Hello there future PAIZOCON 2009 attendees! Today's blog is all about our upcoming fan con and the events and guests you can expect to see there. In case you've been asleep under a bridge in Tasmania and have no idea what PAIZOCON is, please click here and find out. You can also purchase your 3-Day PAIZOCON badge and your $5 Pathfinder RPG Preview Banquet tickets. Hotel information can be found here.
Additional Guests
In addition to Monte Cook, Sue Cook, Eva Widermann, Wolfgang Baur, Clark Peterson, and the entire Paizo staff, we're announcing five new special guests today as well! You can view the complete guest list here.
Lou Agresta
Fantasy game design crept up on Lou Agresta in 2005, when diamondthrone.com accepted his first articles on true names. Until then a writer of travelogues, indie comics, fashion essays, and torturous, self-indulgent philosophy tracts, his more recent adventure credits include SAW #1 and #12 of the Trodoon Gate Saga (LPJ Designs), The Bloody Fix and The Punctured Vein with Rone Barton (O0negames), and Pathfinder Society Scenario #8: Slave Pits of Absalom. Lou is one of six authors from the Great City Campaign Setting (0onegames), a contributor to Sinister Adventures, and chief-scribbler over at the RPGAggression blog. A member of the Werecabbages freelance writer's guild, he also had his fingers in both the GM Gems and PC Pearls collaborations (Goodman Games) and has made guest appearances as Cthu-Lou on the Atomic Array podcast. Lou's set piece, slated for Pathfinder #24, will likely prove the last of its kind. Dungeon acquired his first adventure, written with Nicolas Logue, then canceled the magazine, leaving Lou forever haunted by the fear he is somehow responsible. Lou lives somewhere in upstate NY with his wife, daughter, a dog, and a couple of horses. While he has sometimes worn a kilt and ridden a tractor, no one has ever caught him doing both.
Rob McCreary
Rob McCreary was born in Japan and raised in the United States. He started gaming when the red Basic D&D boxed set came out. Rob currently lives in Prague, Czech Republic, where he is an English teacher by day and freelancer by night. Rob made it to last year's RPG Superstar Top 4 with a combination of coin belts, ziggurat-filled jungles, and monkey-goblins. Thus far he has contributed to the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting, several Pathfinder Bestiaries, and the upcoming Dungeon Denizens Revisited. Rob is currently scrambling to finish writing the final installment of the upcoming Legacy of Fire Adventure Path, "The Final Wish."
Jason Nelson
Jason Nelson is in the job market as a professor of education (have doctorate, will travel!) and a devoted Christian who lives in Seattle, Washington with his two kids, Allen and Meshia, and has been gaming since 1981. He's hardcore enough that he uses the name of his first-ever D&D character, Tjaden, in his email address, and he's also devious enough to have slipped the name of his fiancee into the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting, to her great amusement and delight. Jason was some combination of lucky and good enough to make the Final Four in the inaugural RPG Superstar and has also written a number of adventures and articles for Dungeon and Dragon magazines (ah, memories) and over a hundred webcolumns for Wizards of the Coast, including the long-running "Save My Game" and "Behind the Screen." More recently, he has contributed to Dungeon Denizens Revisited and several Pathfinder Bestiaries, co-wrote Osirion: Land of the Pharaohs, and is the author of "The End of Eternity", the fourth adventure in the Legacy of Fire Adventure Path. It's awesome! You should totally go buy a copy!
rk post
Just prior to graduation from Northern Illinois University in 1994, rk post started freelancing in the fantasy gaming industry doing interior illustrations for several major game companies, gradually teaching himself how to paint with acrylics and eventually oils. rk garnered a staff illustration position at TSR in the fall of 1996 painting cover illustrations for games and novels. rk left (then) WotC in the winter of 2000 and now he doubles as a full time freelance illustrator and senior artist for Big Fish Games in Seattle. rk has contracted and worked with White Wolf, WizKids, Fanpro, Microsoft (Mythica, X Box), LucasFilm, 20th Century Fox (Aliens vs. Predator series), Sega (Dreamcast), Nintendo, Ballantine Books, Science Fiction Book Club, Hasbro (television and animation), Marvel Entertainment, DC Comics, Dark Horse Comics, the History Channel, and Blizzard Entertainment (Diablo 2, World of Warcraft). rk post has his collected works available in a hard cover art book, Postmortem: the Art of rk post through Cartouche Press (www.cartouchepress.com). New and continuing work can also be seen at www.rkpost.net and www.myspace.com/rkpost.
Neil Spicer
Born in the shadow of North Carolina's Blue Ridge mountains, Neil Spicer started gaming in the early '80s. His first foray into RPG design began with a simple fanzine devoted to Alternity's Star*Drive and Dark.Matter campaign settings titled Action Check. Since then, he's written a handful of D20 PDF products for third-party publishers and co-authored a softcover D20 Future supplement called the Future Player's Companion through the Game Mechanics and Green Ronin. Neil somehow managed to survive Paizo's RPG Superstar 2009 contest and emerged with an opportunity to write Realm of the Fellnight Queen, an Pathfinder Module scheduled for release in January 2010.
Events
Below is just a small sampling of the events you can expect to see and participate in at PAIZOCON 2009. Event sign-ups will go live in May. We still have a few badges left—don't be left out, buy yours today! In addition to the events below, Pathfinder Society members of all levels and experience will be able to participate in a Friday night interactive penned by Erik Mona and Joshua J. Frost that's sure to keep people talking for years!
