Christopher Rowe's page

Condolences to all who knew him. It seems he touched many lives, and though I did not know him, I regret his passing.

And y'know, now that I thought to look, I've got I think perhaps ALL the chronicle sheets in my gmail archives!

I just posted this on Facebook and thought folks here would get a kick out of it:

So, yesterday, on one of our epic 12-hour dates, my lady friend evinced interest in TTRPGs (tabletop roleplaying games, D&D being the most famous) by way of asking how the Pathfinder game I played Tuesday night went. She had no idea whatsoever what they are, how they work, etc. So I pulled this move I saw online in a video of that red-headed lady from Daredevil pull on a radio interview, where she basically taught the interviewer what it’s all about by running a very free-form encounter for him—walking along a trail at night and being approached by an owlbear (if you don’t know what an owlbear is, I bet you can figure it out.)

I asked Chioma if she wanted to be a wizard or a fighter and she said, “Babe, I AM a wizard.”

So the owlbear attacks and I ask her what she wants to do. And she said, “Can I stop time?” I sort of spluttered and said, “Well, that would number you among the four or five most powerful wizards on the planet. But I guess, sure.”

Then, departing from the script as written by Daredevil lady—is her name Karen something?—I had Chi hear some music up the trail. So instead of stopping time, she turned into a tree, to the owlbear’s confusion, so she could avoid being attacked and see what was going down.

I had a handful of gnomes, goblins, and halflings pushing and pulling along a 1/8th scale replica of a caravel, painted in gaudy colors and hung with fetishes, just scraping it along the trail. They were singing a sea chanty.

The owlbear went after them and I asked Chi what next. And she said (you have to imagine her Caribbean accent): “I will turn back into my true form and save the little men.”

Good instincts, eh?

Good on you.

Maybe this year is the year for me to learn to play Starfinder! Sounds great!

I'm sorry that I don't have anything productive to add to the question at hand, but I just want to say I love the title of this thread. It seems like it should be an early EP from Factory records by Joy Division or the Durutti Column.

My apologies to the ghost of Herman Melville. Your thoughts and opinions about crafting scrolls are humbly solicited. Unless, of course, as the man said (over and over!), you “prefer not to.”

Last night at the weekly PFS game down at the local game shop, our characters had to climb into a contraption resembling the evil god Rovagug as part of a sort of mystery play at a religious festival. Once we were inside, the GM asked, "What do you do now?"

I said, "We sing the Rovagug song."

Did I then extemporize a fantasy role-playing version of the hit 1964 country song "Chug-a-Lug" by the great Roger Miller?

Friends, I did.

I'm curious about the notion (not explicitly expressed in this thread thus far, to be sure, but hinted at) that it's in any way cool to check out of a game when your character happens to not be in the spotlight. By checking out I mean reading something or playing a video game or whatever. I don't guess it always rises to the level of disruption (though I think it can), but it certainly always rises to the level of rudeness. These games are collaborative and social, after all. All the players (including the GM) share the responsibility of creating a good time for the whole table. That responsibility isn't curtailed just because you don't happen to be rolling dice or talking at any given moment, in my view. Give everyone the courtesy of your actively engaged attention and they're much more likely to return the favor than not.

I usually print out watermarked pages from my .pdf library and keep them in a folder with my character sheet and Chronicles and so on. One of them has pages from 27 additional resources.

Now, admittedly, it’s a bit of a cheat because the character I’m talking about is a 3rd level brawler and all those books are sources for feats he might use with his Martial Flexibility class feature. I went through every combat feat he was eligible for and made a list of those I could imagine he might make use of in a published scenario. The list has 80 items and 54 of them are from additional resources.

My wife, who doesn’t like my board avatar, wants to know when the image in this post will be available to replace it with.

But given Avistan’s and Garund’s deep, deep, lengthy, lengthy history, it “makes sense” more often than the opposite in this setting.

What if I were to tell you there were substantial numbers of free black Africans on every continent except Australia and Antarctica by the year 1530 CE? What if were to tell you that there were substantively ethnically diverse communities in the British Isles before the time of Christ? What if I were to tell you that the historical record on Golarion demonstrates an even longer history of economic, cultural, religious, and social exchange than the historical record here on Earth?

This morning, my dear wife, who has played, I think, four Society games, revealed that she believes the campaign's primary antagonists to be...dockworkers.

