Since a bit before all of us at Paizo transitioned into work-from-home mode back in early March, my primary job has been all things Kingmaker. The upcoming 2nd-edition update is one of the largest single print projects we’ve ever attempted at Paizo, with about a thousand pages represented between the 640 page Adventure Path (compare that to, say, the 432 pages in the Rise of the Runelords hardcover compilation), the 128 page Companion Guide (which brings in all 12 companions from Owlcat’s computer game version of Kingmaker), and a pair of Bestiary companions to help folks run the Adventure Path using 1st edition Pathfinder rules or even 5E rules. And this doesn’t even touch the various accessory products—maps and screens and more!
Unfortunately, the magnitude of getting this all done means that we’re not going to have it out for folks anytime soon. At this point, we’re targeting a release sometime in the second half of 2021—we’ll keep everyone updated as we get closer to the finish line, of course, but until then, work proceeds apace, with it being pretty much the only thing (other than meetings and product approvals) that I’m focused on right now.
As soon as I’m done writing this blog post, I’m jumping right back in to development—I’m midway through Chapter 7: Blood for Blood, working my way through Fort Drelev. I’ve finished development on the Kingdom management rules, the Settlement building rules, and the narrative Mass Combat rules. We’ve got over 300 pages of content in edit as I race to stay ahead of that curve.
But there’s more than words in an adventure, and now we come to the exciting part of this blog post! We’re ordering a mountain of new art for this project, both to illustrate scenes and characters and creatures we didn’t have the budget or time or pages to do in the first printing of Kingmaker a decade ago, along with lots of art for brand new content that’s never before seen print.
Some of that art’s already coming in, in fact, as you’ve no doubt already noticed!
First, we’ve got an image from the new introduction to the Adventure Path, based on the prologue from Owlcat’s version of the game when the brand-new PCs gather at Lady Jamandi Aldori’s estate for a feast and to be assigned their charters for exploring the Stolen Lands. Of course, even at first level, Amiri’s not gonna take any guff from midnight killers trying to ambush her while she’s resting up from a night of feasting!
And speaking of Lady Jamandi, we’ve got a brand new illustration of her—she’s essentially your patron for the first part of this entire campaign, and her role throughout the Adventure Path is a bit more involved... unless, of course, the players at your table decide to cut ties with Rostland and go off on their own to build a kingdom. It is a sandbox campaign still, after all!
Being able to finally illustrate a certain enormous and angry owlbear in his own illustration had to happen, obviously.
And finally, have a mutant chimera that may have gotten a bit too close to a volatile mix of planar energies from the First World and the Abyss. I won’t tell you where this last critter shows up, but he’s certainly a handful!
In closing, thank you again to all of you out there who played Kingmaker and helped make it one of our most successful, most popular Adventure Paths of all time. Again, apologies for it taking longer to publish and get it all into your hands than we’d anticipated, but I think it’s going to be well worth the wait!
James Jacobs
Pathfinder Creative Director
Kingmaker Update
Tuesday, July 28, 2020