Pathfinder Society Scenario #23: Tide of Morning by Steven Robert (for Tier 1–5)
Venture-Captain Dennel Hamshanks sends you to convince an Andoren druid named Hemzel to allow the Pathfinder Society to study his recently discovered lorestone, a minor magical item that unlocks some of the mysteries of the ancient Andoren druid circles. When you arrive and find Hemzel murdered and the lorestone missing, you must race against time to recover the lorestone and stop Hemzel's murderers from using it against the druids of Andoran.
Pathfinder Society Scenario #24: The Decline of Glory by Tim Hitchcock (for Tier 1–7)
When the son of a famous Pathfinder gains control of his father's holdings in Taldor, the Pathfinder Society decides to build a new lodge there as a base to explore the many ruins of that crumbling empire. Unfortunately, the Taldan Phalanx has its eye on the holdings and an ancient curse has turned many of the residents into the walking dead. Can you survive the tangled web of Taldor's politics and fight off the echoes of the past or will you, too, see your glory decline?
Pathfinder Society Scenario #25: Hands of the Muted God by Clinton J. Boomer (for Tier 5–9)
When the man who would be the Muted God wordlessly stepped beyond the gates of the Starstone's Cathedral, his thousand and one faithful ringing the Ascendant Court watched with the silent contemplation that is their highest sacrament. When he failed to emerge, many of his penitents abandoned their vows but a small sect remained loyal and worshipful. You and your fellow Pathfinders are sent into the mountains north of Absalom to follow the path of a doomed party and uncover the secrets of the Muted God. His loyal band of followers, called the Hand, will stop at nothing to keep you away from their shrine—even forming an alliance with some of Golarion's most evil denizens.
Pathfinder Society Scenario #26: Lost at Bitter End by Joshua J. Frost (for Tier 7–11)
When a Pathfinder Society Priest of Nethys disappears in northern Geb while studying the Mana Wastes, the Society sends you to uncover his whereabouts and find his journals. Arriving in the town of Bitter End, you find it deserted but for a few mysterious creatures never before seen on Golarion. Those creatures quickly lead to more and soon you're embroiled in a mystery that could affect the very fabric of reality. Will you solve the mystery of Bitter End or find yourself lost forever in the Mana Wastes?
Cursed Lot: New Beginnings, GMed by Jason Bulmahn
Last year, a group of brave, but horribly cursed adventurers set out on a brave adventure. While one succeeded to be rid of his terrible curse, the rest suffered and even worse fate. This year, a new band of unfortunately cursed heroes takes on an even greater challenge... to rescue a missing dog. How hard could that be?
Fires Over Brinestump, GMed by James Jacobs
It's been three years since the last time goblins have been a problem on the Lost Coast, but last night, a band of Licktoad Goblins from the Brinestump Marsh lit a merchant wagon on fire. The lone survivior almost made it to the town of Sandpoint before dying of his burns, and shortly after his body is discovered, fireworks bloom over Brinestump Marsh, lighting the night sky south of Sandpoint in an unmistakable display of goblin celebration. Why are the Licktoad Goblins on the march? Who gave them fireworks? Does this herald the advent of another goblin invasion of the town of Sandpoint? A Pathfinder RPG adventure for six 1st level characters.
Into the Scarlet Monastery, GMed by Sean K Reynolds
The zealots of the Scarlet Monastery have been a blight on the world for three years. Reviled by all, they hate against all nonhumans, accuse their enemies of spreading plague, and lynch innocents in the name of their crusade. Now is the time to defeat their Commander. But are two orc warriors, a troll mage, a warlock, an undead rogue, and a minotaur druid up to the task?
Before Nightfall, a PFPRG Playtest for a work in progress, GMed by F. Wesley Schneider
Forsaken, some places are best left to their haunted memories and the shadows of things best left forgotten. On the Ustalavic frontieer, one such ruin has long loomed over the lives and nightmares of the local peasents, a monument to terrors that can never be forgotten. Now a terrible new life has returned to the dreaded citadel, one that seeks to renew the horrors of centuries past. Take up arms and explore the deadly grounds and labyinthine courtyards of a soon to be infamous gothic castle, offer your advice and feedback on what makes for exciting horror roleplaying, and participate in the creation of a terrifying new adventure written in the tradition of one of the most famous horror RPG modules of all time.
Short Fiction Workshop
Paizo Fiction Editor James L. Sutter and Editor Christopher Paul Carey critique your short fiction! James and Chris will critique your story from an editorial viewpoint and go over it with you, focusing especially on the opening and those red flags editors use to quickly reject stories, helping you hone your writing and make it past an editor's initial cut. Please note that workshopping will be on a first-come, first-served basis during the listed timeslot—you can sign up so you don't have to wait around the whole time.
Pathfinder Society Scenario Open Call Workshop
A future Pathfinder Society Scenario for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game will be decided on at PAIZOCON 2009! Soon, Paizo's Events Manager Joshua J. Frost will put out an open call for one of the fall Pathfinder Society Scenarios—a call that can only be answered by attendees at PAIZOCON 2009! All who contributed may attend this workshop where Joshua will go over why each scenario was and wasn't accepted. For a unique look inside the creative mind of the guy who brings you your monthly installment of Pathfinder Society scenarios, look no further than this seminar! This event will be capped at 20 attendees.
... and much, much more! Don't delay—sign up for PAIZOCON 2009 today!
