Season of the Plundered Tombs, The Story So Far

Tuesday, February 28, 2017

We are officially halfway through the Season of Plundered Tombs!

Brave Pathfinder Agents have investigated lost tombs, translated hidden runes, smashed undead guardians, and dispersed elementals, all in service to the Pathfinder Society. There may have been some amount of plundering also happening, based on the fine historic artifacts exhibited by those agents, but that is clearly secondary to the far more altruistic pursuit of knowledge.

BEWARE: Spoilers Ahead. You were warned.

Adventure 1: Serpents in the Deep

First, you earned the appreciation of many local merchants by ridding the world of a tribe of Gnoll bandits. You then snuck into the Aspis Consortium's dig site to appropriate their research. Unfortunately, you weren't the only person with this idea. You were soon hot in pursuit of a Taldan spy. That pursuit led you to dive into the underwater ruin of Shotep-Kara. There, a doru div turned the city's constructs and elemental wards against you. Eventually, you overcame all obstacles, defeated the Taldan (twice!), and recovered a set of ancient tablets. The tablets proved to be a map to an ancient pyramid capable of flight. Possession of such a sky pyramid could greatly assist the Pathfinder Society. It slipping into the wrong hands might give enough power to terrorize thousands and destabilize nations.

Fantastic archaeological wonder or best Pathfinder Lodge ever?

Adventure 2: Secrets Below the Sands

Outnumbered and outmaneuvered by the Aspis Consortium, you had no choice but to work with them on locating the pyramid. You put together an expedition, despite the best efforts of a number of thieves, and set out into the desert. There, you were not so gently greeted by quicksand and pairaka divs. You then rescued elementals from enslavement by undead and used their help to excavate the buried pyramid. Inside the pyramid, you carefully worked past its traps and defenders to discover its secrets. Alas, your alliance with the Aspis Consortium then came to a crashing end and you were forced to flee the pyramid.

The Aspis sure were useful when they weren't trying to kill you...

Adventure 3: In Search of a Sage

With the pyramid seized by the traitorous Aspis Consortium, you realized you were going to need some assistance—specifically, the kind of assistance only an ancient Jeweled Sage can give. You searched the forgotten (and very trapped) stacks of the sages' stronghold and set out on the trail of the Spinel Sage, Mnesoset. In Katapesh, you ran into and promptly removed some more gnoll brigands, then bargained with Grandmaster Torch, an infamous information broker. With his advice, you allied with the alchemists of the Hidden Flame to follow the sage's trail past lamias and summoned sandstorms to a Thriae Hive. At the hive, you made a fateful decision to assist either your new alchemist friends or their thriae victims.

Those sandstorms sure packed a punch.

Adventure 4: Tomb of the Godless Host

Now, the fourth adventure in this path kicks off at full speed, with a PACG chase to escape the Rahadoum Pure Legion. From there, you'll get to tangle with divs (yet again) and Jistkan constructs of all kinds in your quest to find the Spinel Sage.

Those Jistkans really made some amazing golems. I'm sure this one's friendly, too.

Plus, you might finally learn something about that Mythopoeic Sphinx you've been wondering about. Maybe not everything, but something.

After that, it's just a hop, skip, and a jump to reclaiming the flying pyramid the Aspis Consortium stole from you. Smooth sailing from here on out. Yep.

Keith Richmond
Adventure Card Game Developer

'Tis the Season of Plundered Tombs

Tuesday, November 8, 2016

Illustration by Maichol Quinto
Look, these tombs aren't just going to plunder themselves.

The Season of Plundered Tombs is upon us! Season 3 of the Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild just kicked off last week, so it's a good time to discuss the many horrible fun things we have planned for it!

To integrate the Adventure Card Guild with the Roleplaying Guild as part of the overall Pathfinder Society, the ACG players are now Pathfinder agents, as explained in the introduction the season, authored by John Compton:

Among the region's most influential archaeological operations is the Pathfinder Society, an international league of explorers and adventurers dedicated to discovering and chronicling the world's mysteries. You recently completed your training as a Pathfinder agent in Absalom and set out for Osirion, dreaming of the ancient secrets buried beneath the sands and stone.

The archaeological wealth of all Osirion will be yours to explore. What you uncover might not just change your fortunes; it could change the world!

You're going to get a chance to interact with many groups and characters familiar to the Pathfinder Society. First among these is the Aspis Consortium, a mercantile organization known for its ability to sniff out amazing, once-in-a-lifetime opportunities without all the burden of scrupulous practices. The Mummy's Mask Base Set includes several cards that have the Aspis trait, so you'll get a chance to take full advantage of these extremely useful (and sometimes costly) allies.

