In early November Paizo challenged amateur game designers from around the world to show off their skills in a revolutionary online contest called RPG Superstar. From more than 850 submitted wondrous items, celebrity judges Erik Mona (Paizo's Publisher), Wolfgang Baur (Editor-in-Chief, Kobold Quarterly), and Clark Peterson (President, Necromancer Games) narrowed the field to 32 would-be RPG Superstars, and further rounds have narrowed that field in the intervening weeks.
The final round asked the four competing finalists to propose a 32-page GameMastery Module for ultimate publication by Paizo as the Grand Prize of RPG Superstar. Contestants Clinton Boomer (Macomb, IL), Rob McCreary (Prague, Czech Republic), Jason Nelson (Seattle, WA), and Christine Schneider (Neu-Isenburg, Germany) responded with four excellent proposals, each worthy of publication in its own way.
But there can be only one RPG Superstar, and in the end after the celebrity judges had a chance to offer comments and criticism and the general public had their final vote, one proposal stood out as the clear winner.
Congratulations to Christine Schneider for her victorious proposal, "Clash of the Kingslayers." Here's a brief description of the adventure from Christine's winning RPG Superstar submission:
This module will set the heroes against the gods' blind wrath in defence of a dwarven city-kingdom. During the course of the adventure the PCs will cross swords with dwarvish valkyries, fight giants freed from the underworld, unravel an ancient secret, and explore a remote monastery.
What starts as a casual dungeon crawl, will turn into a frantic pandemonium as the monastery is imbued with divine life to wage war on the city the heroes might choose to protect or even aid to destroy.
Ultimately, the PCs get the chance to slay not one, but three kings in attempt to end this madness and write the final lines of an ancient tragedy. This adventure is intended for characters of 10th-level and will yield enough experience to advance them to 11th-level or even half-way to 12th-level.
As RPG Superstar's Grand Prize, Paizo will contract Christine Schneider to write "Clash of the Kingslayers," which we will release as GameMastery Module S1 in January, 2009.
But you don't have to wait until January to reserve your copy! Head over to the new "Clash of the Kingslayers" product page here on paizo.com to preorder your copy of Christine's winning adventure! If you already subscribe to GameMastery Modules, "Clash of the Kingslayers" will arrive as part of your ongoing subscription.
On behalf of judges Wolfgang Baur and Clark Peterson as well as the whole Paizo Publishing family, congratulations to Clinton Boomer, Rob McCreary, Jason Nelson, and Christine Schneider.
Remember those names, folks. You'll be hearing from all of them in the months and years to come. Though the contest produced only one true RPG Superstar, it also turned up a huge number of fresh voices we plan to work with for a long time to come.
And I'd like to offer one final thanks to you, the readers of paizo.com and to anyone who submitted an entry to this year's RPG Superstar contest. The event has been enormously popular here on the site, and even the wizened old judges learned a thing or two along the way. Something this successful is certain to return, so in the meantime sharpen your pencils and start working on some wondrous items.
