Off to Press!

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

So now that we sent all our Gen Con releases off to the printer (thanks to some pretty crazy hours worked last week), things seem weirdly calm and relaxed here at Paizo. Which is dangerous! We don’t want to fall behind again so soon after we just got caught up!

For my part, much of the last month has been spent buried in Pathfinder’s Adventure Paths, so it was pretty exciting over the last week to finally come up for air (even if that was merely to jump into another deep pool of deadlines) to help prepare other projects for press. Like the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting hardcover.

Sweet Desna does this book look incredible! There’s all sorts of tidbits packed into its 256 pages, from writeups for dozens and dozens of nations and regions, to short essays on obscure facets of the world like psionics and technology (yes, including guns!), to all sorts of new deities ranging from minor gods like Besmara (the Pirate Queen) and Zyphus (a sort of grim-reaper type deity) to a nice healthy selection of demon lords, archdevils, the four horsemen, and even the angelic empyreal lords.

And while a lot of the book is pure flavor, usable for any game system, fans of the crunch won’t be disappointed either. Each region comes with at least one new feat, for example, and there’s a pretty extensive section on campaign-specific weapons, armor, and gear. There’s also five prestige classes—one of them isn’t new to readers of Pathfinder (the Red Mantis assassin appears in this book, complete with some errata that properly keys her spells to Charisma rather than Intelligence). The other four prestige classes are all new, and drip with Golarion flavor. Pictured here is the harrower, a spellcaster prestige class that draws power from the mystical Varisian deck of cards known as the Harrow. Among other powers, a harrower gains the ability to draw cards from her deck to power up her spells with metamagic-type effects, and as she gains levels, she gains a bit more control over how these effects are applied. As for what the other three prestige classes are in the book? Well... let’s just say fans of crusaders, chroniclers, and pirates won’t be disappointed!

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief