Return of the NPCs!

Thursday, October 11, 2018

Clegg Zincher

Part 3 of the Return of the Runelords Adventure Path is on its way, and with it, the situation for Varisia in this latest Pathfinder Adventure Path kicks into high gear. Just in case there are potential players of the campaign checking this blog post out, I'll refrain from getting too "spoilery" about things, but one of my favorite parts about this Adventure Path lies in the fact that it's a sequel. This allows us to not only make some assumptions about characters we've established in prior adventures and campaigns, but lets us have old favorites, be they friends or foes, come back to enjoy some time in the limelight one more time. Folks have doubtless already noticed a few familiar faces in the first two adventures, be they Pathfinder agents or Vancaskerkin agents, but with the third adventure, Richard Pett's Runeplague, one of these older NPCs is getting more than a cameo role.

The last time we saw Clegg Zincher, he was having a real bad day on the small isle of Devil's Elbow just south of Riddleport. In Runeplague, we find out that his mis-adventures during the Second Darkness Adventure Path were but the start of a long, downward spiral into trouble. Once a significant mover and shaker in Riddleport's government, Clegg's prior clash with a group of heroes has left him in hard times. Now, as the PCs will learn in this adventure, Clegg's in more trouble than ever, even if he doesn't realize it, and rather than face the PCs in battle he's going to have to rely upon them for salvation!

In Runeplague, though, we don't just go to Riddleport. I challenged Richard Pett with a tall order—"Write me an adventure where the PCs go to all four of the significant cities of Varisia—Magnimar, Riddleport, Korvosa, and Kaer Maga." He knocked it out of the proverbial park, with each of this adventure's four parts having a very distinct feel and theme. All of which builds to a climax that, I suspect, some folks won't see coming!

In closing, I'll leave one more cryptic hint—there's another reason I wanted Richard Pett to write Runeplague. The time was right, after all, for another favorite villain from the past to rise once more!

But I promised to keep the spoilers as light as possible. So let me just close by showing off some cool art from Runeplague!

Preparing for the Crimson Festival

James Jacobs
Creative Director

Revealing Secrets

Tuesday, September 11, 2018

Illustration by Valeria Lutfullina

This month, Pathfinder fans can get their hands on the adventure that kicks off the Return of the Runelords Adventure Path—Secrets of Roderic's Cove! I asked on Twitter what folks would like to see in a blog about this adventure, and a number of people wanted to know more about the writing process and more behind the scenes things. So, here y'all go!

After working on various parts of the Adventure Path line for over 6 years, I finally got my name on the front cover! I'd been given the option before, but it seemed like every time the opportunity came up the timing just wasn't right. I didn't want to take on a big project and not be able to deliver on time. I still had plenty on my plate, but kicking off an Adventure Path was too tempting to refuse. I also enjoy writing low-level adventures, so that was another factor that led me to jump on this.

James had some basic ideas of what he wanted this adventure to accomplish, and rather than us using the usual outlining process, we pretty much just talked things through, and I kept him updated on where the story was going, getting feedback and bouncing ideas off of him.

Writing Adventure Path adventures is tough. While I've written plenty of things since I first started freelancing, this adventure is the longest single project I've ever written. I stressed trying to pull it all together and hit my deadline (which I didn't), and at the end of it all I had overwritten by more than 7,000 words. Trimming it down was easier than I expected, though. I had another level in a dungeon that was a little more than 5,000 words by itself and it wasn't 100% necessary to the plot, so... yoink! To the floor with you! The rest was just cleaning up some things, connecting the dots, and trimming down a few encounters.

Illustration by Ekaterina Burmak

Illustration by Nikolai Ostertag

I enjoyed getting to flesh out the town of Roderic's Cove, as well. There were only a few sentences on the place, so I got to really breathe some life into it. I like making small towns and their inhabitants, and really enjoy linking everyone together to make a place seem realistic and dynamic all while giving PCs fun characters to interact with.

This adventure is somewhat of a sandbox, and it provides a wide range of encounters and places to explore. Not every challenge is best dealt with through violence, so the PCs can find different solutions to their problems. While the adventure kicks off the bigger plot of the campaign, it is also self-contained and could easily serve as a standalone adventure with minimal work on the GM's part.

I hope that everyone who reads or plays Secrets of Roderic's Cove enjoys themselves. Get ready to take down those runelords!

Adam Daigle
Managing Developer

Get Ready to Fight Some Runelords!

Wednesday, September 5, 2018

Cartography by Matthias Rotenaicher

The Return of the Runelords Player's Guide is here! Within, you'll find all the information you'll need to craft your character for this Adventure Path, including several unique campaign traits that will help tailor your character to the themes found in the campaign and... just maybe... set up some surprises for you along the way. In addition, the Player's Guide helps you choose which of your prior PCs, if any, who took part in Rise of the Runelords or Shattered Star might have roles to play in the background of the Return of the Runelords Adventure Path.

This new campaign begins in the small town of Roderic's Cove, and at the end of the Player's Guide you'll find a little chart that each of you will get to roll on at the start of the adventure, to determine what sort of bargains you might have uncovered at the town's weekly Circle Market. And never fear, if you find something you can't quite afford at the start, chances are good your bargain will still be for sale later in the week, once you've started to make your names as adventurers and have a bit more coin to your names. Certainly nothing bad will happen at the Circle Market, right?

While the first adventure, Secrets of Roderic's Cove, takes place in the town itself, note that Return of the Runelords does not stay here—you won't be returning to Roderic's Cove during the course of the campaign in a significant way, so make sure your characters are both ready to defend the town but also eager to move on to explore the world. Your GM has additional information about Roderic's Cove, as presented in Pathfinder Adventure Path #133—but everyone might find the map attached to this blog post helpful in exploring.

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Have fun, and don't let those mean old runelords get you!

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Creative Director

Return of the Runelords Begins!

Wednesday, August 29, 2018

I've been looking forward to working on the Return of the Runelords Adventure Path since the very start. As development on Rise of the Runelords wrapped up over ten years ago, we started a tradition that's lasted ever since—the inclusion of a tiny little message at the end of the sixth volume's legal text. In Rise of the Runelords, this message simply read, "The runelords will return." Likewise, in the sequel to Rise of the Runelords, the last volume of the Shattered Star Adventure Path teased, "Sorshen lives!"

Now, with Return of the Runelords, we finally get to see the payoff to these hidden messages, as well as wrap up the epic storyline that began with a now infamous goblin raid on the little town of Sandpoint. If you've played through either Rise of the Runelords or Shattered Star, you'll find a lot of callbacks in Return of the Runelords to events, characters, and treasures that first debuted in those earlier campaigns, and you'll even be able to see what became of prior PCs who played through those earlier games!

Illustrations by Ekaterina Burmak

But even if you haven't played these prior campaigns, there's plenty of reasons to play Return of the Runelords. This Adventure Path features longer adventures than most volumes, with the final installment being the longest adventure we've ever run in an Adventure Path volume! This increased length allows us to cover every level from 1st to 20th, without using Mythic Adventures to speed level progression along (as was the case in Wrath of the Righteous, the only other Adventure Path we've published that reached 20th level), but also pits your PCs against some of the most infamous and dangerous villains of the Pathfinder Campaign Setting.

So... if you think you've got what it takes to stand against the runelords, now you'll have a chance to prove it!

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Creative Director