflicting emotions warring on the barkeep's face. He looked down at the damage, then back to the orc.

"Five gold sails."

"Three at best," the Brevan said as he wandered over. "I can smell that wine from here. Not exactly high elven vintage."

The Brevan was right, but Lisette knew better than to offer any opinion.

"Three," Drelm said to Lisette. "Pay him. Demid, collect the coins."

"Yes, Captain."

Lisette couldn't believe she was getting off that lucky. Drelm glanced once more at the dwarf, who still watched with suspicion, and faced the rest of the tavern's occupants.

"Many of you are new faces," Drelm said as he drew himself up. "This is not how we do things here." He tapped his chest. "Those who kill, face me. Those who steal, face me. Those who hurt an innocent, face me. I give this one"—he pointed to Lisette—"this one chance. She is new. She is a bounty hunter. She has taken her chance, and yours. Next time, you face me. Am I understood?"

He snapped this last. A few of the folk—locals, probably—were direct with their reply: "Yes, Captain!"

The others looked away and mumbled.

Drelm's lips pulled back in a snarl, and he roared. "Do you understand me? You will answer, ‘Yes, Captain!'"

"Yes, Captain!" the customers called back.

"Again!"

This time the tavern timbers seemed to shake a little with the noise. "Yes, Captain!"

Drelm grunted, then glanced back at Lisette. "No more bounties before speaking with me."

"Of course." Lisette tried a smile, and produced a gleaming cold coin. She lobbed it twirling into the air between the half-orc and herself. "For your trouble."

Drelm caught it without looking in one massive fist, then addressed the Brevan while staring at her. "Lieutenant Demid, she is new. Speak to her."

"Only the mayor pays the city guard, little sparrow," the Brevan said from behind her.

Drelm then pitched the coin, without once considering it, toward the barkeep. "I levy fines for bribery," he said. "There, keep it. Now you profit from the mess."

Stranger and stranger. Lisette couldn't quite figure the captain's angle. Only some wet-behind-the-ears Eagle Knight would be so honest. Certainly no half-orc in a village no one had heard of.

"Do you have more targets in Delgar?" he asked her.

"Probably not," Lisette answered. There was always the possibility she'd bump into someone else.

"‘Probably not.'" Drelm grunted, a low, almost thoughtful sound. "If it becomes ‘probably yes,' see me before you spill more blood, or you and I will have a problem."

At last he acknowledged the dwarf, who muttered under his breath. Something dwarven, from the sound, and an insult, from his dark look.

"I don't speak dwarf," the half-orc said, then his eyes tracked back to Lisette's. "Tell him threats to me when I'm in uniform are threats to the guard."

Lisette's hand tightened on Karag's shoulder. He tensed under her fingers. She did not leave off smiling. "I'll make sure he knows."

Drelm grunted.

The Brevan strode past then, coin purses in hand. "They had thirty-two silvers, Captain, and a handful of coppers."

"For the treasury," Drelm said.

"Yes, Captain."

Her first thought was that the half-orc was an idiot and meant to have the lieutenant turn the money over to the city coffers. Then she realized they were saying that solely for the benefit of listeners and would surely cut themselves in for a nice percentage of the money, for Demid had certainly announced fewer funds than he'd actually found on the bodies.

Drelm surveyed the room a final time, then turned heel and strode away.

"Karag," Lisette forced almost sickly sweet kindness into her voice. "Make the rest of the arrangements. And keep the captain's warning in mind. I do think," she added, "we'll be better welcome at some other inn for the night."

"I suppose you're right," Karag said, and turned to consider the bodies, and the barkeep, who still watched them. Everyone, actually, was still staring at them, although some had returned to their meals.

"My pistol?" Lisette asked. It was evidence of how peculiar the encounter had been that Karag had not instantly returned it to her. He did so now with an apologetic look, then strode toward the bar. In this place she didn't imagine he'd be able to drag the bodies to an alley and cut off their heads. One way or another, though, the dwarf would have to decapitate the corpses and drop the heads in salt. It didn't matter to her how he did it, so long as they stayed on the right side of the law—and, more importantly, so long as the evidence of the kill was preserved long enough to collect the bounty.

She walked out past Demid and stepped to the edge of the raised platform, leaning against the warm building shingles while she checked over the pistol bore and fished around for her pellet and powder. She was not at all surprised to find the Brevan guard following her out, black eyes afire with interest.

"You have strange talons," he said, "but are a deadly bird. The dwarf didn't slay any of them, did he?"

"No."

She pulled out a powder packet and bit off the end with her teeth, then spat it to the side.

Demid's lips turned up in a slight smile.

"Is there something funny, Lieutenant?"

"Demid," he said. "I assure you that I take you quite seriously."

She wasn't sure what to make of that, but decided not to press further. "So what are a Brevan and a half-orc doing on the guard force in a nowhere village in the River Kingdoms? It almost sounds like a joke."

He repeated the word doubtfully. "A joke?"

"Sure." She pulled free a bullet from another pocket and held it up to the sun. "A Brevan and a half-orc walk into a bar. But I don't know the punch line."

"The punch line. Oh, yes. No, it's no joke, Lady..." He waited expectantly.

"Lisette."

"Lisette. How lovely. I might begin such a joke myself. An angry dwarf and a beautiful marksman—markswoman—enter a bar. But I also don't know the..." He paused to make a rolling motion with his hand, then finished: "punch line."

"There isn't one." Lisette put home the bullet, and, satisfied, tamped it down. "What is it you want, Lieutenant?"

"I am curious about you. Part of my duties as a guardsman of Delgar, you understand."

Was he flirting, or was he actually searching for information? The more time she spent in this place, the more unsure she became. She could read men, though, and even though Demid clearly found her attractive, there was a coolness in his gaze. "Of course."

"For instance, I've never seen wands with handle grips before."

"You mean these?" As she tapped the muzzle of her pistol, he nodded. "These aren't wands, they're guns. No magic's involved."

"Ah," he said. "I've never seen one before."

"But you've heard of them?"

"Alchemical, aren't they?"

Clearly he wished to hold one, but she wasn't feeling charitable. "Something like that."

"I see. And where is it that you're going?"

"I wish only to find lodging for the night. Somewhere where I might obtain a warm bath."

"Ah." Demid clicked his tongue. "That's more challenging than usual, owing to the hunt. Are you planning to participate?"

"I'm only here for Velmik. I just want a warm bath, a night in a real bed, and then I'll be on the next boat out."

Demid listened with interest, then provided directions to a home near the walled city center. "Madame Celene has expensive rooms, and is careful to whom she rents them. Most of these would not be welcome there. Your friend," he continued, "would have to be..."

"Gentlemanly?"

"Polite," Demid said with a nod.

"He can manage that. I thank you, Demid."

"Of course." He executed a smart half bow, turned on his heel, and retreated to the inn.

Interesting. He had not been looking for a bribe, or romance, but inspecting her, almost as though he were a guardsman in Almas. A real professional. Well, the River Kingdoms attracted fugitives. Likely the Brevan had some sort of complicated backstory, and probably one less interesting than she supposed. Curious as she was, she decided she was thankful neither Demid nor Drelm were the types who liked to brag about their past.

Lisette slipped her gun back through her belt, readied her second, then tucked her supplies away. She checked her appearance in a small glass mirror, finding a few blood flecks, which she wiped from her cheeks.

