Desna, Lady Luck, the Song of the Spheres and the Tender of Dreams, has aligned the stars to bring out-of-this-world Starfinder and Pathfinder joy to us all this month of PaizoCon 2022.

Starfinder Drift Crisis

COSMIC CATASTROPHE
Hyperspace is broken! In a catastrophic instant, commonplace faster-than-light travel, made possible by the Drift, fails. Travelers vanish midflight, communications scramble, and the Drift’s progenitor god Triune falls mysteriously silent. In the aftermath, empires cling to far-flung holdings, opportunists exploit the chaos, and everyone demands to know what triggered this crisis—and how it can be solved. With Starfinder Drift Crisis, you can dive right into this galaxy-spanning adventure and determine what happens next! Featuring:

• More than 100 new player options, from class options and themes to equipment, feats, and spells!
• Twenty detailed adventure seeds that provide a framework for playing a framework for playing through dozens of Drift Crisis stories, whether in encounters, adventures, or entire campaigns.
• Deep dives on the myriad effects of the Drift Crisis on factions, worlds, systems, and the galaxy at large.
• A toolbox with a vast store of information for running adventures in the Drift Crisis, from dozens of unique treasures and 20 new creatures to rich nonplayer character profiles and information on adapting Adventure Paths.

This product is part of the Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscription.

Starfinder Flip-Mat: Drift Crisis

A TRIP INTO TROUBLE!
The hyperspace plane of the Drift is malfunctioning, slowing interstellar trade and travel for all spacefaring citizens of the galaxy! This jumbo, double-sided Starfinder Flip-Mat features a hex grid map of a typical expanse of the Drift on one side, perfect for the Starfinder Roleplaying Game’s starship combat system. The other side is a standard 1-inch-square grid showing the interior of a technological structure—such as a Drift beacon, the satellites that help make Drift travel possible, or a high-tech temple to Triune, the tripartite deity who resides in the Drift. Starfinder Flip-Mats present ready-to-use science-fantasy set pieces for the busy Game Master. With Starfinder Flip-Mat: Drift Crisis, you’ll be ready for this setting-changing catastrophe!

This product is part of the Starfinder Maps Subscription.

Starfinder Adventure Path #45: The Culling Shadow (Horizons of the Vast 6 of 6)

WHO’S THE BOSS?

An enemy armada invades! The heroes of New Horizon must launch their own forces to withstand the attack and eventually take the fight to the evil cult’s leader on the dark side of the moon. But to truly save their home, they must face the monster at the source of the deadly radiation, which threatens to kill every sentient creature in the system!

This Starfinder Adventure Path volume concludes the Horizons of the Vast Adventure Path and includes:

• “The Culling Shadow,” a Starfinder adventure for 11th-level characters, by Landon Winkler.
• Ways to continue your Horizons of the Vast campaign beyond the final fight, by Isis Wozniakowska.
• A toolbox featuring a description of the Negative Energy Plane, options for players to harness the power of that void, a collection of dangerous creatures, and a glimpse at a frozen, chalky world, by Ivis K. Flanagan, Jenny Jarzabski, Georg Mir, Andrew Mullen, Hilary Moon Murphy, Dave Nelson, Jess Nevins, Thea Seals, and Landon Winkler.
• Statistics and deck plans for an AbadarCorp long-haul freighter, by Landon Winkler

This product is part of the Starfinder Adventure Path Subscription.

Pathfinder Lost Omens: Knights of Lastwall

TAKE UP ARMS!
When the lich Tar-Baphon escaped from his prison, he destroyed the vigilant nation of Lastwall. Though its cities fell, the people of Lastwall didn’t falter! Knights of Lastwall takes a detailed look at the courageous knights who rose up to continue the fight against the undead hordes threatening the world. This book contains information on joining the knights, details on important members of the organization, new options for knightly characters, and details for playing a valiant, knightly campaign!

This product is part of the Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscription

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Pathfinder Book of the Dead Pocket Edition

THE DEAD ARE RISING!
This blasphemous tome brings the shambling menace of the undead to the forefront of your game. If you wish to stem the ghostly tide, you’ll find tools and skills to fight against the undead hordes. Or you can join the other side and turn your character into a ghost, ghoul, lich, mummy, skeleton, vampire, or zombie! You’ll also find new haunts, as well as information about the undead-plagued lands within the Lost Omens campaign setting, perfect for adding undead to your next adventure! A massive bestiary section full of undead creatures brings more threats for GMs and summonable creatures for players, including more versions of classic undead like vampires, skeletons, and zombies. This book also includes “March of the Dead,” a grim and dangerous adventure themed around an undead uprising!

Pathfinder Adventure Path: Abomination Vaults Hardcover

ENTER THE MEGADUNGEON!
Spiteful evil stirs beneath the mysterious lighthouse called Gauntlight. When the lighthouse emits an eerie glow, locals suspect that something sinister threatens the countryside. Brave heroes must explore the ruins around the lighthouse and delve into the dungeon levels beneath it. Hideous monsters, deadly traps, unexpected allies, vengeful ghosts, and more await the heroes who dare to enter the sprawling megadungeon called the Abomination Vaults! The Abomination Vaults Adventure Path is a complete campaign taking heroes from 1st to 11th level.

Pathfinder Adventure Path: Abomination Vaults Special Edition Hardcover

Pathfinder Adventure: Shadows at Sundown

FEAR THE SETTING OF THE SUN!
It has been well over a decade since Queen Ileosa was defeated, but the city of Korvosa still fears the evil tyrant’s legacy. And so when ghosts of the sinister queen manifest on the streets after dark, the need for new heroes arises! Pathfinder Adventure: Shadows at Sundown is an adventure for 11th-level characters written by Landon Winkler. While a standalone story, it builds upon themes and plots from years of adventures set in the Varisian city of Korvosa, and includes new monsters and new challenges to test the mightiest heroes. Who will save the city of Korvosa from the dangers that hide in the Shadows at Sundown?

Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Shadows at Sundown

FEAR THE NIGHT!
The Cathedral of Pharasma, goddess of death, has long stood watch over the city of Korvosa’s sprawling graveyard. This Flip-Mat details the cathedral itself, as well as the catacombs that exist below, suitable for use in play with Pathfinder Adventure: Shadows at Sundown or for any cathedral and attached catacomb found in your own campaign.

This product is part of the Pathfinder Maps Subscription.

Pathfinder Adventure Path #179: Cradle of Quartz (Outlaws of Alkenstar 2 of 3)

A TICKING TIME BOMB

Time is of the essence for a motley gang of outlaws if they’re to settle the score with the sinister rival who ruined them. Somewhere amid the weird and wild wastes of the Spellscar Desert lies an abandoned clockwork temple called the Cradle of Quartz. But while redemption and a fresh start might be nice perks, the outlaws seek something far more valuable among the Cradle’s time-warped halls: revenge.

The Outlaws of Alkenstar Adventure Path continues with “Cradle of Quartz,” a complete adventure for 4th- to 7th-level characters.

This product is part of the Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscription.

Pathfinder Deck of Endless NPCs

Creating a new character every time the players enter a shop or chat with a local on the street can be a real challenge, but the Deck of Endless NPCs makes it as simple as drawing four cards from the deck. These cards combine to form a unique NPC, each with their own role, motivation, personality trait, and secret agenda! With over 100 million different combinations, you are sure to get an interesting new character every time!

This product is part of the Pathfinder Accessories Subscription.

Pathfinder Alchemy Deck

THE LAB IS OPEN!
Who needs magic when you have science? A healing elixir, explosive bomb, or liberating solvent can make all the difference in a day filled with harrowing adventures. The Pathfinder Alchemy Deck contains cards detailing every alchemical item in the Pathfinder Core Rulebook and the Pathfinder Advanced Player’s Guide, including bombs, elixirs, mutagens, poisons, and more! Each card features statistics, descriptions, and beautiful full- color illustrations. Keep each flask and vial at the ready!

This product is part of the Pathfinder Accessories Subscription.

Pathfinder Flip-Tiles: Campsites

WHO’S ON WATCH
Flip-Tiles: Campsites is a stand-alone expansion suitable for use with any Flip-Tiles set, with 24 full-color, double-sided, 6 × 6-inch tiles stunningly crafted by cartographer Jason Engle. Whether your group is exploring a remote wilderness, stuck inside a sprawling dungeon, or simply trying to avoid spending money at an inn in the city, these campsites will help you plan out your evening. Suitable for experienced Game Masters and novices alike, this product fits perfectly into any GM’s arsenal. Wet, dry, and permanent markers erase from the tiles, and convenient packaging makes for easy storage. Why map out every single campsite by hand when Flip-Tiles can do it for you?

Highlights include:

• Forest Clearings
• Swampy Isles
• Hilltops and Lodges
• Deserts or Tundra
• Dungeons and Caves
• Urban Camps

This product is part of the Pathfinder Maps Subscription.

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Plus, new Pathfinder and Starfinder Society Scenarios will release on Wednesday, June 1.

Start your collection with a subscription today!

Shop the Paizo Store and your favorite local game store today!

Gear up and advance your squad on the path to science-fantasy bug-busting adventure with this collection of Starfinder roleplaying game rulebooks, adventures, and accessories! Whether you’re fighting the literal bugs of the insectile invaders known as the Swarm or digital glitches in Starfinder Society’s Year of the Data Scourge scenarios, this bundle is filled with the PDFs star explorers need to create heroes and set out on a bug-squashing mission in the legendary Starfinder tabletop RPG galaxy. Inside you will find the Core Rulebook, two Alien Archives, and ready-to-play adventures—along with the physical Starfinder Armory at the $35 or more tier. Best of all, you choose how much of your purchase supports World Central Kitchen.

DO YOU WANT TO LEARN MORE?

Today, we’ve launching the Starfinder Bug-Buster Bundle to support World Central Kitchen! The bundle’s highlights include PDFs of the Starfinder Core Rulebook, Starfinder Armory, Starfinder Alien Archive, all 6 volumes of Starfinder Adventure Path: Attack of the Swarm!—and at the highest tier, a physical copy of the Starfinder Armory!

• The $5 tier includes 11 PDFs of the Starfinder Core Rulebook, Starfinder Player Character Folio, Starfinder Alien Archive, Starfinder Adventure Path: Attack of the Swarm!: Fate of the Fifth (1 of 6), and more.
• For $10, you’ll get 23 PDFs, including Starfinder Alien Archive 2, Starfinder GM Screen, Starfinder Adventure Path: Attack of the Swarm! The Last Refuge (2 of 6), Huskworld (3 of 6), and more!
• At the $25 tier, you’ll get 37 PDFs, including Starfinder Armory, Starfinder Character Operations Manual, Starfinder Alien Archive 2, Starfinder Adventure: Junker's Delight, all 6 volumes of Starfinder Adventure Path: Attack of the Swarm, and more!

Finally, Humble Bundle is offering a $35 physical reward tier that includes all 37 of the PDF products from the lower tiers, plus a physical copy of the physical Starfinder Armory delivered right to your door! Fulfillment is handled by Paizo, and you’re responsible for shipping fees. We anticipate that domestic shipping will run in the $11-$17* range and that international shipping will be in the $30-$45* range.

Humble Bundles offer great deals and support great causes. Purchasers can decide how much of their donation goes to each participant in the bundle by expanding the “Adjust Donation” section on the right-hand side of the page, just below the Checkout button.

Thank you for supporting Paizo and World Central Kitchen!

The Paizo Team

World Central Kitchen (WCK) is a non-profit organization addressing food insecurity during and after natural disasters and humanitarian crises, while also operating long-term programs aimed at improving livelihoods by strengthening local food ecosystems. Founded in 2010 by Chef Jose Andres following the devastating earthquake in Haiti, WCK has since served more than 8 million meals to those affected by disasters.

* Recipient is responsible for any additional location-based import costs, customs fees, or taxes. Some locations may have VAT or sales tax calculated and applied along with shipping & handling through paizo.com, while others may have to work with their local post office to remit payment. Shipping and handling ranges provided are estimates based on the average costs to a variety of regions. Shipping and handling costs for some locations may be outside the estimated range.

Support Charities with the Starfinder Bug-Buster Bundle Bundle

While Paizo gears up for PaizoCon the last weekend in May, our partners across the Atlantic are preparing for UK Games Expo, which runs the following weekend, June 3-5. The largest tabletop gaming convention in the United Kingdom, UK Games Expo is the perfect opportunity for European Paizo fans to get their game on!

Paizo won’t have any staff in attendance but have partnered with the convention to debut Pathfinder Dinky Dungeon, a lighthearted adventure in which players navigate a floor full of tiles and face off against everything from deadly traps and monsters to being cursed to wear a silly hat for the rest of the game. We were very excited to work with the folks behind the show to develop this family-friendly sorta-LARP and hope attendees have as much fun playing it as we did working on it. Be sure to post pictures of yourselves playing Pathfinder Dinky Dungeon and tag Paizo’s social media accounts, and we’ll make sure to amplify the most embarrassing best ones!

For those Pathfinder and Starfinder fans looking for something a bit more traditional, we’ll also have a large organized play presence at the show. Here’s more information from Regional Venture-Coordinator Ian Hawthorne of the Isles Region:

UK Games Expo has long held a place in the UK Pathfinder Society’s heart. From its humble beginnings in the Clarendon Suites back in 2007, we have seen it grow until now it occupies three exhibition halls and several function rooms at the National Exhibition Centre, as well as spilling over into the board game and RPG haven that is the nearby Hilton Hotel.

Yes, it’s a big event! It's also the perfect place to play Pathfinder and Starfinder. Terry Thambipillai, VC for the Midlands Region, has coordinated a wonderful mix of PFS1, PFS2, and Starfinder games available over eight different gaming slots. This gives you plenty of time to enjoy a game or three and still be able to watch seminars, play boardgames, or shop until you drop. We have a mixture of games suited both to invested and new players—UKGE is a great place to play for the first time in a relaxed, supportive, and fun environment!

All the details on how to buy tickets and find us can be found on the UK Games Expo website. Hope to see you there!

In the second title developed as part of a multi-game partnership between Gale Force Nine and Paizo, you attempt to commandeer a prototype Immortal-class starship filled with top-secret tech. Can you escape Skydock aboard the vessel, or will you be caught red-handed?

Starfinder: Pirates of Skydock places players in the roles of adventurers attempting to seize a secret vessel located on Verces. To steal the starship, players must risk it all to complete dangerous tasks before they raise suspicion. Rising to these challenges requires earning glory through heroic deeds, asking for help from your friends, and perhaps obtaining a little support from external patrons who may or may not want to remain anonymous. Adventurers can work together to accomplish their goals, but only the character who has earned the most glory at the end of the game proves they have what it takes to be captain.

During the game, adventurers scavenge for loot and mastermind cunning schemes to complete objectives—all while making sure the alarm doesn’t get raised. Should it trigger, the starship launches before the adventurers are ready to escape, stranding them aboard the vessel! By equipping gear found aboard the ship—such as stun gauntlets and auto injectors, players can upgrade their character and seize control of the ATech Immortal before it’s too late.

Starfinder: Pirates of Skydock is a standalone game for 2–4 players and will be available in August with an MSRP of $60. Visit https://www.gf9.com/ for more information.

Gale Force Nine (GF9) is known for producing games such as Firefly: The Game and Dune: A Game of Conquest and Diplomacy. GF9 has teamed up with Paizo to publish original board games based on the Pathfinder and Starfinder Roleplaying Games. Through this multiyear partnership, GF9 offers board-game players a chance to interact with the heroes, villains, locations, and monsters from the Age of Lost Omens, the Pact Worlds, and beyond in an all-new way! The first release of this collaboration, Pathfinder: Level 20, is available now.

Matt Vaughan
Studio Manager
Gale Force Nine
Twitter: @galeforcenine

Brace yourselves for the Drift Crash! In one catastrophic instant, the extraplanar realm fails, cutting off the universe’s access to commonplace faster-than-light travel. Travelers vanish midflight, communications scramble, and the Drift’s progenitor god Triune falls mysteriously silent. In the aftermath, empires cling to far-flung holdings, opportunists exploit the chaos, and everyone demands to know what triggered this crisis—and how it can be solved. With Starfinder Drift Crisis, you can dive right into this galaxy-spanning adventure and determine what happens next!

Internal preview art from Starfinder Drift Crisis by Laslo Ludrovan

• More than 100 new player options, from class options and themes to equipment, feats, and spells!
• Twenty detailed adventure seeds that provide a framework for playing dozens of Drift Crisis stories, whether in encounters, adventures, or entire campaigns.
• Deep dives on the myriad effects of the Drift Crisis on factions, worlds, systems, and the galaxy at large.
• A toolbox with a vast store of information for running adventures in the Drift Crisis, from dozens of unique treasures and 20 new creatures to rich nonplayer character profiles and information on adapting Adventure Paths.

Excerpt from the Introduction of Starfinder Drift Crisis, continued from the excerpt in the blog, “On the Next Paizo LIVE: Slayers and more!”

“INFORMATION FOR EVERYONE
Whether you’re eager to play in a Drift Crisis campaign, itching to run an adventure as the game master, seeking options for other campaigns, or just delighted by Starfinder lore, Drift Crisis offers a wealth of content well-suited for everybody.

“Chapter 1 is suitable for all readers, constructed in many ways like a traditional setting supplement with details about factions, regions, and thematic character options. This chapter introduces you to the Drift and how it works before exploring what the Drift Crisis entails—all presented as possibilities, not irrefutable facts. What exactly caused the Drift Crisis and what might resolve it can vary based on the campaign’s needs, so the information here can fuel character motivations, questions, and conspiracy theories.

“You likely already know about Starfinder’s campaign setting (such as through Chapter 12 of the Core Rulebook), and while much of that information remains relevant, most worlds now experience new difficulties. How does Drift disruption impact the Azlanti Star Empire, whose far-flung territories are connected only by faster-than-light starships? What comes of Akiton’s failing thasteron starship fuel industry once the predominant faster-than-light travel technology becomes less attractive? How does the Veskarium respond when extraplanar material bleeds into its core star system and envelops several planets, cutting those worlds off from the empire? Articles ahead have the answers while also posing just as many new questions and adventure hooks to inspire your group.

“Grand organizations familiar and new are also working on how to best resolve or exploit the Drift Crisis chaos. These could be key allies in your upcoming adventures, or they could be adversaries seeking an underhanded advantage at others’ expense. What do they want? And how might your characters get involved? With Drift technologies disrupted, how do starship manufacturers respond? How does the church of Triune respond when its deity isn’t answering prayers and the galaxy demands answers that Triunites should have? Why is this calamity simultaneously profitable and infuriating for the Free Captains?

“And of course, there’s loads of what every player enjoys: exciting new character options! While these new options all tie into the Drift, catastrophes, or extraplanar power in some way, they’re well-suited for any campaign, not just for those set during the Drift Crisis. Awaken your divinatory might with the new Drift Crisis precog anchor, or start channeling extraplanar influences with new solarian revelations. Bend space with new vanguard disciplines, or alter the planar properties of your own world with the witchwarper’s plunderer of worlds alternate class features. New themes provide four great origins for your character, and new gear ensures you’re properly equipped for whatever extradimensional challenges lie ahead. Want more character content? The last page of each adventure seed in Chapter 2 includes thematic new options for PCs; if your GM is using that adventure seed to craft a campaign, though, it might be reserved as special treasure, so check with your GM about these Chapter 2 options.

“The wonderful part about the Drift Crisis is that, because there’s no one storyline, the event caters well to a group running several campaigns simultaneously, with each story run by a different GM. Once you know which adventure hook from Chapter 2 one GM is using, you can enjoy reading the other 19 virtually spoiler-free. To help with navigating all the options, check out the player option index and general index on pages 187–188.”

Internal preview art from Starfinder Drift Crisis

For an interview with the Starfinder team, don’t miss the front-page Drift Crisis article on Polygon. Explore the Drift Crisis as it unfolds throughout the year at DriftCrisis.com.

Start your Starfinder Roleplaying Game Ongoing Subscription today with Starfinder Galactic Magic or Starfinder Drift Crisis.

Today brings over a dozen new Starfinder and Pathfinder products to spark joy with your family and friends! You’ll find 4 Adventures Paths volumes, 4 standalone adventures of various sizes, and 4 game accessories to enliven play. And check out Pathfinder Goblin Firework Fight—our new party game that mixes goblins, pigs, pickles, and fireworks!

Party Game (Print Only)
Pathfinder Goblin Firework Fight
Goblin Firework Fight—Promo Card: Advanced Goblin (Fumbus)

Pathfinder Adventures Path Volumes (Print and Digital)
Pathfinder Adventure Path #174: Shadows of the Ancients (Strength of Thousands 6 of 6)
Pathfinder Adventure Path #177: Burning Tundra (Quest for the Frozen Flame 3 of 3)

Starfinder Adventures Path Volumes (Print and Digital)
Starfinder Adventure Path #43: Icebound (Horizons of the Vast 4 of 6)
Starfinder Adventure Path #44: Allies Against the Eye (Horizons of the Vast 5 of 6)

Starfinder Adventures (Digital Only)
Starfinder Bounty #2: Test Flight
Starfinder One-Shot #3: System Takedown

Pathfinder Society Scenarios (Digital Only)
Pathfinder Society Scenario #3-12: Fury's Toll

Starfinder Society Scenarios (Digital Only)
Starfinder Society Scenario #4-15: Feuding Faiths

Pathfinder Accessories (Print and Digital)
Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Shattered Dungeon

Starfinder Accessories (Print and Digital)
Starfinder Flip-Mat: Casino
Starfinder Flip-Mat: Water World
Starfinder Flip-Tiles: Space Station Corridors Expansion

Start your collection with a subscription today!

Shop the Paizo Store and your favorite local game store today!

There you are, dearie. How’s my favorite customer in the world? Come sit here beneath the comfortable shade between the stalls of the Grand Bazaar. The sunlight is much too withering and revealing. Right here on this bench, sit, sit. Now, isn’t that better?

Ichor slinger from Pathfinder Book of the Dead by Carl Springer.

I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Honestly, these metropolises are just too big sometimes. City at the Center of the World? City at the Center of my Bunion more like!

But where was I? Oh, yes! I’ve been telling all my subscribers; new shipments came in! When? Oh, don’t get me started, shipping dates are so confusing… who needs ‘em, right dearie? Let’s just say they’re coming in the next two to three months… maybe four. But soon, dearie, very soon!

While we’re here, try my Tomb Juice™, it’s delicious! You‘ve no idea just how long it’s been in the family...

The important thing is that I have a few items to preview, just for you, my very best customer! Feast your eyes on what I have in store. You need never again have worry or care, for I will show you something marvelous and rare.

Internal art from Pathfinder Book of the Dead by Mirco Paganessi and Kiki Moch Rizky.

I’ve managed to exhume these beautiful works of art, chapter headers from the Pathfinder Book of the Dead, at no small expense let me tell you! Geb is jealous man and guards his secrets well. Simply sign up for the Pathfinder Rulebook subscription, and it’s all yours!

Look at this exquisite final cover of the Pathfinder Book of the Dead Special Edition Hardcover, dearie. You don’t find faux leather with metallic deboss cover elements and a bound-in ribbon bookmark just anywhere, do you? And a limited edition, too—perfect for the discerning collector like you! Sign up right here: Pathfinder Special Edition Rulebook.

Internal art from Pathfinder Lost Omens Knights of Lastwall by Ainur Salimova.

Well, I don’t like to name drop, but I happen to know the prolific scribe Luis Loza—he’s one of the authors of Pathfinder Lost Omens: Knights of Lastwall. Well, he shared this sneak peak of the contents, and you don’t want to miss it. I also know his partner in cri— uh, I mean his Pathfinder Lost Omens coauthor Eleanor Ferron. Her schemes are everywhere in this book too, dearie. They both told me they’d love to see a renewing commitment from you, my best customer, specifically. They make it so easy, don’t they?

Internal art from Starfinder Drift Crisis by Laslo Ludrovan.

I know you have a taste for the latest thing. Well, you’re going to love this because it’s from the future! This image was labeled “After the Crash” from Starfinder Drift Crisis. We should put you down for a Starfinder Roleplaying Game subscription, too. That will be so drift!

What’s drift? Oh dearie, it is an adjective describing something fascinating and weird, likely never seen before or unique. I thought you knew. Moving on.

Cover art from Shadows of the Ancients by Setiawan Lee. Cover art from Burning Tundra by David Alvarez.

All these Adventures Path volumes… I’m afraid the port has made a tangled mess of the order. Pathfinder Adventure Path: Shadows of the Ancients (Strength of Thousands 6 of 6) is finally here after months of delay. But good things come to those wait, said the anadi to the sprite.

Cover art from Icebound and Allies Against the Eye by Rodrigo Gonzalez Toledo.

But wait, there’s yet more! Pathfinder Adventure Path: Burning Tundra (Quest for the Frozen Flame 3 of 3), Starfinder Adventure Path volumes Icebound (Horizons of the Vast 4 of 6), Allies Against the Eye (Horizons of the Vast 5 of 6), and The Culling Shadow (Horizons of the Vast 6 of 6) are all inbound. Meanwhile, Pathfinder Adventure Path #178: Punks in a Powderkeg (Outlaws of Alkenstar 1 of 3) and Cradle of Quartz (Outlaws of Alkenstar 2 of 3) are closer than you think!

So, let’s just sign you up for them all, shall we? That way you won’t miss a thing! Find them here: Starfinder Adventure Path, and here: Pathfinder Adventure Path. A simple and elegant transaction—a bargain, just like me, dearie.

Well, all this talk of shadows and culling has me famished. So, I won’t take any more of your time. Just… before I go… don’t forget the advantage of having multiple subscriptions. Here’s a handy list: Pathfinder Society, Starfinder Society, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Accessories, Pathfinder Maps, and Starfinder Maps. Why not get them all? You deserve it, dearie.

What’s that? Something not on the list? More Tomb Juice? Ah, of course you can have some… You also want more subscriptions? Well, I’ve heard whispers of changes, dearie. Exciting new options. I’ll talk to my sources. Can’t make any promises, mind you, but I aim to please my best customer!

Subscribe Today!

From the new Starfinder Alien Archive 1 & 2 Battle Cards to the second volume of the Quest for the Frozen Flame Adventure Path, Lost Mammoth Valley, to Pathfinder One-Shot: Mark of the Mantis, here are new Starfinder and Pathfinder products to add to your favorite games at paizo.com and your local game store!

Pathfinder Adventure Path #176: Lost Mammoth Valley (Quest for the Frozen Flame 2 of 3)

A Land Lost to Time
With danger close behind, the Broken Tusks journey through the bountiful but treacherous Lost Mammoth Valley in search of the Primordial Flame. The Tusks’ scouts will need to solve the riddles of the ancient valley and recruit a motley league of followers, all while evading the watchful gaze of the vale’s villainous overlords and unraveling a legendary artifact’s mythical past. The Quest for the Frozen Flame Adventure Path continues with “Lost Mammoth Valley,” a complete adventure for 4th- to 7th-level characters.

Pathfinder One-Shot #4: Mark of the Mantis

Pathfinder One-Shot: Mark of the Mantis is a short Pathfinder Second Edition adventure, designed to be played in a single session lasting 3 to 4 hours. However, with opportunities for roleplaying and plenty of combat, the adventure could easily make for two exciting evenings of play. Mark of the Mantis includes pregenerated characters (found in a separate downloadable PDF) with interwoven backstories that contextualize their relationships and further enrich the adventure itself. This adventure should be played with all four characters. If only three players are available, the GM should bring in the fourth character as an NPC. This adventure can be easily adjusted to suit any party of four themed around the Red Mantis assassin organization.

Sources: This adventure makes use of the Pathfinder Core Rulebook and Pathfinder Lost Omens World Guide. Non-Core Rulebook content is reprinted in this adventure for ease of reference.

Pathfinder Bounty #18: From Family Lost

A Pathfinder Bounty designed for Level 3.
When the Fifth Mendevian Crusade ended, the hamlet of Bulviss was one of many casualties on the Mendevian side of the border. Overrun by demons and their allies, the hamlet hasn’t been touched since a band of crusaders cleared out the demonic influence that lingered. Now, contracted by an interested party, a group of adventurers must head into the ruins of Bulviss to find a missing deed and any other surviving treasures. Have the demons truly been removed, or are there other, darker secrets waiting in the ruins?

