Illustration by Mylene Bertrand
The final adventure of the Season of Ghosts Adventure Path, To Bloom Below the Web, arrives with hints of spring and hope in the new year! Of course, as I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, this Adventure Path is filled with more surprises and plot twists than most, and this final adventure is one that’s especially tricky to talk about without spoiling those developments. Folks have been great about helping to keep the campaign’s twists secret as well, and though I expect that we’ll talk more openly about the narrative stunts and risks we pulled with this Adventure Path sometime in the future, that time isn’t quite here yet.
Of course, we wouldn’t have been able to pull this off at all without having such an amazing group of authors working on the adventures and their support articles. So instead of dancing around spoilers and trying to figure out what to say about this final adventure without revealing too much, let’s hear from two of the authors for this book!
(A final note about the art I’m featuring in this blog post—none of it is technically from the adventure itself, but from support articles, so there shouldn’t be anything in these images that will particularly spoil things for anyone who’s eager to discover Season of Ghosts’ surprises as players!)
James Jacobs
Pathfinder Narrative Creative Director
Illustration by Riley Spalding
Jeremy Blum
I'm Jeremy Blum and my articles in Season of Ghosts volumes 3 and 4 will be my first published Paizo projects! For volume 3, I got the chance to flesh out nindorus based on James Jacobs' initial notes, and detailing the intricacies of a delicious new fiend variant was a blast. As for volume 4, let's just say that I was able to write up character options inspired by aspects of Buddhism. I look forward to seeing how players use them!
Aside from Season of Ghosts, I've penned portions of the upcoming Pathfinder Lost Omens Tian XiaWorld Guide and Tian Xia Character Guideas well as Pathfinder Howl of the Wild. I've also designed Pathfinder conversions for the Korean-themed Undying Corruption setting by Nine Heavens Press, contributed lore to the Chinese-inspired Banner Clans faction in Three Sails Studios’ miniatures wargame Margrave: The Marcher Lords, and most recently worked on several Renegade Games Studios projects that are still under wraps. Check out my portfolio and feel free to follow me (I use the name Pixel Grotto on Twitter and Bluesky) to share stories of how nindorus have made your life miserable.
Liane Merciel
I was both super excited and nervous to be asked to contribute to this Adventure Path.
Like a lot of you, I have been a Forever GM for a... well, forever, basically. I think the last time I got to be a PC was, uh, 2006 maybe? No, wait, I did get to play Fumbus for 20 glorious minutes at PaizoCon 2019. So yeah, that’s the last time I was a player in a tabletop campaign.
Possibly because of this (vengeful? Me? Never!), my home campaigns are skewed heavily toward horror in all its many and glorious forms. If my players aren’t white-knuckling it and/or grossed out at least once per story arc, I believe that I have failed.
Trying to pull off a horror game as a published adventure, though, was a totally different kind of challenge. My GM’ing style is reactive: I see how the players respond to NPC X or Encounter Y and tailor the interaction accordingly. Writing an adventure for players I’ve never met, at tables I’ll never see, using a set of rules that was in flux at the time, was probably more terrifying than anything I’ve ever inflicted on my PCs.
But I look forward to putting them through the game later, just to make sure.
Illustration by Riley Spalding
One final note: If you’re the kind of person who enjoys a good Adventure Path trailer (that is, a person of culture and taste), you may have taken special notice of the music underscoring the visuals of our latest Season of Ghosts trailer. Those haunting melodies were composed by Filip Melvan of Michael Ghelfi Studios, with whom we’re excited to announce we’ve entered into an official partnership! Beginning with Season of Ghosts, Michael and his team of award-winning composers will be composing all-new original soundtracks uniquely tailored to accompany selected past and future Pathfinder Adventure Paths!
We’ll have plenty more to say in the weeks to come, but for the time being, we’ll leave it at this: players who like to incorporate music into their games can expect a lot of exciting auditory surprises in store!
Actually, you know what? That’s not fair. We can’t just tell you about this amazing music and not give you a sample to whet your appetite. Here’s the title track from the upcoming “Season of Ghosts” album right now, suitable for all your ghost-thwarting, village-protecting, below-the-web-blooming needs!
Check Out The Season Of Ghosts Adventure Path
Frights of Spring!
Wednesday, January 24, 2023