Demid's directions and information proved accurate. Madame Celene, a beanpole-thin woman with a personality dry as day-old bread, could have done with some of the Brevan's politeness. Elyana rented a room for a silver wolf—a criminal rate out here in the middle of nowhere—but it came with a warm bath, and privacy, and Celene told her the latter was not likely anywhere else in the village this week.

The outrageous fee soured Lisette's mood even after a long hot soak in a sparkling clean iron tub off Madame Celene's kitchen. She was upstairs in the tiny bedroom allotted her, methodically checking over her gear, when a loud rap rang against her door.

Lisette reached immediately for one pistol, which she put close to hand. She was partially dressed, in shirt and pants, although she was uncorseted and barefoot, and her wet hair hung wild about her shoulders.

"Who is it?"

She expected an answer from Karag. Still, you could never be too cautious in her line of work. She glanced over her shoulder at the narrow, shuttered window overlooking the street. The afternoon sun cast lines of light through which dust motes drifted, highlighting the polish on the old floor planks. Madame Celene kept a tidy inn.

"I have a message for you, miss."

The voice was that of a young man's. Lisette lifted the pistol and pulled back the hammer with a faint click. "From whom?"

"Someone from the court, miss."

That struck her as more than a little curious. "You don't know?"

Apparently the message boy thought so too. "I'm sorry, I don't," he admitted. "I was just supposed to find the lady who'd..." There was a brief pause. "Killed those men at the tavern. You're her, aren't you?"

Lisette was still wondering how to answer that when the boy spoke on.

"I'll just slide this message under the door. No need to pay me. My fee's already handled."

The floorboards creaked outside then, probably from the boy shifting weight, and a small envelope slid slowly under the door.

Lisette stared at it from a distance.

"I'll be going now," the young man's voice said, nervously, and then his footsteps receded hurriedly.

Lisette slowly lowered the hammer, put the gun aside, and stepped to the envelope, though long years in the field made her cautious even with this simple act. The letter might be poisoned or trapped, or the letter might be a distraction while something else was underway.

In the end, though, it proved just a letter, sealed with wax that lacked the mark of any kind of seal. The message within promised twenty gold sails for a brief discussion with the lord mayor, so long as she understood she that was to be completely discrete about the summons, both before and after the meeting.

An unexpected development, and a profitable one. Probably the man was looking to drop a criminal the local guard force hadn't been able to kill. Someone too clever for, say, a half-orc. The discretion was peculiar, but compared to some of the requests she'd heard over the years, it didn't amount to much. Likely Lord Avelis didn't want anyone knowing his guard force couldn't handle the matter.

Lisette readied herself in short order, pleased that she'd kept one blouse clean just for these sorts of emergencies.

One street over, the wooden buildings gave way to a handful of stone homes immediately outside the walled enclosure that surrounded the seat of government. The ten-foot wall wouldn't hold off an army for long, but it would keep back the kind of bandit forces that usually assaulted River Kingdoms settlements.

She passed through the open gates and tried not to stare too long at the two spear-bearing guardsmen. It was odd enough that they should look so competent, odder still that their helms matched, and that their hair and faces were well-groomed, but beyond that, they were actually wearing clean tabards. One simply didn't encounter that level of organization in River Kingdoms villages, which tended to rise and fall every generation. So far as she knew, Delgar was only a few years old. It had no business being so well run.

She understood now that the symbol she'd seen on all the guards' tabards—a small tower with an arrow slit and four merlons—was a fair likeness of the tower of the keep ahead of her.

Beyond the gate was about what she'd expected—an expanse of rich black dirt and scrubby grass with various outbuildings and storage sheds. A stable stood along the wall directly west of the gate. All of this, too, seemed finely ordered. There were no sagging roofs or rotting joists, no mismatched roof thatching.

How did the lord of this little burg manage such order in the midst of such chaos? He might not be the simple hayseed with delusions of grandeur she'd anticipated. Lisette supposed it didn't really matter, so long as the money was good.

As she crossed the compound, the keep's metal-banded door opened wide, and out walked three tall, splendid figures. One was dressed in black traveling clothes, like herself, and the others in green and brown forest gear.

Elves. She'd seen her share of them in various cities, but these were no ordinary citizens. They walked with a warrior's confidence, shoulders wide. Their eyes had a veteran's look, measuring all that they took in.

Each gauged her as they walked for the stables, and as one adjusted the strap of his quiver, she realized with a start that his left hand was nothing more than a hook. He was the shortest of the lot, though still half a head taller than herself, and one of the most beautiful creatures she had ever seen, even for an elf. His coppery brown hair was long, straight, and thick, and his dark eyes were dotted with luminous amber flecks. Many elven males struck her as youthful or effeminate, but not this one, whose fine-featured face seemed grimly competent, and was marred by a small scar along his nose. She was shocked to find that her breath actually caught in her throat a bit as his eyes met hers. Worse, he seemed to see or hear it, for his gaze fastened on her a moment longer. Then he glanced at the hook upon his arm. His expression hardened, and he strode after his companions.

Lisette wasn't used to feeling regret, but she had a mad impulse to follow and tell him that it wasn't the hook she'd gasped at. But what should she care about what an elf thought of her feelings?

She found someone else watching: a lean, bearded man in the tower doorway. She returned his scrutiny as she walked closer.

The stranger stood perhaps six feet tall, with a full head of brown hair. That and his beard were lined with distinguished bands of silver. His face was weathered but handsome, and she guessed him to be somewhere in his late thirties or early forties. His breeks were brown, his cuffed and collared shirt white and tight over thick shoulders. He had a swordsman's build, she thought, though she saw no blade upon him.

Lisette halted before him.

"Welcome," the man said in a subdued baritone. "I think you may have come to see me."

"Lord Avelis?"

"Avelis will do," he replied. "And you are?"

"Lisette Demonde. Of Cheliax."

He didn't quite manage to hold in his surprise. One eyebrow twitched. Somehow, she was not quite what he'd expected. But he didn't let it stop him. "It was good of you to come so quickly. Please, follow me." He turned on one boot heel and addressed someone out of sight within the building, telling them to bring refreshments.

Lisette followed the mayor through a common room, then a deep doorway—almost a short tunnel—and into a long, narrow office. Apart from a small, high window, the room lacked natural light, which explained the lanterns hung from dark joists over the desk.

There was just barely room for Avelis to slide around the desk, and this he did before turning to face her and gesturing to the chairs.

As they took their seats, she noted the well-crafted wooden cabinet under the window behind him. The elm desk was simply but finely made, and the papers on its surface neatly stacked.

"Your arrival was fortuitous," Avelis told her. "I've made inquiries about...those in your line of profession, but none of them have come."

Lisette smiled thinly. "The River Kingdoms is a long way to come for twenty gold sails. I assume you don't want someone local."

"You assume correctly."

A chubby servant girl knocked upon the door behind them and hurried forward with a platter holding a wine bottle and two glasses.

"Just set it on the desk, Syra. Thank you. Please close the door behind you."

"Yes, Mayor," she said, curtsying to him before she departed. The door shut with a heavy thud.

"Please, have a drink." The mayor's hand indicated the platter.

"You're very kind. After we discuss our business, perhaps."