Starfinder Alien Archive 1 & 2 Battle Cards

A BOX FULL OF ALIENS
Starfinder Alien Archive and Alien Archive 2 are excellent tools for planning exciting science fantasy adventures, but this box of 315 cards presents a new and exciting way for your extraterrestrial creatures to land on the table and join the fight. Each card features a beautiful, full-color image of a creature from Alien Archive or Alien Archive 2 on one side, while the other side provides that creature’s statistics for quick and easy reference. Show the players what alien menace their characters are facing while keeping the creature’s abilities at the ready, and watch your game come alive!

Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Enormous Basic

BUILD A BIGGER DUNGEON!
Be it a sprawling dungeon, a sinister castle, a haunted forest, a bustling cityscape, or any other locale where adventure and danger might lurk, with Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Enormous Basic, you’ll have more room than ever before to present your latest creation to your players! This sprawling map measures 30" × 46" unfolded and is the largest basic flip mat yet! Designed for experienced GMs and novices alike, and usable with both dry-erase and wet-erase markers, Pathfinder Flip-Mats fit perfectly into any Game Master’s arsenal.

So grab your markers and get to creating your biggest dungeons yet, with Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Enormous Basic!

Pathfinder Flip-Mat Classics: Keep

KEEP WATCH!
Whether you need to guard your domain against invasion or plan an attack against a ruthless lord, no Game Master wants to spend time drawing a remote keep. Fortunately, with Paizo’s Pathfinder Flip-Mat Classics, you don’t have to! This line of gaming maps provides ready-to-use and captivatingly detailed fantasy set-pieces for the busy Game Master.

Pathfinder Flip-Tiles: Fortress Chambers Expansion

Heart of the Castle!
Pathfinder Flip-Tiles: Fortress Chambers Expansion Set is an addition to the Pathfinder Flip-Tiles: Fortress Starter Set, with 24 full-color, 6 × 6-inch, double-sided tiles stunningly crafted by cartographer Jason Engle. With this set of tiles, you can craft a sprawling fortress interior in just a few minutes, be it for a new castle that your player characters have gained control of, or the established stronghold of a sinister villain. Suitable for experienced Game Masters and novices alike, this product fits perfectly into any GM’s arsenal. Wet, dry, and permanent markers erase from the tiles, and convenient packaging makes for easy storage. Why map out an entire castle by hand when Flip-Tiles can do it for you?

The Fortress Chambers Expansion Set includes:

• Sprawling castle chambers
• Barracks and bedrooms
• Dining rooms and kitchens
• Fountains and statuary
• Guard posts
• Throne rooms

Learn more about these products and the people behind them on Paizo LIVE!

Shop the Paizo Store and your favorite local game store today!

As a publisher, Paizo has consistently led the way in producing games, adventures, campaigns, and accessories that bring your tabletop gaming experience to life. We take great pride in giving our players and Game Masters all the tools they need to maximize the experience.

Did you know that Paizo also supports play across virtual tabletops with that same commitment to excellence? From cooperative projects with license partner platforms like Roll20, Fantasy Grounds, Foundry VTT, d20Pro to digital assets that are easily usable with the VTT of your choice, Paizo provides tools to enhance play around tables both physical and virtual.

Our partnerships include tools from industry pros like Hero Lab (https://www.wolflair.com/) with support for both 1st and 2nd Edition Pathfinder. And our recently announced partnership with Demiplane to build an official digital toolset in Pathfinder Nexus (https://app.demiplane.com/nexus/pathfinder2e) continues to move forward with opportunities for early access.

Check out the marketplace on your preferred virtual tabletop, or our webstore at https://paizo.com/store/gaming/accessories/virtualTableTop for access to the best in adventures, maps, rules support, and more!

For more information on individual digital platforms, see the list below. However you choose to engage with our worlds, we thank you and look forward to telling epic stories together!

Tools:

• Pathfinder Nexus on Demiplane – pathfindernexus.com
• Herolab character creation and maintenance tools – wolflair.com

Browser Based VTTs:

• Roll20 – roll20.net
• Foundry Virtual Tabletop – foundryvtt.com
• Astral TableTop – astraltabletop.com

Installable Client VTTs:

• Fantasy Grounds – https://www.fantasygrounds.com/home/home.php
• d20Pro – d20pro.com

Paizo and Gale Force Nine have agreed on a multi-game partnership to publish original Pathfinder and Starfinder board games.

Gale Force Nine (GF9), known for producing games such as “Firefly: The Game” and “Dune: A Game of Conquest and Diplomacy”, have teamed up with Paizo to publish original board and card games drawing from the worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder. The multi-year partnership will see GF9 exploring the rich settings of Golarion, the Pact Worlds, and beyond to bring the heroes, villains, locations, and monsters from the roleplaying systems into several new boardgames.

Starting in Q2 2022, Gale Force Nine will release two board games and one card game over the first year of the partnership, with more following over the course of the relationship. The first three titles are:

• Pathfinder: Level 20 (Q2 2022)
• Starfinder: Pirates of Skydock (Q3 2022)
• Pathfinder: Tall Tales (Q4 2022)

“The worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder are fun, diverse, and full of character,” says John-Paul Brisigotti, CEO of GF9. “We are excited to explore them further and offer fans of these games an opportunity to interact with the worlds in a new way.”

We look forward to partnering with Gale Force Nine in bringing the Pathfinder and Starfinder worlds to life as board games,” says Paizo President, Jeff Alvarez.

Pathfinder: Level 20

The first game of this partnership, releasing in Q2 2022, is Pathfinder: Level 20, a game where players take on the role of kobolds in their warren, scampering away from a 19th-level fighter who only needs five XP to hit level 20.

Will you make the heroes scamper away in embarrassment, thus being crowned the kobold champion? Or will you be the last survivor among your friends, a victory in its own right!

Pathfinder: Level 20 is a game for 2–6 players and will be available in April with an MSRP of $30. Visit www.gf9games.com/pathfinder for more information.

Matt Vaughan
Studio Manager
Gale Force Nine
Twitter: @galeforcenine

Get ready to reboot your spell caches with Starfinder Galactic Magic! This exciting new supplement dives into the most magical parts of the science-fantasy Starfinder setting, with a new class, a wealth of class options, dozens of new spells, and articles on how magic and religion affect day-to-day living in the Pact Worlds and beyond. Of course, none of this would be possible without our talented authors! Let’s learn a little more about some of them and what they worked on for this book in their own words. And if you’re a new (or returning) fan of any of these authors, be sure to check out their other projects, websites, livestreams, and more!

Jason Keeley (he/him)
Starfinder Development Manager

Illustration by Arturo Gutierrez

James Jacobs (he/him)
Creative Director

I’ve had the good fortune to write a lot for Pathfinder and helped to invent a fair portion of its deities, but always in the context of the fantasy genre. The chance to revisit some of these elements in a different genre is exciting and liberating. after spending decades with deities like Desna and Sarenrae flitting around in my head as divinities first in my homebrew game and then more recently in Golarion. Alas, there was only so much room to talk about Desnan dream stations or to explore the implications of what worshiping the goddess of the sun might entail when you’re in outer space, but hopefully the entries in this book will help spark new ideas for how to use these deities in your game! And of course, on the opposite side of the “friendliness scale,” being able to lean into the science-fiction tropes of the classic pulps and explore how Nyarlathotep and the Elder Mythos functions in Starfinder was equally delightful. But the thing I’m most excited to see once this book’s out is all the amazing content created by all the other authors in this book!

Jessica Catalan (she/her)
Starfinder Society Developer

Hello! My name is Jessica Catalan and I’m the Starfinder Society Developer. I’m also a mother, gamer, blogger, and freelance author who primarily writes for Paizo’s Starfinder and Pathfinder RPGs. You can find a list of my currently announced writing credits on my Paizo profile (meloriel). Some recently released highlights include Secrets of Magic, Guns & Gears, Lost Omens Grand Bazaar, Galaxy Exploration Manual, and Tech Revolution.

For Galactic Magic, I wrote the mystic and witchwarper class options, twenty spells, and numerous deities, including Kadrical, Lamashtu, and all the ancestral deities. Galactic Magic also marks two big firsts for me. This is the first time I was hired to create entirely new deities of my own design (Dagosarn, Flux, Isvith, Jalvari, Meyel, Romgul, Uvonn, and the Vesk Saints). Galactic Magic is also the first time I was hired for freelance development work, making this my very first developer credit.

I’m beyond thrilled to have been a part of this book and I look forward to seeing it hit gaming tables! Enjoy!

Rigby Bendele (they/them or xe/xem)

I'm a sometimes-poet, sometimes-game designer doing my best to make engaging, inclusive tabletop games. In Galactic Magic, you'll find my work in the technomancer and Oras section. When I was writing the Oras section, I thought quite a bit about Donna Haraway's "A Cyborg Manifesto" and the way in which cyborgs offer a rejection of the separations between animal, human and machine. This should probably tell you that I'm a queer theory nerd (which is the crux of my academic background) and that I love thinking about alternative ways of being through TTRPGs. While Galactic Magic is my first hardcover with Paizo, you'll find my name on more books soon and can enjoy more of my Starfinder work with SFS #3-07: Strike at Zone 78 and SFS #4-04: Mission Not Found.

You can find me on Twitter @slothscout.

Kendra Leigh Speedling (she/her)

Hello, all! I’m Kendra Leigh Speedling, and I’ve been freelancing for Pathfinder and Starfinder for about six years. You might remember me from this year’s Starfinder GenCon special, #3-99: Perils of the Past. I’m delighted to have been a part of Galactic Magic, helping give the “fantasy” side of “science-fantasy” some love. I did several sections for the book, including the faith introduction, the Besmara and Weydan entries, the Parallel Truths, and the new operative class options. I’ve always been fond of exploring how magic and faith interact with a highly technologically advanced setting, so this assignment was a lot of fun. I particularly enjoyed crafting the operative options, which hopefully add a little magical flair to your operative of choice!

I’ve got a few more Pathfinder and Starfinder projects in the works currently, though most of them are still Forbidden Knowledge at this point. I can confirm, though, that I got my grabby hands involved in Pathfinder’s upcoming Book of the Dead! In my non-freelancing downtime, I can be found hanging out with a book or video game—usually Animal Crossing these days—or pretending I know how to bake. You can find a full list of my writing credits at klspeedling.com and I’m on Twitter as @KendraLS, where I sporadically post cat pictures.

Besmara: illustration by Guilherme Olivieri

Sen.H.H.S. (she/her)

Hello, readers! Sen.H.H.S. here. You might have seen my name before in some Pathfinder Second Edition products such as Bestiary 3, Secrets of Magic, and many others. (See my carrd for the full list: https://senhhs.carrd.co/#portfolio) With Galactic Magic, it looks like I've made the jump over to write even more magic in a different(?) universe. This book has been a long time coming, and I hope you'll get to experience the magic (pun intended) within its pages soon. You can always find out what I'm up to on my Twitter @SenHHS. If my calculations are correct, you might get to witness me tweeting about "trace analysis in Golarion" in the next little while, for every reason whatsoever.

Shay Snow (they/them)

Hi, I'm Shay Snow, I'm an editor at Paizo, and I wrote up a bunch of species-specific spells and the entry on Zon-Kuthon, surprising exactly... no one! As my mutuals on Twitter know I'm a pretty big Zon-Kuthon fan so I joyfully jumped when offered the chance to give the pain man a new write up for Galactic Magic. You may have seen me in a few Starfinder scenarios, Pathfinder’s Lost Omens Grand Bazaar and Tech Revolution and I have a few things coming out in Lost Omens Monsters of Myth. Additionally, you can find my name on a few Coyote & Crow projects!

When not writing, I’m usually discussing Native issues and rights over on my Twitter @SpellsInSugar, where you can also sometimes catch me talking about video games and horror media. You can keep up with my work, or even contact me for hire, through my website https://shayjay.carrd.co/!

Jessica Redekop (she/they/he)

Hi! I'm Jess, and I wrote about some fabulous outsider deities in Galactic Magic ! Even though it's a smaller section, I'm particularly proud of my work in this book. It gave me an opportunity to introduce a lot of cool content into Starfinder, and there are some lines scattered through the section that are quite personal to me. I won't spoil which gods are included, but if you're familiar with my past work for PF and SF, some of them are very "me." :) I hope you like Starfinder's new and returning outsider deities as much as I do!

For more of my content check out Valiant, an actual play Pathfinder podcast on the Know Direction network, where I play Xiadani the aasimar druid. You can also find me @tectonomancer on Twitter.

Mikhail Rekun (he/him)

дравствуйте, уважаемые читатели! My name is Mikhail Sergeyevich Rekun, and you may recognize me from previous Starfinder products such as the Galaxy Exploration Manual (where I wrote about Accord and created the Starship Toolbox) and Starfinder Adventure Path #31: Waking the Worldseed (where I wrote the Hibb article), along with plenty of Pathfinder stuff. In my more mundane life, I’m a Russian-American historian, educator, and author.

Galactic Magic was a bit of a weird project for me. John Compton contacted me and said ‘we need magical nanomachines and we need them as soon as humanly possible.’ Well, I’m never one to shirk from a challenge, and produced the magical options for the nanocyte in basically a weekend. I’m reasonably pleased with the results, especially the ability to make fancy nano-runes and sigils like a proper anime protagonist. (That was what John wanted, right?)

Nanites are also of some interest to me for other reasons, as when not writing for Paizo, I’m working on Ourichor: Fulcrum of the Luminant Age alongside the inimitable Andrew Mullen and Isabelle Thorne (follow us at https://twitter.com/LuminantA). I shan’t share too much in the way of details, but let’s just say that fans of microscopic shenanigans may find our upcoming release, Armaments of the Luminant Age, of some interest to them.

John Godek III (he/him)

Hi everyone! My name is John Godek and I am an avid Starfinder GM, player, freelance author, and podcaster. I had the opportunity to write several sections of Galactic Magic and I can’t wait for you to see them! I created two brand new soldier fighting styles—the spellbrawler and the archer—along with new weapons, gear boosts, fusions, and armor upgrades that synergize with these styles as well as offer cool options for other styles and classes. In addition, I formulated nearly three dozen new magic spells, including spells that provide basic utility, create different types of barriers, and are related to or originated in the Vast. Finally, I crafted three new legendary artifacts of tremendous power, each steeped in ancient lore. Other Paizo projects I have forthcoming include work on the Drift Crisis hardcover, backmatter in Starfinder Adventure Path #44, and my very first adventure—Starfinder Bounty #1: The Cantina Job!

You can find me playing with the Emerald City Lodge in Seattle, or you can listen to my podcasts on the Know Direction Network, including: Digital Divination with Ron Lundeen, Intrepid Heroes, a Stafinder actual play, and Presenting, a podcast where I interview game designers, developers, artists, and writers.

Worlanisi: Illustration by Addison Rankin

Nate Wright (he/him)

Evening, everyone. I’m Nate Wright, a blogger on the Know Direction Network and a freelancer who has contributed to multiple works from Paizo. Some of my favorites include the anadi ancestry from Lost Omens The Mwangi Expanse and the memetic zenith from Starfinder Adventure Path #24: The God-Host Ascends. The best part about writing for this book has been visualizing the awesome abilities I’ve always wished my character could have and getting the opportunity to share that vision with the rest of the community.

If you want to see my most recent work, you’re in need of a freelancer, or you just want to watch me share cool art I found, you can find me on @RoscMan on the cursed bird app.

Dennis Muldoon (he/him)

Hi folks! My name is Dennis Muldoon, and I've been freelancing for Paizo for a few years now. I've contributed to almost every line Paizo publishes, now, most recently SFS #4-10: The Way In, the Azlanti Space Age material in the toolbox of Starfinder Adventure Path #42: Whispers of the Eclipse, and the ssumzili and golgopo monsters in Pathfinder Adventure Path #171: Hurricane's Howl. For Galactic Magic, I wrote the experimental apparatus mechanic alternate class feature for all your magically inclined mechanic needs, along with magic-themed mechanic tricks for mechanics of all types. I'm also extremely excited to bring the Lucky Drunk himself into Starfinder with a section on Cayden Cailean! My full list of credits is on my Paizo profile, and you can find me on Twitter @dkmuldoon.

Kate Baker (she/her)

Hey, Starfinder fans! I’m Kate, and I’ve been writing for Starfinder and Pathfinder for about five years. I was delighted to get to write the sections on Hylax and Talavet for this book. Hylax is near and dear to my heart after writing one of the Attack of the Swarm volumes, and I even have a tattoo of the Crown of Hylax! Talavet speaks to me equally, with such a strong focus on the importance of stories, something I’ve never appreciated more than in the last year and a half. I hope you enjoy reading about their role in the galaxy, along with the many other deities featured in this book.

Follow me at @KateBakerGM on Twitter to hear more about what I’m working on, including some upcoming projects for Starfinder Infinite!

From the new Starfinder Galactic Magic hardcover to the first volume of the Quest for the Frozen Flame Adventure Path, Broken Tusk Moon, to the first Starfinder Bounty, here are some innovative and exciting new Starfinder and Pathfinder products to enhance your favorite games at paizo.com and your local game store!

Starfinder Galactic Magic

UNLEASH COSMIC POWER
Unravel the eldritch mysteries of the galaxy with Starfinder Galactic Magic! This book explores Starfinder’s magical possibilities, providing your characters fantastic abilities to overcome any challenge. Whether you master the secrets of arcane academies, steal spells with supernatural finesse, or draw power from the gods themselves, Galactic Magic redefines what you thought possible with:

• The new precog character class! They can bend time to their will and outwit foes with combat predictions!
• Exciting ways to channel magical might, with reality-warping rituals and over 100 new spells!
• New player options, from magical variants for every character class to legendary artifacts and magic items.
• Discoveries about the galaxy’s most powerful mystical forces, from alignment singularities and metastars to deities and the boons they offer!
• A study of eldritch secrets and everyday arcana, including how a magic user navigates society and the organizations that might support and oppose them.

CHAPTER 1: CLASSES

PRECOG
Through some cosmic event, you have come to understand the ebb and flow of time to a degree that only a select few can. You manipulate time dexterously—accelerating, slowing, or even reshaping chronologies to suit your needs. The skeins of time are yours to see, and you know how to apply enough pressure to adjust their threads ever so subtly. Your ability to understand the infinite possibilities of time also shaped you into someone capable of altering the material universe through powerful spellcasting, and you can harness temporal paradoxes to foresee the future—and dictate the present—in powerful ways.

And new options for every class!

Read Meet the Iconics: Ciravel and Iconic Encounter: The Taste of Time by Jennifer Kretchmer!

CHAPTER 2: GEAR

HYBRID ITEMS
Blends of magic and technology achieve results that neither alone could ever imagine, creating the likes of null-space storage, miniaturized vehicles, subwoofers able to inspire supernatural fear, artificial lifeforms that require virtually no sustenance, and more. These devices often resist strictly antimagical or anti-technological countermeasures.

MAGIC ITEMS
Traditional magic items translate mystical energies into a portable format that nearly anyone can use. Part of the appeal comes from unshakable nostalgia, yet far more often it’s magic items’ total disregard for scientific principles—their ability to translate their maker’s will into reality—that makes them so unique and valuable.

WEAPON FUSIONS AND ARMOR UPGRADES
Survival often means eking out maximum performance from an adventurer’s gear, and a magical upgrade provides an easy edge. These weapon fusions and armor upgrades concentrate eldritch energy into functional, long-lasting forms, and these latest models lend even the most technologically outfitted explorer an arcane advantage.

ARTIFACTS
Artifacts are exceedingly rare—often unique—items beyond the ability of any but the most accomplished artisans to create, and they’re almost as difficult to destroy. These legendary items combine tremendous power with the intrinsic lore that shapes their abilities. Adventurers might dedicate their entire lives to finding a specific artifact, and recovering an artifact might spur countless high-stakes exploits.

CHAPTER 3: SPELLS

Explore new spell lists and descriptions, variant spellcasting, and rituals!

Read Iconic Encounter: Pitstop Eclipse by Patrick Hurley, featuring the iconic witchwarper and technomancer, Zemir and Raia.

CHAPTER 4: FAITHS

FAITHS IN THE UNIVERSE
The galaxy’s faiths manifest in countless forms, from tiny cults to interplanetary religions with billions of followers. Although deities almost never intervene directly in mortal affairs, their influence is very present in lay worshippers and devoted priests alike. Faith is alive throughout the galaxy, whether used for good or ill.

CHAPTER 5: THE MAGICAL GALAXY

OVERVIEW
Magic can be measured, manipulated, and predicted, or else it never could’ve been integrated with technology. Even so, cultures perceive magic in wildly different ways, and a lot of magical phenomena remains associated with myth, antiquity, physical impossibilities, and secrets perhaps better left alone. In short, despite being integrated into everyday society, magic remains... magical

Pathfinder Adventure Path #175: Broken Tusk Moon (Quest for the Frozen Flame 1 of 3)

The Hunt Begins!
If the Broken Tusk following is to survive the coming year, their bravest scouts must carve a path through a harsh wilderness. Brutal beasts, wicked rivals, and an inhospitable landscape challenge the trailblazers to withstand their enemies and the elements. But mere survival is not enough. To forge their legacies as Mammoth Lords, the scouts search for an ancient artifact to light the way forward—the Primordial Flame! The Quest for the Frozen Flame Adventure Path begins with “Broken Tusk Moon,” a complete adventure for 1st- to 3rd-level characters.

Read Quest for the Frozen Flame: Eiwa's Lesson, prologue fiction written by Rachael Cruz!

Don’t miss the free Pathfinder Adventure Path: Quest for the Frozen Flame Player's Guide PDF!

NEW PRODUCT LINE!

Starfinder Bounty #1: The Cantina Job

A Starfinder Bounty designed for Level 1.

A scam artist is prowling the bars around Drifter’s End, fleecing the Absalom Station tourists and starship crews out of hard-earned credits with a chunk of fake horacalcum and the chance to invest in their newly discovered starmetal vein. It’s up to the PCs to track down this fake miner and haul them back to pay their dues!

Pathfinder Society Scenario #3-08: Foundation’s Price

A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 1-4.

Following their recent successes in aiding the government of Qadira with apprehending an errant genie-binder, the Pathfinder Society earned the right to establish a new lodge in the port city of Sedeq! With the construction of the site complete, the Society sent a group to formally begin operations from the new edifice.

They never arrived.

With city officials threatening to auction off the new building should the Pathfinder Society neglect to occupy it, the Society sends another group of Pathfinders to investigate the lodge. Finding the brand new structure in a state of alarming disrepair, the Pathfinders have little time to search for answers before a booming voice greets them. If they wish to occupy the lodge, they’ll have to complete three tasks...

“Foundation’s Price” is part of the ongoing story of the Year of Shattered Sanctuaries. It’s the first scenario in a two-part arc detailing the events befalling a Pathfinder Society lodge in the nation of Qadira. Other arcs explore other locations across the Inner Sea. While these arcs can be played in any order, it’s recommended that players experience the scenarios within each individual arc in order.

Pathfinder Society Scenario #3-09: The Secluded Siege

A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 5-8.

The Pathfinder Society has had a tenuous relationship with the government of the ancient nation of Osirion ever since the Ruby Prince increased restrictions on the activities of foreign-based explorers. Venture-Captain Norden Balentiir has worked hard to restore the Society’s reputation in the nation, and to guide the Sandswept Hall, the Pathfinder lodge in Osirion’s capital, away from its dark past.

Recently, hordes of undead have been surging up from the depths of the Sandswept Hall. Norden Balentiir fears that should this threat become widely known, it would compel the Ruby Prince to permanently shut down Pathfinder operations in Osirion. The lodge’s forces are locked in constant battle with the undead, and they need an experienced strike team to descend into the Hall’s lower levels and find the source of the undead menace!

“The Secluded Siege” is part of the ongoing story of the Year of Shattered Sanctuaries. It’s the first scenario in a two-part arc detailing the events befalling a Pathfinder Society lodge in the nation of Osirion. Other arcs explore other locations across the Inner Sea. While these arcs can be played in any order, it’s recommended that players experience the scenarios within each individual arc in order.

Starfinder Society Scenario #4-13: Hard Reset

A Starfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 1-4.

When a simulated training mission goes wrong, a team of novice Starfinders find themselves trapped in a corrupted version of the virtual reality training program. After meeting a mysterious stranger within the system, they face an important choice: exit the program, or stay and fight to save Guidance from the Data Scourge. If they choose to fight, they experience strange revelations and battle dangerous glitches—all leading to the truth behind the Data Scourge attacks.

Pathfinder Lost Omens: City of Lost Omens Poster Map Folio

You Are Here!
Explore the streets and scenes of the City at the Center of the World with the City of Lost Omens Poster Map Folio. Four folded 21.25" × 32.5" maps combine to create the largest city map ever published by Pathfinder, a wall-dominating work of art that immerses players within the intrigues and dangers of Absalom, Golarion’s most prominent metropolis.

Inspired by the Absalom: City of Lost Omens hardcover sourcebook, the City of Lost Omens Poster Map Folio presents finer detail than ever before for a city map. Whether playing the Agents of Edgewatch Adventure Path, a Pathfinder Society Organized Play scenario, or a game of your own creation, this map serves as the perfect accompaniment to a campaign set in Absalom.

A million fates await the heroes of Absalom, along with approximately the same number of castles, monuments, temples, and taverns. Chart them all in meticulous detail with these gorgeous and gigantic poster maps!

Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Enormous Forest

LOST IN THE WOODS!
The biggest Flip-Mats in history just got bigger! This gigantic map presents a sprawling section of forest on each side— one side dense and primeval with plenty of places for monsters to hide, and the other cut through with a shaded road just perfect for ambushing player characters. Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Enormous Forest measures 30" × 46" unfolded and 8" × 10" folded. A Flip-Mat’s coated surface can handle any dry-erase, wet-erase, or even permanent marker. Usable by experienced GMs and novices alike, Pathfinder Flip-Mats fit perfectly into any Game Master’s arsenal!

Pathfinder Spell Cards: Secrets of Magic

Harness the untold potential of magic in your hands! This must-have accessory for all spellcasters includes over 200 spell reference cards, covering spells from every tradition and all focus spells from Pathfinder Secrets of Magic. These easy-to-use cards give GMs and players all the information they need to unleash arcane devastation upon their foes!

Starfinder Spell Cards Supplemental

Just like the galaxy, the magic of Starfinder is infinite! Starfinder Spell Cards Supplemental is the must-have accessory for those spellcasting science-fantasy heroes whose knowledge has no bounds. More than 200 spell reference cards, covering a multitude of unique spells found in Starfinder’s hardcovers and Adventure Path volumes, give players instant access to key game details at a glance!

Shop the Paizo Store and your favorite local game store today!

For the second time today, Ciravel found herself exceedingly grateful for seatbelts and stabilizers.

The first moment of gratitude was during Iseph's dizzying, looping, headlong dash toward Daimalko's surface—a flight where they showed both their skill at threading the space between the enormous meteoroids that surrounded the planet and their delight at making Ciravel shut her eyes despite herself. Ciravel ran and reran the possibilities in her mind, certain that this was the course that resulted in a safe arrival to a canyon on the planet's surface, and yet she still found herself clutching her armrests and putting just enough tension against the straps holding her in to make sure that they would, in fact, hold.

The second moment came thanks to the radiation drake who clamped its crystalline jaws around her hoverchair and shook its head back and forth as if in virulent disagreement with Ciravel's very existence—an action which, without the negation of the stabilizers, would be excruciating, since the surface of this portion of Daimalko unexpectedly lacked many things, including plant life, water, and, much to the chagrin of Ciravel's various joints, consistent gravity. Iseph had anchored themself to one of the rocks which floated above the planet's surface and was locked in combat with a second drake.

