Last week, James gave a run down on the path to Pathfinder #100 in this blog. Now I'm here to talk a bit about the contents of this special volume—Pathfinder Adventure Path #100: A Song of Silver.
First off, since James wrote the adventure for this volume, we needed someone to develop it and I was the man for the job. Normally we don't sub in another developer for an adventure in an Adventure Path in order to maintain continuity, but when the developer running the Adventure Path is the adventure's author it makes it easy for someone to step in. I'm pretty sure James knew the story he wanted to tell, and he was readily on hand for any questions I had.
The next cool thing about this volume of Pathfinder—at least for me—was that I had the chance to get the publisher to write an article for me. He's a busy man, but I managed to convince Erik Mona to pen the Aroden article. It's a good thing too. If he didn't agree we wouldn't have run the article, because as Aroden's creator, Erik was the only man for the job.
The biggest new addition to this volume is the Friends and Foes section where we present an NPC inspired by every Adventure Path we've done so far—from Rise of the Runelords to Giantslayer. These NPCs provide a GM with a new character to introduce to their campaigns, and the write up gives plenty of suggestions for the NPC's role in other Adventure Paths than the one they are primarily associated with. Best yet, I made sure to get some of your favorite Adventure Path writers to create these NPCs. It was a lot of fun wrangling all these authors to present this special retrospective. Be sure to check out the introduction to see who wrote which character.
Finally, since James indulged himself and put one of his characters into the adventure, I decided to do something similar and nab half of the bestiary for myself (James did the other two monsters). At this past PaizoCon, I ran a game that featured a monster that I designed especially for the adventure. I also was on a panel with artist Jason Engle and the art team where we talked about monster design while Jason sketched up a new critter based on the conversation. When we were done with the panel I was shocked by how much what he drew looked like the monster I designed for my adventure, and I knew what I had to do. I talked with Sarah Robinson, and we ended up getting Jason to turn the sketch into final art so that we could use the art for my monster that I suddenly planned to inject into this volume. And that's how the telgrodradt ended up in Pathfinder Adventure Path #100.
I've only been on staff since the first part of Skull & Shackles, but I've been a fan (and charter subscriber) since "Burnt Offerings." Getting to Pathfinder #100 has been a long and fun road, and it's a great accomplishment for any monthly publication. I'm proud to be on the team that gets these books into your hands every month. Here's to the next 100 (and much, much more)!
Adam Daigle
Developer