Avelis nodded once, sharply. "I'll cut to the point." He reached under the desk, and Lisette tensed as she heard a drawer being opened. A moment later, Avelis set a cloth bag upon the wood, where it jangled with a heavy thud. He pushed it toward her. "Twenty gold sails. That's for hearing me out and keeping your mouth shut. Even if you don't like what I offer you."

"That's right."

She loosened the leather tie cord and peered within, then lifted one of the coins to the sunlight. It was Andoren currency, with a shine so clear it must be virtually unhandled. She tested one between her back teeth, found it appropriately soft and pure, and dropped it back in with its fellows before cinching the bag and dropping it into the pack she'd slung over the chair back.

"Don't you want to count it?" Avelis sounded amused.

"I did," she said, which wasn't entirely true, but she could tell there were at least fifteen sails in there, which was good enough for her. "Alright, Avelis, I can see you're serious about this. What do you want me for?"

Avelis steepled his fingers. "I need you to kill an orc."

She laughed. "Any decent mercenary can do that job, Mayor. And your town is crawling with them. Your guard force looks surprisingly capable."

"Oh, it is. But it's the captain of my guard I want you to kill."

The expression upon his face was so strange, what with his twitching smile and the burning gleam in his eyes, that she thought at first that he joked.

She realized he was serious as he spoke on. "I suppose I should explain that he's partly human."

She cleared her throat. He probably wasn't going to handle this well. Avelis seemed like a man who was used to having his way. "I'm a bounty hunter, Mayor, not an assassin."

Avelis shrugged. "Is there a difference? I'm putting a private bounty on him."

She wanted to ask how large that bounty was, but she was already treading on thin ice. "Has he broken the laws of your community?"

"No."

Lisette shook her head. "Then that's an assassination. That's not my line."

"Oh, you haven't yet heard my price."

Now the trick was leaving the meeting gracefully. She offered a few alternative suggestions. "If you want him killed, hire some guards to attack him. Hire some bravos. Poison him."

"My guards are fiercely loyal to him. They would sooner betray me. And he would kill any warriors sent against him. Poison...would be too suspicious. I want you. And I will pay you very well."

Again she saw that strange gleam in his eyes, and the peculiar shifting smile. She felt a dawning curiosity about the money. "How well?"

Avelis reached slowly into an inside pocket to produce a small red silk bag. He undid the drawstrings, cupped his left hand, and poured out a stream of small gems, each the size of her thumbnail. Lisette recognized bloodstone and carnelian, moonstone and onyx.

"Every one of them is worth at least fifty gold sails. A fortune that transports well."

It was far more than what Lisette would have guessed. She had many questions, but thought to keep him talking while she considered the matter. "Pardon my asking, but if you have all of these, what are you doing...here?"

Avelis's eyes narrowed. "That's not really your concern, is it? Do the job well and all this is yours." He extended the palm of his hands, strewn with gems, and Lisette reached out to select one. She held it up between thumb and forefinger, and directed it into a mote-filled sunbeam.

"That's more than four thousand sails for what's likely to be a week's work."

Lisette had been paid in gemstones often enough that she knew a real one when she saw it. She dropped that one back into his palm and chose another at random. It, too, was finely cut, glimmering with color.

She'd had good reasons for walking away from her earlier profession, and even finer reasons for permanently keeping her distance. Yet this was good money—absurdly good, given the circumstances—and if she played things right, no one would ever know. How would the Black Coil ever hear about the death of a half-orc in the River Kingdoms?

With this kind of money she might finally have the funds to set up permanent residence in Triela in one of those rambling old Chelish-style mansions. There were any number of them sinking slowly into disrepair. Between this and the funds she'd stashed in Almas, she might just be able to lay claim to one and afford the upkeep.

The real question might have been why the mayor wasn't doing the same thing. But then, as he said, that really wasn't her business. Maybe he was one of those driven to command. Or maybe he'd done something terrible under his real name and had fled to the frontier to start afresh.

She considered the mayor as she dropped the gem back into his palm. "Why do you want him dead?"

His smile widened, showing teeth, and he gathered in the gems. "He killed my son, and is marrying my daughter. He will rule after me...unless I kill him."

Had he missed the obvious? Some, blinded by desire for vengeance, were too quick to dismiss easier methods. "Wouldn't it be easy to forbid the marriage and bring him to trial?"

"It's not so simple." Avelis's lip curled in a savage sneer before he regained composure. "It was no blade that killed my Melloc, but negligence. My son was on patrol with the orc, who didn't have the brains to safeguard him. Most of the village doesn't even think it's the orc's fault." The mayor's eyes burned. "He's got all of them fooled."

"What do you mean?"

"They like him. They trust him."

"A half-orc?"

Avelis nodded once. "Two years ago this community was on the brink of ruin. Bandits and river raiders were a constant threat. Despite my best efforts, the town was lawless and violent."

"And Drelm fixed all this for you?"

"The orc and his friend. An elven woman named Elyana. They were just passing through, but with their help things quickly turned around. I was grateful, understand. He's been my guard captain now for the last year and a half, and Elyana remains a sort of informal advisor. She's very, very good."

Lisette managed not to smirk at the open lust in the man's tone. So Avelis had a thing for pointed ears. Then again, given her reaction in the courtyard, who was she to talk?

"The town has embraced them," Avelis went on. "They've even embraced the idea of him...courting my daughter. But the thought of his blood mingling with mine..." The fingers on the mayor's left hand slowly curled inward, and he stared down at the clenched fist, almost in surprise. It began to shake. "I should have seen it," he said through gritted teeth. "He means to rule after me!"

Lisette thought she had a handle on the matter now, but she summarized for clarity. Before discussing contracts, she always made sure expectations were clear between her and her employer. "You want him dead, but not in an obvious way. And you don't want to anger the village, or his friend the elf?"

"Exactly."

"How is it that a half-orc and an elf are friends?"

Avelis snorted. "They served together over in Taldor. I thought they were lovers for the longest time, or I'd have been more worried when Drelm was near my daughter. He's so...proper...I didn't even realize what was happening until it was too late."

"Well, I don't have any love for orcs. But my reputation is as a bounty hunter. I take on legal cases. I'd like an official contract."

Avelis favored her with a long look, then set his elbows on the desk and steepled his fingers. "I think the money's good enough that we don't need a contract. Don't you? Papers can fall into the wrong hands."

"Maybe you should think about hiring someone else then. As I said, I'm not an assassin." Not anymore. And by her covenant, she could not work as one. She shouldn't even be sitting here.

"Well, I'm the ruler here, and I'll pay a large bounty. I can even turn the paper over to you, if you wish, once you succeed."

"I always come through on a contract," Lisette said.

"I've no doubt. You managed to impress Lieutenant Demid, which is no mean feat. He said that you felled three men, and that you used strange weapons that launch metal balls, but aren't magic."

He was doing his best to change the subject. "That's true enough. I want the contract with me."

"That's really not possible."

She thought about walking out. Yet... "Then I want half, now."

"Half?" he spluttered.

"Unless you give me a contract that will hold up in court."

Avelis frowned, and his good looks soured. The eyes narrowed, lines curled about his mouth, and she saw what he would look like in ten or fifteen more years. A bitter, angry old man.

