A week ago we flew back to Seattle from another great Gen Con experience. By day we managed the Paizo booth, and after the exhibit hall closed, we ascended to the Sagamore Ballroom for a special event every night. On Thursday night we presented Pathfinder Society Special #6-97: Siege of Serpents, which debuted at PaizoCon 2015 but easily shattered past attendance records in the Sagamore. This was also an opportunity to thank Mike Brock for his service to the organized play campaign, announce 11 new Campaign Service Award recipients, and recognize the many GMs who have received their fifth star in the past year.
Mike Brock announcing Campaign Service Awards and 5th stars.
Photo courtesy of Chris and Amanda Hays
On Friday night we seated even more players, reaching 1,350 participants (not even counting our admirable orange-shirt HQ volunteers who relayed tables' successes). The Pathfinders at long last activated the Sky Key during Pathfinder Society Special #7-00: The Sky Key Solution, during which they had a unique opportunity to explore a never before seen corner of Golarion lore. Partway through, publisher Erik Mona and many of our senior editorial staff stopped in on their way from the ENnies to address the room and pass out promotional miniatures.
During the event, editor-in-chief F. Wesley Schneider snapped this panoramic shot of the room.
On Saturday morning, I approached Thurston Hillman and cajoled him into running a bunch of us through Pathfinder Society Special #6-99: True Dragons of Absalom, the adventure he wrote to debut at Gen Con. That night, after Mike Brock announced four more Campaign Service Award recipients, five Paizo employees, and Tonya Woldridge (one of the lead HQ volunteers) got to play kobolds while Thurston fought back by inserting extra Easter eggs that never would have survived development. One highlight of the evening included the GM running around the table like an airplane, pretending to be a much more ferocious flying creature that demanded our obedience. Fortunately for Thurston, the only documentation of that moment is too blurry to post. Mike Brock also joined a game that involved some of the best 3D terrain we've seen!
Judy Bauer, John Compton, and Linda Zayas-Palmer scheme while Thurston Hillman (right) plans how to end their miserable kobold lives—and poaches another GM's 3D terrain.
Photo courtesy of Tonya Woldridge
There was even a special event on Sunday morning, when players got to portray conniving Aspis Consortium agents attacking a key Pathfinder Lodge in Pathfinder Society Special #6-98: Serpents Rise. Both this and True Dragons of Absalom are now available for the campaign's most devoted GMs (4- and 5-star respectively) to run, and we're adding these to those GMs' downloads soon.
A fraction of the Sagamore's many tables in action and the immense banners of our iconic characters—including all of the new iconics from Occult Adventures.
Photo courtesy of Erik Mona
Several other changes to the Sagamore Ballroom stood out this year in addition to the larger space and the greater number of special events. You may have seen that HQ operated several information desks near the ballroom's main entrances, helping to direct new players, explain what Pathfinder Society is all about, and distribute important handouts like pregenerated characters and Faction Journal Cards. Right in front of the elevated HQ platform, Miniature Building Authority generously set up a large 3D village, and we ran short demo adventures in which players portrayed goblins raiding Sandpoint and performing a variety of zany missions. I think I'll let Erik Mona's picture show you how beautiful a scene this set for goblin carnage. Finally, as in previous years, we also debuted six new quests called Phantom Phenomena, written by three great authors we learned about through the Pathfinder Society Open Call.
Thank you to everyone who made it to Indianapolis and helped make the weekend so fun!
The Pathfinder Society Team
