Season of the Runelords—The Story So Far

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Time to catch you up on the story so far in Season of the Runelords! (There be plot spoilers below.) While I'm discussing SotRu, allow me to apologize for the persistent delays in its release schedule. We're working hard to improve the process for subsequent products, and the entirety of the season will be available for play at Gen Con.

The season begins with a lowly party of wannabe adventurers banding together to visit the town of Sandpoint, with an eye toward becoming famous heroes like those who defeated Karzoug, the ancient Runelord of Greed. (This adventure is loosely based on the events of the Pathfinder: Dark Waters Rising comics by Jim Zub.) Sandpoint being Sandpoint, you run into some nasty, filthy goblins before you even get into town. These particular goblins are even more disgusting than usual: they're covered in oozing, mottled pustules that have a tendency to pop.

After you dispatch the goblins, you barely make it into the city limits before the mayor turns you around and sends you after the black dragon who's treating Sandpoint's cattle farms as his personal all-you-can-eat buffet. Unfortunately, instead of vanquishing Black Fang and saving the day, you just make him really mad and he swears vengeance against the town. Being a hero is not as easy as it looks.

In an attempt to curry favor with the town council, you investigate the matter of the mutated goblins, and discover that someone's been up to no good in the wilds around town. After suffering goblin explosions of various types, you discover that a devotee of Lamashtu has set up her own mutant gobbo factory as a first course, feeding the goblins some sort of heinous potion to turn them explode-y. The main dish will be her spawning some sort of abomination linked to the Mother of Monsters. It's nice when it's easy to tell what the right course of action is, huh?

With the Lamashtu-spawn and its incubator taken care of, you return to Sandpoint to find the council member who led you into the goblin trap. Turns out he's the manipulator behind all the shenanigans, and he needs a good thumping before he uses some of the aforementioned potion on the dragon that's got it in for the town. It would be great if you could stop him before that happens, wouldn't it?

Ah, well. Beating down mutant dragons is good practice for heroes like you.

Having saved/wrecked the town of Sandpoint, you feel ready for a greater challenge/would like to avoid being run out of town on a rail, so you make for Magnimar, famed City of Secrets. (This adventure is inspired by the City of Secrets comics, also by Jim Zub.) You arrive just in time for Xanderghul's Night (he was the Runelord of Pride) and just in time to save a wedding from some demonic party crashers.

Your convenient heroics bring you into the orbit of Lieutenant Kasadei of the City Watch, who has a number of tasks for irregulars with good instincts and timing. Kasadei sends you into Underbridge, a promising-sounding area of Magnimar, where some rogues' guilds are having a bit of a turf war. Your diplomatic abilities, though rusty, should prove sufficient to the task of fairly divvying up whatever they're fighting over.

Next up is an investigation into some shapechanging shenanigans, in which some prominent local citizens are being impersonated. Turns out the creepy doctor with the sanatorium is behind it all, which is completely shocking. The prominent local citizens are pleased with your work, so you are promoted to guarding a special exhibit at the Museum of Ages from the expected assaults of some Cultists of the Crimson Eye. The Pathfinder Society (and local luminary Sheila Heidmarch) are pleased with your work, and remunerate you well. Time to head to Hollow Mountain!

Well, once you figure out who's murdering all these priests of Sarenrae, anyway.

Ever since you decided to become heroes, you've had your eye on Hollow Mountain. It's imposing, it's isolated, and the top of it is carved to resemble Alaznist, the Runelord of Wrath, who is said to have reigned over her territory from the mountain itself. (This adventure is loosely based on the encounters at the end of each Hollow Mountain comic by various awesome authors.)

You pay a ship's captain to drop you off on the shores of Rivenrake Island, home to both the Mountain and the ruins of an old Thassilonian city, Xin-Bakrakhan. Time to plunder the ruins for sweet loot! Surely everything that lived here died a long time ago.

Wrong. Wrong. You were wrong about everything here being dead. This place has angry, angry inhabitants. Because you're mighty adventurers, you triumphed, but that was not a pleasant experience. Some things you can't unsee. Still, you found a passageway that heads down into the stone, and therefore theoretically into Hollow Mountain. Heroic stories tell you that secret ways are better ways for exploring, so you set off.

Hey, this cavern has a big tower in it! Towers mean mages, which means pricy magic items and other valuables. As it turns out, it also means some sort of clockwork sentries and a nasty tower guardian. The cavern also has other stuff in it, and it messes with your stuff and tries to kill you, because that's the sort of place this is. This is what you wanted: adventure and danger and glory. You repeat that to yourself as you wipe splattered polyp and fungal spores off your face. Soon, you'll be inside the mountain, and you'll make your bones and feature in all the bard's songs.

Until next time, Pathfinders!

Tanis O'Connor
Adventure Card Game Designer

Two Great Tastes that Taste Great Simultaneously

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Hello, Pathfinders, Tanis here! This week we've got two fantastic blogs for you in one jam-packed edition. First up is Organized Play Coordinator Tonya Woldridge with a con report from Con of the North and Winter Fantasy, and the launch of Season of the Runelords. Then, we've got Adventure Card Game Lead Designer Mike Selinker with an announcement and a tease for Obsidian's digital Pathfinder Adventures. But enough from me. On with the show!

Season of the Runelords is Here!

The past two weekends, I've been attending conventions and spending much of my time at Adventure Card Guild tables previewing Season of the Runelords. This season is set after the events of Rise of the Runelords, and examines the question of what the other Runelords are doing. Starting with the first scenario ("Goblins? Gross!"), it's obvious that Tanis and the developers at Lone Shark Games turned up the witty titles, exciting adventures, and variety to suit different character's abilities.