Avelis let out a pent-up breath. "Very well. But there is one more condition. Drelm must die, but it can't be done in a way that alerts anyone—especially not Elyana, whom I would rather remain to serve the town. Her counsel is quite valuable to me."

I'll bet it is, Lisette thought, but Avelis seemed oblivious to how much he was revealing about himself. "And it can't be done promptly," he continued. "You've probably noted the influx of warriors."

"It was hard to miss."

"A deadly beast's killing people up and down the river."

"One beast?"

"We think so. It was my son's last wish that we band together to launch an expedition to hunt the thing down. I've joined forces with Kyonin, Tymon, Riverton, and Sevenarches, and we've scraped enough together to reward those who kill it. Drelm and Elyana are heading the expedition. It must succeed—it was the beast that killed my boy, and I will see it go down. Which means Drelm can't be killed until the thing is dead. He's too good a warrior. Do you understand?"

More complications. She should have known it would have more complications. "So you want me to go on the expedition with them through the wilderness and pretend to hunt for this thing with them. What sort of beast is it?"

"No one's really seen it." Avelis turned over an empty palm. "What we do know is that it likes to kill. It's smashed into homes and outposts and hunting camps up and down the river for the last six months. It comes and goes as it likes, vanishing right in front of witnesses."

Better and better. She kept the disgust from her voice. "I see."

"Some of the best trackers in the River Kingdoms will be along," Avelis said. "I can't imagine it taking more than a week. And at some point, while you're trying to shoot the beast with one of your alchemical wands, Drelm will just get in the way. And he will get in the way—he'll be in the forefront to kill the thing, I guarantee it. And you, with your ranged weapons, will be standing back. Easy."

Somehow she doubted it would be as easy as he supposed. And then Avelis opened the bag once more. "Hold out your hand, and we'll count out your advance. That is, if you're in."

She hesitated only a moment. "I'm in."

Purchase the whole novel here.

Coming Next Week: An all-new prequel story starring Lisette in "Bells for the Dead"!

Howard Andrew Jones is the author of the Pathfinder Tales novels Plague of Shadows and Stalking the Beast, as well as the independent historical fantasy novels The Desert of Souls and The Bones of the Old Ones. He's also edited eight collections of literary giant Harold Lamb's work, and currently serves as the Managing Editor for the iconic sword-and-sorcery magazine Black Gate. For more information, see his website at howardandrewjones.com.

Illustration by Roberto Pitturru.

King of Chaos Sample Chapter

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

In King of Chaos, Count Varian Jeggare and his hellspawn bodyguard Radovan head north into the infamous Worldwound on a mission of vital importance to the entire Inner Sea region. Joined by the elven paladin Oparal, a mysterious Sarkorian god-caller, and a team of crusaders and mercenaries, they'll need to infiltrate the chaotic demon-lands in order to locate a legendary tome with the godlike power to close the demonic portal forever. Yet the heroes aren't the only ones pursuing the Lexicon of Paradox, and if it falls into the wrong hands, all of Golarion may pay the price...

Chapter Two: The River

Radovan

The boss peered through his spyglass. "There."

I squinted at the Ustalav side of the river. In the distance, the Hungry Mountains had just gnawed the sun to death, smearing the sky with blood. Shadows huddled on the west bank. On account of my devil blood, I see just fine in the dark. At a distance, not so much.

"Let me see."

He handed me the glass, but the barge captain snatched it away. She put it to her eye.

Zora Gorcha was a tough old bird. She looked a good ten years older than the boss, but she couldn't have been much past half his age, which was working on a hundred. Even so, more red than gray curls spilled out of her headscarf. I didn't mind that. Even the rope of garlic around her neck didn't put me off. I like garlic almost as much as redheads and older women.

Everybody on deck was wearing garlic, including Arni. The big dog hated the stinky collar, but the boss taught him to leave it alone. Arni listened to me sometimes, but he always obeyed the boss.

Even the big bay draft horses tethered beside the Red Carriage wore loops of garlic. At first they'd eaten the bulbs off each other's necks, which Zora said was good for repelling mosquitoes, but the boss disagreed. He made the crew adjust their tethers, saying too much garlic was bad for horses. Besides, bugs weren't the bloodsuckers he was worried about.

Zora peered through the brass tube of the spyglass. "Is a different man, no?"

"A different man," said the boss. "Yes."

"You have dangerous enemies, Count Jeggare."

"I did not conceal this fact from you, Captain. I trust you are not frightened."

"Not frightened," she said, looking him up and down. "Impressed."

The boss clicked his heels and made a little bow.

"Come on," I said. "Let me see."

"Wait your turn. I am boat captain. You are only...What did you say?"

"Bodyguard."

"Bodyguard," she said, all dubious-like. "I wonder."

"Come on, you've had your look."

Zora slapped the spyglass into my hand. She tilted her head back to look down her hooked nose at me.

She fancied me, all right.

It took a few seconds to find the cultist. He wore the same kind of tattered cloak and leathers, but he wasn't the tall, lean guy we'd seen the night before. This one was built like a wrestler, kind of like me. Bigger, maybe. Hard to judge without somebody standing next to him. I wanted to get my mitts on his neck and work out which one of us was stronger.

Zora gasped and stepped away.

"Radovan," said the boss. At his heel, Arni whined and put his head on his gigantic paws.

"What?"

"You ...growled."

"I didn't."

Did I?

Zora shot me the Varisian evil eye, which looks kind of like the tines, only low and backward. I got the feeling she fancied me a little less. She shouted at her crew to keep well away from the Ustalavic shore.

We'd been hugging the eastern bank ever since we got clear of Razmiran. Even so, the first night we spent alongside Ustalav, these mooks began showing up. They just stood there watching us. They hadn't tried anything.

So far.

The boss studied my face like a page in a book.

"So what if I did growl? You hate these Anaphexis jerks as much as I do. Aren't they pretty much the evil opposite of your little club?"

"The goals of the Anaphexis are indeed the antithesis of the Society's," he said. "And please, for the thousandth time, I ask you to cease referring to the Pathfinder Society as my ‘little club.'"

"Aren't you still on the outs with them? Or did that last letter change your mind?"

The boss touched his coat pocket. He had at least three different letters there, two of them from queens, all of them asking for the same favor. "I have yet to decide, but that is beside the point. The Anaphexis merely remind us of our oath."

"Your oath. I never promised those mooks nothing."

"The word of a count of Cheliax binds both him and his—"

"Don't say ‘servant.' Don't say ‘henchman.'"

"You know perfectly well I never refer to you by those terms. I was about to say ‘friend.'"

"Yeah, yeah."

"In any event, you know I made that agreement for your sake as much as my own. More so, in fact."

He had me there. One look at me, most folks realize my family tree has roots in Hell. The Anaphexis, these killers of knowledge, they knew my big secret: my family tree also has roots running under the throne of Ustalav.

A light came up where we'd seen the Anaphexis twerp. He waved a torch over his head. Like his buddies on the previous nights, he wanted to make sure we saw him.

We got the message, all right. If we broke the deal and landed on the Ustalav side, it meant trouble for my people: the wolves, the witch, and the freaks.

I felt the copper coin I wore around my neck. Scratched and half-melted, the face stamped on one side did kind of resemble me if you were looking for a family resemblance. A dozen times I almost lost the coin, but somehow it always turned up. It was damned near the only thing I still had since the last time I was in Ustalav. Well, that and the starknife.

