Blighted Beginnings—Writing is a Sensory Experience

Friday, February 19, 2016

Last year I competed in the Paizo's RPG Superstar contest, and earlier this week I saw my complete winning adventure. It was humbling to see my first design work become reality. Roleplaying games are an integral part of my daily and family life. I play Pathfinder at least once a week, sometimes with friends, my children, complete strangers—I love to game! I love the social aspects of gathering around a table to share in the group storytelling experience. We explore, we laugh, we fight, we are a party, and we are together. As gamers we experience things outside our everyday lives, see places that exist in our collective imaginations. We get to be "not ourselves."

Winning RPG Superstar introduced me to a new aspect of my favorite hobby. I created a space for gamers to explore Nar-Voth and discover new things about themselves (should gamers follow those threads). One of the most important parts of the design process was finding places to include roleplaying solutions in addition to combat solutions. Creating believable NPCs was both fun and challenging. My favorite characters to create were the three "big bad" encounters. The personalities and relationships between Zohir and her underlings were crucial to giving options to players for dealing with the encounters. For each NPC, I created files of real and fictional people and relationships, created musical soundtracks, and for a few, I had specific perfumes that I wore when I wrote their scenes to help me focus and round out NPCs that could have ended up moustache twirling villains. Even now when I wear some of them I'm put in the frame of mind of Zohir and Delbera. (Editor's Note: Apparently Lady Delbera is Vétiver Fatal. We leave it up to you, dear readers, to convince Monica to share the rest!)

Illustrations by Sally Gottschalk and Vicky Yarova

Thank you Paizo, Lisa Stevens, Crystal Frasier, Amanda Hamon Kunz, and RPG Superstar voters and judges! Without this supportive gaming community we would still be searching for like-minded friends to share our dreams. Thank you for sharing my dream of an axe wielding dwarven cleric. Thank you Andrew for believing in me and for your endless support. This module is for all of you!

Monica Marlowe
Contributing Author

For Evil to be Victorious, it Needs Good Help!

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Evil is insidious, it's not always the person stabbing you in the face repeatedly, but instead, it's the person whispering honeyed words into your ears. You've all been victim to it. I've seen you lot, swayed by the promises of the occult or tales of black markets. The crafter of those words was quite skilled. It's my understanding that her hand helped guide the words that fill the tome of which I am to speak.

What am I here to discuss? I'm here to talk about evil. Specifically, I'm here to talk about Pathfinder Player Companion: Agents of Evil.

The noblest of soul, or the most depraved mind, can willingly walk the path of service to an evil power. It's important to note that such bondage does not inherently turn one into a force for evil. In this guide, you'll read about bad beginnings, sad stories, and monstrous motivations.

For those of you without a maligned past or similarly dark ambitions, there are evil patrons aplenty—from the Aspis Consortium to the Whispering Way—who willingly seek agents to do their bidding. For those of you with a more religious bent, the fouler gods of Golarion have much to offer. Even those less vile followers of such deities are given their fair respect in this book. Asmodeus too takes his rightful place here, and for those of you foolish enough to combat the rightful rule of House Thrune, you may find yourself interested in hearing about the Devil Impostors—summoners whose eidolons imitate the traits of hellspawn.

All can benefit from the knowledge on fighting the supposed 'forces of good'. Learn strategies to employ against agathions, angels, archons, and azatas alike—most certainly useful for those battling the rising rabble of the Glorious Reclamation.

Contained within the intricate script of this tome are poisons of the foulest sort, with additional necrotoxins—whose sort you've likely learned of from Golarion's black markets. Even the more misunderstood races can learn some skill in service to evil powers, from fetchling magi clouding the vision of their enemies, to tiefling alchemists brewing bombs of pure hellfire.

Ah... it appears I may be telling you too much, and our time is growing short.

Luckily, there's far too many magic items and spells to adequately describe in this place. I could discuss the withershot muskets, crafted by the servants of the daemonic harbinger Cixyron. Or perhaps you'd like to hear of the Aspis Consortium's success with the aboleth-designed ioun spite bracers.

Illustrations by Sally Gottschalk, Kez Laczin, and Andy Timm

Interested?

Well, I suppose I could tantalize you with the necromantic spell blood tentacles that does... well, it does exactly what you might expect.

Sadly, there's just too much to talk about in a place such as this.

Except... Well, I wouldn't be properly evil without mentioning one last seductive item from this volume of inequity. The insinuator is an antipaladin archetype that purely embodies a path of pure self-interest. These paragons of self shun bonding with a single deity, instead living an existence bartering with any power that seems likely to grant them the power needed to meet their own goals.

Now I must go. But before I do, I must thank Crystal Frasier and Owen K.C. Stephens for the opportunity to work on this book. If anything, I am truly an agent of their far-reaching evil.

Thurston "Thursty" Hillman
Contributing Author