13garth13's page

Discussing the removal of watermarks is not something we will facilitate on paizo.com. However, what may work in your case is copying the images out of your PDF (I believe in Adobe Reader you'll have to right click in order to select the image because it is treated like a background) and paste into an image editing program of your choice for printing for your own personal use.

Thanks for your advice (it's kinda what I was afraid of, but I suppose those are the breaks for getting pdfs instead of dead tree), especially for a topic that must seem almost inherently suspicious to a publisher.

Cheers,
Colin

...I have a few of them, and I was wondering if there were some easy way to remove the watermark with my name/email address on each page. I know, I know, they are to prevent piracy, and I normally wouldn't have anything against them except for the immersion shattering moments when all my players start making jokes about the mystic runes of dot com that seem to be inscribed repeatedly on the floors.

I know I could open each adobe page in photoshop/gimp and use a texture stamp to more or less remove them from sight, but that sounds a little time consuming and I was wondering if there was an easier (legal!) way to get those marks off of the pdfs before I print them.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Cheers,
Colin

Unless I'm mistaken, the inimitable Canuck composer, Howard Shore, created the music for The Fly rather than Christopher Young (although C. Young may very well have done the music for the sequel...)

Cheers,
Colin

This preview is.......just beyond IaIaIawesome!!

Cheers,
Colin

So what about for Jade Regent? We know that a lot of the rules for martial arts, ninjas,samurai, etc are in Ultimate Combat and Ultimate Magic. Do we want them to reprint all of those rules? Thoughts?

Well, for myself, I would like the rules reprinted....again, how many books are going to be "core" and an assumed purchase? It starts to become problematic, especially for new players/GMs.

Put it another way, how's that Bestiary 2 section of the SRD coming along, eh?

You simply cannot expect (well, you can expect it, but I don't think it's a reasonable expectation) that a player/GM owns every single splat book in order to get the most out of an Adventure Path....does everyone really want Pathfinder to be known as the game that you need five or six books and/or an internet connection to play in (if you want to best use the APs, the flagship product for Paizo)?

But then my thoughts on the matter were perhaps startlingly predictable, yeah? ;-)

Cheers,
Colin

P.S. In case it somehow didn't go without saying, the above is IMO and YMMV :) :)

I like the idea of using all sorts of stuff in the APs. Perhaps there could be suggestions on replacements if you don't have the books?

(If you don't have Bestiary 2, use ___ from The Bestiary instead. If you don't have the Advanced Player's Guide, use the ___ feat from the Core Rulebook instead. Etc.)

Here's a strange idea:

The GMG and other Paizo sources have preached the gospel of stat-block re-use. Perhaps when they use a page reference to something that's considered "too new" or what have you, they could include a parenthetical notation of a Bestiary v1 statblock that would work pretty well in its place?

That's a suggestion in the spirit of compromise. Personally, I hope Paizo will just continue with their existing standards for class inclusion (use sparingly), and all monsters are fair game. Monsters are fair game because as a GM I am quite capable of "faking" a statblock like I mentioned above, and although a parenthetical suggestion for an ideal fake would be nice, I don't require such a thing.

I do agree that that would be something nice to do and I really like the idea (as long as the stretch isn't too much of course.....for example, I'm trying hard to think of something offhand from the first Bestiary that fits a twisted, Machiavellian otherworldly manipulator/sinister merchant quite as well as a Denizen of Leng, you know what I mean? An efreet with the fiendish template? I dunno, food for thought)!

Which does of course lead into my typical re-affirmation of some of the arguments being discussed from the "other side"; of course the B2 material should be included if it fits well with the adventure's theme (especially some of the Lovecraftian goodness! :) :)), it's just that (quite obviously) I really would prefer to see it all reprinted within the body of the adventure, so I'm not lugging around a metric arse-load of books (1.25 times bigger than an imperial arse-load for those who are curious) or computer printouts to the game.

But, as I said up above, if B2 and APG are where we can agree to draw the line of inclusion, then as long as it's all up on the SRD, I can certainly live with that, as long as everyone else can as well.

Cheers,
Colin

I would also like to thank the posters from the opposite end of the argument that have helped me clarify what I mean when I talk about "new" material. Indeed, I meant it to mean anything beyond the core rule book and first bestiary, i.e "new" in a chronological sense, rather than a "never before seen by human eyes" way.

Additionally, I would like to thank John Lynch 106 for reaching into my verbal diarrhea and extracting the idea that what is clearly at the root of some of my concerns is the addition of B2 and APG to the notion of "core". I appreciate you helping me get to the root of something which was implicity bugging me, but which I could not seem to make explicit.

As to the compromise...well, I don't like it necessarily, but if we can draw a line in the sand as it were and all agree that B2 and APG are added to the notion of core, but no further splat books and bestiaries will be, then it does seem like everyone is forced to give up something that they wanted in order to reach a middle ground (which is, after all, the nature of a compromise).

Cheers,
Colin

I'm sorry, that that didn't come across as what it was originally meant to say. I certainly didn't mean to offend the last two posters.

As I said, I copied that from another post, and was a reply - if I remember it right - to someone who said that they don't want to buy any more books and "can't be arsed" to look it up for free on the internet.

I should have removed that when copying the post here. It doesn't apply to this thread. Please, everyone who was offended by this remark, accept my apology.

Yeah, that would be me, and you know what, lad?

I put in hours per week in adventure prep, from selecting/editing sound effects and music, to making up the battlemaps in Photoshop, to selecting images that will convey a scene/monster best, to making handouts, to going over monsters and encounters beforehand with cue cards and such to make sure I have a grasp on all the abilities etc that will come into play....

So, when it comes time to having to spend even more time to prep an adventure that I am paying money for, it might surprise you to find that (much like those who don't want to have to come up with the material on their own, because after all, that's what they're buying a pre-made module for {which, I do fully appreciate by the way}) I'm not a huge fan....

Is it my choice to spend so much time giving my players bang for the buck in the aforementioned fashion (note BTW that I'm not somehow implying that you don't)? Yup, and it's also my choice and preference to have every single last bit of material (barring core books, which I was unaware the Bestiary 2 and AGP had become....not a decision I agree with naturally enough) present in the module so that I can spend the time prepping in a way that my players (and myself of course!) find enjoyable and can play the adventure as is without a lot of extraneous referencing.

I know bloody well that preparing an adventure is work, so kindly don't work from the assumption that I don't, okay? Just because our own personal preferences in terms of how we spend our prep-time don't match up, doesn't mean I don't put in a lot of work, right? Right.

Cheers,
Colin

Because back then there was no splat material that could be used so.

Well, ask an obvious question, get an obvious answer....I thought it might be a bit deeper than that, i.e. mabye, just maybe, the adventure is all about the flavour and the wonderful Paizo adventures are wonderful not because of the nitty gritty details, but because of the big picture things like character motivation, story/plot, interesting adventure locales, etc etc. and those things are completely independent of whether someone is using splat book X, Y, and Z.

But I'm prepared to be wrong about that ;-)

You're under a deeply mistaken impression that folks were fine with the fact that Paizo APs were "SRD only". Many people weren't, but we had to live with that anyway, because there was no suitable OGL material that could be used. Now there is, and some of us want it used without losing out on the word count.

Heh, good thing then that Paizo isn't hiring me as a marketing consultant, as I clearly do not have my ears on the pulse of the AP audience....I appear to have missed out on this undercurrent despite these years of being on the message boards, and I don't mean that snarkily. I genuinely stand corrected (I'm not changing my position, mind you, I'm just acknowledging (sic) that I have made the classical error of confusing my opinions and those of the gamers I know with being a picture of a macrocosm rather than quite possibly a distinct minority amongst the AP audience).

So, even though it does appear that this is going to be an "East is East and West is West..." sort of thing, I will (stupidly, perhaps) ask again....what happens when Bestiary 3, 4, and 5 are considered core and we have to start lugging them around and/or printing out all the relevant information in order to adequately prep for/run the latest AP? I take Erik Mona at his word regarding bloat, but even if this latest run of splat books truly is the end of the run, I can't imagine Paizo stopping at just two Bestiaries...hell, there's a thread for the third one, and since I LOVE monsters myself, I personally sure don't want them to stop at just three.

Will the intro page to later APs seriously read that the game master will need to own V, W, X, Y, and Z or get their tuchis logged on to the PFSRD ASAP? Is that a message that encourages new players or even those who just read an AP to steal scenes/characters from, or even those who just read for pleasure, because a well written adventure is a great thing to read, even if it never gets run?