The starknife hung from my hip. Its double-edged blades shot out at compass angles from a ring around the grip. I'd learned to throw it all right, but it never seemed like something I ought to bloody. Most of the time I kept it with my pack. Since we'd gotten close to Ustalav, I'd hung it from my waist for I don't know why.

Maybe I thought I'd see the woman who gave it to me, and she'd see that I'd hung on to it. I kissed my thumb and drew the wings of Desna on my heart.

Are you there, girl? You standing there, hidden on the black shore, waiting for me? I've lugged this promise around a thousand miles. Sometimes I think it's getting heavier, but tonight it feels—

The boss coughed.

I'd been talking out loud. That was worse than growling.

"Why, Radovan," he said. "You are a poet."

My blood turned cold. "You take that back right now."

"Whatever for? I meant it only as a compliment."

"You take it back, or I will beat your ass right here in front of the gods and everybody."

He started to laugh, but then he saw my eyes. One thing we have in common, he's only half human, too. His elf blood lets him see plenty good after dusk. What he saw in my pretty yellow eyes sobered him up.

"Very well, you are nothing like a poet. Please permit me to withdraw my careless and utterly unfounded inference to the contrary. Your untarnished reputation deserves not the least such blemish, and I implore you to forgive my hasty and misinformed—"

"All right, all right! Forget it."

He raised an eyebrow to let me know he'd humored me.

Feeling like a dope, I took another peek through the spyglass. On the shore, the cultist waved the torch overhead. In the firelight, I could make out the dried-blood color of his cloak. I saw the lumps of his black mask. The boss said Anaphexis assassins made those masks out of the flayed faces of their first five victims.

As the cultist watched us watching him, a dark shape moved in the woods behind him. Its eyes reflected the torchlight.

"Hey!"

"What is it?" The boss reached for the spyglass, but I shrugged him off, careful not to give him a spur in the heart. I wasn't really going to rough him up, poet talk or not. At least, I was pretty sure I wasn't.

Out of the shadows, a black wolf jumped the Anaphexis guy. It knocked him down and tore a hunk out of his middle. He drew a blade, but another wolf ran in to clamp its jaws around his wrist. The first wolf went for his throat as another two melted out of the woods to join the feast.

A second later, we heard the scream. Just the one, and then all we could hear was the sound of waves lapping around the barge.

"Tell me what you see," said the boss.

"Looks like our enemies ain't the only ones watching us tonight. We got some friends out there."

Three wolves tore the body to pieces while the first one stepped away. It stood up on its hind legs, shifting gradually into a familiar figure.

I knew that figure.

She picked up the guy's torch and let its light show off her body. The flame turned her skin to gold. A moment later, she brushed back her long black hair to make sure I had a good view.

It was a real good view.

"That's my girl." This time I knew I was muttering out loud.

"The witch?"

"The harrower. She's sending us a message."

"Let me see."

I shrugged him off again. "She ain't decent. I wouldn't want you to be scandalized. She's got company, though. Three of them. Can't tell which ones unless they shed their skins."

"Please tell me they didn't kill the Anaphexis agent."

"Well ..."

He sighed.

"If it makes you feel any better, it don't look like they're leaving any evidence."

"Let us pray not. Their master is not a fool, but it's possible he will attribute the loss of one agent to mishap. What is she saying?"

He must have thought she'd learned his Pathfinder hand signs or something, but her message was a lot simpler. "She misses me."

"Malena does?"

"All the girls miss me, boss. You know that."

"No doubt they, too, have been dealing with the encroachment of the horde."

That was the thing, the reason we weren't going home just yet.

The demons.

All winter, fiends kept popping up all across Elfland—which the boss insists I call Kyonin, but my way's funnier. At first we thought it was fallout from our caper in the Fierani Forest, but they weren't coming from the Witchbole. They were showing up all across the Inner Sea, and they were all coming from the one place they were supposed to be stuck: the Worldwound.

The first summons came from Telandia, Queen of Kyonin, Wearer of the Viridian Crown, High Protector something something—I forget the rest. On account of we did her a good turn, she asked us to check out why these demons were pouring out all over the world. The boss was inclined to help, seeing as she'd done him some good turns, too. Anyway, it never hurts to have the queen of the elves owe you a favor.

The elves put us on a riverboat, along with the Red Carriage and the boss's fancy new horses. They took us up the West Sellen between Razmiran and the River Kingdoms. Those guys were having their own demon troubles.

Unlike some of the river towns we'd passed, the people in a city called Tymon weren't running from the fiends. They unleashed their gladiators on them. Those demons they didn't kill they enslaved for the arena. That didn't seem like the smartest idea, but it stopped them breaking up the joint.

Tymon was also where the boss's mail caught up to him. He'd already had a few magic messages from Queen Abrogail's sorcerers back home in Cheliax, as well as from some wizard with the Decemvirate, his little club's inner circle. I half expected him to rip up their note, but the Pathfinder letter was the one that got his attention, on account of they used the magic word: "book."

While everybody around the Inner Sea wanted to know what had gone wrong at the Worldwound, the Decemvirate had an idea how to sort it out. Whoever it'd been that first opened the door to the Abyss a hundred years ago did their homework first. That included something called the Lexicon of Paradox.

Radovan has no problem putting undead back in the ground.

The boss knew the title. It was some kind of famous evil book, like the Lacuna Codex we'd found and lost and found and lost again. Once the boss knew the Pathfinders were interested, he wanted to be the one who found it. Whether he planned to deliver it to Elfland, Cheliax, or the Pathfinders' headquarters in Absalom was anybody's guess. I had a feeling what he really wanted was to put it in his own library back at Greensteeples. That didn't seem too smart of an idea, either, but he's the boss.

The elves left us in Tymon, where we hired Zora Gorcha. Her crew included men from both Ustalav and the River Kingdoms—but no Razmirans, those lunatics who called their king a god.

I liked having the Ustalavs on the boat. Even though I was born and bred Chelish, the human part of my blood was all Ustalavic, far as I knew. It was about time I brushed up my Varisian, too. I'd been forgetting all the best curses and getting bored of the ones I remembered.

"Captain!"

One of the sailors pointed up at the southern sky. Zora yelled at her sailors to finish setting torches along the gunwales. I gave the boss the spyglass before he could ask for it. "Is it him?"

The boss fiddled with the spyglass until he got it in focus. His hand dropped to the hilt of the Shadowless Sword. A princess from the other side of the world gave that to him. No lie.

He drew it an inch out of the scabbard, letting its magic pierce any illusions. When he stood up a little straighter, I knew the answer before he said the name: "Kasiya."

"That guy don't know when to quit."

The boss snapped the spyglass shut and put it in the pocket of his long coat. Like my new leathers, it was elf-made but in the Chelish style.

The horses snapped and stirred. During the river voyage, they'd kept quiet as long as I kept my distance. With Kasiya on his way, they sensed something wickeder than me.

From the sky came the sound of barking dogs. Arni grumbled to hear it. The ruff of his neck went up.

Zora ordered her men to double-double-up. A pikeman joined each of the sailors poling the boat upriver. A third man hustled over to each pair with a covered fire pot. A fourth lowered buckets into the river and drew them back onto deck.

