Winter is Here!

Illustration by Mylene Bertrand

The third part of the Season of Ghosts Adventure Path, No Breath to Cry, both takes place during winter and comes out as winter arrives for me and many other Paizo employees and freelancers! Fortunately for most (hopefully all) of us, we won’t have to worry about the supernatural threats that are coming to a head in the poor little town of Willowshore, during which the story finally reaches its climax and the PCs must grapple with a revelation that hopefully comes as a surprise to all who play this Adventure Path! As with previous volumes, please make liberal use of spoilers if you’re talking about this Adventure Path in public, because there are a LOT of plot twists to protect. (In particular, I had to be very choosy with deciding what pieces of art to show off in public this month! Fortunately, there was another cat illustration to share!)

The original plan to present Season of Ghosts as a four-part Adventure Path was originally born out of a desire to set up the 200th volume of Pathfinder as a special double-sized book (more on that in a few months), but now that Season of Ghosts is coming out, I’m particularly pleased with two things that came about because of this choice. First, it let me organize the Adventure Path according to the four seasons, which gave the adventure authors some fun themes to work with and encouraged everyone to come up with some memorable uses for downtime in the campaign. Second, it let me structure the story using kishotenketsu (special thanks again to James Case for the great suggestion)! This is a traditional four-act story structure used in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese narratives in which the major turning point/narrative crescendo/plot twist of the story happens not in the final act, but the penultimate one. Hence my comment in the previous paragraph about this adventure serving as Season of Ghosts’ climax! This gives us an entire adventure (coming next month) to focus on the results and ramifications of the story and wrap things up with some new and intense developments of their own, resulting in what I think is not only a truly memorable campaign, but in what is certainly one of the Adventure Paths I’m the proudest to have been a part of. (And not just because it let me get a lot of cat artwork in print!)

Illustration by Justine Nortjé

As in the past few months, I’d like to introduce some more of this Adventure Path’s amazing and incredible authors—they’re the ones who did the heavy lifting and wrote the campaign, after all!

James Jacobs
Pathfinder Narrative Creative Director

Dan Cascone

Hi everyone! I’m Dan Cascone, and I’ve crawled out from under my rock to join Eleanor Ferron in writing No Breath to Cry. You may remember me from contributions to books such as Pathfinder Dark Archive, Pathfinder Treasure Vault, Pathfinder Lost Omens Highhelm, and the upcoming PathfinderHowl of the Wild. I look forward to hearing about all your horrible deaths and triumphant victories over the challenges we’ve put in the adventure.

Eleanor Ferron

Hello! I'm Lost Omens senior developer Eleanor Ferron, and I teamed up with co-author Dan Cascone to write the third volume of the Season of Ghosts Adventure Path, No Breath to Cry. As a fan of Asian horror and horror-adjacent media such as Onmyouji, Kuon, and Fatal Frame, as well as the supernatural shenanigans of Inuyasha and Goblin: The Great and Lonely God, I enjoyed getting to bring all these inspirations into the world of Pathfinder. I hope you survive your time in Willowshore, and hopefully even have fun doing so. Be nice to foxes, don't go near the baskets, and always carry a camera to catch ghosts.

Michelle Y. Kim

Hi, this is Michelle! I’m a Korean American TTRPG writer and designer who contributed some backmatter to Season of Ghosts, and I am so excited for you all to meet some truly terrible little guys (and maybe not so little guys) in the haunted lands of Shenmen. As a lover of both folklore and horror, this project was a delight, and I look forward to hearing about everyone’s adventures. Currently I'm working on a Joseon Dynasty setting supplement for Good Society: A Jane Austen RPG by Storybrewers Roleplaying, which I talked a bit about on the Asians Represent! Podcast. You can find me on Twitter as @_missmyk_ or at Bluesky at @missmyk.bsky.social. I've recently joined the Paizo team as a developer and will be helping create more wild adventures from the other side of the screen!

Illustration by Mylene Bertrand

Check Out The Season Of Ghosts Adventure Path