I don't know the answer myself (although I for myself I'm not exactly thrilled...obviously), but I'm wondering if this issue has been really thought through all the way to its logical conclusions, and if it has, is the possible loss of casual AP readers more than made up for by the influx of hard-core APers? Hell, will there in fact even be any losses in readership if the trend continues other than just a very small minority, and most people frankly don't care? And how the heck do they get the soft, creamy caramel inside the Caramilk bar?!?!

Sorry for the chocolate bar joke, it's getting bloody late ;-) ;-)

Cheers,
Colin

Shoot, the USA is behind MANY countries when it comes to internet connections. My internet selection is between dial-up, and wireless broadband (with a tiny download limit). Seems like a great selection huh? Not!

Yet internet isn't a issue for me.

Nor is it for me....I wasn't speaking for myself, and I did think that that was obvious...

I will give you the 1page, will you give me anything that eats up more than that? Like if they want to include something (or more than 1 thing) that is going to eat up 2-5 pages, will you then say it's worth it to not re-re-print?

Unless someone is really going hogwild with Bestiary 2 monsters, then I doubt that could happen....but then again I've seem some issues with huge swaths of Revised Tome of Horrors critters in them that all needed to be statted up, so I suppose it's not beyond the pale. And (as you may have gathered) I wouldn't want it any other way.

It is something that every AP writer up until this point has had to wrestle with: What cool critter/template from another source beyond the core can I include without blowing my wordcount all to hell? And I get why that sucks, but it's also a part of being a writer, and I'm really not convinced that that has to change to satisfy one portion of the audience and irk another segment, when both segments were previously happy.

Cheers,
Colin

13garth13 wrote:

I keep saying, we can both have our cake and eat it too, if we just accept that some word count is going to be lost for the sake of both sides being happy.

Unless you have an issue with new content being used at all, this isn't a compromise. Your sole issue is new content only being referred to by page number. Charles's sole issue is old content being reprinted making him lose new content. By sacrificing word countm you're happy, but no concession has been made for Charles.

Hmmm, I think what we at least partially have here is a failure to elucidate our terms....for me new content is stuff like say, AFP classes or monsters from Bestiary 2...so Charles is not losing out on "new" material that if the material is reprinted. So what is the new material that he's worried about missing out on? Adventure plotline and room descriptions, i.e. the meat of the AP that might be cut for the reprints? Or something else I'm not considering? I hope I'm not sounding snarky, I guess I just want a definition of what Charles considers new material that he's going to be shafted on.

Again, since nobody has addressed my earlier point (understandable since it was lost in a sea of babble ;-) ), why was it that Rise of the Runelords, Crimson Throne, the Darkness/drow one whose full title eludes me, Legacy of Fire, and Kingmaker were able to satisfy everyone in their audience (I'll grant you that the drow one seemed to create some ill-feelings ;-) ), but now suddenly we're at the point where someone has to get a bad taste in their mouth? Suddenly splat happens plus a new monster book and that throws a monkey wrench into everything? I just don't get it....

Cheers,
Colin

Under books being referenced (and posted for free on an SRD) anyone with an internet connection (which is clearly everyone on this forum) has the option to use that monster. This causes more time for DMs who don't own the book, but ultimately they're still able to gain access to the content (unless they lack an internet connection which clearly isn't anyone on this forum).

Yeah, or you know...anyone of my lads/lasses (Canucks) or yours (Yanks) that are serving overseas without a reliable internet connection. Not trying to play some patriot card in the game here (really!) just pointing out that while clearly everyone posting on this forum has an internet connection (duh!), there are some segments of the population who are gamers and Paizo/AP customers who can't necessarily count on an internet connection (at least not reliably).

Clearly you and Charles can't be catered to by the same product (this isn't a snark. Just a neutral statement of fact). It is up to Paizo to determine which customer represents the larger population and which population will given them more money in total.

You might be right (although I hope not) but the galling thing for me is that for all the previous APs this was not the case, so it is unfortunate that a product which we had both enjoyed must now lose/make unhappy a certain portion of its previously very, very happy reader base.

And bloody hell, as I keep saying, we can both have our cake and eat it too, if we just accept that some word count is going to be lost for the sake of both sides being happy. For me, it's a small price to pay, especially since we've (finally!!) lost the iconics at the back :) :)
I do accept (and fully understand why, especially for those who write the darn things) that for some, losing a 1/2 page of text (or even, heaven help us, a full page of text) is just not acceptable. But for me it is, especially if it keeps both parties happy. *shrug* I do know that my opinion is just that though, and everyone (Paizo staffers included, of course!) is free to have and express their own opinion on the matter.

I don't think that this is a great position for Paizo to be in, and it is certainly a tough decision to make, do doubt, but that's why they get paid the big bucks, right? As more and more "newbies" as well as just plain casual players join who aren't necessarily interested in owning everything or who might be intimidated by a notation in an adventure which says (paraphrasing, badly) "We assume you own books X, Y......and Z, and W, and Q.", Paizo runs the risk of losing or just alienating readers. Now, so far of course we're only up to Z and W (Bestiary 2 and APG), but it really is only a matter of time before Complete Magic and its brawny companion enter the stage, plus of course Bestiaries 3, 4, etc etc.

Cheers,
Colin

13garth13 wrote:

Charles, your analogy rings false as it implies that I do not want people to spend money on Paizo products, and worse yet (and I may be reading too much into this...) it seems to imply that my type of consumer (not-completionist) is a free-loader of sorts, depriving others of their goodies so I don't have to spend money

I am not seeing that in Charles's post at all.

Cool; I'm happy to have been irritable and not reading Charles's message in the best light....I fully concede that I may very well have been going off half-cocked :)

Cheers,
Colin

Under books being referenced (and posted for free on an SRD) anyone with an internet connection (which is clearly everyone on this forum) has the option to use that monster. This causes more time for DMs who don't own the book, but ultimately they're still able to gain access to the content (unless they lack an internet connection which clearly isn't anyone on this forum). Under your prefered model everyone misses out on new content.

Just like to address this last point....I have always stated that I have no problem with new content being used (at all!), especially since I pretty much trust the Paizo authors to only use it where it's thematically appropriate.

I merely want the material actually described rather than just page number referenced or assumed to be a part of DMs book collection.

The only thing that loses out in this model is word count, and that's a trade-off that I am willing to make. I fully understand that that is not everyone's position though ;-) ;-)

Cheers,
Colin

Here is an example of me as a customer when I don’t want to spend money. My reaction is not an attempt to strip options from customers who do choose to spend money on a product they want.

The example:
I won’t pay for TV and I wait for a new season of Supernatural to come out on DVD and borrow it from my library (my taxes pay for the DVD but I don’t get to watch it right away). I spend some of the money not spent on cable on Paizo product instead.

I don’t write the producers of Supernatural asking them to go straight to DVD instead of being on TV first because I don’t want to pay for TV and I want to watch the latest season sooner. I believe that purchasers of TV would find my request unreasonable and they would likely question me on why I don’t pay for TV (my money, my choice of course).

Instead, as a consumer I have chosen not to buy TV so I wait to watch the newest season. I don’t try to stop TV customers who do pay money from enjoying their purchase just so I can save money and time. I could try, but I choose not to.

The conclusion:
This is not an exact comparison (TV is not the same as an RPG and waiting for a show to come out on DVD is not the same as using additional rule content) but the concepts are similar. I don’t want to spend money to fully enjoy something—should I spend some of my own time to make use of it while allowing those who do spend money to fully enjoy their purchase or should other customers give up something they enjoy for my convenience?

I sense that essentially people are getting to the point where there are two opposing philosophies which will never quite meet, so it's probably best to not beat the horse further (little to gain, as no-one is going to be convinced of anything that the other side feels/believes, as it is exactly that, a set of beliefs and philosophies which cannot be "proven" ).

Charles, your analogy rings false as it implies that I do not want people to spend money on Paizo products, and worse yet (and I may be reading too much into this...) it seems to imply that my type of consumer (not-completionist) is a free-loader of sorts, depriving others of their goodies so I don't have to spend money. Ahem. Would you like to come to my house and see how many bloody Chronicles and Gamemastery Modules (or whatever they are currently called) I have? Damn near every single one, as well as all of the APs to date....the only thing I don't purchase are the little Players guides and the so-called splat books (I got the GMs book though...) because that sort of material doesn't interest me. My desire to see reprinted material (waiters for DVD I suppose) in no way deprives you of your seeing the material used in print (those who have paid to watch the TV show on cable)...rather, instead you have interrupted my favourite non-cable show to show snippets of some other program, and in order to figure out the plot to its fullest, I know have to get up off the couch, log on to the internet and try to Hulu the darned thing to make sense of it/best appreciate it.