The little dot in the sky became a blob. I could start making out details.

A pack of long-legged dogs flew through the sky. They pulled a chariot driven by Prince Kasiya, the Osirian vampire.

I'd seen the gold-masked creep a couple times since Kyonin, and the boss knew him from way back. Kasiya's cloak floated up behind him. He shook a javelin that crackled with red lightning.

Something hung off the sides of his chariot. Whatever it was was heavy, because each time he shifted his weight the whole thing tilted one way or the other.

As they got closer, I saw the four other guys hanging off the sides. It was hard to make out details, but there was no mistaking their pale skin, clawed fingers, and red eyes.

Kasiya had been busy making little vampires.

I pointed. "Boss—"

"I saw them." He handed me his loop of garlic and drew the Shadowless Sword.

"You sure about this?"

"Let Arnisant defend the horses," he said. He sent the wolfhound toward the Red Carriage while he moved toward the side of the barge nearest the chariot. "You support the crew. Drive any boarders toward me."

"Got it." He shot me a look. I must have had a tone. "I said I got it. It's just I'm used to being the mayhem."

The boss smiled at that. We'd been a couple years in the field, and he was becoming more and more a regular guy. Or maybe he'd always been one, and it was just showing more since we'd been away from Egorian and all his fancy peers.

One of the passengers dropped from the chariot. Kasiya's vampire minion howled as he saw he was going to miss the barge by thirty yards. He plunged into the river. A moment later, he came up screaming, flesh sloughing off his arm. He went down again, water boiling where he'd been.

"Idiot," the boss spat. "Even his spawn are susceptible to running water." Then he looked at me and added, "But Kasiya is no less dangerous for his stupidity. Do not allow any of them to touch you."

"Check." I pulled the big knife from the spine of my new jacket.

He shook his head at the blade. "I wish you would learn to use a sword or a spear—anything with reach."

I shrugged. "What can I say? Old dog."

"Try the scrolls."

"Boss, you know I can't—"

"Just try one before they close with us."

I sighed. No matter how often I tried using the flippy scrolls, they never worked for me—except for the one time. But that was before I knew they weren't supposed to work for me.

That was the problem, the boss said. It worked when I didn't know better, so I must have had a knack. The problem was that the more I thought I couldn't use the riffle scrolls, the less chance I could make them work.

That's what you call a paradox.

Before I could dig a scroll out of my jacket, I saw a flicker of light above us. "Hey, look out!"

A tiny red flame shot down from Kasiya's javelin. It got bigger as it got closer.

The boss plucked a riffle scroll from the bandolier beneath his coat. It was a stack of paper strips the size of my thumb, one end shut with a brass brad. The boss pressed his thumb against the other end, pulling back the edges to let the pages snap free one after the next. Each page glimmered for an instant, the glow of one blending into the next to form fragments of arcane symbols. Riffled like that, the pages cast a spell.

The boss's magic shot up at Kasiya's fireball, barely visible even to my devil eyes. When the spells met, the fireball flickered and vanished with a whoosh.

The rest of Kasiya's vampire slaves flew down at us. Not "flew" flew. More like "fell screaming" flew.

"Brace yourself, boys!" I said it again in Varisian, even though all the Ustalavs spoke Taldane better than I spoke their language. Speaking Varisian made me feel more like a vampire-slayer.

One of the vamps hit the deck, rolling until its claws clung to the planks. It crouched for a second, hissing. Its eyes fixed on one of the pikemen, a fat, bearded Ustalav. The man's jowls went slack. He pulled the ring of garlic off his neck and threw it over the side before walking toward the vampire.

I ran in, sliding to take out the fat man's legs. He fell beside me, stunned but getting mad when he realized I'd knocked him down. There was no talking to him since the vampire put the whammy on his mind. I headbutted him. It took two shots to knock him out, and was I going to regret that later. I dropped the extra garlic rope around his neck to make him bite-proof.

Kasiya's vampire slave hissed at me, lashing out now and then to keep the other sailors at bay but still unwilling to get close to the garlic. I got to my feet and shot it the tines.

That's one Chelish gesture that never needs translating. The vampire showed me its teeth.

I showed it mine.

The vampire damn near swallowed its tongue.

"All right, boys," I began. I wanted to drive this mook toward the boss, but one of the sailors had a different idea. He swung his fire pot, but the vamp leaped right over him. It landed neat as a cat on the gunwales.

From the clothes I figured the vamp had been a man of the River Kingdoms. Death grayed its face and hollowed its cheeks. Its nails had grown dark and ragged. The thing lashed out at the sailor.

I slapped my arm, filling my hand with darts from the secret pockets in my sleeves. I flung them hard. Two struck deep into the vamp's face. The third went flying past, into the river.

Snarling, the vampire plucked one out of its cheek and made a show of licking off its own half-congealed blood.

The nearest sailor broke his pole across the vampire's neck, but the monster hung on to the gunwales.

I looked to either side. The boss had just snapped another scroll at Kasiya, whose chariot was about to fly right over the barge. Two pikemen had one of the other vamps pinned to the deck. The third vamp was nowhere in sight.

The horses screamed.

Another vamp—this one a patchy-bearded dwarf—came scrambling out from beneath the Red Carriage, Arni on its heels. Maybe the garlic collar helped, but I had to think anything with half a brain would run from the big wolfhound. Arni was so big he could barely squeeze under the carriage as he chased his prey.

I tumbled forward and kicked the feet out from under the former dwarf. The creature's momentum threw it across the deck to slide toward the boss, who finished snapping another scroll straight up as the chariot passed overhead. Lightning crackled above us, but none of it touched the boat.

The dwarf vamp grabbed the boss's ankle.

I winced to see it. A vampire's touch was supposed to suck the life right out of you. The boss said that wouldn't happen to him, but I wasn't so sure.

The boss looked down like he'd stepped in something nasty. All casual, he thrust the point of his sword three times into the dwarf's head before turning his attention back to the sky, where Kasiya's chariot circled back toward the barge.

The vampire dwarf rolled away, mostly dead. Or dead again. Deaderer. There's got to be a word. I'd ask the boss later.

A couple of sailors smashed their fire pots against the thing. The bucket brigade waited for the vamp to stop struggling before dousing the flames. They timed it just right. The river water hit the burning thing just in time to turn its ashy skin to mud on the deck.

The same thing was happening with the vampire skewered by the other pikemen. Their buddies lit up the monster, and they held it out over the water until its screams became just the sound of its last fatty bits sizzling away. Then they dunked the charred remains into the river. The water boiled more from the unholy flesh than from the heat.

The rest of the sailors were still playing tag with the vampire who'd taken the darts. The garlic wasn't doing the trick anymore. The vamp had ripped the necklace off one sailor and grabbed another one by the throat. The sailor's face withered before our eyes.

I remembered the boss's warning: You don't want those things touching you.

I ran two steps, jumped, and came down with all my weight on the vamp's knee. The impact felt like kicking a pile of rocks, but it annoyed the thing enough that it let go of the sailor and came for me.

The vamp had already picked my other dart out of its face, leaving only a black sliver of a wound. You had to kill these guys fast, or they just got back up.

"Finish that one," said the boss. He ran past us, snapping off scroll after scroll as Kasiya's chariot flew by again. I kept one eye on the boss while backing away from the vamp. These things have some wicked quickness.