"You could have warned me—"

"—about the radiation? The drakes? The battlefield ruins? The asteroids? Did you—oof!—notice the radiation buffers that you were so reluctant to—ow!—pick up this morning? 'But I don't breathe!' Honestly—your head would fall off if I didn't remind you to bring a wrench! YOU could have warned me that you fly like a drunken moldstorm!"

"Can we discuss this when we're not—" Iseph ducked as their drake snapped its jaws shut, barely missing the android and a sending a soft crystalline ring echoing through the canyon, "—about to be turned into scrapyard bits?"

Ciravel closed her eyes and focused her power, channeling it through her extended hand. The possibilities for the drake's next action unfolded before her like cards laid out on a table. She knew what she had to do.

"Iseph, count to ten."

Wait for it…

"Ciravel, this hardly seems the ideal time for numerical calculation—"

Ciravel shifted her weight, angling her chair slightly as the drake clamped its jaws higher, sending the pistol in her side holster careening toward the rocky ruins below. One more good bite and it would have her.

…Wait…

"…Make that seven."

Illustration by Michele Giorgi from Starfinder Galactic Magic

The drake's jaws opened momentarily as it repositioned its bite once more. In the precise moment where the drake's gullet was perfectly aligned, Ciravel turned her thrusters on full-force—right down the drake's throat. Its spine glowed with the intense blue flame before it gasped in pain and tumbled to the ground, releasing Ciravel's chair. Moments later, a rocky thud echoed through the canyon.

Thank goodness for seat belts, Ciravel thought once again as her chair careened wildly until the thrusters reoriented it.

"Three…two…"

She could see the drake's spine begin to glow again as it readied another beam. She was too far away. She needed more time.

Ciravel blinked her eyes, holding the battlefield in stasis as she bolted toward Iseph.

"…one."

Iseph startled slightly at the voice that was suddenly right next to them. Ciravel grabbed the blaster pistol from Iseph's belt and winked. She lifted her chair up and away from Iseph, aiming the pistol directly at the drake, trying to catch its attention and spin it away from Iseph, exposing a heavily wounded flank to their blade. The drake turned, lifting its wing, preparing to follow Ciravel. This time, she looped time into a knot, immediately making the drake forget her presence and leaving it distracted long enough for Iseph to drive their searing blade directly into its wounded gut.

She knew it would cost her later—the exhaustion from this last effort would be brutal—but Ciravel dug deep and twisted time once more, calibrating the trajectory and moment that Iseph's blade entered the drake's thorax, ensuring that it hit every vital organ it could on the way in. The drake collapsed and tumbled to the ground below.

"My pistol?" Iseph outstretched their arm.

"Ah, the 'thanks for saving my circuits, Ciravel' must be a different time thread…" Ciravel maneuvered back toward the rock where Iseph had themselves anchored and winced slightly in pain as she handed back the weapon, stretching her neck. "I think maybe I'll drive home? But let's get our repairs done quickly…I'm sure the Recollectors aren't too far behind us, if they aren't already here."

"Ciravel, perhaps we have sailed the canal that was left."

"The left canal, Iseph. The saying is that you've sailed down the right canal when things go to plan, or the left canal when you cannot locate what you need. But yes, it certainly looks like we might have sailed quite far down the left canal, unfortunately."

---

She reached into one of the bags attached to the side of her hoverchair and pulled out a handle—which extended into a cane with a press of a button—and a tool kit, then released the safety belts attaching her to the chair. Activating the grav anchors on her boots and retracting the stabilizers, Ciravel stepped onto the hovering rock, and, leaning heavily on her cane, surveyed the damage to the chair. Not too bad, considering the jaws…

Iseph pulled a medical kit from a belt pouch and began doing their own repairs to patch up their wounds—a cut here, a re-soldered circuit there. As Ciravel tightened bolts and reattached anything that had come loose from her chair in the fight, something gnawed at the back of her mind, but she brushed it away. The Recollectors were on their trail and they hadn't found any real clues to the cause of The Awakening, the cataclysm that decimated life on Daimalko. No hint to whether it was a natural event or an apocalyptic weapon used in the bitter war that used to rage on the planet. All Ciravel knew was that when she last held a fragment of rock that originated here, a specimen back in the xenobiology lab in Sovyrian, she tasted time—the only way she could describe the strange way that she suddenly smelled salt and citrus and tasted spiced honey whenever she encountered items from far in the past—a strange sensory activation that tied to her only childhood memory. A memory from the Gap.

There hadn't been a whiff of anything other than sulfur and ozone since they arrived on Daimalko. But the way that rock had hummed in her ears…the song she had heard…what she'd heard…what didn't I hear?

"…Iseph, did you hear the impact of the second drake landing in the canyon?"

"An impact? No…I heard an echo of jaws clashing and ringing, your weapon falling, the flames of your chair, the pistol firing, the screams…everything echoed back. But I did not hear a second impact of a drake on the canyon floor."

In that moment, time unfolded for Ciravel as she registered three things. First: the air, which had reeked only of sulfur and centuries of decay, suddenly smelled of salt and citrus. The smell of Time, of the Gap. Second: the sudden darkness that fell when it had, only moments before, been glaringly bright. Night should have been nearly 30 hours away. And finally: the meaning of the absent sound of the drake's impact. Ciravel ran through the possibilities in a split second, and realization made her eyes go wide.

"Um…Iseph?"

"When I have finished repairing, Ciravel, I will assist you. It is already nightfall? We cannot waste our time tonight."

"Iseph…look up. We'll make some extra time."

The android glanced up from the wire they were reconnecting and then continued looking up, and up, and up the exoskeleton, watching in near-wonder as tendrils passed the drake corpse up…and up…and up…far higher than Ciravel's chair could reach on a day when it hadn't been rattled around in the jaws of a drake, past gargantuan claws and tusks.

As her own eyes met the four beady ones of the Kyokor, Ciravel tasted spiced honey.

She stared at the colossus, steadied herself back into her hoverchair, and activated the thrusters. She glided next to Iseph and looked over at them from beneath the creature's shadow, smiling.

"Well, what do you know? Perhaps we sailed the right canal after all."

About the Author

Jennifer Kretchmer is a Diana Jones Emerging Game Designer Award finalist, TV produce and performer, author (D&D's Candlekeep Mysteries, Haunted West), streamer, and disability consultant (Skybound Games: The Walking Dead, MCDM) who has been playing TTRPGs for more than 20 years. She appears on several actual play streams including Vampire: The Nightlife (Renegade) and Heroes of the Planes (Demiplane), where her character, Alyndra, is a playable champion in Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms. Jen is a Jasper's Game Day Ambassador and is the creator of the Accessibility in Gaming Resource Guide.

Twitter/Instagram: @dreamwisp
Twitch: twitch.tv/dreamwispjen
Linktree: linktr.ee/dreamwisp

About Iconic Encounters

Iconic Encounters is a series of web-based flash fiction set in the worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder. Each short story provides a glimpse into the life and personality of one of the games' iconic characters, showing the myriad stories of adventure and excitement players can tell with the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games.

They’d landed on a port moon to rehaul their ship before rendezvousing with the rest of the Pact World diplomatic team on a newly discovered world called Sigerro. A routine enough stop, but then, even in Near Space, the routine could quickly turn to excitement.

Zemir and Raia, part of the command team, were sent to find upgraded Drift drives for their ship. The thought was that Raia’s eye for tech would aid in finding the best equipment and Zemir’s tendency to bend chance might allow them to purchase it at a low price.

The technomancer and witchwarper debated the differences between their respective talents while perusing the port’s open-air markets.

“Our methods differ only in scope. You use your gifts to push technology,” said Zemir, tossing another faulty circuit board into a display case, “whereas I use mine to push reality.”

“Your scope may be wider,” said Raia, examining some drive schematics absently. “But my tech produces more reliable results.”

“Reliability is irrelevant. In the end, we seek the same thing—the new, impossible, the interesting. Is how we do it so important?”

“Some would say the ‘how’ is the most important part of all,” Raia answered, smiling. It was an old debate between friends, one they’d cheerfully had over drinks in many a space port.

“Perhaps you’re right,” said Zemir quietly. Raia recognized that faraway look. One day she’d learn the cause of Zemir’s periodic melancholy.

Before Zemir could say more, the market fell eerily silent. Everyone around them stared upward. Zemir and Raia joined them, and watched as the moon eclipsed the sun, and all went dark.

Soon after, the chittering squeaks and clicks began.

“I recognize those sounds,” said Raia. “Grioths.”

“What, this far in Near Space?” asked Zemir.

“They get closer every year,” said Raia sadly. She found grioths a fascinating formation of life. It’s too bad so many of them were in the monstrous grip of Nyarlathotep, for their voidglass technology and biology was quite interesting and could be put to great use in the Pact Worlds.

Her thoughts were interrupted by holes opening in the moon-eclipsed sky. From these shadowy portals descended a wave of winged terrors. The grioths’ silhouettes looked like thousands of bats with arms and legs—all of which held glittering weaponry.

The technomancer and the witchwarper watched the marketgoers flee. In silent agreement, both stood still amid the chaos, knowing they could hold off the grioths and allow these citizens to get to safety.

Several grioth raiders noticed the two holding their ground and broke off to attack them. Raia picked off one with a single blaster pulse while Zemir stared at another and muttered. Suddenly, the grioth’s wing seized and it plummeted to the ground. That left three more, who charged in a whirl of chittering squeaks and gleaming, deadly glass.

A fourth landed in front of Raia and swiped at her with its giant, clawed hand.

“No,” said Raia calmly, stepping back and raising her hands. She felt composed, as though in a simulation. She had spent the better part of the afternoon familiarizing herself with the tech around her, and now she simply had to put it to work, albeit for a new purpose.

As the grioth tried to grasp her again, she cast a spell with a word and a gesture. Behind her, the vast engine powering the veranda block rumbled and cracked. Suddenly, as though it were a puppet pulled by the technomancer’s strings, it unleashed from its casing and wrapped the grioth in an unbreakable embrace of steel and coiled wire.

Zemir watched his friend fight and wondered how best to aid her in the dance. He was no slouch with a blade, but with so many opponents, more help was needed.

What if, perhaps, another portal opened? One to a world filled with bright sunlight? Zemir pondered the possibilities and adjusted probabilities as though inputting calculations into the ultimately unknowable machine that was the universe. Calculations that, due to his training at the institute, he sometimes knew the outcomes for.

A bright portal to a sun-filled world opened, a world with—yes, perfect—a swarm of apari constituents, who poured from the portal, angry and hungry. The grioths shrieked at the light, some clutching their faces as its very photons pierced their psychic defenses. At Zemir’s direction, the apari swarm crashed against the grioths like a wave, instinctively trying to strike back against invaders who would darken a world.

Illustration by Mirco Paganessi from Starfinder Galactic Magic

“You will all perish for the glory of our dark master,” whispered one of grioth invaders with a harsh rasp. Before he could say more, he was overwhelmed by the swarm of apari.

He could have run—but he wouldn’t. Helping Raia made it worth it; knowing that, in some small way, Zemir had adjusted his account, paying back what he’d done wrong. He might never be able to atone for leaving his friends in that other reality, might never be able to get them back (though another part of him still wondered about this) but here, now, at least he and his friend Raia could save each other.

Together, weaving reality and technology with threads of magic, the technomancer and witchwarper beat back the remaining two grioth attackers, their martial prowess no match for the pair’s magical mastery.

“We have to get to the ship,” said Zemir once they had a moment to catch their breath. “I can open a gateway there, but I’ve expended a lot of power and can only take myself.”

“Go. I know you won’t leave me behind,” said Raia. For some reason, Zemir looked inexplicably sad at that.

“I will come back for you,” Zemir promised gravely. He stepped through the portal and was gone.

Raia waited, holding glowing sigils and technical weapons in the dark marketplace. From the chittering and squeaks, she knew another squad of grioths was inbound. With all the tech around her, Raia knew she could hold them off, but not indefinitely. She just hoped that Zemir would get back with the ship in time.

About The Author

Patrick Hurley has had fiction published in Galaxy’s Edge, Cosmic Roots & Eldritch Shores, Abyss & Apex, New Myths, Arcanist, Aurealis, Frozen Wavelets, The Overcast, and The Drabblecast. He is a 2017 graduate of the Taos Toolbox Writer's Workshop. In 2018, he was a finalist for the Baen Fantasy Award. Patrick lives in Seattle and is a member of SFWA and the Dreamcrashers. He still can’t quite believe he has the good fortune to also be an editor at Paizo.

About Iconic Encounters

Iconic Encounters is a series of web-based flash fiction set in the worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder. Each short story provides a glimpse into the life and personality of one of the games’ iconic characters, showing the myriad stories of adventure and excitement players can tell with the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games.

Ciravel’s first—and only—childhood memory is of tasting the stars. Peering through a window into the depths of space, innumerable galaxies stare back at her and glitter their welcome. She remembers that moment, possibilities and potential branching like fractals, infinite possibilities for infinite stars; and yet, six stars shine brightest of all. Someone hands her something sweet that tastes of honey and spices, and the world smells of citrus and the sea. Fragrance embraces her, the sweetness lingering upon her tongue—the past and the present dancing together in a shared instant.

But before and after… Nothing.

And then, in some time or none at all: heat, and the rain on Sovyrian’s canals.

Ciravel’s young adulthood was spent at the university, where she earned impeccably high marks studying xenobotany, while also attending martial arts and combat training. Time rarely seemed to be the issue for Ciravel “But how do you manage it all?” her classmates asked. Ciravel shrugged. “I plan well. I have to.”

And she did need to plan. Multitudes of worlds and peoples mean multitudes of different shapes, sizes, limb configurations, and body structures. For Ciravel, it meant a body which, since birth, has been particularly responsive to varying gravities, atmospheric pressures, and other planetary properties. Some days, and in some places, Ciravel has little-to-no pain and walking isn’t a problem. Other times or places, she manages exhaustion and pain. Like many others across the Pact Worlds and beyond, using a hoverchair, or a cane for shorter distances, helps Ciravel reduce fatigue and makes moving around less difficult and painful. She trained to fight while using her chair, harnessing the thrusters and momentum to dodge and attack, conserving energy, to use her cane to counterbalance and anchor herself. Ways to minimize a bad day amongst the good and maximize a good day amidst the bad. But never knowing what sort of day was ahead meant Ciravel had to learn early how to plan for each possibility. So, she’d examine each potential outcome and prepare for each iteration until it became instinctual.

After graduation, Ciravel’s academic success in xenobotany caught the Sovyrian leadership’s attention, and in time, she was trusted with occasional official journeys to Absalom Station. Each time she boarded a starship, it felt more like home than Sovyrian ever had. It was the end of one of these trips, heading back through the station towards her waiting ship, that she was stopped in her tracks by the smell of crisp citrus in the sea air.

It was a scent she had all but forgotten, and in an instant, she was back in the memory of a window and stars and spiced honey. And in that moment, existing in two times, simultaneously, she understood. She could bend this moment to her needs. She could stretch time—delay her departure long enough to find the source of the fragrance. It wouldn’t last long, and it’d be exhausting, but it would be enough.

Illustration by Remko Troost and Ignacio Bazán Lazcano.

She stretched time at the docks and compressed it nearby. Following the fragrance, or perhaps led by it, she found the source—a young woman with golden eyes and swirling tattoos that almost seemed to dance, carrying a bundle under her arm and walking quickly into a small temple with a shattered mirror on the door—the sign of the Gap Recollective. Ciravel peered in, and when the woman drew back the cloth of the bundle, it revealed a truly ancient warhammer engraved with glowing Dwarven runes. Ciravel tasted spiced honey on her tongue. The young woman looked at her. Smiled.

And Ciravel was suddenly back on the ship home.

Years went by, and Ciravel became the default representative for most off-planet xenobotany meetings. Her excursions were always on time, dodged inclement weather, and when her insular life among the elves caused a diplomatic faux pas, it was somehow forgotten by the next meeting. With the arrival of the Idari, Ciravel was invited as part of the elven delegation to the kasathan worldship. She observed adat and was awed to note that after death the kasatha, like she, exist in two aligned points in time. She befriended one of the adata, who wore a pin engraved with a circle and arrow containing a six-star constellation.

The six stars from her memory.

The adata explained it as the symbol of Ibra, The Inscrutable. Guardian of mysteries and miracles, of exploration and discovery and the cosmos. They spoke at length of Ibra and cosmic enigmas swirling like nebulas and questions, but eventually, Ciravel bid the adata farewell and boarded the ship to Castrovel.

Another young woman boards Ciravel’s ship. She smiles at Ciravel with golden eyes as an unfamiliar object peeks out from the bundle tucked under a tattoo-adorned arm.

Citrus and spiced honey and salt flood Ciravel’s senses. Time stops.

Ciravel tastes the stars a third time. And this time, she understands.

Her memory is of the Gap. And either this woman with the golden eyes or this strange object is a link to it.

Ciravel untangles the possibilities—the present and the future, selecting a strand, tracing it forward. She knows this woman, Prindra, will lead Ciravel to the Gap Recollective on Castrovel. That Ciravel will peer into the maelstrom of the Recollective’s esoteric secrets, and someone, or something, will peer back. That they will hunt her, thinking three moves and four dimensions ahead. Ciravel unknots another time-thread and finds people who can help her, who she will help, who will become trusted companions. Ciravel knows she will become Forlorn, but feels no despair, for she will bend time itself for the friends she will make, keeping them safe on new worlds as they explore the mysteries of the stars together. Invigorated, Ciravel takes these strands and twists them together, weaving them into a new, stronger thread. Possibility.

She peers out the window, smiling at galaxies glittering with infinite potential and adventure and possibility, for Ciravel has time.

Despite understanding and manipulating the mechanisms of time, Ciravel is by no means omniscient. She selects the best plan based on the information she has on a given topic, and even when she knows an outcome, she still gets nervous from time to time. She also recognizes that someone may have information that informs a different option than the one she has chosen, so, while she will defend her statements, Ciravel is willing to follow another’s suggested plan. Her humor tends to be dry and occasionally dark, but she is playful and loyal with people she trusts.

Ciravel’s insular upbringing can manifest both as ignorance, condescension, and elitism—she corrects inaccuracies, but lacks firsthand knowledge about much of the galaxy, its peoples, their worlds, and their cultures, not for want of curiosity, but simply from a lack of exposure—more than once, cultural ignorance has put Ciravel into a sticky situation. She can be impatient and often will finish others’ sentences, assuming she knows what they were going to say, and she’s usually right. When all is said and done, there is nothing that thrills Ciravel more than exploring the galaxy, putting together a puzzle, and staring out at the stars with her friends.

About The Author

Jennifer Kretchmer is a Diana Jones Emerging Game Designer Award finalist, TV produce and performer, author (D&D’s Candlekeep Mysteries, Haunted West), streamer, and disability consultant (Skybound Games: The Walking Dead, MCDM) who has been playing TTRPGs for more than 20 years. She appears on several actual play streams including Vampire: The Nightlife (Renegade) and Heroes of the Planes (Demiplane), where her character, Alyndra, is a playable champion in Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms. Jen is a Jasper’s Game Day Ambassador and is the creator of the Accessibility in Gaming Resource Guide.

Twitter/Instagram: @dreamwisp
Twitch: twitch.tv/dreamwispjen
Linktree: linktr.ee/dreamwisp

Leandra slapped the screaming alarm cube and rubbed her eyes before burying her head in the pillow again. Ugh, too early…

A few minutes later she groaned and rolled out of her bunk, stretching as she padded her way into the communal area.

"Oh, morning, Lea. I just drank the last of the instant. Sorry." Her overly chipper, and well caffeinated roommate held up the empty pot apologetically.

“Nok! How could you? You knew I was pulling a double today!” The scowl she leveled at the curvy ysoki would send most others hurrying out of her way, but Nok just grinned and stretched up to kiss her on the cheek.

“I'll pick up more on the way home tonight, promise!" She rushed out the door in a swirl of activity and perfume, leaving Leandra to put the coffee pot in the sink.

Thirty minutes and a disappointingly lukewarm shower later (thanks again, Nok) Leandra stood in line at the popular coffee cart just outside Ixomander’s Throne, the Azlanti-themed casino where she was currently late for her job. She hopped from foot to foot, willing the line to move faster before Mo-var, the meticulous android running the cart, closed for their mid-morning break. Suddenly, an enormous vesk came hurtling out of nowhere and plowed into her. She was knocked onto the ground, while the vesk continued running. A willowy shirren helped her back on her feet before bolting after the vesk, shouting “Sorry!” over their shoulder.

Leandra dusted off her dark green pants and turned to see Mo-var pulling down their cart’s shudder. Damned tourists! Don’t they know how hard it is to keep this faux Azlanti crap clean? She threw her hands up in despair, yelling, “Come on! I was in line and everything before those junk jockeys pushed me over!” Mo-var ignored her, and she went to give the cart a swift kick but stopped when a glint from the ground caught her eye. A misshapen piece of metal and plastic laid on the sidewalk, most likely dropped by the fleeing vesk.

Leandra picked it up and shouted in the direction the two had ran. “Just because we live near a junkyard doesn’t mean you can litter!” She grumbled to herself about inconsiderate off-worlders and inflexible androids, absent-mindedly slipped the piece of trash into her pocket, and stepped into the casino.

---

Leandra stretched she trudged out of the casino, her back aching after a grueling double shift on her feet serving drinks to increasingly inebriated gamblers. Spying Mo-var’s coffee cart—now open for the evening rush—and knowing that Nok probably forgot to get more instant, she started to wander over. Her way was blocked by a pair of local gang members (True Warriors by the look of them—bunch of lowlifes) diving out of the way of the wide swing of a doshko, wielded by the same vesk from earlier in the day. This time, a lashunta woman followed, her hands glowing with magic.

“Really?” Leandra said out loud, too tired to properly process how much danger she was currently in. Mo-var, however, seemed to understand, quickly closing their cart window. Leandra was startled into action when a stray bullet from one of the True Warriors’ pistols struck the casino wall just a few feet from her. She scurried home, locked the deadbolts, and enabled the security system even though she knew it didn’t work properly. Nok had promised to get it fixed months ago.

---

Nok stumbled in, giggling and slightly tipsy. The security system let out a pair of weak, unconvincing beeps and gave up, but it was loud enough to startle Leandra awake from where she’d dozed off on the couch.

“Someone had a good night.”

Nok plopped onto the couch next to her. “Hot date with Rush! Oh, so much fun. You should come out with us one of these days! She even has a cute brother...” She chuckled, draping herself over Leandra.

“No time. We’re short-staffed at work. Maybe next week.” She pushed her friend off her lap with a laugh. Nok was always trying to set her up on dates—when she wasn’t on the prowl for her own that is. She’d gone on more than a few disastrous outings at the younger girl’s urging but hadn't clicked with any of her suitors. “Tell you what, I’ll make us both something to eat. You need something in your stomach.” She ruffled the hair beneath Nok’s ear on her way to the kitchenette.

---

The next day, Leandra had another double. Midway through, her feet and back were already aching and her ears were sweltering in her fake helmet, but she kept a smile firmly plastered on her face as she bustled between tables and the bar. Needing a break from fending off the advances of the junk jockeys who had hit a prize and enduring the glowering looks from the locals determined to lose all their cash, she gestured to her manager that she was going to briefly step outside.

She ordered a cup of her usual from Mo-var to boost her flagging energy and had barely taken a sip when her arm was jostled from behind, sending the drink flying.

“Oh. Come. On!” She was nearly in tears as she turned to see the shirren from the previous day. A ysoki stood next to them, looking sheepish, and the vesk and lashunta were over by the casino entrance.

“YOU!” Leandra gasped. “You owe me at least 3 cups of coffee!” She poked the shirren in the chest, whose antennae twitched in confusion. “First, you knocked me out of line, then you started that brawl in the street, and now you made me spill this one because you can’t bother to watch where you’re going!”

The big vesk lumbered up to them. “Is there a problem?” she rumbled.

“Yeah! You and your buddies keep making me lose my coffee and I’m getting sick of it!” Leandra’s shouting was beginning to draw a few gawkers, but she didn't care. “And another thing! You can’t just leave trash wherever you want!” She retrieved the piece of metal and plastic from her pocket and flung it at the vesk’s chest. The vesk fumbled with it for a moment but didn’t drop it. Her eyes widened as she took a better look at the scrap.

“Quig,” the vesk said, turning to the ysoki. “This is the other half of the keycard.”

“You dropped it?!” the ysoki asked incredulously.

“Uh, I guess so.” The vesk looked uncomfortable. She looked back at Leandra. “Hey, sorry about all this. Let me make it up to you. After all, I think you just saved us a lot of trouble.” She ordered an extra-large from Mo-var, handing over enough credits to cover the price a few times over. The android filled up a sizable travel mug with a secured lid and placed it in the cart’s window. Leandra scooped up the coffee and chugged half of it as if she were afraid it would get away.

“Thank you,” Leandra said. “I have to get back to work now.” She turned on her heel to re-enter the casino, hearing the other four begin to chatter excitedly with each other.

Later, she had quite the story to tell her roommate. Nok suspected the four were treasure hunters looking for a big score out in the junk, and they must have crossed the True Warriors in the process. Both of them speculated wildly as to what their “keycard” unlocked well into the night.

---

The following evening, the four approached Leandra on the casino floor. “There she is!” the vesk bellowed with a grin on her face. “My favorite Aeon Guard! We’ve got something for you!” She dropped a credstick onto Leandra’s tray.

A little wary, Leandra picked up the credstick, peeked at the display, and nearly fainted at the amount printed there. She wrapped her arm around the vesk’s waist in gratitude.

“Should be enough to keep you in coffee for a while,” the ysoki smirked. “And when you’re done squeezing Obo to death, we’ll have a round of your most expensive booze. In fact, make ‘em doubles. We’re celebrating another successful mission!”

The group cheered.

Illustration by Rustan Curman from Junker's Delight

About The Author

Misha Bushyager is a longtime gamer and designer working on making sure the next generation of geeks sees themselves represented. She's one of the founders of New Agenda Publishing and a founding curator for More Seats at the Table, a newsletter highlighting gender marginalized designers. She worked on Orun, #Feminism, Fate of Cthulhu, Lovecraftesque, Misspent Youth: Sell Out With Me, Masks: Unbound, and the as-yet-unpublished LARP Nightingales. She's a panelist, writer, editor, and sensitivity editor for tabletop RPGs and LARPs. You can find her on Twitter as @BGGameworks or on her website, blackgirlgameworks.com.

About Tales From The Drift

The Tales from the Drift series of web-based flash fiction provides an exciting glimpse into the setting of the Starfinder Roleplaying Game. Written by members of the Starfinder development team and some of the most celebrated authors in tie-in gaming fiction, the Tales from the Drift series promises to explore the worlds, alien cultures, deities, history, and organizations of the Starfinder setting with engaging stories to inspire Game Masters and players alike.

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Aaron Shanks
Marketing and Media Manager

“Please, Dhareen, must we go through with this? A bit of rock climbing is hardly a challenge for the Castrovel Kid!” Dhareen imagined her mentee thrusting his chest out proudly, thumb pressed triumphantly above his heart as he blustered several feet below her. She smiled to herself and pushed her piston-puncher into the mountain’s side, activating the gadget with a press of her lowleft thumb.

Kuh-klank.

“Perhaps, but it is custom among the tribes for a Yavnii to administer a test to every hopeful Brekai wanting to undergo the Test of the Mountain, and I am afraid that not even I have the authority to make exceptions to shobhad tradition. Not even for the ‘Castrovel Kid.’”

“See, you say that, but I can hear your grin,” Vellero replied sullenly.

“I know not what you mean.” Dhareen grinned again.

Both gladiators fell silent as they climbed, Dhareen pausing her ascent long enough for Vellero to scale up alongside her.

Kuh-klank.

He had taken to her tutelage well. Ka’s cliffside was grueling even for an expert; twenty-two miles long and comprised of thin basalt overtop stronger metamorphic stone, careless climbers often plummeted to their deaths after relying on pistons pounded into brittle basalt. One of the many roles of a yavnii was to ensure their breknai did not succumb to such a fate. Vellero had learned Dhareen’s lessons well thus far, scaling around several patches of basalt she had left in his path as a test.

