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Regarding the Lost Pages of the Dark Archive

Friday, September 9, 2022

The Key to the annex. An metal key with the handle shaped like a flame

The key to the annex. Art by Yuri Luz

This blog post goes over the lost pages of Dark Archive that some of you may have received or seen circulating in the past few weeks, as well as what lies at the end of them. If you’d prefer to work out the lost pages yourself, or give them to your players to solve together, you can now find them on the product page for Pathfinder Dark Archive.

Otherwise, open the spoiler box below for a bit more information!

Congratulations, Archivists!

Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen many of you receive and share lost pages, pool your knowledge to figure out the clues, and help each other discover the last mystery of the Dark Archive. With a lot of people finding the hidden ninth casefile, In Darkness, we thought it was time to add both the lost pages and the last casefile to the Dark Archive product page as web supplements!

As soon as we locked in on a paranormal book full of rumors and conspiracies, we knew we wanted to hide some secrets in the pages and slightly tangle up the full story of the book for readers to unravel themselves. We hoped by sending out the lost pages, each in a different place or to a different group of people, fans might come together in the spirit of the Dark Archive’s collaboration to find the last chapter revealing the truth of the Archive, its archivist and narrator, Killia Huon-Wynn, and its hidden villain… and I have to say, you all certainly did! It was wonderful to see everyone pitching together to solve pages (and wildly speculate), whether that was on our forums, social media, Reddit, Discord, or anywhere else—I know I wasn’t the only Paizo staffer checking in on these spaces from time to time!

A human man with dark hair and layered purple hunting gear. In one hands he holds a drop spindle, spinning a red rope. In the other hand is a rope dart with the same red rope. Red ropes also attached to his arms and legs lead off in many directions off the page A bare chested, masculine, muscled figure with greying hair and humanoid arms that end with dark clawed hands. Wearing white pants and open cloak that resembles a pair of moth wings

The echo of K.H.W. and the Weaver in Dreams. Art by Corey Rivera.

The lost pages, as well as the final casefile, have been added to the Dark Archive product page as web supplements, so feel free to talk about it as you would any other adventure (including being considerate about spoilers if you know someone’s going to play through the casefile mini-adventures!). Otherwise, let me just take this last chance to thank everyone who helped put this together and congratulate all of you for being splendid Dark Archivists!

A man with greying hair and beard looking into the distance with a nervous look on his face

Killia Huon-Wynn. Art by Steven William Rand.

In darkness lies enlightenment,

James Case
Senior Designer

More Paizo Blog.
Tags: Dark Archive Pathfinder Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Pathfinder Second Edition
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Sovereign Court
2 people marked this as a favorite.

This is awesome! What a great way to bring the community together!
2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Well, that was fun.
Paizo Employee Senior Designer
17 people marked this as a favorite.

Great job to everyone who came together to solve the files!
Grand Archive
1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

HUZZAH!
2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

This was great. Thank you Paizo staff for putting this together!
Horizon Hunters
1 person marked this as a favorite.

That was a lot of fun!!!
Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy
14 people marked this as a favorite.

I spent more time in the puzzle discord thread reading speculations and following along when new pages dropped than I've spent in non-work-related discussions of Pathfinder in a long, long time. It was painful not to be able to react to or comment on any of the developments as they came out.

Needless to say, you are all a very creative bunch, and I made a lot of notes based on the speculations and theories you came up with. No promises or anything, but it sure was a heck of a brainstorm!
2 people marked this as a favorite.

This was neat! Well done - and thank you again for Dark Archive being so great!
Dark Archive
2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I didn't take part personally in the first part but it was rewarding to figure out the final one(even if I did need help with warmer/colder type hinting) to find out the thing :'D That was super cool
2 people marked this as a favorite.

Why weren't these just in the book to begin with? Seriously -- was it not ready when the book went to the printers? Were 22 pages out of the budget to go into the book? If it was written as "part of the book", but cut for some weird meta-puzzle, that's pretty feels-bad for everyone (aka, most people) who don't get all in on "puzzles" like that. It looks like this is the conclusion of a seriess of mini-adventures that are in the book? I know if I'd purchased an adventure and the ending were not included.

Maybe I just don't "get" it. The board game Gloomhaven did a similar thing where a major part of the content was excluded from the game box behind a meta-puzzle and then provided as a downloadable thing (and, for board game pieces, print-and-play doesn't work so it was even worse than this, that's just another adventure you can work in.)

I'm also glad "web enhancements" have largely gone away.
17 people marked this as a favorite.
emky wrote:

Why weren't these just in the book to begin with? Seriously -- was it not ready when the book went to the printers? Were 22 pages out of the budget to go into the book? If it was written as "part of the book", but cut for some weird meta-puzzle, that's pretty feels-bad for everyone (aka, most people) who don't get all in on "puzzles" like that. It looks like this is the conclusion of a seriess of mini-adventures that are in the book? I know if I'd purchased an adventure and the ending were not included.

Maybe I just don't "get" it. The board game Gloomhaven did a similar thing where a major part of the content was excluded from the game box behind a meta-puzzle and then provided as a downloadable thing (and, for board game pieces, print-and-play doesn't work so it was even worse than this, that's just another adventure you can work in.)

I'm also glad "web enhancements" have largely gone away.

Solving a puzzle together as a community is fun for some people, and it fits with the conspiratorial theme of the Dark Archive. The book was wholly complete as-is; this is just a little bonus dessert.

24 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
emky wrote:

I'm also glad "web enhancements" have largely gone away.

Of all the things to get mad about or decry, extra stuff the developers make that don't cost the consumer seems like the weirdest and least important one to make a stand against.

6 people marked this as a favorite.