I don't begrudge others their interest in that sort of material though, nor do I wish to see Paizo not use their own material in their products. What is "at stake" for me (put in quotes, because for crying out loud folks, it is just a game) is the non-neglible time and effort it takes me to suss out and then print out something that isn't part of the core rules just so others can see their toys in print.

You don't want to sacrifice word count? I hear that....but tell me, would Rise of the Runelords suddenly have become better if it had included APG material (and yeah, time travel had been created)?

You don't want your voices "drowned out"? Guess bloody what, neither does the other side of the argument....

Since I can't seem to get across my philosophy adequately, I shall try one last time (as it does seem, as I previously mentioned, that we're at the agree-to-disagree stage) to explain how I feel about such things.

I own Chaositech by Monte Cook, published by Malhavoc Press....now I love that damned book to pieces, and I've used it in several of my home adventures, but you know, I wasn't broken up that its material didn't suddenly appear in tons of products, and even if it had, in one of Monte's own modules for example, I still would want the complete write-up in the adventure, even though I ALREADY OWN IT. Because that's just a basic principle, that apparently you either think is valid or you don't, i.e. that core is what's important and all the "cool" new stuff needs to be detailed, just in case the newbie or non-completist doesn't have the book. *shrug*

And yeah, I know it's available online, but while I'm reading and not necessarily playing an adventure (and remember, a lot of the AP purchasing audience doesn't necessarily buy to play, but rather to read and savour and then play or maybe not....we're not the majority I suspect, but we're certainly not a gross minority), it's a pain in the you know what to reach some section and say...what the hell is this, I've never seen it before...hmmm, better go to the computer and surf the web to find it.

Here's some non-neglible wastes of my time as a consumer of AP products: a) time cruising the SRD to find an entry
b) time spent reading the entirety of the entry to suck it all in and get the gist of it
c) copying and pasting to a word document to have for future reference because I don't care to be looking stuff up in the middle of the session
d) printing it up and inserting it into my session notes.

Are these back-breaking, hard-toiling wasters of multiple hours? Hell, no, and I sure as heck don't want anyone claiming I've said they are....but they are non-neglible and when added up they're as big a nuisance to me as some of you claim that writing it up on your own is.

I don't want to see Paizo authors not use the tools at their disposal, but even as an owner of the Bestiary 2, I still want to see complete references for everything that is not core. That is what I, as a consumer of Paizo products (by the boatload...if you want a complete list, I'll type it up, but that's really not a valuable use of my time) feel, and I further feel that the opposite trend caters to the hard-core crowd at the expense of the casual gamer/new player, not to mention those who share my philosophy about core/non-core.

Anyhoo, best of luck to everyone in their games this weekend/week to come....don't let this get to heated, please, it is just a game after all.

Cheers,
Colin

If Paizo reprints rules in the AP then they have to pull content that I could use. I realize that some readers could save a few minutes of not looking things up on the internet but it would cost me money, money which would be spent on rules taking up space that could include content I haven't paid for yet. It would be like including skeleton or zombie stats so a GM doesn't have to buy the Bestiary.

Really, dude? Skeletons and zombies? I thought it was a given that the core rulebooks included the bestiary....I mean, I'm not one to call out reductio ad absurdum (or however the heck it's spelt) at the drop of a hat, but it does seem to me that you are raising a spectre of something that nobody has asked for at all. Have you seriously heard anyone asking for stats for everything?

Why should I be penalized for buying Paizo rulebooks? Either by having to pay for the rules again or by not getting to see those rules used? I honestly don't understand how that seems equitable to anyone. That rule content is available (and in many cases paid for by many of us customers) outside the AP and should be used and not reprinted.

How on earth are you being penalized for buying the rulebooks if the info is repeated in an adventure? You don't use your rulebooks independently of the APs with your own adventures, or just to spice up old APs and modules that you think could use a little dose of Something New (trademark pending)? The only way they see use is if something official by Paizo includes said material? I'm not trying to be snarky, man, I'm just not sure I see the logic in your stance.

Cheers,
Colin

If a player wants to love and invest and dig deep into a character to figure out how all those extra options interact on his sheet, then power to him. I've found it actually takes a player a few sessions to figure out how to get a character to "work right."

But as a GM, I don't need or want those extra options in my one-battle-then-they-die NPCs. I'll end up just ignoring all those extra options and just charging into the combat (leading to a very unsatisfying encounter), because I really wasn't expecting the PCs to attack that NPC this session, so I didn't spend the 20 minutes nessecary to figure out a good battle plan for him to use (I spent those 20 minutes elsewhere during my 3 hour prep time).

Again: today it's just PHB+APG. By year's end we'll also have Ulimate Magic and Ultimate Combat (and all the guns rules!). By next year? Or the year after?

Exactly, I agree 100%. I don't need any extra options from some rule book to spice up my NPCs and monsters.....if I want to give some special ability, I just make up a feat or give 'em a supernatural ability or something.

As you asked, what follows down the road, eh? I mean, I do recall when it was (happily embraced by me) official policy that the only things that would be referenced by page number were the core two books and everything else would be written up....and that changed, right? So who knows what the future will hold.....seems safer to print the extra material (and again, yes, I know it cuts into word counts, and that does suck {I understand completely!} but maybe that means the authors will have to be selective in what they include as "extra" goodies in the APs....so maybe only five critters from the ToH Revised instead of six, you know?).

Cheers,
Colin

IMO if s player wants to use something from a book they should own the book and bring it to the game with them. I've seen nothing but trouble when this policy is ignored. From people not having read the rules, to not remembering the rules correctly, to using some obscure broken item from a module that no-one has ever even played. This isn't 4th Ed where all the classes utilize the same rules and deviate very little from each other (even then I'm used as a walking rules encyclopedia despite my god awful memory. There's something wrong when people rely on me to remember stuff).

Well, one, as I stated above, the vast majority of my players can't be arsed to use splat books (which brings me no end of relief).

And second, I trust my players, and even if someone brings in something that is hideously broken...well, let's just say that the odds are stacked in my favour in terms of rectifying the imbalance ;-) Part of that trust thing is that my players in fact ask me what they can and can't bring in, and even if I'm not truly familiar with it, there has been nothing (in my experience) that was so broken I couldn't just ban it after some at-the-table discussion.

Cheers,
Colin

Hopefully whatever Paizo does will find a way to keep as many of us happy as possible. Thank you as well for you constructive comments :)

Edit: I guess you, and your players are not very interested in the options the APG provides? I know I couldn't imagine my players not wanting to play those options so maybe thats the difference in our groups?

I also hope that they find a way to make us both happy :)

As for your guess, you would be 100% correct...the only person who owns the APG is the resident min-maxer, and all the rest aren't completists and quite frankly just rob old 3.5 books of ideas if they want options (which being casual players, most don't bother with). And as the DM, I quite frankly could not care less about splat books (I owned zero of the "Complete" books from 3.5).

Cheers,
Colin

13garth13 wrote:

P.S. Totally off topic, but while I'm {hopefully} bending the ears of the powers that be ;-), where is the chart for the Construction Points based on size for the Animated Objects entry? Am I going completely blind, or is it not in the AP?

See the Animated Object listing in the Bestiary. Wes mentioned it ended up getting cut for space and they forgot to put the reference in.

Doh....I wondered if it was the same table or not...guess that answers my question.

Thanks for the clarification, eh.

Cheers,
Colin

I understand the perspective of those who don't wish to use the newer books. To me it is just a negative on the AP's to have to reprint more things that have been put out their, especially when it's something included in only one or 2 books.

I honestly can't imagine many groups not having a APG, in fact we have 3 amongst my group.

While not as many have the B2, I can tell you one does have it, and I will also be purchasing it.

Now if everything is going to be reprinted in the AP's I would be less likely to buy a B2, as it would be useless during the running of one.

So to me APG should for sure be included, I could maybe see not including the B2, but in 6 months-1 years time it should because most groups will have 2-3 copies.

But as you said, maybe I am in the minority in having a group with 3+ sets of most books. I think my set (gameday carry) will be Core, APG, B1, GMG, B2, Inner Sea World Guide (Possibly adding UM, and UC later). Now I have a number of other books in PDF format though none others in physical format (accept Carrion #1).

Of course I also had a 400 page homemade GMG back in the day with more charts than you can shake a stick at, and a duffel back with about 100 lbs of 2nd edition books (about 3-1/2 feet tall stack), so carrying 5-7 books to the game (even with a laptop, tablet, notebook, etc) isn't a issue.