Kuh-klank.

Vellero’s concentration reminded Dhareen of when she first met the headstrong lashunta in the ring at Arl’s VitariTech Coliseum. They were competing in the Icons Grand Brawl, and he was favored to win. The young man was a crowd pleaser on a seven-match winning streak. He was good, but not good enough; Dhareen scrubbed the floor with her future friend’s face. Literally. Nevertheless, there had been a spark within Vellero, a spark that intrigued her. The second time she knocked him down—or perhaps the third—he clamored to his feet with a bruised antenna and a few chipped teeth, wiped fresh blood from his lip, and grinned.

“Why do you persist?” Dhareen had asked, scarcely winded. “You cannot win. You bring yourself only pain. Throw your towel; others have when facing me. There is no shame in surrendering to your better.”

“You’re right,” he’d replied. “But that wouldn’t be fair for the folks who came here to see me fight, and I don’t want to let a single person in this ring who believed that I could win down.” He raised his fists into a boxer’s stance, a pointless gesture against an opponent twice his size with twice as many fists. “When I go down, I want them to know I gave it my all!”

Kuh-klank.

“I don’t mean to sound indignant,” Vellero interrupted Dhareen’s thoughts. “I know that the Test of the Mountain is sacred to your people, and that it is an honor to be allowed to undergo it as an outsider.”

Dhareen raised an eyebrow. “But?”

“But,” Vellero took a breath. “Is the reason we’re doing this,” Vellero gestured out behind them, over red dunes and rolling clouds of dust. “Because you don’t think I can?”

“If I didn’t think you could pass the Test of the Mountain, I wouldn’t have begun the climb with you, nor permitted you to undertake it.” Dhareen’s voice was gentle but her statement absolute. “The mountain is sacred to my people. We do not tolerate bloodshed on Ka. To send one who is unprepared up the Mountain is as shameful as slaying one’s enemies at its base.”

Vellero’s expression softened slightly. “Thanks.”

“Do not speak of it. You don’t want your throat to dry from the ascent.”

Vellero blinked, then burst out laughing.

“I don’t understand what you find so funny about that. You’ll have twenty miles left when we’ve reached the end of our shared path.”

Vellero kept laughing for a minute, wiping tears from his eyes. “Thanks, Dhareen.”

“You’re—”

Kuh-KUN.

Dhareen reaches for a falling Vellero in this illustration by Victor Manuel Leza Moreno from Starfinder: Galaxy Exploration Manual.

Dhareen gave herself no time for thinking. Before the sound of shattering basalt reached her ears, before Ka itself folded like a withered tumblefern in a windstorm, she whipped around to where Vellero was climbing even as his cliffside shifted downward, a cascade of metamorphic stone tearing free from Ka and tumbling towards the ground below. Vellero screamed as he fell, but Dhareen plucked him from the air like a corpseheron snatching a leaping spookfish out from the Irkonian Sea. Dhareen didn’t speak Ysoki, but she had spent enough time around ratfolk gladiators at VitariTech to recognize the lashunta lambasting the situation with at least six of the fourteen different Ysoki swears that she knew.

“Hold on, Vellero!” Climbing down wasn’t an option; a rockslide was eminent, and the best place to be during a rockslide was above it. Vellero was much smaller than she and less experienced at climbing, he would only slow them down. She could climbe faster with all four of her muscled arms free, anyway. There was only one option remaining.

Hoisting the Castrovel Kid onto her shoulders like a mother giving a youngling a backride, she placed the much smaller lashunta onto her shoulders and started climbing as fast as she could, giving only the barest of warnings. “Hold tight!”

Though Dhareen could hear Vellero shouting, her intense focus and the earsplitting sounds of portions of the rock wall sloughing off afforded her no opportunity to comprehend him. She climbed as quick as her body would allow, muscles aching and flaring as she abandoned her piston-punch and climbed barehanded. She knew full-well that the smallest mistake would send both she and her friend to their doom.

Ten yards from the top.

Five.

She was going to make it.

She and Vellero were going to make it.

Then her world shook as shadow overtook her vision. A boulder dislodged from above, tumbling towards her, threatening to crack her skull and send Dhareen and her breknai tumbling miles to their death. She refused to close her eyes; she would greet the Lady of Graves with firsthand tales of how she died. She was not alone; at the peak of her vision, she saw a small lashunta arm, no bigger than that of a shobhad child’s, reach out as if to catch the boulder. Dhareen admired Vellero’s bravery one last time.

The boulder collided with Vellero, and for a moment it was like watching a diver plunge into a serene pool. Vellero’s hand, then his arm, and then both their bodies plunged into the boulder.

Was it just an illusion?

Fine dust covered Dhareen as the boulder passed through her. From within, she watched the metamorphic rock splinter and crack in flight, first into smaller boulders, then into stone and pebbles, and finally into dust. The boulder never touched them; it dissolved before it even struck the Castrovel Kid’s hand.

Dhareen was stunned at first. But with safety just a few yards above and Ka continuing to shake and splinter, the feeling passed quickly as she bellowed at her peculiar friend.

“That, Vellero! Keep doing that!”

About The Author

Alexander "Alex" Augunas (he/him) is an author and behavioral health worker living outside of Philadelphia. He has contributed to numerous gaming products published by Paizo, with several of his better-known contributions including the Starfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook, Starfinder Character Operations Manual, and Pathfinder Lost Omens Legends. Alex is also a staff member of the Know Direction Network, where he serves as Master of Ceremonies for Know Direction: Beyond, and publisher of third-party publisher Everybody Games.

About Iconic Encounters

Iconic Encounters is a series of web-based flash fiction set in the worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder. Each short story provides a glimpse into the life and personality of one of the games’ iconic characters, showing the myriad stories of adventure and excitement players can tell with the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games.

Those adorable little Free RPG Day one-shots with pregenerated characters are now available. Since they’re free PDF downloads, or only a few dollars in print on the Paizo store, they’re perfect for giving new players a taste of Pathfinder and Starfinder. Veteran players can simply enjoy a side session of fun!

The Starfinder Four vs. the Hardlight Harlequin

POWER UP!

Everyone across the galaxy enjoys the occasional diversion in a holographic amusement chamber, whether it’s relaxing on a sandy beach or taking part in an action-packed adventure on a war-torn battlefield from the safety of home. But what happens when the digital settings and inhabitants of these simulations come to life and threaten a group of innocent fun seekers?

Thanks to some inadvertently malicious code created by a proud game designer, such a calamitous event has occurred on a small moon hosting an entertainment expo! The building is slowly but surely being digitized while the game designer’s mind has been taken over by a comic-book villain. Only a group of newly recruited Starfinders can save the day!

Pathfinder: The Threshold of Knowledge

On the Brink of Greatness!

Graduates of the Magaambya are well-known as some of the most skilled magic wielders in Golarion. Now it's time for a new group of students to take their first steps on the path to greatness.

In Threshold of Knowledge, players take on the role of one of five students from the prestigious Magaambya, the oldest school of magic in the Inner Sea region. When a teacher goes missing, it's up to these new heroes to step up and solve a wicked mystery that threatens the existence of the Magaambya itself!

Threshold of Knowledge is a short adventure for 1st-level characters that takes the heroes into the Magaambya and the nearby city of Nantambu. In addition, the five pregenerated characters provide a quick way to jump into the adventure right away in this exciting offering for Free RPG Day! Grab some dice and some friends and play the role of new heroes in training!

Find past Free RPG Day products here!

• Pathfinder
• Starfinder

Remember, Free RPG Day would not be possible without your favorite local game store, so be sure to drop in and give them your patronage.

Find a Store

Watch the live-play premiere of Starfinder One-Shot: The Great Grav-Train Robbery tonight at 6 PM Pacific at @OfficialPaizo on Twitch. See the cast announcement for bios!

Look, the plan couldn’t be simpler. Just rappel onto the roof of a speeding train filled with armed gangsters, somehow get inside, get the passcode that opens the cargo car off the chief of security without alerting their army of goons, locate and grab that crazy artifact everyone’s after, and then call your getaway pilot for an extraction before the train reaches its destination. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

Starfinder One-Shot: The Great Grav-Train Robbery is written by Andrew White can be completed in a single 3- to 4-hour session. It includes four 6th-level pregenerated antiheroes whose stories and motivations tie into the plot of the adventure. (Pregenerated characters for this adventure are also available as a free download.) If players create their own characters, they can use the adventure background to customize their characters to the adventure. This adventure can be easily used on virtual tabletops, run off digital devices, or printed out and played at a table.

Who’s Playing Who?

Michelle Nguyen Bradley as The Muscle: Barat Oza

Species: ijtikri
Theme: mercenary
Class vanguard

Find her work at michellenguyenbradley.com and follow her on all socials at @iamchubbybunny.

Jim Rodehaver as The Face: Aramesh Maageri

Species: spathinae
Theme: grifter
Class: envoy

Find him on Twitter at @EvilJimjam.

Diana Restrepo as The Thief: LNA-464

Species: SRO
Theme: space pirate
Class: operative

Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @dianares3.

Jenny Jarzabski as The Hacker: Kevan Bokoloff

Species: uplifted bear
Theme: scholar
Class: technomancer

Following her on Twitter @spaceprincess_j and stop by twitch.tv/spaceprincessj.

Thurston Hillman as Game Master

You can find him on social media @oncallgm and over at twitch.tv/oncallgm.

Watch the live-play tonight at 6 PM Pacific!

Both new Adventure Path volumes this month allow you to face challenges on new worlds. We continue to release all the Pathfinder rulebooks as Pocket Editions, a popular new option. A new Pathfinder card deck is ready to help players remember to use those Hero Points. Homebrewers will find session inspiration in crypts, lava, jungles, and ghost towns with our new maps. You’ll find over eight new Pathfinder and Starfinder products at the Paizo Store and your favorite local game store today.

Pathfinder Guns & Gears Pocket Edition

GEAR UP AND THROW DOWN!
When swords and spells just won’t be enough to win the day, it’s time to power up your game with clockwork gears, lightning coils, and black powder! Guns & Gears, the latest rulebook for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game (Second Edition), brings the excitement of firearms and fantasy technology to your tabletop!

The pocket edition presents the same content in a smaller sized softcover for a lower price and better portability.

Don’t miss the Guns & Gears Authors blog!

See four gunslingers in action in the Pathfinder One-Shot: Head-Shot the Rot!

Starfinder Adventure Path #42: Whispers of the Eclipse (Horizons of the Vast 3 of 6)

NIGHT COURT
A neighboring charter reaches out for assistance when their leaders go missing. After tracking the team to a lush jungle valley inhabited by alien dinosaurs, the PCs discover the expedition was teleported to an ancient Azlanti lunar base. Can the PCs rescue their fellow explorers from the darkness that lurks there?

This Starfinder Adventure Path volume continues the Horizons of the Vast Adventure Path and includes:

• “Whispers of the Eclipse,” a Starfinder adventure for 5th-level characters by Kate Baker.
• A history of elven journeys to new planets by Jessica Catalan.
• A toolbox featuring equipment used by the early Azlanti Star Empire, a collection of creatures that could endanger unwary explorers, and a glimpse at a battered world of blue sands and a violent past, by Kate Baker, Jenny Jarzabski, Andrew Mullen, and Jim Seals.
• Statistics and deck plans for a surveying starship vital to the Azlanti Star Empire’s first forays into space by Dennis Muldoon.

Watch the Starfinder Horizons of the Vast Adventure Path Trailer!

Pathfinder Adventure Path #173: Doorway to the Red Star (Strength of Thousands 5 of 6)

SOAR ABOVE A PLANET OF ADVENTURE!
Armed with the knowledge that a long-vanished ally lies on the other side of a magical portal called the Doorway to the Red Star, the heroes must earn the trust of the portal’s guardians and then travel through it—to a planet of red sands and high adventure! Working to gain allies among scholarly brain creatures and suspicious ratfolk, the heroes infiltrate a massive airship and fight to free their ally from an insidious trap. The Strength of Thousands Adventure Path continues with “Doorway to the Red Star,” a complete adventure for 15th- to 17th-level characters.

Watch the Pathfinder Strength of Thousands Adventure Path Trailer!

Pathfinder Hero Point Deck

MORE THAN A REROLL
A well-timed Hero Point can turn the tide of battle, but with the Pathfinder Hero Point Deck, you can do more than just reroll a single check. Each one of these 52 cards lists a special effect that grants a boon, such as a sudden surge of speed or the ability to stave off death! Use the card as a traditional Hero Point or turn it in for the special effect!

Starfinder Flip-Mat: Lava World

WATCH YOUR STEP!
Whether your heroes are surveying a moon dotted with erupting volcanoes or fighting on unstable islands amid an active lava flow, no Game Master wants to spend time drawing every volcanic rock outcropping and lava fountain. Fortunately, with Paizo’s latest Starfinder Flip-Mat, you don’t have to! This line of gaming maps provides ready-to-use science-fantasy set pieces for the busy Game Master. This double-sided map features a river of lava cascading down a cliff face on one side and a bubbling, lava-filled crater on the other.

Don’t waste time sketching when you could be playing. With Starfinder Flip-Mat: Lava World, you’ll be ready the next time your players discover that the floor is lava!

Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Ghost Towns

WHERE DID EVERYONE GO?
A ruined hamlet where a sinkhole has swallowed the town square, or an abandoned village whose lone cathedral lies in ruins: such ghost towns forever beckon explorers to uncover their lost secrets. This Flip-Mat features two different ghost towns for your players to explore: a remote, abandoned village and a ruined town square.

Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Ghost Towns measures 24” × 30” unfolded and 8” × 10” folded. The Flip-Mat’s coated surface can handle any dry-erase, wet-erase, or even permanent marker. Usable by experienced GMs and novices alike, Pathfinder Flip-Mats fit perfectly into any Game Master’s arsenal!

Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Jungle Multi-Pack

IT'S A JUNGLE OUT THERE!
What forgotten mysteries await in the jungle? Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Jungle Multi-Pack provides ready-to-use, captivating jungle scenes for the busy Game Master. As your heroes explore an overgrown ruin or hidden waterfall, or seek shelter in a village, these four different combat maps will have you covered! Don’t waste your time sketching when you could be playing. With Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Jungle Multi-Pack, you’ll be ready next time your players head out into the jungle!

This set includes two flip mats, each measuring 24” X 30” unfolded and 8” X 10” folded. A Flip-Mat’s coated surface can handle any dry-erase, wet-erase, or even permanent marker. Usable by experienced GMs and novices alike, Pathfinder Flip-Mats fit perfectly into any Game Master's arsenal!

Pathfinder Flip-Tiles: Dungeon Crypts Expansion

AMONG THE DEAD!
What sinister undead dangers lurk deep within the twisting catacombs? The Pathfinder Flip-Tiles: Dungeon Crypts Expansion Set bolsters the Pathfinder Flip-Tiles: Dungeon Starter Set with 24 new, full-color 6 × 6-inch double-sided tiles, stunningly crafted by cartographer Jason Engle. Suitable for experienced Game Masters and novices alike, this product fits perfectly into any GM’s arsenal. Wet-erase, dry-erase, and permanent markers erase from the tiles, and convenient packaging makes for easy storage. Why map out an entire underground crypt by hand when Flip-Tiles can do it for you? This set includes:

• Tomb halls
• Burial chambers
• Vast crypts
• Reliquaries
• Mysterious shrines
• Winding catacombs

In our digital-only line, train-heist themed Starfinder One-Shot #2: The Great Grav Train Robbery is available now!

Plus, new Pathfinder and Starfinder Society Scenarios and a Pathfinder Bounty release via Paizo.com on Friday, November 19

Pathfinder Bounty #16: Boom Town Betrayal

DESIGNED FOR LEVEL 1
A citizen is in search of heroes! His parents recently found themselves swindled by a nefarious noble from distant Taldor. Needing adventurers to come and assist, the man offers a hefty reward for any assistance that can be provided. Of course, not everything is as it appears on the mean streets of Absalom.

Written by: Logan Harper
Logan Harper (she/her) is a customer service representative at Paizo as well as a freelance contributor for Pathfinder and Starfinder who has written for projects including Book of the Dead and Horizon’s of the Vast. She is a film, commercial, and voiceover actress with two adorable pups and an Animal Crossing obsession. You can find her on twitter @itsloganharper where she mostly talks about upcoming projects, video games, comic books, and TV/movies.

Shop the Paizo Store and your favorite local game store today!

Look, the plan couldn’t be simpler. Just rappel onto the roof of a speeding train filled with armed gangsters, somehow get inside, get the passcode that opens the cargo car off the chief of security without alerting their army of goons, locate and grab that artifact everyone’s after, and then call your getaway pilot for an extraction before the train reaches its destination. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

Starfinder One-Shot: The Great Grav-Train Robbery, written by Andrew White, can be completed in a single 3- to 4-hour session and includes four 6th-level pregenerated antiheroes whose stories and motivations tie into the plot of the adventure. (Pregenerated characters for this adventure are also available as a free download.) If players create their own characters, they can use the adventure background to customize their characters to the adventure. This adventure can be easily used on virtual tabletops, run off digital devices, or printed out and played at a table.

Author: Andrew White
Andrew White (he/him) is the lead front-end developer on paizo.com and a Pathfinder and Starfinder freelance contributor who has written for projects including the Advanced Player's Guide, Bestiary 3, Secrets of Magic, Guns & Gears, Tech Revolution, Drift Crisis, and Book of the Dead. He also recently wrote a piece of web fiction about a bunch of goblins heroically burning down a village with assistance from a giant pig. He has a Twitter where he mostly just retweets his more eloquent colleagues at @plaguecontrol.

About the Pregenerated Characters

The boss recruited a ragtag band of miscreants for this job, all of them active players in Pan’s criminal underworld for some time. They consider themselves independent contractors and are already familiar with each other by reputation, if not by personal experience. While each has their own reasons for taking up a life of crime, they all share one thing in common: animosity toward the Ixo Syndicate, which means the opportunity to rob them is almost as tempting as the payday.

The Face: Aramesh Maageri

Species: spathinae
Theme: grifter
Class: envoy

The Muscle: Barat Oza

Species: ijtikri
Theme: mercenary
Class vanguard

The Hacker: Kevan Bokoloff

Species: uplifted bear
Theme: scholar
Class: technomancer

The Thief: LNA-464

Species: SRO
Theme: space pirate
Class: operative

Announcing the Liveplay Cast

Watch the live-play premiere on Wednesday, November 10 at 6 PM Pacific on @OfficialPaizo on Twitch!

Michelle Nguyen Bradley

Pathfinder Beginner Box: Troubles in Otari
Starfinder: Scoured Stars
Pathfinder One-Shot: Sundered Waves at Gen Con
Starfinder One-Shot: Band on the Run

Michelle Nguyen Bradley is a show host, voice actor, writer, and professional TTRPG player, and is passionate about fostering community and equality in the geek space. She's played characters like Hoa Sen on Critical Role’s "The Elder Scrolls Online: Blackwood," a butterfly alien on Paizo's "Starfinder: Scoured Stars" campaign, Betty on the official Rat Queen's RPG from Hyper RPG, a huntress wizard on "The Department of Mysteries" from Dragons and Things, and many more personas through her work on RPG shows. She's hosted geek content like Anime Expo Lite, "Manga Book Club" for Viz Media, and "Button Mash" on the Total Nerd Network. Michelle currently appears as a regular cast member for Paizo and Hunters Entertainment's weekly TTRPG shows on Twitch. Find her work at michellenguyenbradley.com and follow her on all socials at @iamchubbybunny.

Jim Rodehaver

Pathfinder Beginner Box: Troubles in Otari
Starfinder: Scoured Stars
Pathfinder One-Shot: Sundered Waves at Gen Con
Starfinder One-Shot: Band on the Run

Jim Rodehaver writes and plays TTRPGs, sometimes during live-streams on The Dragons and Things Network (twitch.tv/thedatnetwork). He’s written content for Starfinder and Dungeon Crate, as well as all the home-brewed adventures for his streamed games. Having GM'd over 200 live actual-play games of Pathfinder and the Starfinder Scoured Stars liveplay, Jim brings his experience to the Paizo community firsthand.

Diana Restrepo

Starfinder: Scoured Stars

Diana Restrepo is an actress, sword fighter, and TTRPG stream player. She has done many short films and web series along with her most recent award-winning series Carpool. She has been part of the DaT Network since the beginning of “Walking in Circles,” “Dragons and Stuff,” and “Dragons and Things.” Recently she was part of the new Pathfinder for Savage Worlds series, “Hollow’s Last Hope.” Currently, she joins the Norse Foundry channel on their show “Fenrir Rising.” When she’s not acting, she’s perfecting her sword fighting and motion capture skills. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram @dianares3.

Jenny Jarzabski

Jenny Jarzabski is a Developer at Paizo. She’s also a prolific freelance writer creating adventures, rules, and setting content for Pathfinder, Starfinder, and more. Jenny is passionate about anime, games, mechs, and all things sci-fi. Growing up, she was the weird kid who made up stories and created her own imaginary world. She never grew out of it. When Jenny isn’t developing or writing adventures, she builds models, plays outdoors, and sometimes streams on Twitch. She appeared in Paizo’s “Pungeon Crawl: Worlds Beyond” and “Mind the Gap” as Z, an astrazoan operative and vidgame addict. Starting this week, she’s joining Thurston Hillman to play Modiphius Entertainment’s Dune TTRPG (hosted on twitch.tv/oncallgm) and plans to launch her own Starfinder live play in 2022. Rumors that Jenny is an alien life form are still unconfirmed. Find out for sure by following her on Twitter @spaceprincess_j and stopping by twitch.tv/spaceprincessj.

GM: Thurston Hillman

Thurston Hillman hails from the frozen hinterlands of Winnipeg, Manitoba, where he constantly churns out words and runs tabletop games. In addition to being Paizo's Digital Developer, he was active in the creation of the Starfinder Society Organized Play program and outlined its first two seasons (including the well-received Scoured Stars storyline). Thurston has written countless products for Paizo and other companies as a freelance writer. He is the Gamemaster for the popular "Warhams" TTRPG comedy show on Twitch. You can find him on social media @oncallgm and over at twitch.tv/oncallgm where he sometimes streams his RPG sessions and talks about game design and narrative in games. Also, he apologizes for any Organized Play scenarios he developed that killed your character (seriously, he means it!)

Download your copy then watch the live-play on twitch.tv/officialpaizo on November 10 at 6 PM Pacific!

Extra Life 2021, supporting the Children’s Hospital Network, runs on November 5th, and Paizo is supporting their fundraising efforts! This year, Paizo is a community partner, or super team, and we’re inviting our community to join us, whether as a team or as an individual. Check out our team page!

So far, we’ve joined with our Pathfinder and Starfinder Community Creators, including WafflesMapleSyrup, We Run the Stars, Nat20 Productions, and Pod Against the Machine for some live-plays, podcasts, and other streaming events, and we will be hosting as many as possible on Paizo’s Twitch channel. Look to social media for more schedule announcements.

Organized Play is also hosting a double points weekend for games running that weekend.

Extra Life Resources:

Download Extra Life Mobile App

Extra Life Discord Server

Extra Life Media Kit

How to set up Facebook Fundraiser on DonorDrive for Extra Life:

Use the Facebook Fundraiser feature to help increase their fundraising efforts!

• Those who use Facebook fundraisers are raising $300 more on average than those who are not.
• Pro Tip: Invite your Facebook friends to your fundraiser and post photos/updates on your fundraiser wall!
• Our Extra Life team is encouraging Extra Lifers in Discord and on social platforms. With your help, we can continue to reach a larger audience to use this wonderful feature to increase $$$ raised!
• Check out this how-to video for setting up a Facebook fundraiser that you can share with your gamers!

We invite anyone who wishes to join us to register on the Extra Life website, then join us on November 6th as we raise money for Children’s Network Hospitals!

Calling all Pathfinders, Starfinders, and everyone else—go to Team Paizo’s Super Team page for Extra Life!

EXTRA LIFE Game Day is Saturday Nov. 6!

Let’s play games so that children’s hospitals in the United States and Canada have the funding they need.

We’ve participated in Extra Life in the past, but this year we’re excited to have a Super Team to help rally the Paizo community under our banner. Join us as we play games to heal kids. We’ll have guests, laughs, and of course... games!

Since this is our first time throwing our d20s in the ring, we wanted to make a big splash. Please create an account and join up! With the full power of Team Paizo and our amazing community, we will make a difference for the kids and Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals.

Buff up those dice, sharpen your pencils, and grab your Character Folio, because we’re about to start a marathon... FOR THE KIDS!

Create a Sub-Team
Start your own Paizo sub-team! All the funds your team raises count toward meeting our 2021 goal. Your team will raise funds for the hospital of your choice.

Join Team Paizo!
You don't need to create your own team if you don't want to. Just hit the button and join up with Team Paizo! Our funds will go to hospitals in North America that need them most.

Add Your Team to Our Super Team
Have a team already? Have trouble or questions? Please email community@paizo.com with your team name and captain. We will set you up!

Stay tuned for more participant details!

Go to paizo.me/ExtraLife to Join!

Free RPG Day works with top RPG publishers to create the can’t-miss RPG event of the year at hobby game stores around the world. Participating stores will have piles of exclusive new RPG adventures and other exciting new RPG-related items!

Don’t miss the new adventures we’ve made just for the event!

The Starfinder Four vs. the Hardlight Harlequin and Pathfinder: The Threshold of Knowledge

And don’t miss the Pathfinder: Threshold of Knowledge SoundPack from Syrinscape!

These print products will be available only in print at your FLGS on October 16. On November 19th, they will be for sale on paizo.com and downloadable as free PDFs. The SoundPack will be available for some time.

Find past Free RPG Day products here!

• Pathfinder
• Starfinder

Find Your Retailer

The Starfinder universe is vast and full of adventures just waiting to be discovered. Sometimes, captains of the grand ships that soar between the stars decide it’s time to move to a new vessel for the next phase of their journey. So it is with Jenny Jarzabski, who has been the stalwart captain of the Starfinder Society ship for the past year. She is moving fully on to the Starfinder team, where she will continue to produce excellent adventures in the form of standalone adventures and AP volumes.

But never fear; the Master of Stars is in good hands. Our new First Seeker, Jessica Catalan, has the creative vision and experience to chart a bold course for the Society’s future. Jessica has consistently proven herself as one of Paizo’s most talented, versatile, and dependable freelancers. It’s been a pleasure to work with her, and I’m delighted to bring her on to the Digital Adventures team.

Hello! My name is Jessica Catalan and I’m beyond thrilled to announce I’ll be taking over as Starfinder Society Developer!

Some of you may have heard of me, but for those who haven’t, let me introduce myself. I’m a Canadian, Métis freelance TTRPG author and a regular contributor to both the Pathfinder and Starfinder RPGs. I’ve been a freelance author for nearly three years, and in that time, I’ve contributed to over 30 Paizo products, including three AP volumes, five Starfinder Society Scenarios, and two Pathfinder Society Scenarios, one of which was this year’s Pathfinder Society Special: #3-99 Fate in the Future. I’ve also done freelance development work on the upcoming Starfinder Galactic Magic.

Some of my recent work includes Pathfinder’s Secrets of Magic, Guns & Gears, and Lost Omens Grand Bazaar, and Starfinder’s Galaxy Exploration Manual, Tech Revolution, and the Starfinder #39: The Gilded Cage. Some of my upcoming releases include Pathfinder’s Book of the Dead, Lost Omens Knights of Lastwall, Pathfinder #176: Lost Mammoth Valley, and Pathfinder #186: Ghost King’s Rage, and Starfinder’s Galactic Magic and Drift Crisis.

Before becoming a freelance author, I managed d20diaries, a personal blog discussing my family’s experiences in d20 gaming. While my blog has long since taken a backseat to freelancing, it still gets a periodic update when time allows. When I’m not playing or writing for my favorite TTRPGs, I’m spending time with my kids. I’m a sucker for a good book, board game, video game, or TCG.

Jenny has made a huge contribution to Starfinder and has been a shining light as leader of the Starfinder Society. She’s left me an impressive legacy to measure up to and, while I’m still settling into my new role, I look forward to bringing my best to the Society. I hope you’ll join me.