PFS players might recognize these Aspis agents from Destiny of the Sands.

Relatively early in the season, you'll interact with the Aspis trader Falsin Deek. Traders have a special role in Adventure Card Guild scenarios:

We like you so much, we wrote the trader rules TWICE.

This change is great for the Adventure Card Guild because it lets you start each scenario with a card that's not in your class deck, and helps you bring the flavor of Mummy's Mask to your Class Deck. This is particularly important given the curses, the triggers, and the scads of elemental damage—all things for which your deck might not be entirely ready.

There are a couple other interesting ways we get to play with mechanics from Mummy's Mask. For example, have you wondered about that Defensive Stance card in the Base Set box? It will be a while yet before you'll use it in the Mummy's Mask Adventure Path, but you'll get to use it early in Adventure 2 of Season of Plundered Tombs. Are you getting used to defending against poison damage in Mummy's Mask? Well, the enemies in Season of Plundered Tombs are a little more chaotic and destructive, so are ready to use all kinds of damage types to trigger nasty scourges.

One of the most contentious tasks for the Pathfinder Society and Adventure Card Game teams in development of this season was in choosing a name. Initially, we assumed it'd be "Season of the Mummy," to match up with the name of the box set. But it turns out the story we wanted to tell, while full of Osirion goodies, wasn't really about mummies in particular. We also want to move away from one-word season names—we certainly don't want any more season names to be abbreviated "SotR" after Season of the Righteous and Season of the Runelords! (Always helpful, Mike suggested "Season of Thundered Rooms.")

We went back and forth on a number of names, but the decision eventually came down to simple planning for the future. We want to make a lot more seasons, so switching to two-word season names gives us a lot more room for expansion. Also, the extremely wise guys at Lone Shark Games immediately stumbled onto "PluTo" as a useful shortening of Plundered Tombs, which lets us be happy with it as an endearing animated pet and once-planet.

Honestly, Liz Spain, Paul Peterson, and Gaby Weidling are a lot more inventive (read: crazy) than I am, so I'm not sure I'll be able to measure up to the zany and bewildering antics of some of their scenarios such as [REDACTED], [REDACTED], and [REDACTED] from Adventure Deck 3: Shifting Sands, but gosh darn it, I'm going to try! Thankfully, Organized Play Coordinator Tonya Woldridge conscripted a crack crew of legendary Paizo writers to help generate crazy ideas and write the tasty story bits, in the form of John Compton, Amanda Hamon Kunz, Mark Seifter, and Linda Zayas-Palmer.

Season of Plundered Tombs contains six adventures with five scenarios each. Adventure titles and expected release dates follow:

1. Serpents in the Deep
2. Secrets below the Sands
3. In Search of a Sage
4. Tomb of the Godless Host
5. The Sepulcher Soars Anew
6. Destruction Descending

As with earlier seasons, scenarios will be released weekly to retailers participating in the Pathfinder Adventure Card Guild program, as well as to Pathfinder Society Venture-Officers, before becoming available for general sale as compiled adventures.

Here are the planned Venture-Officer and retailer early release dates for each scenario:

11/9/16: Scenario 3-1C
11/16/16: Scenario 3-1D
11/23/16: Scenario 3-1E

11/30/16: Scenario 3-2A
12/7/16: Scenario 3-2B
12/14/16: Scenario 3-2C
12/21/16: Scenario 3-2D, 3-2E

12/28/16: (Holiday)

1/4/17: Scenario 3-3A
1/11/17: Scenario 3-3B
1/18/17: Scenario 3-3C
1/25/17: Scenario 3-3D
2/1/17: Scenario 3-3E

2/8/17: Scenario 3-4A
2/15/17: Scenario 3-4B
2/22/17: Scenario 3-4C
3/1/17: Scenario 3-4D
3/8/17: Scenario 3-4E

3/15/17: Scenario 3-5A
3/22/17: Scenario 3-5B
3/29/17: Scenario 3-5C
4/5/17: Scenario 3-5D
4/12/17: Scenario 3-5E

4/19/17: Scenario 3-6A
4/26/17: Scenario 3-6B
5/3/17: Scenario 3-6C
5/10/17: Scenario 3-6D
5/17/17: Scenario 3-6E

Here are the planned dates for when each Adventure will be available for purchase from paizo.com for everyone:

11/30/16: Adventure 3-1
1/4/17: Adventure 3-2
2/8/17: Adventure 3-3
3/15/17: Adventure 3-4
4/19/17: Adventure 3-5
5/24/17: Adventure 3-6

Enjoy the tomb plundering!

Keith Richmond
Adventure Card Game Designer

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