Heh. Believe it....there are two (count 'em, two) copies of the core rule book from a pool of six players plus me (the DM/GM) and only one Bestiary, and then two Bestiary 2 copies (myself plus another player). Now, maybe this same player who also has the Bestiary 2, and the core rulebook also has the APG (I haven't asked him), but it's a moot point, as it doesn't come up in the games I run.

Now, I sure don't know if I'm in the minority, or you are in terms of numbers of books floating around gaming tables....that is indeed an interesting question.

And where we differ is just my basic philosophy that ONLY the core rulebook and the initial Bestiary should be assumed as being present in terms of the reading/purchasing audience for the Adventure Paths.

Cheers,
Colin

P.S. Thank you for framing your thoughts/counter-points in a cogent and polilte fashion; even if I disagree, it is still pleasant to have an exchange of viewpoints without being snarky and dismissive.

I really don't think that we should be wasting AP word count just because somebody is lazy/digitally challenged.

I have a problem enough with fiction and ads, reprints of material freely available online is a bit too much.

Given the amount of time and effort I put into prepping my sessions, I would scarcely call myself lazy, nor am I at all digitally challenged...what I can do with electronic tools, and what I enjoy doing are two completely different things.

Suffice it to say that we simply share different perspectives on what the philosophy of the publishers should be in regards to inclusion of full information versus page citations and assumptions of book ownership/online access.

Additionally, while I'm sure you don't give a fiddler's flying you-know-what at a flying doughnut (Tim Horton's naturally....anything else wouldn't be high enough quality), your tone is needlessly obnoxious/abrasive, especially in regards to making presumptions about my activity levels as a DM and my ability to surf the web successfully......

Cheers,
Colin

It's comments like this that I'm keeping an eye out for. If it's a commonly held opinion, we'll switch back.

But being able to use short stat blocks for Bestiary 2 monsters is a huge advantage. That'll let us fit PAGES more of content into each adventure, which becomes even more important at higher levels.

And one thing to remember about PFRPG as opposed to D&D... we made our supplementary monster books both very affordable to buy as PDFs (10 bucks!), and on top of that, made all the monsters open content, so they're free to find on the internet.

APs were already not self contained; they assumed the use of the Core Rulebook and the Bestiary.

Adding Bestiary 2 to that list is unfortunate for the fact that you'll need one more book... but in my opinion, the advantages gained are worth it.

Well, please add me as another data point amongst those who find any inclusion of material (without the salient information printed in the adventure itself) beyond that of the core books to be a troublesome trend.

I groaned inwardly when I saw creatures from the second Bestiary with nothing more than a page number, and I own the bloody thing :) .

I've also noticed the inclusion of some APG material, which again would be fine (I'm all for including options from all your material, hell, people bought it, and have every right to expect to see material used in Paizo products rather than forgotten on a figurative shelf) provided the appropriate information is included for those without the handbooks.

Yeah, I know that the material is available online, but the principal of the thing is that I really do feel quite strongly that if it's not in the core books, it should get a full description for those that don't have the new material. As a consumer of Paizo products, I don't think I should have to go to the trouble {not much trouble mind you, I'm not being asked to decipher some platyhelminth's genome ;-) } of logging on to the internet, tracking down the appropriate webpage, copying the info to a word processing document and then printing out the bloody thing. And as for buying just a PDF.......well, consider me one of those archaic dinosaurs who finds the idea of reading anything more than a few paragraphs at the computer (web fora excluded) to be something markedly less than enjoyable.

I do understand the space that gets saved when you can reference all these products with just a page number, but as I previously stated, count me as one consumer (with you guys from the beginning), who really does not like this trend at all and feels the word count trade-off is not worth the hassle to me the end-user.

Food for thought I hope...

Cheers,
Colin

P.S. Totally off topic, but while I'm {hopefully} bending the ears of the powers that be ;-), where is the chart for the Construction Points based on size for the Animated Objects entry? Am I going completely blind, or is it not in the AP?

PC Names: Quatro; Allard Farche; Esme; Lady Penelo
Races: Human (?!?!?); Dwarf; Human; Human
Classes: Incarnist; Fighter; Witch; Priest
Levels: 8; 8; 8; 9
Circumstances of Death: A wide assortment of undead-related maladies, ranging from spell damage from a ghast sorceror, to the negative energy necrosis brought about by some advanced Necrosis Carnexi, to vast, VAST amounts of sneak attack and vile damage from an undead rogue/assassin. A real smorgasboard of ultimately fatal shenanigans :) :) :)
Adventure: Memories of Orcus' Reign
Campaign: Something Rotten in Nyron

Cheers,
Colin

Is it something from the Lost Temple of Tamoatchan (or however you spell it?)

Or maybe Dwellers of the Forbidden City?

I'm trying to remember old AD&D modules with pyramid / ziggurat temples ...

B4 The Lost City, perhaps?

Cheers,
Colin

Err, what? The only blurry parts are Valeros's legs and right arm. Everything else is in sharp definition.

Lack of hard, focused lines? All the actors in the picture are outlined with solid black lines. How is that lacking hard, focused lines?

Not sure why I'm writing again, but I just had another look at the picture with the blow-up jpeg, and I'm still a little amazed that someone could consider those as solid, hard, focused black lines....which I guess is why art is so subjective.

Given how different our reactions/interpretations are is it any wonder why people don't agree on art? ;-) :)

Cheers,
Colin

P.S. Dude, there's nothing wrong with disagreeing with my impressions, but don't impugn my motives and try to mind-read me as if I'm just some "anime" hater or whatever those who prefer more western styles are called. It's not cool to assume you know what someone else's reasons are. I meant what I said about the lines, etc. etc. You just look at it and don't perceive it the same way. No biggie....

13garth13 wrote:

And by soft-brush, I mean there are very few hard, focused lines; it lacks definition and texture to the nth degree

Err, what? The only blurry parts are Valeros's legs and right arm. Everything else is in sharp definition.

Lack of hard, focused lines? All the actors in the picture are outlined with solid black lines. How is that lacking hard, focused lines?

You just don't like it because it draws inspiration from non-traditional, non-western styles. It's fine not to like it, but at least give criticisms that make sense. Hell, there's far less contrast and sharp lines in the Demogorgon picture you linked (which is done in a more traditional western style, which coincidentally usually uses fewer sharp, hard lines and more blending and blurriness, because that style is more realistic and there are very few sharp lines in nature).

I'm obviously not expressing myself clearly (or rather that what I said makes sense to me, but no-one else ;-).

Take a look at the picture...there's a difference between a "hard" black line and a "soft" black line, especially in digital artwork. Put another way that might make more sense, the whole scene appears washed out and lacking definition. To me, there's more than just Valeros (who is egregiously blurred due to stylized motion), but almost everything in that picture is....I dunno how to say it....faded? Lacking a sense of texture? Look at the window...sure it's all done with dark lines (note though that they're fuzzy grey, not sharp black), but they look faint/hazy/insubstantial.

Does that make more sense? Look at the face of the woman/fish-thing in the fore-ground...where's the detail? Everything is just sketched in (and in a soft-focus, lens smeared with Vaseline look, no less).

You can see the droplets of water in the splashing waves around Demogorgon in the aforementioned Dragon cover....the shapes are distinct and not hazy (realistic in nature or not, it happens to be a style I prefer) .

And yes, I freely admit a preference for Western-style art (which as a catch-all term probably makes as much sense as classifying an entire family of styles as "anime", i.e. not much at all), although I've seen plenty of Western-style artwork that has the same "problems" as I have with this picture. Take a look at the were-rat that Hou did in Pathfinder [url=http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs30/f/2008/140/3/4/Werebat_Rebel_by_nJoo.jpg}linky[/i], and we see the problem again; his hair is relatively untextured, it mostly just looks like smears of out-of focus brown paint.

Again, not everyone is going to see it my way (and that's okay...one man's Frazetta is another man's Boris ;-)), but I just wanted to clarify what I meant by a lack of hard lines.....in my opinion, washed-out, fuzzy gray doesn't equal a hard line, and produces a lack of definition rather than accentuating it.

Cheers,
Colin

The fact that there was a major SNAFU with the initial artist for this module and Sarah had to make some emergency last minute arrangements to get things done on time might have something to do with your observations :-)

Yeah, but.....it's not exactly the first type Andrew Hou has submitted work like this to Pathfinder products. When I compare some of his submissions to the bestiary sections of some of the AP issues to his cover work/interior work for Dungeon and Dragon, I just don't understand why he's turning in such sub-par work.

*shrug*

However, I will grant that the circumstances surrounding this product may have led to the submission of an even less satisfactory piece of work than he has been turning in lately (all art criticisms are IMNSHO, of course, and also with the addendum that I personally can't draw my way out of a wet paperbag).