Jessica Catalan
Starfinder Society Developer

Stay tuned for details on what’s coming down the pike for October, including an adventure written by Jessica herself!

Linda Zayas-Palmer
Development Manager for Digital Adventures

This month’s releases are numerous and innovative! You’ll find over 14 new Pathfinder and Starfinder products, like rulebooks, setting books, adventures, pawns, minis, maps, and more, at the Paizo Store and your favorite local game store today!

Pathfinder Guns & Gears

Gear Up and Throw Down!
When sword and spell aren’t enough to win the day, it’s time to power up your game with clockwork gears, lightning coils, and black powder! Unravel the secrets of clockworks with the new inventor class or blow away your opposition as a firearm-wielding gunslinger. In addition to new classes, this book holds a plethora of archetypes, backgrounds, vehicles, siege weapons, gadgets, and the new automaton ancestry, all ready to expand your game with options for battlefields large and small. Revolutionize your game with Pathfinder Guns & Gears!

Pathfinder Guns & Gears Special Edition

This deluxe special edition is bound in faux leather with metallic deboss cover elements and a bound-in ribbon bookmark.

Pathfinder Lost Omens: The Grand Bazaar

But Wait, There’s More!
A turn of the corner on a city street reveals a marketplace where almost anything can be found! Peruse the stalls of the Grand Bazaar as your characters examine both the mundane and the marvelous, seeking the perfect gear for their next harrowing adventure. Give an unfamiliar weapon a swing, try on a fashionista’s gown or a suit of armor, make friends with a chatty familiar or companion animal, pick up an assistive item that makes exploration accessible for every adventurer, settle down for a gourmet meal, or simply befriend the cast of vibrant characters that maintain the collection of shops presented in Pathfinder Lost Omens Grand Bazaar!

Starfinder Adventure: The Liberation of Locus-1

THE EDGE OF SPACE
Scientists, mystics, and corporate interests came together to found Locus-1, a research station and outpost far from the Pact Worlds. Now Sidakana, a ruthless vesk space pirate, has made the Locus system her personal playground, and the innocent people of Locus-1 have turned to the nearest military power—the Azlanti Star Empire—for help. When the cure proves worse than the disease, it’s up to a small group of bold newcomers to save the station and all its inhabitants from death or enslavement!

Designed to give player characters a home base in a remote region filled with adventure, “The Liberation of Locus-1” is the perfect next step for players and GMs who’ve completed Starfinder Adventure: Junker’s Delight. It includes:

• “The Liberation of Locus-1,” a complete adventure for 4th-level characters, leading them to 7th-level.
• All the details on Locus-1, a remote space station orbiting the Locus—a strange cosmic anomaly— as well as other planets in the Locus system, all with mysteries of their own.
• An Adventure Toolbox with new experimental weapons and equipment fueled by the Locus; new playable species who serve in the Azlanti Star Empire’s Alien Cohort; and the predatory mindshroud rays—horrifying symbiotes from the beyond.

Pathfinder Adventure: Night of the Gray Death

Don’t Lose Your Head!
Galt’s executioners, the masked Gray Gardeners, behead the guilty and innocent alike with their magical guillotines. Few have the courage to stand against them—so powerful heroes must infiltrate the Gray Gardeners and put an end to their reign of terror! Pathfinder Adventure: Night of the Gray Death is a deluxe Gothic horror adventure for 16th-level characters, written by Ron Lundeen. It exposes the secrets of the Gray Gardeners with new monsters, new magic items, and new challenges to test the mightiest heroes. Mysteries and intrigue abound during the Night of the Gray Death!

Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Night of the Gray Death

Bring horror and conspiracy to life on your tabletop with this double-sided full-color Flip-Mat featuring key encounter locations from the Pathfinder Second Edition adventure Night of the Gray Death on either side! One side depicts a crumbled vault, and the other side shows a ballroom suitable for an eerie masquerade, with alcoves and nooks for scheming or skullduggery! Don't waste your time sketching when you could be playing. With Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Night of the Gray Death, adventure and intrigue await!

Starfinder Adventure Path #41: Serpents in the Cradle (Horizons of the Vast 2 of 6)

GROWING PAINS
Analyzing information found in the ruins of a laboratory in their charter leads the heroes deep underground to search for an ancient Cycle monastery. When they return to the surface, they find that a rogue group of settlers have established a town at the edge of the administrators’ charter. As the heroes learn more about these interlopers, things begin to go subtly wrong in their own settlement. Are the newcomers behind this sabotage? Will the heroes solve this problem through diplomacy or force?

This Starfinder Adventure Path volume continues the Horizons of the Vast Adventure Path and includes:

• “Serpents in the Cradle,” a Starfinder adventure for 3rd-level characters, by Hilary Moon Murphy.
• A detailed look at the shady organization known as the Aspis Consortium, by John Compton.
• A toolbox featuring relics of an ancient philosophy, a collection of creatures that could threaten a burgeoning charter, and a glimpse at a world with an ocean of liquid mercury, by Jenny Jarzabski, Andrew Mullen, Hilary Moon Murphy, Jess Nevins, Mikhail Rekun, and Jim Seals.
• Statistics and deck plans for a premier exploration and reconnaissance vessel designed especially for the Aspis Consortium, by Kendra Leigh Speedling.

Pathfinder Adventure Path: Hurricane's Howl (Strength of Thousands 3 of 6)

The Students Become the Teachers
Now graduates of the Magaambya academy of magic, the heroes join the ranks of its teachers! Sent with their first class to the edge of the Mwangi Expanse, the heroes unearth ancient ruins and strive to keep their expedition out of danger. When a student vanishes, the heroes uncover a nefarious plot to subjugate the rain-lashed Sodden Lands. They must liberate a town, stop an evil cult, and show their students how to stand as wardens of the world. The Strength of Thousands Adventure Path continues with “Hurricane’s Howl,” a complete adventure for 8th- to 11th-level characters.

Pathfinder Adventure Path #172: Secrets of the Temple-City (Strength of Thousands 4 of 6)

From the Necropolis to the Lost City
As trusted teachers at the Magaambya academy of magic, the heroes join a diplomatic delegation to an ancient city ruled by an undead god-king. There, the heroes unearth the secret location of a hidden city that needs the Magaambya’s knowledge and protection—but the god-king’s armies are on the march. If the heroes can’t thwart the army, it will plunder the lost city’s treasures and unleash an ancient evil! The Strength of Thousands Adventure Path continues with “Secrets of the Temple-City,” a complete adventure for 12th- to 14th-level characters.

Starfinder Tech Revolution Pawn Collection

The characters, vehicles, and mechs of the Starfinder Tech Revolution come alive on your tabletop with this collection of more than 100 pawns, designed for use with the Starfinder Roleplaying Game or any tabletop science fantasy RPG! The Starfinder Tech Revolution Pawn Collection presents beautiful full-color images of characters, vehicles, and mechs, perfect for representing your next character or deadly foe! Printed on sturdy cardstock, each double-sided pawn slots into a size-appropriate plastic base from the Starfinder Pawns Base Assortment, making them easy to mix with traditional metal or plastic miniatures. The Starfinder Tech Revolution Pawn Collection is the best way to ensure you’ve got the perfect characters, vehicles, and mechs to bring your Starfinder campaign to life!

Pathfinder Flip-Mat Classics: Thieves' Guild

Whether your players are plumbing the depths of a treasure vault or escaping through a sewer, no Game Master wants to spend time drawing sites for the complex maze of a thieves’ guild. Fortunately, with Paizo’s latest Pathfinder Flip-Mat, you don't have to! This line of gaming maps provides ready-to-use and captivatingly detailed fantasy set-pieces for the busy Game Master. Whether it's used for a full-on invasion of a thieves' guild's headquarters or tracking down a burglar, this double-sided map is the perfect place for larcenous adventure! Don't waste your time sketching when you could be playing. With Pathfinder Flip-Mat Classics: Thieves' Guild, you'll be ready next time your players dare to oppose the city's criminals!

Starfinder Flip-Mat: Space Colony

Whether the heroes are investigating the mysterious disappearance of a lost colony’s inhabitants or looking to put down their own roots on some distant planet, no Game Master wants to spend time drawing every prefab building and power generator. Fortunately, with Paizo’s latest Starfinder Flip-Mat, you don’t have to! This line of gaming maps provides ready-to-use science-fantasy set pieces for the busy Game Master. This double-sided map features two newly established colonial settlements. Don’t waste time sketching when you could be playing. With Starfinder Flip-Mat: Space Colony, you’ll be ready the next time your players want to settle a new world!

Pathfinder Flip-Tiles: Fortress Walls & Towers Expansion

A fortress is only as strong as its walls and towers, and it's here that many battles for a castle's control are won or lost. Pathfinder Flip-Tiles: Fortress Walls & Towers Expansion provides beautifully illustrated 6" by 6" map tiles that can be used to expand your fortress with a variety of defensive walls, stairways, watchtowers, and more. Inside, you'll find 24 richly crafted, double-sided map tiles. This expansion set, along with Pathfinder Flip-Tiles: Fortress Starter Set, allows you to create fortress maps quickly! So stop your sketching and start your flipping today.

Starfinder Flip-Tiles: Alien Planet Ruins Expansion

Don't ruin your next trip off world! Next time your players stumble upon some timeworn ruins on an unexplored planet, they won't have to wait while you draw every crumbling wall and collapsed structure. Starfinder Flip-Tiles: Alien Planet Ruins Expansion provides beautifully illustrated 6" × 6" map tiles that can be used to create the ruined remains of ancient alien civilizations, whether archaic and magical or more technologically advanced! Inside, you'll find 24 richly crafted, double-sided map tiles. This expansion set, along with Starfinder Flip-Tiles: Alien Planet Starter Set, allows you to create even more extraterrestrial environments for endless planetary encounters! So stop your sketching and start your flipping today!

Pathfinder Battles—Bestiary Unleashed

Containing some of the most iconic monsters in Pathfinder, Bestiary Unleashed brings your game to life as you collect and encounter 47 new foes. Pathfinder Battles—Bestiary Unleashed: Treerazer is the latest premium release in the Pathfinder Battles series of prepainted plastic miniatures from WizKids and Paizo Inc. With its Gargantuan size, Treerazer stands over 7 inches tall with a wingspan to match.

Treerazer premium figure features detailed painting at an eye-catching size. Add Treerazer to your RPG game to give your players a Gargantuan challenge, or use the premium figure as an intimidating display for your home or retail location.

Look for even more digital-only products, like Bounties, One-Shots, and Society Scenarios, releasing on Wednesday, October 27!

Shop the Paizo Store and your favorite local game store today!

Free RPG Day is right around the corner, and the Syrinscape team couldn’t be more excited. You probably already know that Paizo is offering up an amazing Pathfinder adventure called Threshold of Knowledge. But what you might not know is that Syrinscape will be along for the ride! As you and your fellow students work to figure out the mystery of your missing teacher, you’ll have the magic of Syrinscape to help set the scene.

We absolutely love the Magaambya setting and the Strength of Thousands Adventure Path. We’re working hard right now creating SoundPacks for each book in the series. In fact, Kindled Magic is out already, and the next one is on the way. Of course, we jumped at the opportunity to work on an extra SoundPack for this colorful magical institution. Since this is an adventure for Free RPG Day, it only made sense to offer up our immersive sounds and music for free as well. To take advantage of this special offer, all you have to do is log in or create a free account. Then, on Free RPG Day (October 16th), head to our Voucher page and enter the code: PaizoFreeRPGDay2021. Once you do, our Pathfinder: Threshold of Knowledge SoundPack will appear in your library for free!

If you’ve never used Syrinscape to add rich, immersive ambiences and music to your Pathfinder games, now is a great time to give it a try. Our app has been built with the GM in mind. Take your party from the depths of a dank sewer to a refreshing glade with a gentle breeze at the touch of a button. If you prefer to play your games remotely with a VTT, try the Syrinscape Online Player. You can add amazing sound and music to your online games regardless of the VTT or voice chat app you’re using. To learn more about the Online Player, check out our website. While you’re there, don’t forget to take a look at the full library of our Pathfinder and Starfinder SoundSets and SoundPacks.

Prepare for Free RPG Day: October 16, 2021

With the close of the Starfinder evolutionist playtest, we want to thank everyone who participated whether by filling out a survey or sharing thoughts on our forum or another venue.

We’re working on processing your input and (as appropriate for a class all about the power of change) making adjustments to help the evolutionist shine. Of note, we’re looking at the class complexity and its effectiveness in and out of combat, as well as some quality-of-life improvements (such as changing the name of its pool of points).

On top of that we’ll be very excited to share with you the product in which this new class will appear, so keep an eye out! For now, enjoy another glance at our iconic, illustrated by Kent Hamilton!

Thanks so much for your valuable feedback during this playtest and good luck on your adventures among the stars.

—The Starfinder Team

Roleplaying Game fans get ready!

Free RPG Day works with top RPG publishers to create the can’t-miss RPG event of the year at hobby game stores around the world. Participating stores will have piles of exclusive new RPG adventures and other exciting new RPG related items!

As the world begins the slow crawl out of COVID and back to something resembling normalcy, every store will probably be handling events differently. While some locations may have in-store gaming, others may not yet be there. Please check with your local retailer about how they may be featuring or distributing the Free RPG Day items.

Here are the new adventures we’ve made just for the event. They’re perfect for giving new players a taste Pathfinder and Starfinder!

The Starfinder Four vs. the Hardlight Harlequin

POWER UP!

Everyone across the galaxy enjoys the occasional diversion in a holographic amusement chamber, whether it’s relaxing on a sandy beach or taking part in an action-packed adventure on a war-torn battlefield from the safety of home. But what happens when the digital settings and inhabitants of these simulations come to life and threaten a group of innocent fun seekers?

Thanks to some inadvertently malicious code created by a proud game designer, such a calamitous event has occurred on a small moon hosting an entertainment expo! The building is slowly but surely being digitized while the game designer’s mind has been taken over by a comic-book villain. Only a group of newly recruited Starfinders can save the day!

Pathfinder: The Threshold of Knowledge

On the Brink of Greatness!

In The Threshold of Knowledge, players take on the role of one of five students from the prestigious Magaambya, the oldest school of magic in the Inner Sea region. When a teacher goes missing, it's up to these new heroes to step up and solve a wicked mystery that threatens the existence of the Magaambya itself!

Threshold of Knowledge is a short adventure for 1st-level characters that takes the heroes into the Magaambya and the nearby city of Nantambu. In addition, the five pregenerated characters provide a quick way to jump into the adventure right away in this exciting offering for Free RPG Day! Grab some dice and some friends and play the role of new heroes in training!

These products will only be available in print at your FLGS on October 16. Later, they will be for sale on paizo.com and downloadable and as free PDFs. Find past Free RPG Day products here!

• Pathfinder
• Starfinder

Find Your Retailer

Hiya, Starfinders! I have something special for you this month. A while back, I was discussing real-world current events that caused shipping delays with some friends, and someone jokingly commented that it would make a great Starfinder Society scenario. I couldn’t get the thought out of my head, and as I let the idea percolate, it kept getting weirder and weirder. How weird is it? Well, let’s just say the Society might solve a shipping crisis in more than one way.

This month, a group of Starfinders traveling in deep space encounter a distress beacon from a stalled cargo freighter. Once they investigate, they learn that the ship belongs to Multifold Industries, and that there’s something more to this problem than meets the eye. The mission is simple in theory: board the ship, assess it for damage, make any onsite repairs possible, and contact Multifold. Not a bad way to earn some credits, right? Ah, if only things were ever that easy…

Starfinder Society #4-08: Precious Cargo is an adventure for levels 1–4. The amazing Diego Valdez was my partner in crime for this one. We had a blast crafting this idea together, and he did an excellent job writing it—so check it out!

Jenny Jarzabski
Starfinder Society Developer

Illustration by Nicolas Espinoza

Hello again, Pathfinders! We’ve got two exciting scenarios for you in September, one of which continues the ongoing story of the Year of Shattered Sanctuaries, and one of which is a standalone adventure taking place in the Mwangi Expanse!

Illustration by Samuel Jr

First, a group of Pathfinder agents travel to Almas, the capital of the free nation of Andoran, to present a legal defense of the Society’s claim to the Cathedral of Aroden. Losing one of their most significant lodges in Andoran would be a devastating blow to the Society, but when these agents arrive, they find that legal troubles are the least of their worries. A troubled ghost stalks the nearby streets and seems to be accusing the Pathfinder Society of heinous deeds! Can the agents learn the truth behind the ghost’s message and prevent the Society’s precarious position in Almas from crumbling?

Pathfinder Society Scenario #3-02: The East Hill Haunting is the first scenario in a two-part Year of Shattered Sanctuaries metaplot arc related to strange events befalling the Pathfinder Society’s lodge in Almas, Andoran. It is an adventure for levels 1–4, written by Nicole Heits.

Next up, we have an adventure that follows another group of Pathfinders to Anthusis, the capital of Vidrian. The Pathfinder Society has been working to return looted relics to communities in this recently liberated nation in the Mwangi Expanse. Recently, the Society seized an opportunistic relic hunter’s ship and discovered a magic bell that appeared to contain protective magic to ward against ravenous fey. Venture-Captain Finze Bellaugh has sent out an urgent call for Pathfinder agents to discover where the bell came from and return it to its rightful owners as quickly as possible. To learn the bell’s true purpose and history, the Pathfinder agents must journey deep into the Laughing Jungle—where hopefully, they’ll meet more friends than foes!

Pathfinder Society Scenario #3-03: Echoes of Desperation is a standalone adventure for levels 3–6, written by Mike Kimmel and Nate Wright.

Explore! Report! Cooperate! And would somebody please get me some sovereign glue to hold these sanctuaries together!

Mike Kimmel
Pathfinder Society Developer

Deepen your Pathfinder and Starfinder experiences with the new Starfinder Tech Revolution hardcover rulebook, Pathfinder Bestiary 3 Battle Cards, and Pathfinder Fists of the Ruby Phoenix Pawn Collection accessories at the Paizo Store and your favorite local game store today!

Starfinder Tech Revolution

REVOLUTIONIZE YOUR GAME
Put the science back in science-fantasy with Starfinder Tech Revolution! This book expands on Starfinder’s cutting-edge technologies—which are often so sophisticated that they rival magic itself—providing your characters the tools to thrive in a futuristic setting. Whether you’re racing the streets in a custom vehicle, planning your next big digital heist, or arming your mech to fight dragons, Tech Revolution has what you need, including:

• The new nanocyte character class, whose body hosts an of robotic nanites that empower and defend you in battle!
• The new mech system: design your own titanic battle robots with customizable parts and armaments, then hop into the cockpit and square off against epic threats!
• New rules to enhance gameplay with customizable vehicles, demolitions, and dynamic hacking.
• New player character options, from technology-themed rules for every character class to technological relics, weapons, armor, augmentations, and more.
• A detailed dive into the Starfinder setting’s technological lore, from biotech and computers to media and music.

Pathfinder Bestiary 3 Battle Cards

Add legions of monstrous foes to your collection with this massive set of reference cards, featuring every creature from Pathfinder Bestiary 3—over 300 monsters! Each 4 x 6 card is printed on sturdy cardstock and features a beautiful, full color image of a Bestiary 3 monster on one side, while the other side provides that monster's statistics for quick and easy reference. With each encounter, show the players what their characters are facing while keeping the monster's abilities at the ready, and watch your games come alive!

Pathfinder Fists of the Ruby Phoenix Pawn Collection

Step into the arena and pit your players against ruthless rivals from the Fists of the Ruby Phoenix Adventure Path! The Fists of the Ruby Phoenix Pawn Collection features more than 170 creature pawns for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game or any tabletop fantasy RPG. Printed on sturdy cardstock, each pawn presents a beautiful full-color image of a monster or NPC from the Fists of the Ruby Phoenix campaign, including malevolent martial artists, charming challengers, and brutal beasts to meet, beat, and defeat in the grand arena!

Shop the Paizo Store and your favorite local game store today!

Join Paizo Publisher and Chief Creative Officer Erik Mona for a peek at upcoming Paizo releases!

highlights include:

Pathfinder Rulebooks:
Guns & Gears, Book of the Dead, and now — Dark Archive!

Pathfinder Lost Omens:
The Grand Bazaar, Pathfinder Lost Omens: Absalom, City of Lost Omens Monsters of Myth, Knights of Lastwall, and now—Beadle & Grimm Pathfinder Lost Omens: Absalom, City of Lost Omens Special Edition!

Pathfinder Adventure Paths:
Pathfinder Adventure Path: Abomination Vaults Hardcover, Pathfinder Adventure Path: Abomination Vaults Special Edition Hardcover, Kingmaker Anniversary Edition, Quest for the Frozen Flame, Outlaws of Alkenstar, and now— Blood Lords Adventure Path!

Pathfinder Adventures:
Night of the Gray Death

Starfinder Rulebooks:
Tech Revolution, Galactic Magic, and now—Drift Crisis!

Starfinder Adventures:
The Liberation of Locus-1

New:
Pathfinder & Starfinder Infinite Licensing Program—Check out this blog more details!

Enjoy over 100 vivid art images. Don’t miss our staff seminars on Twitch for even more reveals. Happy Gen Con!

Today at Gen Con, we announced a new way for members of the Pathfinder and Starfinder communities to create content to expand the brands and make a lasting mark on the games we all love: Pathfinder and Starfinder Infinite.

Beginning on October 13, 2021, content creators will be able to sell adventures, fiction, setting supplements, rules expansions, maps, art packs, and more using Paizo’s intellectual property. That means that you can, for the first time, write an RPG supplement set in the official Pathfinder or Starfinder settings that references our locations, organizations, characters, deities and more, and sell it to your fellow players and GMs.

Want to tell the story of Kyra and Merisiel’s adventures on what they’d hoped would be a restful honeymoon? Now you can!

What about that side quest adventure you’ve always wanted to share to support your favorite Pathfinder Adventure Path? Now’s the time!

How about that custom character class or alien species you made for your Starfinder campaign that you just know others are going to love? Yep, that too.

Our partners at OneBookShelf (DriveThruRPG, DriveThruCards, Astral Tabletop) will be hosting and managing the program, bringing years of experience running similar community content marketplaces for other tabletop properties to bear.

Check out the content creation guidelines, frequently asked questions, and the starter layout templates and art assets available to community creators at pathfinderinfinite.com and starfinderinfinite.com.

We’ll have more information to share in the coming weeks, but the real excitement won’t start until all of you can share your Pathfinder and Starfinder creations with the world in just under a month. I’m looking forward to seeing what incredible things you come up with!

Mark Moreland
Director of Brand Strategy

Never miss a product release again with subscriptions that suit your playstyle. From rulebooks, world guides, adventures and accessories to the latest miniatures, customize your subscription and unlock greater rewards, like discounts and free Organized Play content.

Today, we’re taking a closer look at Paizo Subscriptions, what you can subscribe to right now, and what’s coming next. We’ve already looked at the Pathfinder Rulebook and Special Edition Rulebook Ongoing Subscriptions, Starfinder Rulebook Ongoing Subscription and Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscription.

You can start your Starfinder Adventure Path Ongoing Subscription today with Starfinder Adventure Path #39: The Gilded Cage (Fly Free or Die 6 of 6)and Starfinder Adventure Path #40: Planetfall (Horizons of the Vast 1 of 6), which are both available now, or Starfinder Adventure Path #41: Serpents in the Cradle (Horizons of the Vast 2 of 6) and Starfinder Adventure Path #42: Whispers of the Eclipse (Horizons of the Vast 3 of 6) both coming in October.

Then, look forward to acquiring your compete collection of the Starfinder Horizons of the Vast Adventure Path with your ongoing subscription. Don’t forget to download the free Player’s Guide, available on the landing page!

In the Starfinder Horizons of the Vast Adventure Path, as part of a massive effort to explore and develop an uninhabited planet full of valuable resources, the heroes are placed in control of a settlement and must deal with challenges from both within and without. Far from home, can the heroes establish a thriving community and survive the uncharted system’s terrible secrets and mysteries?

But what comes after that, you ask? To find out, be sure to watch Erik Mona’s Gen Con Online Keynote next Thursday, September 16 at 3 p.m. Eastern on twitch.tv/officialpaizo. Follow up with the Telling Tales: Paizo Adventure Paths seminar on Saturday at 18th, also at 3.

Become a Subscriber Today!

When you become an ongoing subscriber to one of Paizo’s many product lines, you'll be sure to get the latest and greatest Pathfinder and Starfinder products shipped to you directly from the Paizo warehouse upon release. There’s a variety of subscriptions to choose from, with benefits ranging from free PDF copies, discounts, and more. As a bonus, when you sign up for any four or more qualifying physical Pathfinder or Starfinder subscriptions, you'll qualify to gain access to the Paizo Advantage, which grants you a 15% discount on most products available at paizo.com, and your choice of complimentary Pathfinder or Starfinder Society Scenarios. Sign up for six or more qualifying subscriptions, and you'll get both!

SUBSCRIBE TODAY!

The earth shook. To Iphra, the rumbling sounded like a passing heavy transport. She realized she wouldn’t maintain her footing. Iphra fired her jump jets. Being in the air stabilized her enough to avoid a nasty fall from the ridgetop she had been standing on.

The tremor passed.

“Sergeant Udrinnel, report. End.” It was Lieutenant Markalane from the shuttle a couple miles away, her voice calm but insistent.

“I’m fine. That was a good one, eh, lieutenant? End,” said Iphra.

“Affirmative, sergeant. Our engineer clocked it at a solid six on the imperial scale. Deploy your final booster and return to the shuttle. Aftershocks are anticipated. End.”

“Acknowledged. End,” said Iphra.

Her mind wandered. She ignored Markalane checking in with other scouts. Iphra thought of the engineer, Winya, a gosclaw. Long, supple, feline—a real pro. Winya’s briefing had warned of quakes on Grodrum, but this one was the first the survey team had experienced.

Iphra looked for the safest way to descend the ridge, glancing at the map on her visor’s head-up display. Her final deployment marker lay half a mile away in a valley to the east. The landscape was barren, but it wasn’t boring. Minerals and crystals on Grodrum—the reason the survey team came here—gave the planet a multihued aspect that could be breathtaking.

Equally stunning was the Locus, an eerie, starlike body that illuminated this system. The briefing had said it was magical, not a “real” star, whatever that meant. Iphra turned to face it. The Locus hung low in the sky, shedding its white light through the thin atmosphere. Grodrum’s long day was dwindling.

Iphra began her descent, using her jump jets to avoid treacherous gaps. About halfway down, the ground shuddered again. A crashing sound to Iphra’s right sent her heart into her throat and activated her instincts. She fired her jump jets and leapt. Part of the ridge slid away under her, and she descended onto moving rock. Iphra fired her jump jets again.

“Come on! Come on! Come on!”

The second leap threw her clear of the slide zone. Iphra took cover on the downhill side of a solid-looking outcropping and crouched, leaning against the rock. She closed her eyes and caught her breath. Then, as she opened her eyes again, she spotted it: a jagged, beautiful pinnacle of white crystal jutted from the valley below. It hadn’t been there before. Iphra looked at her deployment marker and saw that the crystal wasn’t too far from it. A little north.

“Sergeant Udrinnel?! Please respond! End!”

Iphra realized she must have missed a communication from the lieutenant.

“Udrinnel here. Uh, I’m good. A little landslide, but we’re good. Uh… and lieutenant, a mass of crystal erupted from the planet’s surface near my deployment marker. Sending you a visual. Any change in my orders? End.”

“Stand by. But keep safe, sergeant. End.”

Iphra descended toward the deployment marker as she waited. When she reached level ground, she turned and looked back up the ridge, standing in the shadow of the hills. The landslide had revealed a fissure in the rock, or the quake had cracked the slope.

“Sergeant, proceed as planned. I’ve been advised the booster you’re deploying will still allow us a detailed scan of that crystal from our location. The concern is the area near the crystal might be unstable. Get it done and return to the shuttle. Let’s call it a day. End.”

