S(More) Story of the Season of the Shackles

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Hello, Pathfinders! The inaugural season of the Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild marches on, and I thought you might like an update on how the pirate PCs are progressing.

Avast, mateys! Story spoilers for Adventure #2 of the Season of the Shackles lurk below!

Love is in the air here in the Inner Sea, and the Lady of Tidewater Rock needs your help to choose a helpmeet! She's got a bevy of suitors, but her eye lingers on one "Heartbreak" Hinsin, apparently despite his ominous name. There are many who'd raise an objection at this proposed wedding, including the oh-so-charming Master Scourge, but you're around to help ensure that love conquers all. Surely Hinsin's heartbreaking days are over?

Never trust a man with braids in his beard.
Illustration by Bryan Sola

Having earned the lady's trust, you embark on a mission to deliver supplies to an isolated settlement badly in need of supplies. The hapless hamlet has fallen afoul of a tribe of marauding grindylows, and the tentacled little terrors (yuck) are intercepting all attempts to reach them. Lady Smythee has enlisted a ransacking goblin pirate and his weidling vessel to help you sneak up on the grindylow hideout. After a whole lot of really gross-looking monsters, and some truly incorrigible behavior from your goblin pirate ally, you manage to get relief to the settlement, and Lady Smythee rewards you generously.

Apparently, your reputation precedes you among the aquatic denizens of the Shackles, because a badly crippled fishfolk woman offers to handsomely reward you for enacting a little vengeance upon the sea devils who maimed her and stole her spawn. Pirates and revenge go hand in hand, so you eagerly set out to slaughter some sea devils and make a little old lady happy.

Back in the land of two-legged employers, "Heartbreak" Hinsin and Lady Smythee are sponsoring a wedding regatta, and the prize is a sweet new ship. The rules of the race: "Many men enter; one man leaves." Your uncle Mad Max would be proud. Will your doughty band of pirates have what it takes to take down the other sailors? You'll have to play to find out!

MOAR CARD SPOILERS

Are you implying that most people don't carry around bags of sticks?

Today you learned that Lini likes to whittle. She carries around a bag of wood from forests she's visited and whittles and polishes it. Our girl's a touch OCD.

My god likes me better than you.

From Iconic Heroes Set #2 comes a special blessing just for clerics, who know how to get every ounce of goodness out of a god's blessing.

Until next time, Pathfinders!

Tanis O'Connor
Adventure Card Game Designer

Season of the Shackles Updates

Tuesday, February 3, 2014

Hello, Pathfinders. I hope the Price of Infamy Adventure Deck is treating you well? And by "treating you well," I of course mean thoroughly beating you up before you battle back and achieve exciting victory.

We're most of the way through our inaugural Adventure Card Guild season, and the response has been pretty positive. We've got a few changes and clarifications to make, and then at the end you get pudding. How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?

Your Meat

In the original, bleeding-edge store release of the season so far, players don't receive their role cards until the end of Adventure 4. There was a reason for this, but for a few different reasons, (cue millions of voices suddenly crying out in terror before suddenly being silenced), we're changing this. Effective today, the rewards for Adventure 4 and Adventure 3 are swapped, meaning that you get your role card (and your new power feat that you can use on your role card) at the end of Adventure 3, and access to the Letter of Marque and Pirate's Favor (as well as another feat) at the end of Adventure 4. Blame the Empire.

We've also made some small tweaks to a few scenario powers and rewards, as well as some templating changes. To wit:

Scenario 02-C Revenge of the Fishfolk: Krelloort can no longer attempt to hide forever behind the comforting bulk of Hirgenzosk, as Pinnacle Atoll has been replaced by Raker Shoals. We've also clarified that everyone's boon type choices are shuffled together to form the treasure stack.

Scenario 04-A A Tale of Two Alchemists: This scenario originally gave out a loot card that allowed you to remove it from the game to gain a skill feat. The idea behind giving that out as opposed to a skill feat is that in a particular tight spot, you might choose a non-primary skill to improve. Maybe Flenta reeeeeally wants to impress that Rogue Ape, so she gives up her loot for a much-needed Charisma bump. Player feedback let us know that this overhead was more trouble than it was worth and was also subject to serious abuse, so we've simplified the reward. Now, once during an encounter, you can choose a skill feat. Same idea, but simpler, with less overhead.

Finally, I want to talk a bit about the Adventure Path reward and how it will work. After you complete all six adventures, you'll unlock the loot item Councilor's Ring. (No, you may not have a sneak peek at it. Where's the fun in that?) Anyway, you will be able to assign that item to a new character in the upcoming Season 1, Season of the Righteous. That character will be able to use it as if it came in her Class Deck box. We're not sending all zillion ACG players a copy of the card—sorry—but we will make sure that the PDF of the card is sized for easy printing and sleeving.

I think of this style of boon as a legacy item. Editor Brian Campbell likes to talk about the heirloom ring that his character's ancestor passed down to his current character. Characters that unlock the ring might also find other ways to use it in the future, but we'll save that for another day.

Your Pudding

MOAR CARD SPOILERS!

Om nom nom, Biter bites the bad guy's butts.
-Harsk's Song (not really)

Everyone's favorite badger makes an appearance in Iconic Heroes Set #2 and if the card isn't enough to make you want him, check out the miniature.

I make old-man Ezren good at everything and also keep him from running around naked!