Cheers,
Colin

13garth13 wrote:

A. Hou is capable of such great art (Demogorgon and company on the cover of the late, lamented dead-tree magazines, etc. etc.)

Uh, that was Wayne Reynolds, the same guy who does most of the paizo hardback coversm and the first 12 APs.

A. Hou drew all of the dinos and the barghest in the Bestiary, he did the 7 virtues dungeons cover of the trumpet archon with the masks and many other pictures. He has a deviantart page. But I think you may be confused.

Nope....you're thinking of Reynolds' cover to Dungeon...but there was a Dragon magazine with Demogorgon on the cover (a Demonomicon issue if I'm not mistaken), with art by Hou.

Linky

Cheers,
Colin

I like this style of art. Please keep the artist.

Whereas I really don't like it in the slightest....I know art is subjective, etc. etc. but man....A. Hou is capable of such great art (Demogorgon and company on the cover of the late, lamented dead-tree magazines, etc. etc.) And some of his current work on Conceptart.org is still pretty tasty....but this soft-brush, Saturday morning cartoon stuff has got to go (yeah, somebody had to go there, so I did).

And by soft-brush, I mean there are very few hard, focused lines; it lacks definition and texture to the nth degree (and I see it far too often on fast, slap-dash, out-the-door stuff on the aforementioned CA website, but usually only by young, inexperienced artists...and Andrew Hou is certainly not that).

Come back to us, man; use a hard brush line and make something with visible textures (cloth, scales, even rubbery tentacles should look like they would feel), rather than blurry, soft-focus, sloppy water-colour-esque work that looks like it was put together in an afternoon....

Sorry, rant over (soft-brush Photoshop work is really, REALLY a pet-peeve of mine....and one of those subjective, I don't know why I hate it, I just do kinda things).

Cheers,
Colin

Yes! Maybe Moorcock will sign my copy. I think I've read a short story by Landsdale; I'll have to go root around.

EDIT: Ah, heck, he's the guy who wrote Bubba Ho-tep!

And The Night They Missed the Horror Show, and Tight Little Stitches In a Dead Man's Back, and By Bizarre Hands, and dozens and dozens of other short stories that'll make you squirm in revulsion, plus novel like The Drive-In (and its sequel), and Dead in the West, and The Nightrunners, and Leather Maiden, and Mad-Dog Summer, and the Hap/Leonard action/mystery series, and Cold in July, and The Bottoms, and... ..... .......well, the list really does go on and on and on :) :) :)

He's perhaps the best horror/western/mystery/hisownself writer in quite some time (the man is his own genre), although I'll always think of him as a writer of hard-hitting, nasty horror tales first and foremost (we remember what we first encounter, right?), but his love and affection for the old pulps (he edited a volume of new pulp genre fiction for Subterranean Press) has always been abundantly clear.

Yeah....I'm a bit of a fan-boy ;-) ;-)

Cheers,
Colin

Mine as well...it was like when a magazine gets water damage and the paper/ink sticks together; when separated, there was some minor damage to the pages, but at least whole chunks of the adjoined pages didn't tear off.

Weird....I wonder if it was an inking issue, or part of a shipment got exposed to liquids so all the books in that lot had the same problem.

Cheers,
Colin

Since prions are near and dear to my heart, I will play the pedant and point out that in humans we wouldn't call it mad-cow disease and would probably refer to it as either Kuru (sp?) as it was referred to in New Guinea, or as a variant of CJD (Creutzfeld Jaccob's Disease....really not sure of the spelling on that one!).

Cheers,
Colin

Yeah, I'm afraid I have to agree with the OP...I'm no art critic by trade, and I personally can't draw my way out of a wet paper bag, but a LOT of the art in the non-adventure portion of this issue was horribly amateurish (sp?) in a very big way (unfinished is being too polite). Proportion, texturing/detail, shading....you name it, I thought it was WAY below Paizo standards.

And conveniently (for purposes of "correcting" this mis-step in the future), almost all of the pieces I didn't take a shine to were all by the same artist. Funny how it worked out that way....

Cheers,
Colin

But why bother? If I want to play a game where Alkenstar would feature prominently, I'd have to pretty much make up the whole of the country, and if I'm doing that why not just make up a whole setting around it?

At the risk of sounding snarky, what on earth is wrong with having the basic framework of a country, with plenty of juicy ideas inherent in the description, and leaving it alone for DMs to do with as they please?

I understand not having a lot of free time (father of two younguns), but one of the greatest pleasures in DMing is the hanging of whatever sticky, gooey meats I want on what was previously a bare skeleton. I don't ever want every nook and cranny to be detailed, because that gives me the freedom to do whatever I want, to sit down and sketch out whatever towns, cities, ruins, political groups I want to be present (note that even if Paizo were to create sourcebooks for those places, I would still feel free to pick and choose what aspects were in my Golarion).

Even if I end up stealing two or three ideas from other sources (it's what DMs do best :) :) to lighten the workload, it's still one of the most enjoyable aspects of the DMs job; creation!

I really can't see how this is at all a bad thing...

Cheers,
Colin

I do believe you have found it sir, Kudos. The only other defining scene I remember was a naked chick with a winged demon guy... and the imdb talks about said scene so I figure it probably is it. It has been added to netflix and soon I'll know for sure :P

Yup, that's the one; that scene was loosely based on Boris Vallejo's "Demon Lover, Vampire's Kiss" painting.

Cheers,
Colin

Aside from that there was this wierd movie I saw when I was like 9 that all I can remember is it was in a church and all these demons were running around and there was this scene were an elderly couple ascended to the belltower and then the old woman tears off the guys head and rings the bell with it. That movie freaked me out.... wish I knew its name.

The Church aka Demons 3 (directed by Michele Soavi if I'm not mistaken...I quite enjoyed it; some marvelously grotesque imagery!)

At least I think that's the one you're referring to....I could be wrong ;-)

Cheers,
Colin

The more Lovecraftian madness and monstrosities (ghouls AND spawn of Yog-Sothoth! Suweeeeeeeeet) the better! This is a must have!

Cheers,
Colin

P.S. Yes, I love horror/dark-fantasy adventures, almost in an unnatural, non-family-friendly way ;-) ;-) Are there any rumours about anything else like this on the horizon from Paizo?

Damn internet ninjas.... ..... ;-)

Actually, the original Tome of Horrors was released before the 3.0 MM was out. :)

I suspect you're thinking of Creature Collection. Tome of Horrors took a bit longer to arrive.

Cheers,
Colin

The PFRPG discount should show up as a separate line item on the receipt. Something like "Order discount: -$x.xx." It doesn't change the unit price in the order, just adds a discount line off the total.

Add up the list price of the items you bought and see if it adds up to the amount you were charged. I bet there's that 10% in there somewhere.

DOH!

You are, of course, absolutely correct sir. Thanks for pointing out what should have been glaringly obvious :)

Now if only there was a way to delete a thread.... .... ;-)

Cheers,
Colin

Hi there :)

I have a quick question about this order....upon checking the e-receipt for the order, it very quickly dawned on me that I seem to have had my Pathfinder Advantage applied, but then not the PFRPG discount (despite it saying quite clearly on both the webpage upon checkout as well as my confirmation email), based on the fact that I'm being charge 85% of cover price for all the items I purchased. For example, each of the Pathfinder Society PDFs is ordinarily #3.99, and I was charged $3.39 each (rather than $3.05), the Great Beyond is ordinarily $19.99 and I was charged $16.99 (rather than $15.29) etc.

It doesn't seem like any of these are pre-orders, subscription items, or any otherwise verbotten items, so is this a glitch (in which case what can I do about it?) or am I missing some painfully obvious fact and I'm just being dense? ;-)

Cheers,
Colin

cue crickets chirping....

:)

In all seriousness, dude, I think that the odds of anyone other than you, me, and Ryk reading ANY of these posts, let alone replying to them, are vanishingly slim, although I'd be only too happy to be proven incorrect...

Which reminds me, I have to write an email to everyone....

Oh, and I don't think everything was lost....maybe only 1/2 or so :P :P

And as for Adelard's levels....I have to get him to make some saving throws to see if they're permanent or not...if they are, then it will take a Restoration spell to give him back a level, or multiple castings for multiple levels.

Cheers,
Colin

Upon awakening, the party opted to explore what lay behind the final door of the second layer within the molluscan shell, ever mindful of the omnipresent shushing sound of long strands of hair being combed and brushed coming from around the next bend. Thanks to the effects of the Deck of Chaos, the party was lower on equipment than would have been preferable, and Adelard in particular was utterly lacking in armour or weapons (or anything beyond a jury-rigged loincloth for that matter).