“Aye, lieutenant. End,” said Iphra.

Disappointment rose. It would’ve been nice to see that crystal up close. To touch it. That sort of thing makes being a scout one of the best jobs in the imperial military. But orders were orders. Besides, Iphra supposed she might have another chance, after scans verified the area’s stability and geological content. She turned, stood, and gazed. The crystal’s tip glistened in the waning light of the Locus.

“Contact, contact!” The voice of Sergeant Enosh, another scout, erupted over the comm. Assault rifle bursts were audible in the background.

Iphra recalled the mission brief. Orbital probes had shown Grodrum bore only simple surface life. Nothing should be here to shoot at. Still, Iphra unslung her rifle as Lieutenant Markalane’s voice broke in over the comm again.

Iphra heard only the start of that exchange. In her peripheral vision, something massive, amorphous, and multilimbed emerged from the shadow on the rocky slope to her left. It struck Iphra three times before she could react. She fell. The impact knocked the wind out of her. Pain along her flank suggested broken ribs. Environmental force fields kicked on, patching cracks in the armor on her left arm and side.

The creature loomed over her, blocking the sky. It slid its malleable arms around her. Numerous orbs that glowed with white light focused on her, burning with malevolence. Were they eyes? Was this thing sapient?

The thoughts came unbidden. Iphra raised her rifle, levering it into automatic mode by muscle memory more than intent. She pressed the trigger. Horrid shrieking drowned out the rifle’s reports.

The monster recoiled. Unhindered even if it was injured, it lifted Iphra with it and squeezed. Sergeant Iphra Udrinnel’s vision went white with searing pain, then collapsed to black.

---

“Look alive, squad! The L.T. will be here shortly.”

Markalane heard the baritone bark as she rounded the corner into the palace’s parade yard. She folded her hands behind her. Pausing, she took in the troopers before her. The dominus, her lord, had assigned her soldiers, the expendable kind, for the next stage of her assignment.

She frowned.

In the yard, tromlins formed two neat lines. Bloodseekers, theropadal bipeds, stood alongside quadrupedal ceratopsid hardshells. These dinosaur-like people formed the rank and file of the dominus’s Alien Cohort. A barrel-shaped figure in light military plate, the rank of sergeant marked on his gorget, paced before them. The sergeant’s head, pale-furred and ursine, looked too small in the armor.

Illustration by Yun Huai Huang from Starfinder Adventure: The Liberation of Locus-1.

Markalane recognized this gathol—Sergeant Narg. Underneath the armor, she knew, Narg’s body was massive, covered in the same pale fur and several stonelike plates. His people were among the few in the Cohort tough enough and willing to keep fractious tromlins in line.

Turning to continue inspecting the squad, Narg spotted Markalane. He paused. Then, in the same sharp baritone, he said, “Officer on the field! Attention!”

Every soldier snapped into a formal stance. Markalane strode around the squad in silence, glaring at each soldier in turn. None moved. None dared return her gaze.

“We’ve been assigned a special mission,” she finally said. “We’re taking a mining team to a new system to recover a unique mineral. You are to keep order during this operation. Good Azlanti scouts died to make this mission possible, troopers. Honor them, me, and yourselves by performing your duties well. I expect no less.”

“Yes, lieutenant!” replied every tromlin in unison.

“Sergeant Narg.”

“Aye, Lieutenant Markalane?”

“The selected troopers must be ready to fly by oh seven hundred. Mining droids, security equipment, and remaining gear must be secured aboard the shuttle and ready for inspection then as well. That’s on you, this squad, and the other field sergeants. Got it?”

“Understood, lieutenant.”

“Good. Get it done.”

About The Author

Chris S. Sims is an RPG industry veteran. Starting in 2001, he has worked with or for numerous companies from Paizo and Wizards to Monte Cook Games and Undead Labs. This piece is his first flash fiction. Chris is American but currently lives in Austria with his wife, two daughters, and two cats. He recently made an RPG called Draculola with those daughters. When he isn't doing freelance writing or editing, Chris avoids sleep by cooking, meditating, playing games, playing with his kids, or something else entertaining. You can find out more about Chris and how to contact him at chrisssims.com.

About Tales From The Drift

The Tales from the Drift series of web-based flash fiction provides an exciting glimpse into the setting of the Starfinder Roleplaying Game. Written by members of the Starfinder development team and some of the most celebrated authors in tie-in gaming fiction, the Tales from the Drift series promises to explore the worlds, alien cultures, deities, history, and organizations of the Starfinder setting with engaging stories to inspire Game Masters and players alike.

There are just a few weeks left in the open playtest period for Starfinder’s upcoming evolutionist class. If you haven't already downloaded the free playtest PDF and tried out the new class, you still have time! The playtest ends September 24th, and we need your feedback to make this class the best it can be.

We’re especially excited to share with you a concept sketch of the evolutionist iconic, by our own Kent Hamilton! Look for more information about this new character in the future.

Illustration by Kent Hamilton

If you haven’t yet, test out an evolutionist build in a home game or in Starfinder Organized Play, then share your thoughts via our survey or playtest forum.

We're already processing the feedback you've sent us so far and are discussing the ways we might improve the evolutionist class. Also, if you missed our update elsewhere, please note that the evolutionist loses all EP at the end of combat!

Thank you so much for your respectful and productive survey responses and forum conversations—these are invaluable sources of feedback, and we've been keeping a close eye on them. We’re especially interested in any thoughts you have about the complexity of the class.

For those who have already participated in the playtest, we thank you, and to those who plan to still send us feedback: we eagerly await your thoughts!

—The Starfinder Team

In every adventure, the heroes face adversity to win the day. Likewise, these thrilling new tools and tales have overcome obstacles to arrive at the Paizo Store and your favorite local game store today!

Pathfinder Secrets of Magic

Seize the Secrets!
Discover the untold potential of magic! Create a unique and powerful spellcaster using the new magus and summoner classes. Choose from over 200 new spells with options for all spellcasters, excavate new magic items, and dive into lore that explores the mysteries of magic in detail. Elementalism, geomancy, shadow magic, rune magic, and pervasive magic that alters the entire game world—it’s all here in Pathfinder Secrets of Magic!

Pathfinder Secrets of Magic Special Edition Hardcover

This deluxe special edition is bound in faux leather with metallic deboss cover elements and a bound-in ribbon bookmark.

Pathfinder Secrets of Magic Pocket Edition

The pocket edition presents the same contents in a smaller sized softcover for a lower price and better portability.

Pathfinder Adventure Path #170: Spoken on the Song Wind (Strength of Thousands 2 of 6)

Trouble in the Academy
The students have proved their mettle to their instructors at the Magaambya, who now trust them to handle academy business in the surrounding metropolis of Nantambu, the Song-Wind City. Nantambu now faces more than its usual dangers, including a vengeful alchemist, stealthy infiltrators, and a crime boss bent on expanding her influence. Can the students discover the secrets of a mysterious artifact, protect their fellow classmates, and still graduate? The Strength of Thousands Adventure Path continues with “Spoken on the Song Wind,” a complete adventure for 4th- to 7th-level characters.

Pathfinder Bounty #13: The Blackwood Abundance

A Pathfinder Bounty designed for 1st level.
A recent rescue mission led to the discovery of many ruined sites from an ancient civilization. Some of the ruins contain an abundance of strange mushrooms, and a curious explorer asks the PCs to help collect and identify them. This adventure ties in to events in Pathfinder Society Intro #2: United in Purpose, though it doesn’t assume the PCs are members of the Pathfinder Society.

Pathfinder Society Intro #1: The Second Confirmation

A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 1-2.
A Pathfinder Society initiate goes missing on their Confirmation mission to become a fully-fledged field agent. With no update on the initiate’s whereabouts, the Society assembles a group of initiates into a rare group Confirmation in order to spearhead a rescue. It’s up to a new generation of heroes to save one of their own, and potentially make a few big discoveries along the way!

Pathfinder Society Intro #2: United in Purpose

A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 1-2.
When a group of Pathfinder Society initiates recently completed their Confirmation and rescued a fellow Pathfinder, they also uncovered a host of ruins belonging to an ancient civilization. Now, the Society’s major factions have sent their foremost experts and leaders to begin coordinating a thorough investigation of the ruins. Strong and savvy field agents are needed to begin uncovering the secrets hidden within these ruins!

Pathfinder Society #3-01: Intro: Year of Shattered Sanctuaries

A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 1-4.
A recently inducted Pathfinder field agent makes a startling discovery as pleas for assistance flood the Society’s Grand Lodge from across the Inner Sea region. A group of Pathfinders come to assist in assessing the ongoing damage to the Society when a staunch ally requests their assistance. Stepping into a problem close to home, the agents quickly uncover a larger plot set to tear the Society apart, and it’s up to them to raise the alarm!

Pathfinder Society Intro: Year of Shattered Sanctuaries is the introduction to the ongoing story of the Year of Shattered Sanctuaries. It’s also the first scenario in a four-part arc detailing the events taking place in and around the Society's headquarters at the Grand Lodge in Absalom, the City of Lost Omens. Other arcs explore other locations across the Inner Sea region. While the arcs can be played in any order, it’s recommended that players experience the scenarios within each individual arc in order, and this scenario is a natural starting point for the Year 3 metaplot.

Starfinder Society Scenario #4-06: Combatant's Concerto: Prelude to Revolution

A Starfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 3-6.
When a violent insurrectionist group threatens an upcoming space gala in the Veskarium, a group of Starfinders find themselves caught in the crossfire. Innocent lives hang in the balance unless the PCs can discover who's behind the dangerous plot and stop them before it's too late.

Starfinder Society Scenario #4-07: A Haven for Scourged Machines

A Starfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 7-10.
The Starfinder Society has traced the hostile robots involved in the first Data Scourge attacks to a facility in the Vast. Now, it's up to veteran Starfinders to explore the facility that manufactured the machines to find answers—but it won't be easy. Danger lurks around every corner in this massive factory, and a few nasty surprises lie in wait for our intrepid heroes.

Starfinder Flip-Tiles: City Alien Quarter Expansion

Sometimes adventure takes you to the alien side of town. Next time your players are looking for a taste of off-world cuisine and culture while in the big city, these Flip-Tiles have all you need to set them up for a thrilling encounter. Starfinder Flip-Tiles: City Alien Quarter Expansion provides beautifully illustrated 6" × 6" map tiles that you can use to expand your city with a neighborhood fit for extraterrestrial habitation! Inside, you'll find 24 richly crafted, double-sided map tiles. This expansion set, along with Starfinder Flip-Tiles: City Starter Set, lets you create futuristic urban locales with endless variety! So, stop your sketching and start your flipping today!

Shop the Paizo Store and your favorite local game store today!

The September 2021 product release date is scheduled for the 22nd, less than a month away. So, lets preview what the Fall equinox will bring to Paizo.com and your favorite local game store! Beware some light adventure spoilers.

Starfinder Tech Revolution

REVOLUTIONIZE YOUR GAME

Put the science back in science-fantasy with Starfinder Tech Revolution! This book expands on Starfinder’s cutting-edge technologies—which are often so sophisticated that they rival magic itself—providing your characters the tools to thrive in a futuristic setting. Whether you’re racing the streets in a custom vehicle, planning your next big digital heist, or arming your mech to fight dragons, Tech Revolution has what you need, including:

• The new nanocyte character class, whose body hosts an army of robotic nanites that empower and defend you in battle!

Iconic nanocyte illustration by Michele Giorgi

• The new mech system: design your own titanic battle robots with customizable parts and armaments, then hop into the cockpit and square off against epic threats!

Mechs on pages 110-111

• New rules to enhance gameplay with customizable vehicles, demolitions, and dynamic hacking.

Vehicle art on pages 74-75

• New player character options, from technology-themed rules for every character class to technological relics, weapons, armor, augmentations, and more.
• A detailed dive into the Starfinder setting’s technological lore, from biotech and computers to media and music.

Starfinder Adventure: The Liberation of Locus-1

THE EDGE OF SPACE

Scientists, mystics, and corporate interests came together to found Locus-1, a research station and outpost far from the Pact Worlds. Now Sidakana, a ruthless vesk space pirate, has made the Locus system her personal playground, and the innocent people of Locus-1 have turned to the nearest military power—the Azlanti Star Empire—for help. When the cure proves worse than the disease, it’s up to a small group of bold newcomers to save the station and all its inhabitants from death or enslavement!

Station scene on page 12

Designed to give player characters a home base in a remote region filled with adventure, “The Liberation of Locus-1” is the perfect next step for players and GMs who’ve completed Starfinder Adventure: Junker’s Delight. It includes:

• “The Liberation of Locus-1,” a complete adventure for 4th-level characters, leading them to 7th-level.
• All the details on Locus-1, a remote space station orbiting the Locus—a strange cosmic anomaly— as well as other planets in the Locus system, all with mysteries of their own.
• An Adventure Toolbox with new experimental weapons and equipment fueled by the Locus; new playable species who serve in the Azlanti Star Empire’s Alien Cohort; and the predatory mindshroud rays—horrifying symbiotes from the beyond.

Pathfinder Adventure Path: Hurricane's Howl (Strength of Thousands 3 of 6)

THE STUDENTS BECOME THE TEACHERS

Now graduates of the Magaambya academy of magic, the heroes join the ranks of its teachers! Sent with their first class to the edge of the Mwangi Expanse, the heroes unearth ancient ruins and strive to keep their expedition out of danger. When a student vanishes, the heroes uncover a nefarious plot to subjugate the rain-lashed Sodden Lands. They must liberate a town, stop an evil cult, and show their students how to stand as wardens of the world. The Strength of Thousands Adventure Path continues with “Hurricane’s Howl,” a complete adventure for 8th- to 11th-level characters.

Cover scene by Setiawan Lee

Starfinder Adventure Path: Serpents in the Cradle (Horizons of the Vast 2 of 6)

GROWING PAINS

Analyzing information found in the ruins of a laboratory in their charter leads the heroes deep underground to search for an ancient Cycle monastery. When they return to the surface, they find that a rogue group of settlers have established a town at the edge of the administrators’ charter. As the heroes learn more about these interlopers, things begin to go subtly wrong in their own settlement. Are the newcomers behind this sabotage? Will the heroes solve this problem through diplomacy or force?

Adventure opener on page 2

This Starfinder Adventure Path volume continues the Horizons of the Vast Adventure Path and includes:

• “Serpents in the Cradle,” a Starfinder adventure for 3rd-level characters, by Hilary Moon Murphy.
• A detailed look at the shady organization known as the Aspis Consortium, by John Compton.
• A toolbox featuring relics of an ancient philosophy, a collection of creatures that could threaten a burgeoning charter, and a glimpse at a world with an ocean of liquid mercury, by Jenny Jarzabski, Andrew Mullen, Hilary Moon Murphy, Jess Nevins, Mikhail Rekun, and Jim Seals.
• Statistics and deck plans for a premier exploration and reconnaissance vessel designed especially for the Aspis Consortium, by Kendra Leigh Speedling.

Those are the biggest Pathfinder and Starfinder titles available in just a few weeks, but you won’t want to miss the new accessories to make your games complete: Pathfinder Bestiary 3 Battle Cards, Pathfinder Fists of the Ruby Phoenix Pawn Collection, Pathfinder Flip-Mat Classics: Thieves' Guild, Pathfinder Flip-Tiles: Fortress Walls & Towers Expansion, or the Starfinder Flip-Mat: Space Colony.

Months ago, as we were preparing for the Jasper’s Game Week 2021 charity fundraiser, we received an email from Anne “Hearthsinger” Richmond (on Twitter at @annerichmond) saying that Jasper’s Game Day’s usual Twitch overlay volunteer wasn’t available. She knew that our art department put together some overlays for Pathfinder Second Edition and Starfinder, but they had a few more players at each table than those overlays could hold. They needed overlays for a GM, plus five or six players, for some of the virtual tabletops for the event.

Well, one thing led to another, and we ended up making simple overlays for tables of up to seven players, plus the GM! We’ve bundled the overlays for four to seven players, a Game Master, some stats, and a space for the virtual tabletop together into free downloads for you. These are 1920 x 1080 PNG and PSD files with transparencies (i.e., blank holes) for the frames that go over the windows for the guests. They will soon find a permanent home in the Community Use Package. Enjoy!

Pathfinder Stream PNG Overlay and PSD Overlay

Starfinder Stream PNG Overlay and PSD Overlay

Earlier this year, Digital Dragon Studios unveiled the official Pathfinder 2nd Edition Combat Tracker App for everyone to try, and we've had a great deal of fun listening to all the ways folks are using it! Thanks to your feedback, we’ve made quite a few alterations over the last few months, from two new systems to a variety of in-app improvements, and we’re excited to share them with you!

While the Combat Tracker App is meant to be used by your whole party, with each person joining via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi and thus always remaining on reset, many of our users also operate it solo. This means that some GMs are performing the time-consuming tasks of entering each party member in every battle. We’ve made some tweaks to make that just a bit easier by allowing the GM to save manually entered combatants from one round to the next. This means when you hit the reset button, only the non-saved characters are removed from combat, leaving the party together for the next encounter and eliminating the need to re-enter consistent characters.

Other oft-requested features have been the bulk adding of combatants and the ability to delete a character during battle. We’re happy to report you can now add as many zombies as you like to any combat with just one entry, and it auto-populates each of their tabs! If you leave the dice setting on random, it even rolls different initiatives for them all. Just to make game life a teeny bit better, we also added a long press menu for each combatant on the combat screen. Pressing for a few seconds on a tab now brings up a menu allowing you to change an initiative, save newfound party members, and delete those lost in battle all in one place.

Not enough? We also found time to adapt two other game systems, creating combat tracking apps for the many fans of Pathfinder 1st First Edition and the space-faring Starfinders! Whichever game you prefer, we hope you have fun with it, and we can’t wait to share our next updates with you.

Don't forget to keep up to date with all our news by following us on Facebook and Twitter. We love to hear feedback from our users! Looking for our apps? You can find them in the Apple App Store or on Google Play.

Guest Blogger BJ Hensley - BJ is the founder of Digital Dragon Studios and Playground Adventures. She is a fan of tabletop games and family togetherness, and she’s dedicated to ensuring that both her family and others have creative outlets they can share. When she isn’t hard at work furthering the goals of DDS/PGA, she can be found working with multiple charities and other publishing companies in a variety of capacities. Her projects over the years have included work for companies such as Green Ronin, Kobold Press, PEG, Paizo, Room to Read, and Wizards of the Coast. She’s also the proud leader (parent) of a six-person adventuring party and their two furry companions.

Greetings, Starfinders!

We have two new missions available for you starting this month. First, we’ll follow up our earlier trip into the Veskarium with an exclusive invitation to a cultural gala aboard a luxury concert ship. Society leadership is aware that some agents share our concerns about supporting the vesk imperialist agenda, and we hope to empower you to make your own choices regarding this matter in future dealings with the Veskarium—starting now. You won’t want to miss the stellar performance and political intrigue in Combatants’ Concerto: Prelude to Revolution, written by Shay Snow.

Our more seasoned agents are needed to scout a mysterious robotics facility in the Vast with suspected ties to the Data Scourge attacks. The First Seeker asks that you travel to the facility, infiltrate it, and discover whatever you can about the robotic attackers that marched on Absalom Station. A Haven for Scourged Machines by Nicholas Wasko is another exciting installment in the Data Scourge metaplot.

I’m counting on you, Starfinders. Be safe out there and watch each other’s backs.

Jenny Jarzabski
Starfinder Society Developer

Raia crouched behind a stack of crates, camouflage membrane turned to full power, focused on powering up the warehouse’s maintenance terminal. Once her enchantments opened up the interface, she plugged the jack into her custom wrist mount and said into her comm, “I’m in.”

“You know,” answered Navasi. “I’ve never heard anyone say that on a job. Outside of an action holovid, anyway.”

“Those soap writers wish they wrote plots as good as my life,” Raia answered. “About to go virtual. Stay put until you get my beacon. After I trip security, I’m going to need a fast exit.”

“‘After’ you trip security?” said Navasi. “Don’t you mean ‘if’? Say you mean ‘if,’ Raia.”

Raia laughed and said, “Going virtual.”

The world around her vanished. Raia could still see, hear, and even feel and taste, but in this glowing, in-between world, meant to represent the digital flow of the local infosphere, sensation was different. Here, she was different. And much more powerful.

Raia had been hired by a politician to expose a cult. She’d taken the job, not for money, but for a favor. Months ago, Starfinder Society probes had discovered yet another inhabited planet along the edges of Near Space, which ancient star charts named Sigerro. Preliminary scans indicated Sigerro’s inhabitants possessed a rich culture and advanced technology. Many interested parties hoped to be on the first diplomatic team sent to meet their people, but such assignments would be determined by the Directorate in accordance with Pact World protocol.

Luckily, Elxur Droj, the verthani politician in charge of the Directorate’s diplomatic corp, was also a Seeker in his spare time—one of a group of infosphere conspiracists hoping to expose the wide-spread religion called the Disciples of Grace. Instead of helping the poor and sick, Seekers believed the Disciples were secretly corrupt slavers bent on taking over the Pact Worlds. Elxur not only believed this, he hoped to use their exposure to run for higher political office.

After approaching Elxur through her usual aliases, Raia had managed to secure a deal. If she could procure evidence of corrupt Disciple activity, Elxur would approve her request to be part of the diplomatic team on Sigerro.

The Disciples of Grace certainly weren’t spending all their credits on charity, no matter how well they laundered their donations. Raia had been able to locate a warehouse on Verces used by one of their shell companies for off-the-books shipments. If she could acquire shipping manifests, Elxur should grant her a place on the diplomatic mission.

Now, Raia stood on a floating platform in seemingly endless digital chasm. Once she leapt, there was no turning back. Checking to make all her defenses and countermeasures were in place, she dove into digital void.

Illustration by Alexandur Alexandrov from Starfinder Tech Revolution.

It was like freefall, glorious freefall, except instead of wind, breezes of bytes and floods of information cascaded all around her.

As long as Raia kept falling, standard security measures shouldn’t be able to track her presence, so fast was she moving from one node to the next. Yet this also made acquiring the right data hard.

Everywhere she looked, she saw secure files as floating screens—and each image they depicted was disturbing. People being led away in chains. Priests changing form in private. These weren’t shipping manifests, but they might be better. Like a hungry child in an orchard, Raia plucked as many files as she could into her avatar for later study. She didn’t have much time before the system’s internal security caught on to her falling simulation and—

VHHT VHHHT VHHHHHT

Suddenly, instead of descending down an endless void, Raia was approaching hard ground fast. A digital wall of spiky security code had manifested—which could shatter Raia’s persona on impact. They’d detected her more quickly than anticipated. Upgraded security. Definitely more cutting edge than a charitable religion should have access to.

Instead of smashing into the wall of code, Raia activated another program, buffering her processors through the node, her digital persona appearing to float gently to the ground.

Where she was instantly surrounded by glowing-red virtual security countermeasures. Vicious, cutting-edge anti-hacker programs, which in the virtual resembled crimson piranhas coated in blood-red razor wire, swirling in on themselves.

“Aren’t you just the cutest things,” she muttered. They rushed at her, but Raia had come ready for something like this.

With the grace of an acrobat, she dodged their serrated tentacles—prodding counterhacks trying to penetrate her avatar and learn her identity. Just when it seemed the countermeasures might be too numerous to evade, Raia pulled her next trick. In a flash of green, two digital versions of Raia stood surrounded by the menacing security programs. Both fled in different directions. The security countermeasures, momentarily confused, split up to chase both.

While her decoy fled, Raia dove behind a digital gleaming column and amped up her camouflage code, similar to the weave she’d been using in the real world. She blended completely into the digital wall around her. As the last security countermeasure flew past, Raia pounced, landing atop it, clawing both hands inside its glowing carapace.

With the precision of a surgeon, she copied its access privileges and modified its instructions. Once finished, the drone glowed the same green as her persona’s glowing functions. It sped off to fight its former companions, while Raia used its security clearance to copy the shipping manifests she’d originally been hoping to “borrow.”

A crackle and a beep indicated a message coming over her comm in the real world. “Raia? Things are getting pretty hot. Alarms everywhere and bots are summoning private security teams to your location.”

Time to rabbit. Raia exited the hacking sequence, copied data securely stored in her rig. She turned on her beacon and sprinted toward the street, already spotting Navasi’s hovercar blasting around the corner.

As she prepared to leap onto the vehicle, Raia wondered what she’d been able to acquire. She didn’t know exactly what was on those files, but it should be enough to get her on the diplomatic team. Either way, she’d make sure never to donate to Disciples of Grace in the future.

About The Author

Patrick Hurley has had fiction published in Galaxy’s Edge, Cosmic Roots & Eldritch Shores, Abyss & Apex, New Myths, Arcanist, Aurealis, Frozen Wavelets, The Overcast, and The Drabblecast. He is a 2017 graduate of the Taos Toolbox Writer's Workshop. In 2018, he was a finalist for the Baen Fantasy Award. Patrick lives in Seattle and is a member of SFWA and the Dreamcrashers. He still can’t quite believe he has the good fortune to also be an editor at Paizo.

About Iconic Encounters

Iconic Encounters is a series of web-based flash fiction set in the worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder. Each short story provides a glimpse into the life and personality of one of the games’ iconic characters, showing the myriad stories of adventure and excitement players can tell with the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games.

Check out the new Pathfinder and Starfinder-compatible products added to the Paizo Store in the last two months!

Samurai Sheepdog

S-Class Characters: The Barbarian (PFRPG) PDF

What's Inside:

• A full, 20-level s-class that you can bring to the table right beside others like it, including the original s-class, the summoner.
• New instincts that the s-class barbarian can choose from in addition to gaining rage powers as they level up.
• 7 new rage powers that any barbarian can select when they meet the prerequisites.

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S-Class Characters: The Monk (PFRPG) PDF

A full, 20-level s-class that you can bring to the table right beside others like it, including the original s-class, the summoner. In addition to the s-class description, this is a full-use document for your character. No need to look at other books unless you need to know greater details, such as feat prerequisites and such (we intentionally summarize these so they're usable, but you have a reason to pick those up if you want to use them outside of the context of the s-class character).

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S-Class Characters: The Ranger (PFRPG) PDF

What's Inside:

• A full, 20-level s-class that you can bring to the table right beside others like it, including the original s-class, the summoner.
• Reimagined favored enemy, favored terrain, and hunter's bond to help emphasize the ranger's place among their allies.
• 3 variant hunter's bonds which can be selected individually or combined with the existing choices to give the ranger a breadth of options.

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S-Class Characters: The Wizard (PFRPG) PDF

What's Inside: • A full, 20-level s-class that you can bring to the table right beside others like it, including the original s-class, the summoner. • Streamlined class features that make it easier to learn, prepare, and cast spells of different types. • Reimagined arcane schools that allow you to pick your powers. • A small collection of general school powers that any s-class wizard can choose, and which any standard wizard can take in place of those they normally gain.

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Raging Swan Press

GM's Miscellany: Towns & Cities (PFRPG) PDF

Tired of your towns and cities lacking verisimilitude? Want to add cool details to your creations but don't have the time? Want to make your towns and cities feel more realistic? Then this GM's Miscellany is for you! Featuring 14 different kinds of towns and cities, GM's Miscellany: Towns & Cities presents 100 sights and sounds, 50 businesses, 50 NPCs and 20 adventure hooks for each type of urban area ready for your campaign.

GM's Miscellany: Towns & Cities is designed for easy use during game prep or actual play.

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GM's Miscellany: Towns & Cities (PF2E) PDF

Tired of your towns and cities lacking verisimilitude? Want to add cool details to your creations but don't have the time? Want to make your towns and cities feel more realistic? Then this GM's Miscellany is for you! Featuring 14 different kinds of towns and cities, GM's Miscellany: Towns & Cities presents 100 sights and sounds, 50 businesses, 50 NPCs and 20 adventure hooks for each type of urban area ready for your campaign.

GM's Miscellany: Towns & Cities is designed for easy use during game prep or actual play.