This was such a clever add-on! Thanks for putting the lost pages online now.
13 people marked this as a favorite.
emky wrote:

Why weren't these just in the book to begin with? Seriously -- was it not ready when the book went to the printers? Were 22 pages out of the budget to go into the book? If it was written as "part of the book", but cut for some weird meta-puzzle, that's pretty feels-bad for everyone (aka, most people) who don't get all in on "puzzles" like that. It looks like this is the conclusion of a seriess of mini-adventures that are in the book? I know if I'd purchased an adventure and the ending were not included.

Maybe I just don't "get" it. The board game Gloomhaven did a similar thing where a major part of the content was excluded from the game box behind a meta-puzzle and then provided as a downloadable thing (and, for board game pieces, print-and-play doesn't work so it was even worse than this, that's just another adventure you can work in.)

I'm also glad "web enhancements" have largely gone away.

I'm so sorry you're super angry about a fun little puzzle that ends in a free digital release. Perhaps you should go enjoy a nice meal and calm down.

Prior to the reveal of this adventure, there was no reason to suspect there would be anything else as what's in the book already has what seems to be a complete ending. There's no "gotcha" to be had here. It's fun. You know, like a game is.
4 people marked this as a favorite.
keftiu wrote:
Solving a puzzle together as a community is fun for some people, and it fits with the conspiratorial theme of the Dark Archive. The book was wholly complete as-is; this is just a little bonus dessert.

I just was kind of bummed out that I missed out on the whole thing because I bought the dead tree version from my FLGS.

I guess I can go through and do it by myself now, but I missed out on the "community" aspect of it. Oh well.
1 person marked this as a favorite.

Hmmm... It say "Otherwise, open the spoiler box below for a bit more information!" but I don't see a spoiler box. Is that the mystery?
2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
graystone wrote:
Hmmm... It say "Otherwise, open the spoiler box below for a bit more information!" but I don't see a spoiler box. Is that the mystery?

The "Congratulations, Archivists!" is the spoiler box. Click that.

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
graystone wrote:
Hmmm... It say "Otherwise, open the spoiler box below for a bit more information!" but I don't see a spoiler box. Is that the mystery?

Click on "Congratulations, Archivists!" with the right facing arrow.

2 people marked this as a favorite.
xNellynelx wrote:
graystone wrote:
Hmmm... It say "Otherwise, open the spoiler box below for a bit more information!" but I don't see a spoiler box. Is that the mystery?
The "Congratulations, Archivists!" is the spoiler box. Click that.
Squiggit wrote:
graystone wrote:
Hmmm... It say "Otherwise, open the spoiler box below for a bit more information!" but I don't see a spoiler box. Is that the mystery?
Click on "Congratulations, Archivists!" with the right facing arrow.

Ok, thanks for the reply. On my screen there is 0% indicator that that is any different from the rest of the page. I had clicked in that general area but I guess I missed the box.

2 people marked this as a favorite.

Even clicking on the “Spoiler” doesn’t give me much beyond “something happened, but you may have missed it, glad some folks had fun”. But I still don’t know what it was beyond earlier gleaning some threads to guess there were random pages appearing in folks downloads that had cryptic clues that the community worked together to solve.

What was the nature of the cryptic clues?

What was the solution?

For those who are interested. Spoiler it if you like.
2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

If you go go to the dark archives pages there is a web supplement that has both the clues and the results
1 person marked this as a favorite.

I think...:
He meant to be full version of K.H.W's help message embedded in Lost pages.

Since reddit community covered corresponding page where piece of message came from.
Dark Archive
2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
OCEANSHIELDWOLPF 2.0 wrote:

Even clicking on the “Spoiler” doesn’t give me much beyond “something happened, but you may have missed it, glad some folks had fun”. But I still don’t know what it was beyond earlier gleaning some threads to guess there were random pages appearing in folks downloads that had cryptic clues that the community worked together to solve.

What was the nature of the cryptic clues?

What was the solution?

For those who are interested. Spoiler it if you like.

Since nobody actually said it, I'll PM it. Don't read it though if you want to solve it on your own

Liberty's Edge
2 people marked this as a favorite.

In one place there is a secret within a secret.

Spoiler:
Secret
1 person marked this as a favorite.
The Raven Black wrote:

In one place there is a secret within a secret.

** spoiler omitted **

Hang on, but doesn't that contradict

Spoiler:
SECRET
?
1 person marked this as a favorite.
CorvusMask wrote:
OCEANSHIELDWOLPF 2.0 wrote:

Even clicking on the “Spoiler” doesn’t give me much beyond “something happened, but you may have missed it, glad some folks had fun”. But I still don’t know what it was beyond earlier gleaning some threads to guess there were random pages appearing in folks downloads that had cryptic clues that the community worked together to solve.

What was the nature of the cryptic clues?

What was the solution?

For those who are interested. Spoiler it if you like.

Since nobody actually said it, I'll PM it. Don't read it though if you want to solve it on your own

Thanks Corvus.

Liberty's Edge
1 person marked this as a favorite.
Perpdepog wrote:
The Raven Black wrote:

In one place there is a secret within a secret.

** spoiler omitted **

Hang on, but doesn't that contradict ** spoiler omitted **?

If you need to ask ...

;-)

Good to have some free PF2e Dark Archive web-enhancements. ;)
Wayfinders Contributor

Is anyone else having trouble downloading a readable copy? Are the pages supposed to be so dark? I'd like to grab the adventure, but I cannot read any of it.
Dark Archive
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

That sounds weird? It was same as rest of book. Unless ye talk about the ARG hint pages?
Wayfinders Contributor

I just suddenly realized that the clue pages are totally dark, but the solution pages are readable.

I don't think that I could read enough of the clue pages to solve them for myself, alas. My ancient eyes could not make out anything on them but black with the occasional squiggle.
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