"It's all about sneaking into warehouses down by the docks or onto tied up ships. Fighting on wharves and stuff. It's like Season Two of The Wire but in medieval times."

Now I'm trying to remember which particular scenarios she's played.

We should all go in and rent a place on the Carolina shore in the off-season, borrow some earthmoving equipment, pit roast a titanboar. Good times.

Okay, one more, but this one is a little obscure and unclear.

Roughly contemporary with his work on the original AP Player's Guide and on the Guide to Korvosa, Mike McArtor wrote "Children of the Void," the adventure in the second installment of the Second Darkness AP.

Therein, there's an NPC/adversary who receives a fairly robust background write-up, an ex-monk named Akron Erix. Erix is from Korvosa and travels there from Riddleport quite frequently still, and is secretly in the employ of the Sable Company. When that last bit is revealed, the text tells us that the Company was paying Erix not only in gold, but with a promise "that they'd put in a good word with the Order of the Fire Ghost, a sect of monks to which Erix once belonged."

Now, it's been suggested on these boards and elsewhere that that line means the Order of the Fire Ghost is a monastic order located in Korvosa, but that doesn't seem to me to be necessarily guaranteed by the wording of the background. Since there's nothing about the Order (I'm 95% sure, anyway) in any other source published by Paizo, most notably in the two sources you'd think most likely would include such (the first two works mentioned in this post), those sources themselves having been written or co-written by Mike McArtor as well, I think it's equally likely that the Order is somewhere else and the Sable Company just has influence with them for some other reason besides shared locality.

Now, all that said, there's no reason you couldn't have the Order (or some completely other Order, from whatever monastic tradition) located in your Korvosa, if your player wants to play a hometown character.

I wonder if it's an interface thing.

I've only ever seen one link (and I still see only one now).

The bigger link at the bottom of the post leads back to the post. Between the post and the comments there's a poll link.

Here, look at this.

I've never had players so versed in the world lore that they'd notice.

Oh yeah, that's been my experience for as long as I've played RPGs. It's been a source of some frustration, to be honest, but I've made my peace with exchanges like this:

Me: I have carefully coordinated the lore created by hundreds of writers, artists, cartographers, developers, and editors to provide an enriched and robust play experience complete with religious, historical, economic, social, and cultural components interacting in a nuanced shared storytelling environment.

Player: My guy's like Wolverine but with armor. Who's hiring us? I just rolled a 20 can I save it for the first fight?

Me: Erm, no. As for who--

Player 2: Is it a duke? Knowledge Nobility check, I rolled a 20.

Me: Wait, before we get started we need to establish the bloodlines of your horses with the tables in this eleven-year-old campaign supplement and--

Player 3: Which one of these wifi networks is yours? I bet you're Candlekeep, right? What's the password?

Yeah, I think constructs (other than golems, which enslave elemental spirits) are the way to go here if you want to avoid ethical issues. Or just pay a fair wage and ensure good working conditions and enjoy the superior fruits of an engaged and involved labor force.

I'll be most likely running the gallows of madness module for my players this Thursday and will be the first time I use a module. How do you guys recreate some of these maps? They're very detailed and while we do have access to a relatively big chessex map, they maps are also kind of on the big side regardless....POSSIBLY bigger than our chessex map (though not sure, our chessex map is thankfully pretty big). The module in particular has one place with two floors, how would one go about preparing for THAT?

Two floors, you say? Here's what I did last time that came up.

In all seriousness, it entirely depends on what kind of time you want to spend and what kind of, I guess, "production values" you and your group enjoy (hopefully collectively) creating.

One solution is for everyone to chip in on a second reusable battlemap and predraw everything you're going to need on a session-by-session basis.

For the published modules and APs and so on, when I don't build terrain, I tend to use various programs to blow up the map images, digitally edit out the bits the players don't need to see if such editing needs doing, then tile/poster print the results and mount them on foam core. Of course, I buy everything digitally these days, so this suggestion might be glossing over a whole bothersome intermediary step where you have to scan the maps.

That said, doing all that stuff is, like painting miniatures, kind of a whole separate hobby that I happen to enjoy, and if you don't, then yeah, have the players pony up for another map, get out the dry erase markers, and don't sweat the details.

There are a number of Golarion specific games of chance detailed in Pathfinder #13—Second Darkness Chapter 1: "Shadow in the Sky." Which you can get for five bucks as of this writing, looks like.

(With apologies to Roy Rogers and, I suppose, Van Halen.)