So far, each session brought full tables, and many players rearranged their schedules to return to the Adventure Card Game area and play more. Over the next few months, many conventions will boast ACG tables including GaryCon (Lake Geneva, WI), Conflagration (Brookfield, WI), Gem State Convention (Boise, ID), and of course, PaizoCon! PaizoCon will host a boatload of Season of the Runelords tables, as well as exclusive ACG events. You can keep up on announcements for PaizoCon on the blog or by watching the main PaizoCon page.

Outside of conventions, many local Pathfinder Society chapters host ACG events. Last weekend I learned that the greater Minneapolis-St. Paul region has three stores running Season of the Righteous and Season of the Shackles, and are trying to figure out when and where to run Season of the Runelords. I'd like to give a big shout out to Erica Lopnow, Sean Pearson, and the rest of the team at Con of the North for all of the time they spent organizing ACG activities this weekend and throughout the year. To find a local Adventure Card Guild game or start your own, read through the Adventure Card Guild Guide or contact your local Venture-Officer for more information.

Speaking of the Guide, it is my pleasure to officially open the Season of the Runelords, and announce that the new version of the Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild Guide is now available. You can also find an ongoing schedule for the scenario and adventure releases on our forums. I encourage all of you to return to Sandpoint with me and visit our favorite NPCs and villians—Mayor Deverin, Father Zantus, and Gogmurt!

Watch out for gross goblins!

Tonya Woldridge
Organized Play Coordinator

What's It Like When Obsidian Makes a Digital Version of Your Game?

It's great! And that's all I'll ever say about that.

KIDDING. I've got a bunch to say about that, but there's only so much I can say today. That's because the Obsidian guys and I have a Reddit AMA Wednesday at 10:30 am PST, and they want me to save some stuff for that. But I will be showing off some really cool info about the all-digital port they call Pathfinder Adventures next week, ahead of the official release on March 29. So immeasurably stoked. See you over on Reddit.

Mike Selinker
Adventure Card Game Designer

A Little Comic Relief

Tuesday, February 3, 2016

Hiya! We skipped the ACG blog last week, so we've got a lot of stuff to share! Here are three big pieces of big news:

The Runelords Rise Again

We have been working hard on the soon-to-launch Season of the Runelords (we're previewing it this weekend at Winter Fantasy in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and it's not too late to get in on that!) and we're trying something a little different this time.

The Season of the Runelords storyline begins after the conclusion of the Rise of the Runelords. In that Adventure Path, the heroes defeat a Big Bad Guy (is it possible to spoil a story we published in 2007?). We're picking up the story of the world after that defeat, with your fresh party of adventurers operating near the familiar town of Sandpoint.

We're big comics fans, and we love the fact that several of Dynamite's Pathfinder Comics storylines take place in and around Sandpoint. Season of the Runelords Adventure 1: Dark Waters Rising and Adventure 2: City of Secrets looks to some of those comics to provide their story backbone and scenario art. Adventurers will experience the depravity of the Mosswood goblin tribe and the intrigues of the city of Magnimar, as filtered through the collective imagination of the Pathfinder Adventure Card game team. I'm not sure whether that should frighten or excite you.

Adventure 1, which will debut at Winter Fantasy, is based on the first 12 issues of the comics, Dark Waters Rising and Of Tooth and Claw. It all starts on the road to Sandpoint, where mutated goblins attack the hapless party. When they arrive in town, there's talk of a flying beast that eats the local livestock. And the town council is in turmoil. How all these things weave together into an intricate 6-scenario plot is for you to discover.

Adventure 2 is based on City of Secrets and Origins. This arc brings us to Magnimar, where the clerics of Sarenrae and nobles of the city are being targeted by mysterious forces. When you find yourself embroiled in the gang turf wars of Underbridge, you'll wonder if the big city is big enough even for you.

In adventure 3, we'll head off to Hollow Mountain, about which we can share little at the moment—the Hollow Mountain comic book arc is ongoing. The first 2 issues are out, and the next two issues can be preordered. Get them if you want a preview of the excitement to come!

Did We Mention Goblins?

Speaking of gobbos, we announced that our Class Deck subscription has been hijacked by goblins! The first Goblin Class Deck (yeah, we know "goblin" isn't a class, but they don't seem to care) is entitled Goblins Fight!, features the rotters Reta Bigbad, Chuffy Lickwound, and Ak the Survivor, whom you might have met in the Pathfinder: Goblins! comics. They're nasty and fun, and also nasty.

So where's Mogmurch and Poog of Zarongel? They're in the next Class Deck after that, entitled Goblins Burn!, naturally. It's a lot more spell-focused than Goblins Fight! is. We'll have that up on the site for preorder next month.

And who's in Goblins Burn! with Mogmurch and Poog? Well, that's a secret we'll keep to ourselves for a few weeks yet. But trust us, it'll be worth the wait.

But If You Just Can't Wait, We've Got You Covered

Maybe you don't want to wait for us to give you more goblin characters. Maybe you want to make them yourselves. So here's some big news: DriveThruCards has expanded their online Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Card Creator so you can now make your own character, role, and token cards!

This means that all major card types can now be made with the community card creator. Check out the Card Creator to make your own cards and see what other members of the PACG community have cooked up.

That's a lot for one blog! So check out Season of the Runelords, the Card Creator, and (when it warms up a bit) the Goblin Class Decks. Have fun storming the Goblin Fortress!

Tanis O'Connor and Mike Selinker
Adventure Card Game Designers