Opening the door and entering, the adventurers found a dusty, umber sandscape, filled with clouds of eddying dust. Before them lay a vague path of sorts that meandered between colossal upright leg-bones emerging from the rusty sand, leading towards some distant cliff city. This bizarre demiplane seemed to be a necropolis of some sort, but its exact nature was uncertain, and despite the mental urgings from Adelard’s dire boar companion, and the keen eyes of Jimmy the Hand, both of which detected movement between the mammoth femurs, the party opted to choose discretion as the better part of valour and continued their mission within the Temple of Dreams Incarnate.

Turning around the bend in the shell, the party (as they were becoming accustomed to by this point…) found themselves in an entirely new place, a long stone hallway, widening at regular intervals to eventually terminate in a large room with a narrow crevice at the entryway, blocking easy access. The chamber was black as pitch, but between the everburning torch and Adelard’s darkvision, the adventurers pressed onward. Within the terminating room was a steep sided ziggurat, upon which was a thin, almost emaciated woman with long flowing hair, tangled with briars, thorns, and countless giggling pixies who combed her hair this way and that. Behind the pyramid was a row of three dragon statues, and in front of it were two large balls of animated hair, which flew towards the party, latching on to Jimmy and eventually Adelard as well, forcing long strands of asphyxiating hair into their mouths and nostrils. Meanwhile, the strange woman (Mistress Trichinella) began to cast a series of protective spells upon herself while occasionally letting loose with Darkbolts and [/i]Lightning bolts[/i].

With the help of Lawrence, who hurled ball of flame after ball of flame into the strange hair golems, and the savage gore attacks of Adelard’s dire boar companion, eventually the hirsute constructs were dispatched (releasing foul smelling clouds of burned hair smoke). The party advanced on the ziggurat, and with bounding leaps (Jimmy) and stubborn, methodical climbing (Adelard), two of the adventurers reached the ziggurat’s peak (disrupting a particularly vile spell, the Dance of Ruin), and despite her protective spells, Mistress Trichinella was soon slain.

After finding several magical weapons atop the ziggurat in piles of bones, the party then searched for a means of egress, and finally (after much debate, a long bout of searching, and finally a disabling of the) found a dark, moist shaft beneath one of the dragon statues. In a pattern that had become almost predictable, they soon found themselves some place else, in this case a series of slime-lined grape-like sacs, connected by narrow tubes of flesh; the background sounds of pulsing beeps and hissing wheezes returned full force.

Cautiously exploring the spongy tunnels the party came across a whitish blob of gelatinous goo feeding on purulent fluid filling the sacs and tunnels to an ankle-high depth. Some were able to leap over it, but the dwarf elected to give it a gentle shove to move it out of the way; regrettably, the slimy beast did not take kindly to this and began to lash out with acidic tendrils. Several characters lost weapons to the corrosive slime which coated the protoplasmic mass, but Penelo merely waded through it, dissolving her metal boots in the process. Eventually the beast was slain while the party headed up one of the tunnels which seemed to be an exit, but two more joined the fray from a side tunnel; luckily they were equal parts slow-moving and dim-witted and were easily eluded by the remaining character.

They emerged from the bronchioles and found themselves on a misty plain, studded with upright stakes, each adorned with two mangled and conjoined corpses, one male, one female forcing themselves upon the other with moist susurrations muffled by the utter lack of mouths (or eyes or any other facial features for that matter). Stepping past this disturbing tableau the party found themselves on the third “floor” of the spiralling mollusc shell, a substantially smaller venue than previous layers. The walls were draped with strange tapestries of a glossy, smooth material never before found by the characters(plastic curtains). As well, upon a small table were three books in an unknown tongue (the bard and priestess’s Comprehend Languages spells were predictably useful) that were revealed to be tomes on poetry and folklore of little significance to the adventurers, but possibly of some note to their players ;-). Passing once more into the next (and based on the decreasing floor area, no doubt last) layer of the shell, the party found itself before a large gothic cathedral made not of mortar and stone but of knit together bone and sinew.

Cautiously broaching the “doors” of ligament-bound bones, the characters crept into the church with as much stealth as they could muster, unfortunately offset by the clanking plate mail of the priestess. The interior was unlit, and a Light spell cast upon a coin then hurled into the darkness beyond the current light radius of the Everburning torch was used to great efficacy. To the left and right of the doorway were stairs leading downwards, while stretching out from the party towards the darkness were rows of pews and columns stretching to the ceiling, as well as regular support pillars for the upper balcony. Strands of almost invisible cobwebs hindered movement through some pillars, and brushing through them triggered psychic flashes of someone else’s memories, scenes of abuse and molestation, as well as the chanted words, “Mommy needn’t know, Mommy needn’t know”.

Further exploration (and more coin throwing) allowed the party to explore the remainder of the cathedral, dominated by a vast, raised altar complete with a strange cruciform statue, and a lectern dominated by a golden eagle. The two side branches of the cathedral held additional psychic assaults/visions as well as stairs up to the balcony level.

The dwarf’s examination of a book on the lectern revealed a series of exquisite sepia-toned paintings of an almost life-like quality (photographs) featuring a little girl (well, young teen anyway) and her three aunties….two of which bore an uncanny resemblance to the first two Mistresses of the Temple. Later illustrations also featured a rather gaunt, cadaverous fellow in robes of black with a white patch at his throat, sometimes with an unsettling leer pasted to his pale face (priest).

Meanwhile, Lawrence the Druid Guy and Xeon explored the balcony layer, and eventually moved to the shaft of the bell tower and began to ascend to the apex; they were later joined by Jimmy. Upon reaching the zenith of the bell tower, Lawrence elected to pull the clapper rope, thus causing a frightful din to descend upon the church, answered in turn by a loud, guttural roar from somewhere below the stairs to the basement. As Callista, Adelard, and Penelo made haste towards the stairs, and the remainder of the party raced down the stairs to rejoin them, a hulking undead monstrosity with massive needle-like fangs and disproportionately huge claws, clad in tattered black robes with a still visible white collar, lurched up from the basement stairs, shattered manacles dangling from his wrists. Its/his first action was to pull aside the remnants of his robes and disgorge three rotting cadavers, which in turn shuffled towards the party. Due to a curse from the Deck of Chaos, both Xeon and Adelard were deemed preferential targets, although the lower intelligence of the three putrescent corpses hindered their ability to adequately distinguish between opponents….the same could not be said of the large undead behemoth which made -hastily for Adelard.

As Callista in particular and later Adelard (none to difficult to strike due to his lack of armour) and the rest of the party were to discover, the three man-sized decomposing undead may have been lacking in brain power, but their level draining more than compensated for the absence of good decision making skills.

And of course it is worth noting that Penelo’s player was absent, so the part of the priest was being played by someone who: a) doesn’t play spell-casters, divine or otherwise, and who: b) was doing double duty…..so it wasn’t too surprising that despite the incredibly useful use of Searing Light spells, turning was completely forgotten as an ability which could have made things substantially less difficult in terms of dealing with so many opponents at once. Whooooooooops ;-) ;-)

Eventually all the undead were brought low (with Callista being the proud owner of five negative levels, and Adelard owning four of the same), and the party descended to the basement….well, Xeon raced down the stairs first, and then the others followed.

Several potent effects were brought to bear as the party entered (in a piecemeal fashion) the lair of the beautiful but diabolical Mistress Arachne….first (and in order of entry) Xeon, Jimmy and Adelard were instantly seduced into utter lustful malleability by the powerful enchantment magics of the final Mistress (who thankfully could only cast that particular spell thrice daily). Callista was not enthralled, but was webbed against a wall and failed in almost every effort to free herself with Strength checks. Lawrence (and his Dire Wolf) and Penelo had little to fear in regards to seductive mind-control magics, but were instead teleported to other rooms, a dank chamber with a large central pool and a flooded storage chamber with stray crates and empty flasks and kegs bobbing about respectively. It is notable that Mistress Arachne was present in these two additional chambers as well.

With Xeon, Jimmy and Adelard taking turns being bitten and poisoned by the chelicerae of Mistress Arachne (and continually failing the {admittedly high DC} additional Will saving throws that this permitted) as they all tried to get to know her in a most carnal fashion, and with Callista glued to a wall, it fell to Lawrence, his wolf, and Lady Penelo to defeat the wicked harlot. Penelo opted for a more diplomatic approach, attempting to converse with the lethal lady to suss out secrets and motives before resorting to combat, while Lawrence chose a more direct approach; Flame Strike and Call Lightning. While Lawrence had no way of knowing this, the damage that he inflicted on his incarnation of Mistress Arachne appeared on the other two iterations. His attacks, as well as Penelo’s goading prompted the spiderphilic Mistress to enlarge into her actual form, that of a spider-bodied female (similar to a drider), with two saw-blades for hands and a nasty set of chelicerae sprouting from her maw.