The boss's first scroll sent bolts of silver at Kasiya, but they splattered like raindrops against an invisible globe. The second scroll didn't seem to do anything except cover that magic shield with a web of white light before vanishing. The third was a fireball. I expected to see it fail as it hit Kasiya's magic barrier.

Instead, it exploded.

The chariot dogs fell in all directions as the chariot drew a smoking arc above the river. Kasiya and his fancy little cart made it to the Ustalav bank before crashing into the woods.

"Good job, boss!"

Just then I remembered the riffle scroll the boss told me to use.

The sailors stabbed at the vamp with their pikes, but it dodged them and came for me. It hammered a careless sailor to the deck as I got my thumb on the scroll's edge. I could smell its decaying breath as I snapped the pages free. The scroll tingled against my thumb, and a little cloud of dust blew into the vampire's face.

The vamp flinched, maybe thinking it would burst into flames or start choking on poison.

But there was nothing. I hadn't cast a spell. I'd only blown paper dust in its face.

The vamp hit me straight in the chest, hard as a mule's kick—and I know what I'm talking about when I say that.

The blow threw me back into a couple other guys. We hit the gunwales tangled together. We all moaned, but when I tried to get up I really felt it, like the vamp had put a hole right through me.

Now I can take a punch. Desna knows I've taken plenty before. This one knocked more than the wind out of me. I half expected to hear my heart splash into the river behind us.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the gray blur of Arni racing toward the vamp.

"No!" I tried calling him off, but he didn't listen. He don't like seeing me or the boss get hit.

"Arnisant, down!" At the sound of his master's voice, the wolfhound flattened his body on the deck.

A whooping sound cut through the air. A whirling silver flash passed through the vamp's neck. Black-red spray covered the deck between the monster and me. Its head tumbled off and slid toward me through the gore. Startled eyes looked up at me where it came to a rest between my knees. Its body collapsed a second later.

The Shadowless Sword flew back to the boss. He caught it with a casual gesture. As the hilt touched his palm, I saw a glimmer of magic. He'd done some spell I'd never seen before. Maybe he'd been doing more than "diplomacy" with Kyonin's other queen last winter, and the scaly old gal had taught him a few new tricks. Probably she'd just let him loose in the library, but I can dream, can't I?

He wiped the blood on the cloth hanging from his scabbard before putting the sword away. I saw a gleam in his eye. He was proud of his stunt. Couldn't blame him for that. It was a pretty slick move.

The crewmen were helping each other stand up. One or two were hurt pretty bad, but everybody was alive. That was something that didn't happen to us all the time. Desna smiled.

Zora Gorcha offered me a hand up. Behind her, some of her crew were waking the other guy a vamp shook by the throat. He looked thin and gray, but he was alive, with no bite marks anywhere I could see.

When she saw that all her men had survived and her boat wasn't on fire, Zora grabbed my face and planted a garlicky smooch on my lips. My knees went all weak, but not from the kiss. Not even from the garlic.

I'd taken one hell of a hit from that vamp.

"The Count Jeggare, I am thinking he saved your life." Zora laughed as she looked me up and down. "Tell me again, Radovan, which of you is bodyguard?"

Purchase the whole novel here.

Coming Next Week: A new story of love, crusades, and big fluffy dogs in "Inheritance" by Gabrielle Harbowy!

Dave Gross's other adventures of Radovan and the Count include the Pathfinder Tales novels Prince of Wolves, Master of Devils, and Queen of Thorns; the novellas “Husks” and “Hell’s Pawns”; and the short stories “A Lesson in Taxonomy,” “A Passage to Absalom,” “Killing Time,” “The Lost Pathfinder,” and "The Fencing Master," all available at paizo.com/pathfindertales. He also co-wrote the Pathfinder Tales novel Winter Witch with Elaine Cunningham, and has written novels for the Forgotten Realms and Iron Kingdoms, as well as short stories for such anthologies as Tales of the Far West and Shotguns v. Cthulhu. Dave is the former editor of magazines ranging from Dragon to Star Wars Insider to Amazing Stories, and was a writer for Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition. For more information, visit frabjousdave.blogspot.com.

Illustration by Roberto Pitturru.

Bestiary 4 Preview #1

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

In just a few weeks, Bestiary 4 will be making its way to your table, ready to terrorize players and delight GMs with over 300 new monsters! Each week, we are going to be taking a look at one of the terrible foes you will find in this meaty tome. First up, we have a creature from myth and legend, ready to rip your foes limb from limb! Grendel is one of the mythic monsters you will find in Bestiary 4, but you can use him in any campaign!

GRENDEL CR 19/MR7

Illustration by Roberto Pitturru

XP 204,800
CE Large monstrous humanoid (mythic)
Init +4; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +15
Aura frightful presence (60 ft.; DC 20, DC 16 against mythic creatures)

DEFENSE

AC 34, touch 13, flat-footed 30 (+4 Dex, +25 natural, –1 size)
hp 340 (20d10+230); regeneration 10 (unarmed strikes or natural weapons)
Fort +16, Ref +16, Will +16
Defensive Abilities ferocity, unstoppable; DR 10/epic; Resist acid 10, cold 10, fire 10

OFFENSE

Speed 40 ft.
Melee 2 claws +32 (3d10+13/19–20 plus grab), bite +27 (4d8+6)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 10 ft.
Special Attacks blood rage, brutal surge, gruesome dismemberment, mythic power (7/day, surge +1d10)

STATISTICS

Str 36, Dex 19, Con 26, Int 9, Wis 15, Cha 8
Base Atk +20; CMB +34 (+38 grapple); CMD 48
Feats Bleeding Critical, Combat Reflexes, Critical Focus, Exhausting Critical, Great FortitudeM, Improved Critical (claw), Iron WillM, Power AttackM, Skill FocusM (Stealth), Tiring Critical
Skills Acrobatics +19 (+23 when jumping), Intimidate +12, Perception +15 (+23 sound-based checks), Stealth +24, Swim +31; Racial Modifiers +4 Acrobatics when jumping, +8 Perception (sound-based checks)
Languages Common
SQ display of strength

ECOLOGY

Environment cold swamps
Organization solitary
Treasure standard

SPECIAL ABILITIES

Brutal Surge (Su) When Grendel expends mythic power to add a surge die to an attack roll, he also adds a surge die to that attack’s damage roll. This is not an action and does not require him to expend any additional uses of mythic power to use this ability.

Gruesome Dismemberment (Ex) When Grendel successfully holds a creature he has grappled, he may expend one use of mythic power to attempt to dismember that creature. He attempts a grapple check; if successful, his target takes double his normal claw damage and the attack pulls off one of the target’s legs or arms. The target is sickened until it receives magical healing (or until it recovers to full hit points by natural means), and takes 2d6 points of bleed damage each round. A creature with only one an arm cannot perform actions requiring two arms or two hands. A bipedal creature with one leg missing cannot walk or run; it can crawl or hop, but is denied its Dexterity bonus against all opponents. A quadrupedal creature with one leg missing is reduced to half normal speed. At the GM’s discretion, creatures with more than four legs affected by this attack may be able to move at normal speed.

Limb ripping fun! That’s all for this week. Next week, we will take a look at a monster that is quite a bit more cuddly.