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Lost Spheres Publishing

Classes of the Lost Spheres: Spellweaver (PFRPG) PDF

Enter the Spellweaver—An arcane casting class skilled at harvesting the essence of their own shattered veils, these mystics blend the power of wizardry with new techniques of chakra and essence-fueled potency!

Expanding on the principles of akashic power introduced in Dreamscarred Press' Akashic Mysteries and expanded in the City of 7 Seraphs: Akashic Trinity, the Spellweaver is a powerful new way to interface with the essence and veilweaving system. Neither Akashic Mysteries nor City of 7 Seraphs: Akashic Trinity is required to use the Classes of the Lost Spheres: Spellweaver supplement.

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Little Red Goblin Games

Simple Classes: Bale Child (PFRPG) PDF

Simple classes are trimmed-down, streamlined classes designed to be easy to pick up and play for both new players and system veterans! Each has a sleek, core set of abilities backed up with a strong but balanced chassis (HD, saves, BAB, etc).

A Bale Child is what you get when the gods or some dark power wants a child to go unharmed. They can curse others to share in their pain and can even drain the life from their victims. Filled with the relative invulnerability of their blessing, Bale Children seek to test their limits against the world.

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Legendary Games

Legendary Monks II (PFRPG) PDF

Legendary Monks II is the latest volume in our series of class-focused player supplements! This volume is centered on the wise and capable masters of combat and mysticism, those paragons of insight known as monks. This new version of the base class introduced in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook was designed to be an agile combatant specialized in unarmed fighting, honing their body into a force that could rival weapons and armor forged by the most capable of smiths. This book is intended to build upon that promise, as well as expand the class with flavorful and potent character-building options that fully explore the many paths to perfection. This legendary monk class is intended to allow the monk to further specialize their combat through several new and redesigned class features such as Path of Mastery, which provides a strong foundation for a monk's journey, whether based on strength, agility, or mysticism; Monk Arts, which grant them several means of using their new Qi resource; and Combo Strikes, which reward legendary monks for taking full advantage of their rapid-fire style of fighting. Furthermore, brand new archetypes provide further opportunities to construct unique characters, such as the black powder-fueled Combustion Knuckle and their special firearm-based combat, the gregarious Champion of the People who supports and inspires their comrades-in-arms, and the fierce Yaksha Disciple who channels the dread-inducing abilities of terrifying guardian spirits. Grab this 30-page class supplement today and Make Your Game Legendary!

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Legendary Sorcerers (PFRPG) PDF

Legendary Sorcerers is the latest volume in our series of class-focused player supplements, this time focused on those spellcasters gifted with magical power beyond their own comprehension. These mystical savants are arcane spellcasters, but the form of their magic is altered by the origin of their power. The legendary sorcerer is a fully redesigned version of the core caster class, with a unique class feature that grants spellcasting flexibility, makes cantrips more useful, and expands bloodlines to allow customization of your inherent powers rather than fixed advancement. No matter the quest, the legendary sorcerer is ready for adventure, with 13 bloodlines including the Aberrant Sorcerer, who mutates with each spell cast; the Draconic Sorcerer, who can exhale spells; the Elemental Sorcerer, who combines physical strength with the summoning of energy; and the Undead Sorcerer, whose magic curses those they touch. You'll also find six spectacular archetypes like the arcane seeker, impulsive mage, and disciple of violence, alongside nearly two dozen sensational spells and feats perfect for unleashing your arcane power with fantastic flair. Grab this amazing 46-page class expansion for the Pathfinder Role-Playing Game today and Make Your Game Legendary!

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Second Edition Classes: Cartomancer (PF2E) PDF

The Cartomancer is a brand-new class for Pathfinder Second Edition, a spellcaster dabbling in every magical tradition as they draw power from a card deck that is equal parts weapon and magical focus. Mystical gamblers and masters of chance, cartomancers use their cards as tools for weaving spells with decks that may focus on divination, illusion, and mental manipulation through occult magic; flora, fauna, and the elements with a primal deck; the raw power of life and death with a divine deck; or the diverse and balanced options of an arcane deck, along with over 50 class feats, from Combination Discard and Pass the Deal to Aces and Eights and Three Card Monte, plus a dozen more feats, traits, and backgrounds. You'll also find a complete system of Card Casting, with unique spells like arcane erosion, untouchable ward, gambler's guise, and bend nature for every card in a standard deck that you can heighten and empower by varying the number of cards you devote to their power from your mystic hand. You'll also get focus spells like cartomancy and dead man's hand and a bestiary with nearly a dozen specialized card constructs to unleash on your enemies. Grab this incredible 68-page Pathfinder Second Edition class expansion today and Make Your Game Legendary!

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Star Classes: Class Grafts (SFRPG) PDF

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The Alienist's Handbook (PFRPG) PDF

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For Pathfinder 1st edition and the Spheres of Power/Spheres of Might systems.

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Expanded Archetypes (PF2E) PDF

For Pathfinder 2nd edition, this PDF offers new options for the assassin, the pirate, the poisoner, and the talisman dabbler archetypes. Whether you’re increasing your skill against those you've Marked For Death or expanding your performances with sea shanties, you'll find all sorts of new options expanding what you can do with your characters!

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Spheres Apocrypha: Martial Drawbacks 2 (PFRPG) PDF

Sometimes it isn't a character's power, but rather their limitations, that make them most interesting.

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Spheres Apocrypha: Monster Traditions 2 (PFRPG) PDF

For Pathfinder 1st edition and the Spheres of Power/Might systems, this apocrypha deals with talents specifically made for monsters. This apocrypha deals with monsters that devour their foes whole, as well as granting new options for monsters that focus on ranged combat. Go beyond with Spheres Apocrypha!

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Paths of Magic (PFRPG) PDF

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Discover your true potential with Paths of Magic, the final book of the "Path" series for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game (first edition) by Ascension Games! Inside you'll find a massive library of options for your favorite base and core classes, exploring the concepts of shadows, artifice, and nature through new classes, feats, magic items and more!

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Find thousands of Pathfinder-compatible and Starfinder-compatible products at the paizo.com store every day.

Adventures Ahead,

Aaron Shanks
Marketing and Media Manager

“Oooh!” chirped Barsala, folding her goggles down over her eyes. She peered at the man’s leg, an image of the limb’s internal circuitry magnifying in her goggle’s lens. “The quality on your inner gyros is excellent. Liquid carbide receptors?”

“Can I see?” asked Keskodai. With a soft clicking of his mandibles, he leaned over to get a closer look. “Chhk-chhk, look! See the pistons! Look at the little energy regulators, aren’t they pretty?”

Raising one hand, Barsala waved at the shirren. “Kes, please hun, you’re in my light.”

“But you can see the problem, right?” asked Amril. Twitching nervously, the young man drummed his fingers against the arm of the chair. “I mean, is it the regulators? I hope it’s not the regulators. They should still be under warranty. Do you think it’s the compression circuits?”

“Calm down,” said Barsala. The words felt hollow in the face of her own burgeoning excitement. “It’ll be—”

Abruptly, his leg kicked. Trembling abruptly, the servos within whirred energetically. “Look!” yelped Amril, the lashunta’s antenna shivering, “It’s doing it again!”

“Fascinating... Kes, could you hand me the capacitor over there?”

Inhaling, Amril turned his eyes toward the ceiling of Barsala’s laboratory. “I knew I shouldn’t have got it cut rate. Stupid counterfeit augments. The price was just too good. But then it started acting up. I checked the actual prosthetic parts. I mean, I had it checked—an engineer. One of the mechanics down at the junk races said its fine...”

“They’re right,” commented Barsala, carefully separating two metal plates with two of her hands while magnifying her lenses with another. “In as far as the hardware is in working order. Whatever the problem is, it’s with the... Kes, please, you’re in my light again... it’s with the software.”

Another juddering tremor flew through Amril’s leg. He leaned up in the chair, excitedly. “I knew it! I mean, I knew you’d be able to figure it out. The moment I saw your vids, I knew Dr. B was the right person for the job! What are you going to do?”

“Did you hear that, Chhk-chhk? Our friend Barsala’s an expert.”

“I am hardly an expert on this particular subject, Chhk-Chhk, but,” she slid a glove free from her lowleft hand, exposing the chrome fingers beneath, “I do have some personal experience with cybernetic prosthetics.” Flexing her fingers, she slid back a thumb-sized port on the back of her palm. “Rudimentary system scan,” she explained. “My prosthetic has a proprietary Helix Computing interface, I’ll log into your software, give it a quick scan, and check the integration files to your wetware.”

Illustration by Alexandur Alexandrov from Starfinder Tech Revolution.

Glancing up at Keskodai, Amril asked “What does that mean?”

The shirren gave a soft shrug, his multifaceted insectile eyes seeming to widen in wonder.

Carefully, Barsala unwound a small connector cable from one of her many pockets, sliding one end into the port on her hand. “Don’t worry, it’ll be fine. I’ll go for a manual interface, so it’ll be more secure. Your internal firewall’s up to date?”

“I... think so?” tried the lashunta, hesitantly, as the biohacker slid the cable into his leg’s interface port. “I had a new one installed last week, after the twitching started.”

“Fascinating,” murmured the kasatha, drumming her fingers across a set of hard-light keys on her holographic display. “There’s some redundant files here. I can’t see any function for them. Do you have anything stored in them?”

“Couple of vid shows.” replied Amril. “Don’t look in the download section, please. I might have downloaded them illegally.”

With a few more taps from her three non-interfaced hands, Barsala announced, “Scanning now. Wait.” A sharp pause cut her voice silent. Then, glancing at the man’s cybernetic leg, she said “This is odd. The files are duplicating.” A second hard-light window appeared on the biohacker’s display—quickly joined by another. Then another.

“Chhk-chhk wants to know if that’s bad.” enquired Keskodai. “It looks bad.”

A series of digital windows blazed into life around Barsala, flaring like a cradle of stars. As they did, Amril’s leg shuddered violently, its pistons whirring at a fanatical speed, showering crackling sparks across the floor. “We’ve got exponential duplication!” yelled Barsala. “These aren’t redundant files—someone’s using them as a back door! Kes, quick—”

Abruptly, Barsala’s hand twisted upward, violently pulling her trailing cable from Amril’s port. The biohacker gave a sharp yelp as her cybernetic fingers tensed into claws and turned toward her. Violently, her rogue hand lashed out, clawing and swiping at her face.

“My! This is exciting!” chittered Keskodai. “I knew this would be a thrilling field trip. Do you need one of the inhibitors?” He asked nonchalantly, scanning a wide array which hung from the wall.

“The blue one!” called Barsala, latching two free hands around her rebellious prosthetic. Her cybernetic hand continued to flail, lashing out with her fingertips. She staggered back, wrestling frantically with her hand.

Quickly, Keskodai scooped up a sturdy metal cylinder marked with a blue label and hurled it over to the biohacker. Catching it deftly with her last free hand, Barsala wrestled her cybernetic hand down onto a cluttered workbench with the other two, scattering small vials and tubes. Holding her thrashing, violent hand down, she tugged open the interface port once again. “Okay,” she muttered, “that should override my biological systems long enough to isolate this thing...”

“What is it?” cried Amril, eyes wide in shock.

“Offensive countermeasure” replied Barsala. “Someone left a sentient computer virus in your prosthetic’s firmware.”

Amril sat bolt upright, looking down at his leg in panic. “A virus?”

Rolling up her sleeve, Barsala pushed the canister containing the inhibitor against her upper arm. It gave a soft hiss as the contents discharged, filling her bloodstream. “It was protecting a backdoor into your augment.” She explained, dropping the canister. Her arteries radiated a momentary glow. “Know anyone who’d want to hack your systems?” she asked.

“Hacking?” spat Amril. “No! Definitely not! I don’t have any enemies!” he paused. “Actually, wait, maybe it might be...”

With a series of thuds, Barsala’s augmented hand forced itself up from was held. Gritting her teeth in agitation, she grunted and grabbed a micro-welding torch. “Right!” she declared, crackling it to life. “Time for some surgical reprogramming!”

As she began to rewire the hand’s circuitry in deft, sharp moves, Keskodai watched in fascination. “Hmm,” he pondered, tapping a thin claw-tip against his chin. “Chhk-chhk wants to know if you can simply eject the hardware.” he asked. “If it’s trying to kill you, that is. Perhaps we can take it off and put it in a box for now?”

“Don’t need to” replied Barsala, her eyes focused intently on the work. A small shower of sparks flew from her hand. “I’ve confined the virus to a partition of the limb’s memory, which should let me get root access to... wait, Chhk-chhk wants to know?”

“Ah, yes,” trilled the shirren cheerfully. “You see, at this stage in larval development, we’ve formed a telepathic bond that’s strong enough for in-depth conversation. In fact, I’d be quite happy to discuss—”

“Maybe later.” she interrupted, dropping the torch onto the workbench, and opening another section of the limb. “I think... yes, let me just finish this scan... okay, system’s clear.”

Amril rubbed his head, his antennas drooping. “Is that it?” he asked. “The virus is gone?”

The biohacker slowly let go of her hand and bent each finger to test her control of her prosthetic, looking carefully for signs of any malicious intent. For a few moments she held her breath. Then, slowly, she gave a sigh of relief. “Scan’s clear,” she said. “Virus is gone. I’ve kept a log of if you want to watch it. In either case, your leg should be fine now.”

Whirling around to face her, Amril rubbed his eyes. “That’s... that’s amazing.” he muttered. “Thank you. Thank you so much. It feels a lot better.”

Flexing her fingers once more, Barsala reached into her pocket to recover her surgical glove. “We’ll still need to find out who hacked the limb.” She announced. “You’re quite sure you don’t have any enemies?”

Clapping his hands together, Amril inhaled. “Well, maybe that wasn’t quite true. Y’see...”

A heavy thud echoed through the laboratory. Somewhere in the distance, the ever-present hum of the power systems fell abruptly silent. The lab’s internal lights shuddered to darkness, replaced with the ghostly glow of emergency red illumination. “What?” snapped the biohacker.

“Okay,” admitted Amril, “so, I didn’t want to mention it, but I’m part of a group of hackers...”

Keskodai held up a hand. “Don’t want to interrupt” he said, “but I can sense six minds moving towards us. They seem... hostile. Friends of yours?”

“No!” yelled Amril, glancing around the room. “Okay, look, so we were sniffing around some corporate files, and...”

A heavy thud echoed from the other side of the laboratory’s door.

Barsala sighed, shaking her head, and calmly started to load her needler pistol. “And this was meant to be my weekend off.”

About The Author

Alison Cybe is a fantasy and horror author with other work featured in numerous horror and sci-fi/fantasy publications. They have a degree in Film & Media with a minor in sociology and media. They’re non-binary with pronouns they/them. They were born in Scotland and has written extensively on inclusion and positive representation within gaming communities in particular with relation to LGBTQ+ and transgender visibility in gaming publications and blogs. Their interests include Celtic mythology, transhumanism, model kits and pet rats.

About Iconic Encounters

Iconic Encounters is a series of web-based flash fiction set in the worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder. Each short story provides a glimpse into the life and personality of one of the games’ iconic characters, showing the myriad stories of adventure and excitement players can tell with the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games.

The skittermander at the counter flexed his fingers and grinned. “What’ll it be, nufriend?”

“Nufriend?” Tono smirked. “Every night I come here and order the same thing, and suddenly you ain’t know me, Henig?”

Henig let out a deep chortle, as if it were emerging from his feet and rising out of his body. “No, no! It’s just that…” He leaned over the counter, inches from Tono’s face. “You know how the streets can be,” he whispered. “Funny business afoot, and all that. Don’t want anybody making off with your whereabouts, gree?”

Tono gave a gentle nod, the neon of the night glancing off her chrome dermal plate. She had been working on this side of the surface for only eight months, and even she had made enough enemies to know better than for any of them to know where she slept. If just one of their associates ever knew she also was willing to drive this far into the city just for a bowl of noodles and a conversation in the middle of the night, she’d be face down in the alley beside the shop with a fist-sized gap in her belly. Tono winced at the thought—she hadn’t scrounged enough recent work to pay for another check-up, let alone replace a cybernetic augmentation.

Strangely, her justification for habitually returning was twofold. For one thing, this part of the city was where all her informants were. For another, she grinned wide at the chef and said what she always said whenever he worried about her getting in trouble because of him. “You ain’t gotta worry ‘bout me, Hen… only nice people come by your shop.”

Illustration by Michael Soong from Starfinder Galaxy Exploration Manual.

“Is that right?” He chuckled again. “Then how come you’re here so often?”

Tono nodded in amused agreement before ordering a large bowl of the house special. She tried not to bring her work—or her difficult demeanor—to Henig’s shop whenever she could avoid it, but she knew she wasn’t easy to deal with. He probably didn’t know what she did, but word got around quickly. Which is why she regretted having to ask her next question. “Have you seen Mirai about?”

Henig raised an eyebrow. “Mirai? She in some kind o’ trouble?”

The apertures in Tono’s eyes tensed. She noticed it right away. She always trusted that Henig was smarter than the goofy, kindhearted cook he presented as. “You know something.”

Henig’s lower limbs continued pulling dough into thick noodles as he spoke. He glanced down pensively, and then toward the street, as if worried someone would find him. “Two folks in black came up the block asking for her, but I hadn’t actually seen her come out to the market in days. Made it sound like they’d been to her apartment… didn’t find nothing. If you’re asking for her…” He frowned. “Gotta think she’s on the run for some reason, gree?”

“But why?”

“You really askin’ me?” Henig shot her a wicked glare. “The same reasons you’d run. Is she in trouble?”

“I don’t know. I asked her to check something for me. Just a chat with some folks at Fythe Dynamics for a client… a routine interview with Sepp Yolen. I thought it was nothing…”

“Politely, I’ll ask.” Henig looked right at her. “Is it ever nothing with either of you?”

Tono struggled for the next words and resigned herself to just a shake of the head.

“Exactly.” He lit the stove behind him without looking. “I wish I had more to give you. Just… black suits, cold eyes, no manners. And one of ‘em, a lashunta woman, had a scar across the lip like so.” He made a diagonal downward motion across his own face, then shrugged. “Mean folks. Don’t want to see those two in a hurry again.”

Tono tilted her head. “The suits… d’you figure they were top-notch?”

“Maybe some of the most drift threads I’ve ever seen,” he said, finally casting an eye on the simmering stock pot behind him. “Probably thought I couldn’t tell the duds concealed armor. Figured they were well-paid hired hands of some sort.”

“Any insignias on the clothes?”

“No patches. Just a silver pin on the collar.” He wiped a large blue ceramic bowl and placed it in front of her. “Why?”

Tono smirked. “No reason at all. I’ll be back in a bit. And my food better be waiting.”

“Whatever you say, friend.”

Tono got up and stretched before strolling back down the busy market street beside the shop. This part had to be done carefully, she thought.

People tended to be very alert when they were tailing someone, after all.

Tono was paranoid, to be sure, but the more precisely Henig described this lashunta woman, the more obvious her presence became, just a few dozen feet away, watching them talk the entire time. She may have followed Tono the whole way, in fact, or even watched her leave her apartment. Without making eye contact, Tono sized the woman up. Slim, tall, lithe—the kind she figured made her coin in close combat rather than a gunfight. Even more careful, then.

Tono strolled toward where the agent stood—against the wall of a nearby bookstore—and squinted against the window. The lashunta didn’t flinch, but Tono knew better. Silence lingered in the air between them, mere inches apart. In that moment she knew they were both playing a calmness that would ready them for conflict at any moment. From that close, she could make out the vague imprint of a pair of blades under her jacket. She knew her appearance gave away her own game, as well: the quickdraw pocket in the right leg of her pants, wide enough for a sidearm, stored a static arc pistol specifically for moments like these.

“See something you like?” the lashunta said casually.

Tono didn’t even glance up at her. “So far, nothing seems especially interesting.”

“Oh, yeah?” The lashunta’s voice rose—the telltale sign that Tono had the slightest upper hand. “Hoping to find something in particular?”

“A challenge would be nice.”

Before the agent could react, Tono reached for the agent’s arm and twisted it behind her back, pinning the lashunta against the wall. Tono drew her pistol and aimed it at the small of the agent’s back, right beneath where her trapped fingers curled into a fist.

“What is wrong with y—”

“A great deal, actually,” Tono said. “But at the moment, the fact that I’m being tailed has me particularly on edge.”

“You’re being silly, lady!”

“Yeah?” Tono only needed to lift the agent’s arm for the tension and pain to increase. “Let’s check, then. Walk.”

They slowly made their way back to Henig’s counter, their demeanors strangely calm for the circumstances. When Henig saw her again, his eyes widened. “Yeah…” he said meekly. “That’s one of ‘em.”

“Was she nice to you?”

It took him only beat to pick up on the game Tono was playing. “Not one bit,” he said.

“See, my friend Henig here seems mild-mannered,” Tono said, nearly as low as a whisper. “But people tend to forget that he cuts his meat with the same sword that sears it, so I wouldn’t annoy him.”

“And what happens if I annoy you?” the agent said with a smirk.

“Scary part is, even I don’t know yet. Now talk.”

“I got nothing to—”

Henig slowly drew a skyfire sword from a drawer beneath the counter and brought it an inch from the lashunta’s face, just beneath the eyebrow. “Fine by us either way,” he said, igniting it just enough for a brief flicker of heat to grace her skin. “I hope you hate your face as much as we do…”

“Wait.” Tono sensed the faintest shift in the agent’s mood from composure to fear and back, but Henig would never see it.

“Fythe sent you?”

The agent hesitated before nodding. “The girl. She asks too many questions. We just had to nab her, make her afraid, you know? But…”

“You haven’t seen her either. So why are you following me?”

“Because…” The agent sighed. “The chairman asks us to do his wetwork when he doesn’t want to think about something. When he wants it to disappear. But Mirai? He won’t stop asking about her. He wants a meeting now, to ask for a job.”

It was Tono’s turn to be afraid. If Sepp Yolen wanted to meet, it could only mean trouble.

“You have a cruiser?” Tono growled in the agent’s ear.

The lashunta nodded.

“Good. We’re gonna take a ride. But first…” Tono reached into the woman’s jacket pocket, pulled out a credstick, and tossed it on the counter. “You’re gonna pay for my dinner.”

“That would be the nice thing to do, gree?” Henig said. “And only nice people come here.”

About the Author

Brandon O’Brien is a writer, performance poet, teaching artist and game designer from Trinidad and Tobago. His work has been shortlisted for the 2014 Alice Yard Prize for Art Writing and the 2014 and 2015 Small Axe Literary Competitions, and is published in Uncanny Magazine, Strange Horizons, Fireside Magazine, and New Worlds, Old Ways: Speculative Tales from the Caribbean, among others. He is also the poetry editor of FIYAH: A Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction. His debut poetry chapbook Can You Sign My Tentacle? is forthcoming from Interstellar Flight Press.

About Tales from the Drift

The Tales from the Drift series of web-based flash fiction provides an exciting glimpse into the setting of the Starfinder Roleplaying Game. Written by members of the Starfinder development team and some of the most celebrated authors in tie-in gaming fiction, the Tales from the Drift series promises to explore the worlds, alien cultures, deities, history, and organizations of the Starfinder setting with engaging stories to inspire Game Masters and players alike.

Paizo’s new Pathfinder and Starfinder releases feature locations to let your imagination run wild! Adventure in a magic school like no other, islands, forests, forest moons, and a casino town in the middle of an endless scrap yard!

From the From the Pathfinder Adventure Path Ongoing Subscription::

Pathfinder Adventure Path #169: Kindled Magic (Strength of Thousands 1 of 6)

Class Is in Session!
Education is far from easy at the oldest and most prestigious magic school in the world! The newest students at the venerable Magaambya academy of magic begin their academic careers with tests of skill and ingenuity. While all Magaambya students contend with the school’s rigorous course load, these heroes must also investigate the strange infestations and supernatural intruders lurking in the school’s ancient buildings. The Strength of Thousands Adventure Path begins with “Kindled Magic,” a complete adventure for 1st- to 3rd-level characters.

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Starfinder Adventure: Junker's Delight

JUNKYARD DOGS
Centuries ago, a starship crashed on the desert planet of Akiton, burying groundbreaking research that could transform the galaxy under layers of soil and steel. To recover these lost secrets, brave heroes must outwit cunning space goblins, defeat a rampaging monster made of junk, and stand up to a ferocious gang leader who wants this fantastic new technology... and is willing to kill anyone in his way to get it!

Specially designed and written for beginning Game Masters and players new to Starfinder, Junker’s Delight requires only the Starfinder Core Rulebook and a set of polyhedral dice, and provides many hours of exciting adventure. This book includes:

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Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Bigger Island

What mysteries await on the strange island on the horizon, or the mysterious destination of the intriguing treasure map? No Game Master wants to put the action on pause to draw every twist in the coastline or intriguing feature on an uncharted isle. Fortunately, you don't have to! This line of gaming maps provides ready-to-use and captivatingly detailed fantasy set pieces for the busy Game Master. Whether the heroes find themselves marooned on a remote shore or have sought the island out to track down a fabled treasure, this double-sided combat map features two different islands for you to use at your table. Don't waste your time sketching when you could be playing. With Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Bigger Island, you'll be ready next time your players make landfall!

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Starfinder Flip-Mat: Forest Moon

Whether the heroes are exploring the world-spanning woodlands of a living planet or racing enercycles between giant trees in a dangerous, high-speed chase, no Game Master wants to spend time drawing every tree trunk and forest trail. Fortunately, with Paizo's latest Starfinder Flip-Mat, you don't have to! This line of gaming maps provides ready-to-use science-fantasy set pieces for the busy Game Master. This double-sided map features winding paths through a dense wood on one side and the massive trunks of an old-growth primeval forest on the other. Don't waste time sketching when you could be playing. With Starfinder Flip-Mat: Forest Moon, you'll be ready the next time your players go for a walk in the woods!

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Finally, don’t miss the newest releases from Paizo Organized Play!

“We can take it.”

“But we don’t have to take it.”

Coiling an arm around the vesk’s shoulder, Veerkea gently pulled her friend into a crouch behind the fallen tree they used for cover, directing the vesk to look at her lower eyes. “It’s not about ability, Obo. It’s about need. You,” she observed, tapping Obozaya’s armor, “are a mighty vesk warrior. But that over there is a living creature that’s done nothing to offend you.” All seven of Veerkea’s eyes shimmered with empathy as the 5-foot-tall land squid pleaded with her scaly companion. “Focus on the mission, Obo.”

“I am! Look…” Obozaya stood up and glowered toward the clearing. “We came here looking for a crashed starship, right?” Veerkea extended her legs, raising her upper eyes high enough to peer over the fallen tree. The vesk gestured with her metallic staff as she kept talking, pointing out features. “How many rocks—big rocks—have you seen out here? Not many, right? But suddenly this clearing’s full of big slabs, and I’m figuring that’s no mistake.”

Veerkea alternated between peeking over the massive trunk with her upper eyes and squatting to peer under it with her lowers before glancing to Obozaya with renewed respect. “Good eye! In fact, those might not be rocks at all, but metal plates. And that might mean we’re standing atop the starship and the power core we need.” Peering over the trunk again, she wondered, “But what might have drawn this creature here?”

They both gazed at the beast perched atop the clearing’s highest point. Easily 12 feet long from snout to tail, the creature resembled a ponderous lizard with eight legs, a barrel-like body, a forest of spikes running along its back, and throat scales that occasionally glowed faintly as though the creature had swallowed a flashlight that was desperately signaling for help. Throughout the ijtikri and vesk’s hushed discussion, the beast had lazily watched them with a half-lidded eye, apparently unimpressed by its visitors and more interested in dozing in the errant sunbeam that peeked through the forest canopy here. As if to signal its nonchalant contentment, it issued a sloppy, snoring sigh and shuffled its body slightly to scratch an itch.

With wide eyes and her voice hushed with uncertainty and awe, Veerkea asked, “Maybe we—"

“—No.” The ijtikri flinched at Obozaya’s interjection. “No. You’re going to say ‘maybe we can talk to it,’ and no. It’s a glowy lizard. You got to sing happy songs with those peace-loving slugs earlier. But with big beasts, we do things my way!” Veerkea raised her arms to protest, but Obozaya waved her off. “No arguing with my scalesense, Vee. Let’s go!” Pushing off the ground with her feet and staff, Obozaya vaulted the fallen tree in a single bound.