As the three hapless males in the other chamber were being “willingly” assaulted, the venom took its toll on the Dire Wolf and Lady Penelo as well, but the savage bite of the wolf was more than sufficient to end Mistress Arachne’s life, as un-dextrous as the canine may have been at the time.

With their final foe defeated, the group reunited via some inter-dimensional hallways and tried their best to use curative magics to restore the damage done. While the others searched the room and its strange statues (tall, masked figures with long gown and curious masks over the lower halves of their faces, each wielding a small knife), Lawrence and Adelard wandered off down one of the hallways from which they had actually entered (as their were magical fields that they detected) and found themselves in a long hallway lined with closed and slightly ajar doors, but terminating in an open set of double doors from which those strange beeping and wheezing sounds seemed to emerge. Strolling in, they found themselves in the final chamber of the mollusan Temple of Dreams Incarnate, with a slight, frail, bruised young woman on a strange bed with numerous strands connecting her to arcane devices which seemed to be the originators of the bizarre sounds. By her bedside lay a “Wish Book” full of wishes for her to get well soon. Soon thereafter, the other party members showed up, and with some curative spells, the young woman was restored to a state far more conducive to conversation.

Long story short, the party did what they could to help her, wrote their own desires in the “Wish Book” (to be the most powerful druid in the land, to have a pouch which would always have enough gold for the rogue’s needs, to have a pet dragon, and to have the ability to cast divine magics spontaneously….the dwarf abstained from inscribing his desires), and then allowed the girl to write her own wish into the book, upon which time the room and everything in it vanished, and the party was birthed from the vulval folds of the bizarrely shaped banyan tree into which they had crawled to enter the Fading Lands of the Fae. The party then headed back to Shantadern, minus Callista who made her own way home to someplace northeast of the Gnatmarsh.

And so, for now, the tale is concluded.

Cheers, eh!
Colin

Never mind, Courtfool answered on his own behalf.

Cheers,
Colin

After leaving the banquet/ballroom of the dark fae, presided over by Robin Goodfellow, the party wandered the castle, searching for some means of egress that would lead them to the Temple of Dreams Incarnate.

They soon found themselves in a hallway lined with bookshelves; while some members of the party searched the shelves and books, the remainder entered the door at the terminus of the hallway. Beyond the door was a curiously shaped lounge, lined with bookshelves. Three windows interspersed between the shelves looked out over a curious vista of swirling, multi-hued mist, and two doors appeared to exit the chamber. The first door revealed a small bedchamber with a chest on a table (within which the dwarf found thirty infant skulls), while the second opened out into a long throne-room, whose inside dimensions overlapped impossibly with the dimensions of the library/lounge.

As Lady Penelo, Adelard the dwarf, and Xeon the bard entered the room, the rogue (Jimmy) decided to further explore the bookshelves, triggering an explosive burst of Dust of Sneezing and Choking, rendering him temporarily helpless with uncontrolled gagging and choking.

Xeon explored the two thrones at the far end of the long chamber, and found them inscribed with the names, Lord Oberon: Master of the Seelie Court, and Titania: Cuckolder of the High Lord. Exploring them further and then daring to seat himself in the throne of Titania, the bard found himself granted a musky, sexual odour and a pair of diminutive, curving ram’s horns. Further exploration of the king’s throne revealed a shaft below it, descending into blackness. While Penelo searched the walls, and Adelard made a move towards the throne to assist Xeon, the bard triggered a wailing alarm trap, which summoned forth the dreaded Erl King, who (being invisible) summoned forth a wall of thorns to trap the three party members in the throne room and prevent any assistance from Jimmy (who was temporarily quite incapable of providing much help in any regard), Lawrence the Druid, and Callista who were still searching the lounge.

Despite several highly damaging spells (fire seeds and a few strokes of call lightning) the pared down party still found itself quite capable of dispatching the Erl King (particularly due to the dwarf’s devastating axe blows). With the death of the throne room’s grim defender, the wall of thorns dissolved into nothingness, and the party was once again whole.

Finally shoving aside the stone throne of Oberon, the party descended the shaft and suddenly found itself drifting through the strange, prismatic sheets of billowing mist that they had viewed through the lounge’s windows. Off in the distance reared a blurry, shimmering apparition of an immense sea-horse, hundreds of feet high, crowned with a sea-shell of equally impressive proportions. As the party willed themselves towards it (having no physical earth to walk upon) the characters noticed a strange beeping/cheeping sound combined with a hissing, rhythmic wheeze suffused the realm, creating a bizarre auditory environment. Nearing the sea-horse, the party soon realized that the perimeter of the spiralling mollusc’s shell was not unguarded; three brutish, hulking centaurs armed with long spears and with bows firing arrows smeared with faecal matter were lead by a bizarrely proportioned giant (some sort of fun-house mirror distorted ogre-kin) hurling boulders.

Thanks to some remarkably skilful diplomacy, the party avoided conflict with very few blows exchanged, and entered the sea shell (which they instinctively realized must be the Temple of Dreams Incarnate) relatively unmolested.

Within they found the inner walls of the shell were pink and moist with mucilaginous secretions, and tentatively made their way forward, soon coming around the corner of a spiral arc to find themselves face to rotting face with three zombies and a skeletal archer of no mean skill. Being curiously semi-intelligent rather than the usual run-of-the-mill undead, the zombies were actually capable of interaction, and following the turning of two of shambling brethren, and the rather quick dispatching of the archer (despite his immediate “resurrection” due to a magical crown/circlet about his bony pate) the third agreed to act as an ally of sorts (a mono-syllabic, decomposing, but at least non-hostile guide).

As the party continued to follow the rising curve of the molluscan shell, they abruptly found themselves in a segment decorated as an impromptu bedchamber of sorts, complete with rotting tapestries and scented candles. Sprawled upon a rotting four-poster bed was a grotesquely obese female figure, fondling herself while strings of bloody sputum drooled from her incongruously lusty mouth. This was one of the three mistresses that both The Puck and the old hag in the swamps had forewarned the party of; clearly this was Mistress Corpulosum, a creature of self-described immense appetites, appetites which based on her choice of words with the party were clearly not merely gastronomic in nature… …. …..

As Xeon played a tune to fascinate her, Jimmy spent several torturous moments debating whether to be the one to satisfy her lusts….fortunately for the rogue, several skilfully worded attempts at diplomacy by the rogue succeeded in bypassing the dim-witted Mistress and no-one had to debase themselves unnecessarily.

As the party winded their way to the next level of the ascending spire, they found themselves suddenly transported to another realm, where they were within a slimy, wrinkled tube of slippery tissue, terminated by some bizarre flesh door, most sphincter-like in appearance. Their ears were bombarded with strange hissing and peeping sounds from somewhere beyond the tube, akin to those which suffused the misty realm of the sea-horse, but MUCH louder….some of which sounded strangely like steady breathing of a most wheezy, mechanical nature. Within the slick, alimentary passage were several ghasts of varying power and a fearsome ghoul hound, who were feasting upon the slowly regenerating tissue, but who were clearly eager for a change of diet.

The battle was somewhat more complex than expected as manoeuvring about the mucilaginous secretions of the tunnel was a matter of some dexterity, both for the party as well as for the opposition. Additionally, damaging the walls of the tunnel proved disastrous for all involved, as reactive peristaltic waves threw unprepared combatants prone. However, the turning skill of a servant of Pelor is nothing to be discounted, and three of the five enemies were driven to the far end of the chamber, resulting in a fairly short combat (although several party members were paralyzed and/or infected with ghoul fever).

Having opened the way to the sphincter, there was still the matter of opening the clenched ring, and worming one’s way through proved to be a difficult and slightly dangerous (acidic secretions…) option. Eventually two members of the party forced the sphincter open and then the dwarf (last one through) wriggled his way to freedom, only slightly seared by the acids of the tract.

On the other side of the ring lay another, smaller layer of the spiralling mollusc shell (of appropriately smaller size), but this one was line with doors on the inner wall. The first door contained a strange figure seated at a table, who was interrogated by Jimmy and (shortly there after) Xeon. The being, while initially appearing human, rapidly began to shed layers of himself with each additional piece of advice/information about the Temple that he offered to the bard and the rogue, like some bizarre actor shedding layer after layer of clothing. Each visage was stranger than the last, soon becoming twisted and otherworldly (as befits a self-described emissary of the Far Realms), causing sanity to quickly be stripped from the characters which resulted in some lingering psychological effects…. …….