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer

Animal Archive Preview

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Since we revamped our Player Companion line last August, we've been able to play with a lot of different ideas and themes in coming up with overarching concepts for the latest Player Companions. Coming up is one of our most exciting new releases in this line, a content-packed volume called Animal Archive, available starting on the 20th of February. This Player Companion is chocked full of awesome new tips, tricks, items, archetypes, spells, and feats for you and your bestial buddy. Oh, and did I mention there'd be a ton of new animal companions and familiars too?

While of course I could never betray the llama animal companion as my favorite new addition to the Pathfinder stables, I think the platypus familiar is particularly well suited for a preview blog. I'm not sure if Seoni shares my sentiment, though...

Illustration by Roberto Pitturru

Platypus CR 1/6

XP 65
N Tiny animal
Init +3; Senses electrolocation 30 ft. (while underwater); Perception +1 (+5 while underwater)

Defense

AC 14, touch 14, flat-footed 12 (+2 Dex, +2 size)
hp 3 (1d8–1)
Fort +1, Ref +4, Will +1

Offense

Speed 10 ft., swim 40 ft.
Melee spur +4 (1d3–4 plus poison)
Space 2-1/2 ft.; Reach 0 ft.

Statistics

Str 2, Dex 14, Con 8, Int 2, Wis 13, Cha 11
Base Atk +0; CMB +0; CMD 6 (10 vs. trip)
Feats Weapon Finesse
Skills Swim +15; Racial Modifiers +4 Perception while underwater

Ecology

Environment temperate or tropical rivers
Organization solitary
Treasure none

Special Abilities

Electrolocation (Ex) While underwater, platypuses can sense the tiny electrical currents that trigger muscle movement. This allows them to locate living prey and to distinguish it from inanimate objects. Treat electrolocation as blindsight 30 feet, but platypuses can sense only living creatures, and it functions only underwater.
Poison (Ex) Spur—injury; save Fort DC 9; frequency 1/round for 4 rounds; effect 1 nonlethal damage; cure 1 save.
Semiaquatic (Ex) Platypuses can hold their breath underwater for up to 5 minutes before they must start attempting Constitution checks to avoid suffocation.

This little guy is just one of the four new familiars you'll find in Animal Archive, and just one of eight brand-new animals total! In addition to these all-new beasties and a host of new rules options, you'll find expanded information and rules on some of Golarion's most famous endemic creatures, including the razorcrow, ether frog, firefoot fennec, and more!

So dust off the old feedbag and clean out your kennel, because Pathfinder Player Companion: Animal Archive hits shelves later this month!

Patrick Renie
Developer

NPCs on the March!

Monday, October 1, 2012

We're still a couple of months out from the release of Pathfinder RPG: NPC Codex, but all of the awesome art in that book refuses to be contained! Check out a sampling of 10 fantastically deadly characters by 10 fantastically talented artists. Also, be sure to watch this space in the coming weeks for in-depth previews of Pathfinder RPG: NPC Codex—releasing this December.

F. Wesley Schneider
Editor-in-Chief

More Adventures for Pathfinders!

Monday, October 17, 2011

Illustration by Roberto Pitturru

One of the things I often heard complained about over the past year was that players did not have enough scenarios to play. Many times, they had played every scenario of a particular tier and were in a holding pattern to continue adventuring with their favorite characters.

The problem was noted and added to my list of to do items, and getting the remaining Pathfinder modules sanctioned for Pathfinder Society play was one of my top priorities. Thanks to the help of JP Chapleau, John Compton, Nick Gray and Joseph Caubo, (who combed through the modules to provide me with lists of items, as well as flavor text and ideas for Chronicle sheet boons) Pathfinder Society now has seven additional modules for sanctioned play. The list includes: Carrion Hill, City of Golden Death, Crypt of the Everflame, Curse of the Riven Sky, Masks of the Living God, Realm of the Fellnight Queen, and From Shore to Sea.

Additionally, the Chronicle sheet for Feast of Ravenmoor has been updated to include a new boon.

For those who have not had a chance to play through Carrion Hill, I highly recommend it as a Halloween weekend game. Enjoy and good gaming!

Mike Brock
Pathfinder Society Campaign Coordinator

Golarion Day: Inner Sea Magic Preview

Thursday, July 21, 2011

	Illustration by Roberto Pitturru

Well, because you asked for it, here's a preview of some elements taken from the upcoming Pathfinder Campaign Setting book, Inner Sea Magic. I'm including excerpts from two different sections of the book—one of the possible results for unleashing primal magic (as might occur if you try to cast spells in the Mana Wastes) and one new hex that the winter witch archetype grants access to (and yes they do gain a bonus on all cold spells they cast).

Excerpted from "Sample Primal Magic Effects": 75–78 Strange telekinetic forces rip through the area, attempting to trip all creatures in a CR x 10 foot radius. The event makes a trip combat maneuver check against all available targets, using a CMB of 10 + CR. Any creature tripped by the event has its equipment reorganized and tangled by the mischievous telekinesis. Until a creature takes a minute to reorganize its belongings, retrieving a stowed item is a full-round action.

Excerpted from "Spells": Frozen Caress (Su): Whenever the winter witch casts a touch spell, she can infuse the magic with cold as a swift action. This grants the spell the cold descriptor, and adds 1d4 points of cold damage to the spell's effect. If the touch spell allows a saving throw, a successful save negates this additional cold damage.

And here's one more preview—the names of all 39 spells that appear in the book, presented in alphabetical order:

Aroden's Spellbane Bladed Dash Bladed Dash, Greater Blast Barrier Call Weapon Crusader's Edge Eaglesoul Eldritch Conduit Eldritch Conduit, Greater Fleshcurdle Forceful Strike Geb's Hammer Geniekind

Hungry Darkness Hunter's Lore Ice Spears Impart Mind Khain's Army Kiss of the First World Light of Iomedae Martial Marionette Martyr's Bargain Music of the Spheres Orchid's Drop Pugwampi's Grace Shadow Barbs

Shining Cord Siphon Magic Song of Kyonin Spell Absorption Spell Absorption, Greater Spellscar Suppress Primal Magic Tattoo Potion Transfer Tattoo Vengeful Comets Vex Giant Weaponwand Zone of Foul Flames

James Jacobs
Creative Director

Illustrations by Alex Aparin and Roberto Pitturru. Widescreen version here.

Everything She Does Is Magic!

Friday, June 3, 2011

Seoni is by far one of the most popular iconics we've ever written. The classic high charisma sorcerer, she's graced the pages of Pathfinder products from the very beginning. Now she can grace your desktop along with Alhazra, the iconic oracle, in this Inner Sea Magic themed wallpaper.

Hyrum Savage
Marketing and Organized Play Manager

Golarion Day: Inner Sea Magic

Thursday, June 2, 2011

So, Inner Sea Magic has been off to the printer for a few weeks now, but this is really the first chance I've had to say much more about it. And since the editors are still scrambling with various convention-season-related projects, I'll keep this blog short and just show off some art that goes with the winter witch archetype and the tattooed sorcerer archetype. It should probably be pretty obvious which one goes with which. (And also—first ever illustration of Seoni's familiar!)

Illustrations by Roberto Pitturru

James Jacobs
Creative Director