I look forward to seeing the first playthrough of Skull & Shackles with Ezren, Wizard-Captain of the Inner Sea.

Until next time, Pathfinders!

Tanis O'Connor
Adventure Card Game Designer

Season of the Shackles: The Halfwayish Point

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

The inaugural season of the Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild is underway, and players across the globe are testing their mettle against not-so-lone sharks and a very frisky dragon turtle. Curious about the story so far? You’ve come to the right place!

Before I get to that, though, you should be aware that weekly scenario downloads will resume in January, as the goblins in the Paizo workshop take a much-needed holiday.

Beware, me hearties—story spoilers for Adventure #1 of Season of the Shackles lurk below.

Adventure 1 begins with normal, friendly, totally not-a-pirate you, innocently hiring passage on a Shackles ship for what you thought was a, well, perhaps not a three-hour tour, but a nice safe voyage from island to island. The ship’s navigator, one Jemma Redclaw, had other plans.

She seemed friendly. No hint of dastard to be seen.

Your first night aboard, as you slept the sleep of the naive, Redclaw and her hand-picked band of sailors mutinied. You woke up on a pirate ship as esteemed guests. Guests who were forced to participate in a seemingly endless series of near-fatal encounters with sharks, a brine dragon, a disgusting undead former captain, sharks, every angry animal on this side of the world, a lady who seemed to be one-third octopus, one-third seacat, and one-third humanoid. You’ll be having nightmares about that last one for a while.

After dispensing with Captain Redclaw and her scurrilous band, you realized that a pirate’s life can be a good one. You’ve got your own ship, your own crew (who seem to understand the laws of personal hygiene in a way that Redclaw’s mates, unfortunately, did not), and your eye on the horizon.

Next week, we’ll talk about Love Plots and the naming of scenarios.

Before we go, though, a note from Vic Wertz about Skull & Shackles Adventure Deck 4:

Due to a printer error, adventure deck 4 of Skull & Shackles, Island of Empty Eyes, included 6 copies of the henchman Gholdako and 1 copy of the henchman Ghol-Gan Obelisk; it should have had 6 Ghol-Gan Obelisks and 1 Gholdako. And due to our own error, it has 1 fewer Blink Spider than you’ll need when you have 6 players.

We’re going to solve this problem by making a pack of cards that includes 5 Ghol-Gan Obelisks, 1 Blink Spider, and—in the interest of turning lemons into lemonade—The Land of the Blind, a brand-new scenario that makes use of those extra Gholdako cards.  We’ll be providing that for free to customers who purchased Island of Empty Eyes from paizo.com, and we’ll also be sending copies through our distributors as well. With luck, we’ll have them in time to send them out along with January’s release of Adventure Deck 5, The Price of Infamy.

In the meantime, when you play the scenario "Home Sweet Home," we suggest proxying with Buccaneers (that is, setting the Ghol-Gan Obelisk to the side, adding Buccaneers to the location decks instead, and referring to the Obelisk whenever you find a Buccaneer).

Tanis O'Connor
Adventure Card Game Designer

Secrets (and Setbacks) Revealed: Adventure Card Guild and Iconic Heroes Miniatures

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Greetings, Pathfinders.

Bad news, to me, is like mayonnaise—unpalatable on its own, but a mere unpleasant surprise when it sneaks into the middle of an otherwise delicious sandwich. So your mayo in this blog post can be found in the middle, surrounded by tasty fixins'.

Card Game Tuesdays

The card game team is excited to announce the beginning of the Tuesday card game blog series! Various members of the team will pop in here each week and give you the latest and greatest news and ramblings about new releases, Adventure Card Guild organized play, and whatever else we think you'd enjoy reading. This blog is the first in that series.

Adventure Card Guild Sneak Peek

Avast! Sharks sighted on the starboard bow! Something's stirred up a shoal of sharks. You've seen their fins swimming alongside your ship for days, and sharks are as patient as they are hungry. Could it be that someone else is swimming alongside them?

You'll find out in Scenario 1-2 of Season of the Shackles, The Lone Shark.

DURING THIS SCENARIO

Put the Shark Island location card in the center of the table. Using the deck list from Shark Island, make a number of Shark Island stacks equal to the number of characters. Treat each of these stacks as a unique Shark Island location deck.

duunnn duunn... duuuun duunn...

Adventure Card Guild Launch Delayed

Unfortunately (and probably due to a sudden spike in shark attacks), the Class Decks required for Adventure Card Guild play will not be making it to your local retailer until next week. Season of the Shackles will launch next Wednesday, October 1st.

We're as disappointed as you are, but we strongly encourage you to stop by your friendly local game store this week so you can play On the Horizon, our new preview scenario. For this scenario, all that's needed is the Skull & Shackles base set, as the scenario's meant to be played with Skull & Shackles characters. Players will earn a free deck upgrade for their Adventure Card Guild character in the form of a mini-Chronicle sheet!

Iconic Heroes and the Adventure Card Game

Finally, to wash down the taste of that nasty mayo, I've got a spoiler from the upcoming line of WizKids' Iconic Heroes miniatures line and the associated promo cards for the card game. Behold Alahazra, prophet of the burning sands:

Fear my big pointy thing!

Weal? Woe? Those are for amateurs.

I have a bit of a thing for hats. Expect more hats.

Until next time,

Tanis O'Connor
Adventure Card Game Designer