This emissary of points beyond the normal dimensions described how the Fading Land of the Fae was nothing more and nothing less than a parasitic outcropping of the dreams of some little girl, relying on her unconscious mind to craft and maintain the faerie tale landscape that the unseelie fae were currently calling home, and continued to say that he himself was quite satisfied with the situation, as an entire demiplane cultivated from dream-stuff allowed him to spread his influence with great ease into other worlds, planes, and even dreams. The two party members quit his company before further sanity could be eroded by his presence….

The next room had a large deck of cards on an otherwise featureless table….the fabled Deck of Chaos, a far more varied (yet certainly weaker) version of the Deck of Many Things. Much drawing of tiles by various party members then followed, resulting in a potpourri of effects both beneficial and malign…..

In the third room was a strange conglomeration of male and female limbs, torsos and heads, mostly withered and desiccated, writhing together in some disturbing mating dance.

The fourth room (of five) was empty, and, forewarned of something around the bend of the shell by the relentless rustling of hair being combed, the party opted to stay the night and rest/recuperate before moving on.

To be concluded

Penelo: This is getting stranger and stranger every step we take. What I thought was a simple journey to spontanous spell casting has turned into a journey for our very lives. We have already lost one of the party. I pray we do not lose another. This reminds me of when we battle Zuggmonty's aspect and lost Sampsa very nothing but a roar of moooooo.

I hope this doesn't get any worse...

And yet, of course, it did :) :)

Having slain the wolf-creature, the party paused to heal, search the area and collect treasure from the corpse and a large chest found in the tower. In addition, the necromantic magics were largely banished by a blessing by Penelo.

As the sun set and dusk set in, a nearby hillock appeared on the swampy island near the ruined tower. Approaching this previously invisible mound of earth, the party ascertained that there was a plaque of some sort imbedded near the apex of the hillock, and posted upon it was a riddle.

As the party answered the riddle correctly, the middle section of the hillock descended into the ground with Jimmy, Adelard and Penelo upon it, eventually arriving at the mouth of a tunnel which led to an iron door fixed with yet another plaque inscribed with riddle written in Common. After a failed attempt to answer the riddle correctly, causing numerous darts to spring from the walls, and then several attempts to disarm the dart throwing devices met with critical failure of the perforating variety, Lawrence the Druid Guy decided to get ‘er dun, and joined the party down at the base of the vertical shaft. Upon examining the plaque it became apparent that there was a riddle on the reverse side, this time written in the language of the Fae (close enough to Sylvan to be loosely translated by the druid).

After much brain-storming and debate, a passable solution was finally proposed, and the door opened, revealing even more of the tunnel and eventually terminating in curtains drawn across a rod. Peering around the curtains revealed only darkness as far as the dwarf was concerned, but peering through the curtains revealed a fire-place lit room with a crone in a rocking chair surrounded by mewling cats.

Jimmy tried to sneak into the room, but was noticed by the felines who alerted their mistress to the presence of the rogue. A strange dialogue ensued, with the upshot being that there was a way to reach the castle of the Erl King, overseen by Robin Goodfellow and from thence the Temple of Dreams Incarnate, but it required the sacrifice of four beings on the necromantic slabs adjacent to the ruined tower above. Also, before the witch/crone/hag would provide any assistance, the party would have to obtain some Soul ‘Shrooms, an ominous sounding series of fungi likewise found near the stone slabs engraved with necromantic runes.

Accomplishing these tasks, the party was rewarded with potions, some advice, and opting to slay the red-cap tooth constructs upon the slabs (hoping that despite their lack of intelligence and soul, they would still qualify in order to activate the path-magic….a correct assumption), they created a minor tremor which shook the earth, shattered the death-stone slabs, and opened a tunnel into the earth.

Following the tunnel, it quite suddenly opened up into a purple-tinged landscape of ramshackle dark-faerie huts and leaning unseelie barrios on the other side of an ominous looking bridge. However, the party crossed uneventfully, noting at all times the glaring eyes of unpleasant dwellers in the bizarre toadstool shacks and lean-tos as they followed the path further into the depths of this Faerie Fading Land.
Having passed through the dark faerie ghetto, the landscape once again changed, this time to a canyon filled to the left and right of the path with cages containing seelie fae, bemoaning their imprisonment, all haloed with an aura of green-tinged fire as a warding. Feeling that there was little they could do, particularly in light of the huge volume of evil faeries immediately behind them, the party moved on, steeling themselves against the piteous moans of the fettered fae.

Suddenly (as they are wont to be in Faerie) the party was before a vast castle, with a locked double door in front of the path, guarded by a trio of vicious redcaps. While the battle was a close one, the party prevailed and faced the door, which was covered by yet another damnable puzzle/riddle key, featuring numerous tiles upon which a strange statement was placed, one letter/character per tile . After some consideration (and clever application of the detect magic spell), the solution was reached by pushing the correct tile and the party entered the castle.

Advancing further into this strange edifice, the party found itself in a vast ballroom with scores of faeries on a series of raised tiers rising to either side of the ballroom floor. A trio of flickering chandeliers hung from above, illuminating the place, and a string quartet of demented unseelie musicians drew their bows of bone, skin and hair across equally ghastly cellos and began a lurching waltz-like dirge, much to the delight of the capering fae.

The presence of the party most assuredly did not go un-noticed by the major domo of the castle, the Puck, Robin Goodfellow, temporarily free of the attentions of his perpetually cuckolded master Oberon and his fickle mistress Titania. After offering the party food and spirits (wisely declined due to advice from Adelard who recalled some of the childhood tales told to him about eating and drinking things offered by faeries…. …..), a challenge was issued by the Puck, throwing down the metaphorical gauntlet for the party to entertain the dangerous and capricious crowd (and of course the Puck himself).

The bard Xeon played a tune, accompanying the dwarf Adelard who recounted a magnificently long joke (an epic saga of the shaggy dog variety of humour), and ultimately won the approval of Robin Goodfellow. The Puck offered free passage through the castle towards the Temple of Dreams Incarnate, mentioning the three Mistresses who guarded the place, and (as many others had uttered previously during the adventure) made oblique and baffling references to the dreams of a sleeping girl. Robin Goodfellow also issued an ominous warning about the Erl King to whom the region ultimately belonged, and mentioned slyly that the protection of a mere Puck would not suffice should the attention of the Erl King be drawn to the party in their journeys…. ….

And so we shall (hopefully) conclude this adventure this Friday, continuing on through the Castle of the Erl King, and thence into the Temple of Dreams Incarnate.

Cheers guys,
Colin

Oh, and HAHA, on the Life of Brian clip...

The Meaning of Life, man, The Meaning of Life!!

*shakes head*

Kids today...

;-)

Cheers,
Colin

...Tieflings were originally the result of human nobles making pacts with evil worldly entities and their bloodlines being tainted/cursed. On the same note their great empire was eventually wiped away probably as a result of divine retribution for their evil worldly pacts or the fact that they bucked up to the Dragonborn Empire.

ONLY in fourth edition, eh......in second edition (where the race debuted, in the original Planescape boxed set) they were the diluted bloodline of fiend/non-fiend mating (not close enough to the initial "coupling" to be half-fiends), and as you might imagine, this came as a result of illusion magic or sexual violence (hard to imagine too many demons other than succubi/incubi going the ol' subtlety route). I recall that it was both implicitly and explicitly stated for several tiefling characters throughout the Planescape line that their origins were less than consensual... ....

And for the record (in case the thought comes up as it has in a roundabout way on EN World), I don't think any of the people who object to the morally squeamish attitude that WOTC seems to be evincing are "pro-rape"! For crying out loud, that's just ludicrous (I've worked with victims of abuse/rape, in the days before I became a teacher, and I'm well aware of how devastating and long-lasting the consequences can be)...but many of us certainly include "mature" material in our games, and just as we sometimes have to "up" the darkness of the material given to us by publishers, I think it only fair that some players should find ways to remove what they deem objectionable (which is perfectly cool....if I was playing with youths/my children, I sure wouldn't want too much Book of Vile Darkness stuff sneaking in), as it is always easier to remove than to add in from whole cloth.

So, since that was so bloody longwinded ;-) I'll sum up: The evil pact stuff is an invention of fourth edition, and the original material certainly implied less than savoury origins for many tieflings (again, unless I'm misremembering).

Cheers, (and if I'm remembering things incorrectly, I hope that someone will leap in to correct me)
Colin