The flustered ijtikri called after her. “But I think that’s a plasmalisk, so we need to—”

Illustration by Michele Giorgi from Starfinder Tech Revolution

“—Fight fire with fire, got it!” Obozaya barked confidently, as she landed in a controlled somersault. Knocking the butt of her staff against the ground as she rolled to her feet, she activated the weapon, causing a trio of plasma blades to flare to life and transform the shaft into an axe-like doshko. That got the lizard’s attention. Roaring with delight, Obozaya charged forward and drove the doshko’s energy blades deep into the surprised plasmalisk’s flank. The beast staggered under the impact, but it seemed unhurt. On the contrary, the creature’s flesh seemed to drink in the energy, simultaneously shorting out the doshko and causing its body to incandesce with power. The vesk barely voiced her shocked profanity before the beast moved with impossible speed that belied its bulk, twisting and slamming its tail into Obozaya’s chest and sending her flying back toward the fallen tree.

Veerkea squeaked in alarm as the vesk hurled overhead. Acting fast, she whipped her main arms upward, awakening a multitude of symbiotic nanites that spilled from her body in a torrent. The living cloud wrapped around Obozaya, cushioning her impact as she collided with a nearby tree. Yet the plasmalisk had energy to spare. Before the vesk hit the ground, it spat a fist-sized fiery globule toward the intruders. Predicting the blast, Veerkea folded her body against the ground and propelled herself under the fallen tree, surfing atop the leaf litter to the other side before the projectile shattered against a low-hanging branch, enveloping the forest in flames. Even as fiery splinters rained around her, her nanites snagged the debris, rapidly breaking it down and using it to build more tiny machines to replace the ones she’d lost in the explosion. The flames had devastated the nanites around Obozaya, but their improvised shield was enough; though groaning in pain, her friend was clearly alive.

The plasmalisk’s roar drowned out Obozaya’s groans as the beast trampled toward the ijtikri. Nanites whirled to life in a blinding fog, obscuring Veerkea’s form as the beast bit at her in vain. With each attack, the ijtikri sidestepped, her body partly discorporating into nanomachines with each defensive leap that carried her several body lengths out of harm’s way. As she reformed each time, she made a desperate attempt to defuse hostilities. “Excuse me! Please pardon my friend’s aggression, she—! Perhaps we could—oh no!” At last, the plasmalisk cornered her, cutting off her escape with its broad tail. But rather than bite her, it stared, its eyes glowing with radioactive intensity.

Veerkea’s body exploded in pain as she began blazing with the same heat raging in those eyes, her very cells boiling from the gaze’s energy. As the plasmalisk watched the ijtikri hungrily, the nanite cloud stirred. Millions of the airborne machines seeped back into their host’s body, diagnosing the ijtikri’s distress and isolating the misbehaving tissues to limit their damage. Aided by her myriad medics, Veerkea averted her eyes and suppressed the inner flames before they consumed her. The plasmalisk seemed far less impressed. Seeing that its prey hadn’t succumbed to its gaze, it closed in to finish her off with fangs alone.

A projectile slammed into the beast’s eye, deflecting its jaws as they narrowly missed the ijtikri. As Veerkea scrambled to safety, she nearly tripped over the deactivated plasma doshko that Obozaya had just thrown like a javelin. “Hey!” shouted the bristling vesk from atop one of the rocky outcroppings. “No plasma? No problem!” As if to punctuate her challenge, Obozaya splayed her claws threateningly and growled. Intrigued by this new prey, the beast obliged, hissing angrily as it lumbered toward and collided with the vesk. The two slashed and bit each other, but with twice the size and twice the claws, the plasmalisk quickly gained the advantage.

“Something cold, please!” Veerkea called out to her nanites as she leapt atop another outcropping. She tossed a battery into the air as she pivoted toward the melee, and her myriad machines complied, neatly enveloping the battery and assembling themselves into an energy rifle that landed in her hands. “Nicely done, friends,” the ijtikri chimed as she felt the rifle chilling the air even before it had been fired. She trained it on the plasmalisk, which had pinned Obozaya’s head in place, forcing the vesk to stare into its burning eyes.

Even as Obozaya roared in pain, Veerkea fired. Bolts of bright energy impacted the giant lizard’s haunches, instantaneously draining the target’s body heat and riming the targets with scale-shattering ice. A reflexive shiver forced the plasmalisk to drop Obozaya, and another two shots from Veerkea dimmed the glowing heat deep within the beast’s body. Panicked, the plasmalisk stumbled away, crashing through the foliage to escape the painful onslaught.

But Obozaya’s wounded roar drowned out the beast’s. Veerkea rushed over the where her friend knelt on the ground, pink mist steaming from her body as Obozaya desperately tore off pieces of armor to escape the heat building internally. The ijtikri tackled the vesk, bracing her head and pinning her flailing claws against the moss while channeling nanites into Obozaya’s body to arrest the ionizing affliction. For agonizing moments, the vesk reflexively fought both the fires and the ijtikri, but gradually her thrashing slowed as her natural fortitude prevailed. Obozaya coughed smoke as she came to her senses, blinking in confusion at the ijtikri pinning her before shrugging and drinking a healing serum. “So, ah… did we win?”

Flustered, Veerkea clambered off the vesk and searched the area. “We did, yes, we won. Ah…” As the adrenaline subsided, she began piecing together the puzzle. “The plasmalisk seemed to be basking, but it was clearly drinking in strong energy sources. If this the starship and power core we’re looking for, maybe the creature was drawing energy not from above, but from below?”

“Like a heated rock?” Obozaya had regained her feet, picked up her dented doshko, and staggered over.

“Exactly,” confirmed Veerkea as she continued her examination. “To a plasmalisk, this probably seemed like an oasis, perfect for warming up or… oh…” Confused by the ijtikri’s sudden silence, Obozaya came over to investigate. The beast hadn’t just been basking atop the buried starship’s hatch; it had been incubating. Several shells littered the concave hatch, atop which hissed a foot-long plasmalisk, puffing its body in a feeble threat display.

Spreading her arms to loom over the infant, Obozaya silenced the creature through her presence alone. She grunted dismissively. “Runt of the litter, last to hatch. Well, hope its instincts are good. C’mon, run off to wherever your siblings scampered.” She nudged it with the butt of her doshko to clear the way to the hatch.

Veerkea pulled the doshko to one side. “That’s not how this works, Obo,” she chided. “You picked this fight. Needlessly. If you’re so ready to take a life, you need to be ready to save a life.” The vesk let her head loll to one side in exasperation, like a toddler suffering a lecture. “And it’s not a runt. They were,” observed the ijtikri, pointing to the other shells.

“Wait.” Obozaya’s attention had snapped back to the nest. "So the clutchmates hatch and fight, with the victor eating its siblings?"

Veerkea bobbed sadly. "I know, nature can be cruel."

But Obozaya shook her head with newfound respect. "No, I'm hearing that this is a born, blooded warrior.” She scooped up the eight-legged lizard that wriggled in protest. “My scalesense doesn’t lie. This is a survivor! A worthy companion! A—ow!" Instinctively wary of large predators and displeased with being handled, the baby plasmalisk latched onto Obozaya's finger with its needle-like teeth.

"Hylax rejoices, Obo," laughed Veerkea as she helped disentangle the creature's teeth and eight legs. "You just made first contact."

About The Author

John Compton is the Starfinder Senior Developer at Paizo, Inc., having joined the team after years of creating organized play adventure content. He has written extensively for Pathfinder and Starfinder, including adventures, setting content, and rulebooks, and before working for Paizo, he was a teacher, practicing archaeologist, and archaeometallurgist. You can find John on Twitter and Paizo-facing Discord servers @Archaeotagh.

About Iconic Encounters

Iconic Encounters is a series of web-based flash fiction set in the worlds of Pathfinder and Starfinder. Each short story provides a glimpse into the life and personality of one of the games’ iconic characters, showing the myriad stories of adventure and excitement players can tell with the Pathfinder and Starfinder roleplaying games.

Let’s take a closer look at Paizo Subscriptions, what you can subscribe to right now, and what is coming next. Last time, we looked at the Pathfinder Rulebook and Special Edition Rulebook Ongoing Subscriptions. Now let’s explore the Starfinder Rulebook Ongoing Subscription.

WELCOME TO STARFINDER

Delve into alien ruins in search of lost magic. Match wits with corporate technomancers and their robot army in the gritty depths of a space station. Strafe a dragon-crewed attack cruiser with your starship, defend a new colony from deadly alien predators, or make first contact with a previously unknown alien empire.

Whether you rely on laser rifles, powered armor, esoteric magic, or simply your powers of persuasion, the Starfinder Roleplaying Game places you in the role of a hero who can change the face of the galaxy, one adventure at a time.

Start your Starfinder Rulebook Ongoing Subscription today with the Starfinder Galaxy Exploration Manual (available now) or Starfinder Tech Revolution (scheduled for August 25)!

Starfinder Galaxy Exploration Manual

The worlds of infinite space are yours to discover with the Galaxy Exploration Manual! This all-new, hardcover Starfinder rules expansion for players and Game Masters focuses on exploration-based play across an expansive variety of unusual planets packed with danger and thrilling possibilities for adventure!

The Galaxy Exploration Manual contains:

• New class options for every Starfinder class.
• An extensive player character background generator.
• New equipment from personal items to grenades, medicinals, and serums.
• Rules for creating and exploring sensational science-fantasy worlds ranging from a huge variety of planets to asteroids, satellites, colony ships, and more.
• Extensive details on 12 different environmental biomes such as airborne, desert, space, subterranean, and urban—with systems for generating each biome’s inhabitants, threats, and adventure hooks—and unique player character options related to each one.
• Rules for creating and expanding a world’s cultural relationship with magic, religion, or technology.
• GM tactics and advice for running exciting, open-ended space exploration campaigns.

Starfinder Tech Revolution

Command galactic technologies so sophisticated that they rival magic itself! Outfit yourself with the latest and greatest new weapons, armor, and other gear, from high-power explosives to alien relics that surpass conventional science. Or incorporate such technologies directly into yourself, whether by installing advanced cybernetic augmentations or playing Starfinder’s newest class: the nanocyte, whose body hosts an army of robotic nanites that obey their commands!

Outrace the speediest threats by customizing your own space-age vehicles and overcome even the toughest foes by piloting powerful battle robots using the all-new mech combat system! Seize the future with additional options for every class and articles exploring every aspect of science-fantasy tech: from advertising and music to virtual intelligences and security systems. Join in the Starfinder Tech Revolution!

Cover not final.

Starfinder Galactic Magic

The upcoming product in this subscription is the Starfinder Galactic Magic hardcover, scheduled for early December!

Unravel the eldritch mysteries of the galaxy! The new Galactic Magic hardcover rulebook for the Starfinder Roleplaying Game adds magical flair to any hero with a wealth of fantastical magic-infused character options for starfarers of any class! More than 100 spells, a host of powerful rituals, and an array of magic gear, hybrid items, and artifacts give you the edge to survive in a weird universe with lurking dangers at the end of every jump. The brand-new precog class can see and change the future, making some die rolls ahead of time to either foresee their own success or prophesy their foes’ failure as the precog adapts to and manipulates combat.

Study arcana among the stars with a host of new magical organizations and spellcasting schools or petition higher powers using new faith-based options tied to the galaxy’s gods and philosophies. Whatever your path to magical might, Galactic Magic is your guide!

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Never miss a product release again with subscriptions that suit your playstyle. From core rulebooks, world guides, and accessories to the latest miniatures, customize your subscription and unlock greater rewards, like discounts and free Organized Play content.

When you become an ongoing subscriber to one of Paizo’s many product lines, you'll be sure to get the latest and greatest Pathfinder and Starfinder products shipped to you directly from the Paizo warehouse upon release. There are a variety of subscriptions to choose from; with benefits ranging from free PDF copies, discounts, and more. As a bonus, when you sign up for any four or more qualifying physical Pathfinder or Starfinder subscriptions, you'll qualify to gain access to the Paizo Advantage, which grants you a 15% discount on most products available at paizo.com, and your choice of complimentary Pathfinder or Starfinder Society Scenarios. Sign up for six or more qualifying subscriptions, and you'll get both!

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The evolutionist is a new class for Starfinder that brings to bear the power of transformation over time. As an evolutionist, you’ll become a fantastical extraplanar being, turn from mere mortal into machine, accept the powers and perils of undeath, or erupt with chimeric potential and vital energy. Whichever path you choose, you’ll have to balance your burgeoning capacity for change with the sometimes-dangerous effects of tapping into such potential.

Illustration by Michele Giorgi

This playtest is your chance to get a look at an early version of this new class and have a hand in its development before it hits shelves in an upcoming book!

Playtesting the Evolutionist

The evolutionist playtest launches today, August 2, and runs through September 24. So how can you help playtest this new class? First, you’ll want to download the free PDF of the playtest from starfinderplaytest.com. Then you can create a brand new evolutionist of any level using the new rules. We're most interested in feedback from actual play, so it's best if you can get some friends together and play a few sessions using your new character. If possible, make up characters at different levels to get a sense of how they work at different points in their career.

There's no accompanying playtest adventure—you can use the new class in existing adventures like Starfinder Society scenarios or Starfinder Adventure Paths, or even in mock combats that you create yourself using the Starfinder Core Rulebook’s encounter-creation rules. It might be helpful to take some notes during play, so you can remember your thoughts on the experience after the game session. To gather the most useful data for this playtest, we ask that you avoid using house rules and play these characters using only published rules from the Starfinder RPG.

Playtesting in the Starfinder Society

Players participating in Starfinder Society Organized Play can also join in the worldwide playtest to test the evolutionist class. From today until the playtest's completion, players can create custom evolutionist characters of levels 1, 4 and 8. For more information, click here.

Survey

Our primary means of collecting feedback for the playtest is through a survey that we would like everyone participating in the playtest to complete. A link to the survey is available on the playtest page. Please make sure you've filled out your survey by September 24, 2021.

In addition to responding via the official survey, you can engage with other players and designers on the playtest forum to discuss the evolutionist and possibilities for the future. While we want to focus on actual-play feedback, we're interested in hearing all your ideas about the class.

What are your thoughts about the playtest? Are you excited? Do you have any questions about the playtest process? Let us know in the comments below!

—The Starfinder Team

“Give it your allsix. Give it your allsix.” The chipper voice sang out in the spacious green and yellow interior cockpit of the Veskarium Vanquisher mech. The sound of responding digital displays and humming power fields harmonized with the cheerful voice.

“Time to face the morning and make some nufriends!” A second, equally energetic voice joined in to complete the ditty and punctuated the song’s end with a series of additional digital keystrokes on floating vidscreens.

Sarotska watched with interest as the data appeared in front of her. The holographic light shined off her bright red scales, giving her a momentary violet complexion as she took in the display. Swiping the holographic data away with her claw, the vesk commander of the mech briefly closed her eyes.

“Quiet on deck. Bunkle, ready the plasma rifles. Jiji, I want to make sure the weapons core is ready to swap our output over at a moment’s notice.” Sarotska spoke the commands as her eyes re-opened and fixed on the alien landscape now visible through the small view slit that was only accessible from her position in the mech’s chest cavity cockpit.

The stone forests of Elytrio’s southern hemisphere were some of the most unnerving terrains that Sarotska had seen in her long time with Obsidian Spiders mercenary company. She’d battled the Azlanti Star Empire, the Swarm, and at least a half-dozen different types of outsiders who’d breached the Material Plane for one reason or another. She’d taken part in the second Scoured Stars invasion and inserted onto jungles where colossi walked like modern gods. Still, Elytrio had a feel completely unlike that of any world she’d walked on. It was a planet that appeared dead, yet wasn’t entirely done with the world of the living.

“Sorry about the singing, boss. It’s just, this place doesn’t seem right, ‘gree?” The statement and question came from Bunkle, one of two other operators onboard the mech with Sarotska. The electric blue skittermander turned around and looked up to Sarotska’s elevated position in the cockpit, his six arms continuing to manipulate controls around him as he scrunched his face.

“Yeah boss. I thought this place was supposed to be an irradiated wasteland, but there’s no sign of radiation. It’s just a bunch of weird, petrified trees.” The follow-up came from the other skittermander crewmember, the cherry-red Jiji, who kept her eyes forward, looking out from sensors and moving the mech’s twin plasma rifles at the smallest disturbance in the terrain.

Sarotska waved a dismissive claw while peering out the viewscreen. “Look. We’re here to find some missing Starfinders. Or, at the very least, their bodies. The Society paid for us because their team that went missing was pretty capable and it’s likely whatever took them down ambushed them in this area. So yes, I think something isn’t right here, but I think the only way we’re going to figure it out is if you keep you eyes on your screens, Bunkle.”

The blue skittermander crunched his face in a sour expression and stuck out his tongue before swiveling around to stare back at the mountain of data feeds that accumulated in front of him. Jiji chuckled from her position, though her wide eyes never left the constant flow of data.

“Got something, boss! Looks like a signal up ahead behind those rocks.” Jiji chirped from her station. The data quickly moved up to Sarotska’s station with a visual swish as it loaded onto her console.

“Hmmm...” Sarotska mused as she took in the data. “It looks like a blip of radiation from behind the rocks. Could be some leftover irradiated debris. Probably something the Starfinders would have investigated on their mission here.

“Bunkle, I’m going to move us closer. Keep the plasma rifles ready, just in case.” The commands emerged from Sarotska’s mouth, but she’d already put the mech in motion. One plodding step after another, the Vanquisher continued moving on its path. The roughly humanoid bulk of it crushed the cracked gray terrain around it, as the bulky chassis of the Vanquisher navigated through trees and debris.

The Vanquisher mech was something of an oddity of Veskarium-crafted mechs. It lacked the armor upgrades common on mechs like the Ripclaw or Warmander, and instead had been designed by Veskarium engineers for maximum destructive ranged combat. A Vanquisher boasted a pair of heavy plasma rifles, capable of devastating the land around it for a hundred feet. To mount such brazen weapons on its hull, the Vanquisher not only sacrificed heavy Veskarium armor, but it also lacked any sort of dedicated melee weapon beyond its ponderous legs.

“I’m getting something, boss... more radiation. It looks like... OH NO!” Jiji updated just in time for the crew to spot two things in their sensor displays.

The first was a gruesome cluster of bodies. Six skeletal figures, each with radically different equipment, were scattered at the base of the rock. The emblem of the Starfinder Society caught in a slight updraft off the tattered backpack of one of the unfortunate souls, letting the crew of the Vanquisher know that they’d found their targets.

The second sight was a sudden movement in the rocks. In an instant, the top rock seemed to ripple in the breeze, and then a moment later, it spouted thousands of cracks. As the crew tried to comprehend what they were seeing, the cracked rock burst into thousands of tiny forms that formed a swarming cloud.

“Jiji! What are we looking at here?” Sarotska demanded as she backed the Vanquisher off from the agitated lifeforms.

“High radiation, boss. Looks like it’s a colony of insects that fed off the radiation. Their wings are some kind of shielding material, so that’s why we couldn’t scan them earlier.” Jiji blathered as she scanned streams of incoming data and manipulated the information with her arms, sending necessary data to both Sarotska and Bunkle.

Outside the Vanquisher, the swarm continued to grow as more of the nearby “rocks” sluffed away to unleash droning insects that joined their kin in a growing ball. Instinctively reacting to the mounting threat, Sarotska moved the Vanquisher back several paces, with each step causing the swarm to reflexively discorporate or extend in random directions. Then, an instant after the mech came to a plodding stop, the swarm engulfed the mech and alert sirens blared.

“Radiation increasing! The outer shields have burst. The outer hull is melting!” Jiji continued to deliver verbal updates, despite the information displays Sarotska had in front of her to confirm the damage.

“Bunkle, I think it’s time that we give our new friends a show of force.” Sarotska put distinct emphasis on the word “friends,” employing the tonal meanings of the Vesk language to let her crewmember know that these insects were to be immediately recognized as hostiles and targeted immediately.

Illustration by Michele Giorgi from Starfinder Tech Revolution.

A moment later, two beams of bright white and blue plasma streamed out from the twin rifles mounted on the Vanquisher’s upper limbs. The swarm danced around the beams, and while some of the insects fell into electrified husks, others in the swarm seemed to bloat and expand off some of the energy weapons fire that poured into them.

“Looks like they’re eating most of the plasma, boss. It’s just like how they eat radiation here.” Jiji reported as the cockpit shook with another violent impact from the swarm. “Outer hull integrity is down fifty percent. Ammo reserve number one is jammed!”

Sarotska took a moment. She closed her eyes again, and breathed as time slowed around her. She assimilated the verbal updates from Jiji, the scores of tactical data that flooded her vision, and then saw the swarm through the viewport in her station.

With a flash of white teeth, Sarotska opened her eyes and she fell back into the moment.

“Jiji, shift the weapons core energy to siphon high-frequencies into the rifles. Override the fire mixture since they’re feeding on that. Bunkle, get ready to make the next two shots count.” As the commands issued from her, Sarotska took control of the Vanquisher’s movement systems and siphoned from the power core to initiate a stomping trample maneuver—the only reliable melee option available to the mech. The stomping behemoth moved through the swarm, which parted at its sudden burst of speed.

Shifting on its ponderous legs, the Vanquisher made a hundred-and-eighty-degree turn as Sarotska steadied the moving mech with manual controls from her station. Jiji continued adjusting screens as she desperately sent energy streaming from the rear-mounted weapon core into the twin plasma rifles. Finally, Bunkle rested his upper arms behind his head, while his remaining two sets of arms both went to work lining up shots through the Vanquisher’s autotargeting system.

“Guess today’s not the day for nufriends, ‘gree?”

A stream of electrified air blasted out from the rifle arms, momentarily deafening the cockpit’s occupants. Instead of the fiery plasma that previously emerged, waves of sonic resonance accented by arcs of lighting flew out in a straight line toward the swarm of insects. The twin lines pulverized the swarm together, where arcs of electricity shot between the insects, baking their bodies to dust in an instant.

“We did it!” Jiji shouted, leaping atop her piloting chair.

“Was there ever a doubt?” Bunkle followed-up, cracking the fingers of his lower arms while his upper arms continued to support the back of his head.

Sarotska’s smile vanished as stillness overcame the former battlefield. Nothing remained of the targets.

“Bunkle.” the vesk pilot began, her tone immediately conveying a mounting sense of anger and worry.

“You didn’t hit those Starfinders’ remains, did you?”

VESKARIUM VANQUISHER — TIER 5

Gargantuan Legionnaire

Operators 2-6 PP 7 (1/turn, max 16)
Speed 70 ft.
Senses blindsense (vibration) 30 ft., darkvision 120 ft., low-light vision

DEFENSE
HP 64; SP 13; Hardness 3
EAC 23; KAC 23
Fort +7; Ref +6
Immunities construct immunities

OFFENSE
Base Attack Bonus +9
Ranged +11 plasma rifle (upper limb—3d8+5 E&F; critical wound) or +11 plasma rifle (upper limb—3d8+5 E&F; critical wound)
Space 20 ft.; Reach 20 ft.
Strength +6

SYSTEMS

Power Core mk 3 eternal (battle core); Lower Limbs heavy biped; Upper Limbs precision arms (+1 melee, +2 ranged); Auxiliary ammo reserve (x2), autotarget, weapon core (cold & sonic)

---

About the Author

Thurston Hillman is the Digital Adventures Developer at Paizo. He lives in the frigid ice deserts of Canada, where he's written and developed products for Paizo and other game companies. Prior to working at Paizo, Thurston worked in the aviation and technology fields where he travelled the world for several years. You can find Thurston on Twitter at @OnCallGM.

About Tales from the Drift

The Tales from the Drift series of web-based flash fiction provides an exciting glimpse into the setting of the Starfinder Roleplaying Game. Written by members of the Starfinder development team and some of the most celebrated authors in tie-in gaming fiction, the Tales from the Drift series promises to explore the worlds, alien cultures, deities, history, and organizations of the Starfinder setting with engaging stories to inspire Game Masters and players alike.

Today, we’re launching the Starfinder Beginner Box Humble Bundle to support ComicBooks For Kids! The bundle’s tiers include PDFs of the Starfinder Core Rulebook, Starfinder Alien Archive, and the complete six-part Dawn of Flame Adventure Path—and at the highest tier, physical copies of both the Starfinder Beginner Box and Pact Worlds hardcover!

The $5 tier includes PDFs of the Starfinder Core Rulebook, three Starfinder Society Scenarios, four Starfinder Flip-Mats associated with those adventures, the first volume of the Dawn of Flame Adventure Path, and more. For $15, you’ll also get PDFs of the Starfinder Alien Archive, GM Screen, chapters two and three of Dawn of Flame, three additional Starfinder Society Scenarios, and five more Starfinder Flip-Mats! At the $30 tier, you’ll also get PDFs of the Starfinder Beginner Box, Starfinder Pact Worlds, two more Starfinder Society scenarios, three additional Starfinder Flip-Mats, and the final three volumes of the Dawn of Flame Adventure Path.

Finally, Humble Bundle is offering a $50 physical reward tier that includes all 32 of the PDF products from the lower tiers, plus physical copies of the Starfinder Beginner Box and Pact Words hardcover delivered right to your door! Fulfillment is handled by Paizo, and you’re responsible for shipping fees. We anticipate that domestic shipping will run in the $17–$20* range and that international shipping will be in the $43–$65* range.

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Veerkea’s life began at sea. Literally, of course: like almost all ijtikris, she hatched from a free-floating egg, grew as an instinct-driven larva for two years, and metamorphosed into her adult, squid-like body before clambering to shore, drawing her first breath of air, and searching for other ijtikris to adopt as her family. Yet, ijtikris hadn’t ruled the planet Iji since ancient times, when the technologically superior Veskarium conquered, annexed, and renamed the world Vesk-2, the first of many conquests. So, when young Veerkea first peeked her upper eyes above the waves, she instead spotted and reflexively bonded to a vesk squadron performing amphibious landing drills along the beach. The vesk gave her a name and a hearty welcome, delighted in teaching her Vesk profanity for the afternoon, and then transported her to the nearest settlement on the isle of Ijahi for proper adoption, but Veerkea vehemently and violently protested being separated from her new family. Impressed by her outburst’s ferocity and considering this a sign the god Damoritosh’s favor, the local commander allowed the new unit to remain together.

Part daughter, part mascot, Veerkea thrived under her myriad parents’ tutelage. Her formal education was straightforward: Veskarium lore, physical training, tactics, weapon proficiency, demolitions, and field repairs. Wherever the unit traveled, she absorbed languages, cultural norms, and local technologies even more quickly than her basic foundation. In her final year abroad, the unit operated alongside a predominantly shirren humanitarian mission on a survey of Swarm-ravaged worlds. Where survivors held out, the joint operation provided material aid, spiritual succor courtesy of the god Hylax, and assistance clearing out remaining Swarm hives. Where none had survived, the operation catalogued the damage and whatever remained of these now extinct societies. With each ruined world, Veerkea not only grew more intrigued by the compassionate teachings of Hylax, the Forever Queen, she also saw parallels between these ravaged planets and unanswered questions she had about her own home world. Who were the ijtikris really? And what were they like before the Veskarium invaded?

To their credit, both the shirrens and vesk supported her inquiries. Her sergeant-mother, Bhaskeh, secured her what scant imperial documentation survived the pre-Gap conquest of Vesk-2. The more Veerkea read, though, the more the narrative fell apart, seemingly stitched together by placating guesses from fifth-hand sources. Even the venerated poem Skyships Over Shallow Seas, supposedly written by an eyewitness, began with “The skyships arrived with the monsoon rains,” yet the planet had never experienced seasons, much less monsoons. Veerkea had to learn more, and with Bhaskeh’s glowing recommendation to their superiors, the ijtikri secured admission to the prestigious Xakemath College of Cultural Studies on Vesk Prime.

Illustration by Remko Troost