...

Leshies and gentlebeings, we proudly present, for a one-time engagement, the Kaer Maga Augur Troll Choir.

...

Bom-buh-DEE-uh, bom-buh-DEE-uh, bom-buh-DEE-uh, bom-buh-DEE-uh,
Happy (en)trails…to you,
Until…
We meet...
Again.
Happy (en)trails…to you!
Keep smi-lin’
Un...
Til then!

Happy (en)trails…to YOU!
Un-til,
We meeeet!
Agaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiinn!

“Mind the Gap,” said Metaphysics,
A poesy avatar,
“Not all y’all gods and culture heroes,
Are gonna get this far.”

Cayden Cailean, drunk like usual,
Hoisted up his ale,
Then recalled his stalwart heart,
And for the stars set sail.

“Hey, wait a minute!” said Old Deadeye,
“I think I’ll come with you,
Farming families hunt the spaceways,
They’ll need my guidance, too.”

A god of battle, strength, and weapons,
Brandished his iron greatsword.
“Damoritosh’s too hard to say,”
He said, and jumped aboard.

“Now wait a minute, what’d I say?”
Metaphysics fumed.
“You lot are dead, kaput, finis!
You shall not be exhumed!”

A deep, rich laugh sounded then,
Gozreh wasn’t phased.
“I control the stellar wind,
Its particles and waves.”

“Talk to the hand,” said the perfect man,
And performed an impossible leap,
He bounded over Metaphysics,
Who landed in a heap.

“What the future needs is more ensorcellin’,
Some witchcraft and some hexes, too.”
Nethys stepped aboard the godcraft,
“I’ll navigate this crew.”

“You can’t all come!”
Cried the poetic device,
“Some were rejected,
For being not-so-nice!”

“Oh, did someone call me?”
Asked a black-masked reaper,
“When picking things to save,
Well, murder’s a keeper.”

And what rough beast came around then,
Wrathsome, disastrous, and bold?
Cap’n Cayden chug-a-lugged “Rovagug,
Old bean, you’ll ride in the hold.”

Hammer in hand and beard well-groomed,
With the engines the dwarf found his place,
Torag said, “I’m the Father of Creation,
I’ll show you a legacy race.”

Metaphysics finished, “I’ve had my say,
Sail away, you’ll lose this fight.”
The celestial crew answered with one voice.
“We’re gods, child, we’ll be all right.”

More fan service for the talking weasel crowd. (Great start!)

On the fourth day of Christmas John Compton gave to me,

Four fey boons,
Three brand new bloodlines,
Two grippli gloves,
And a legal feat from page three.

Congrats! And thanks!

Because I'll take pretty much any opportunity to recommend Daniel Abraham's phenomenal five-volume series, The Dagger and the Coin, I herewith highly recommend Daniel Abraham's phenomenal five-volume series, The Dagger and the Coin. Anyone interested in economies, banking, and means of exchange in the context of fantasy worlds will be thrilled to read these, as will anyone who likes high politics, religious strife, psychologically complex characterization, and bold endings. Plus, you know, daggers. And dragons.

This post has some news.

Your eidolon so ugly, it makes a four-armed mutant sahuagin look like a movanic deva angel.

You so stupid, you had to take Skill Focus Linguistics to understand this joke.

How strict are most folks regarding the requirement to have Chronicle sheets present (presumably either the physical sheets or scans/photos of same)? I sometimes play with a person who brings nothing but their laptop and their dice, and who, the one time I got the nerve up to mention my interpretation of that requirement reacted pretty negatively and pointed me to the journal functionality in the program they use for their character sheet (I rush to say I use the same program).

In general, I want to be more flexible than not about these things and know that not everyone is going to be Mr. Trapper Keeper letter-of-the-law like I try to be as a player (you should see the folder for my 3rd level brawler, with its water-marked print outs for every feat he can legally adopt through martial flexibility, or, for that matter, the almost always unread letter I hand over to GMs at the start of every scenario listing every non-core assumption character aspect with one-line summaries of the rules element and page references), but it's been my observation that "violations" are more likely to occur with regard to things like having records present and reviewable AT ALL than with having things on those records be off somehow.

Oh, and how about linnorms?

Sixty years ago, the human ranger Califax Drew, then a fisherman on the Verduran Fork, lost an arm to an enormous Sellen channel catfish who rolled up from the muddy river just east of the Isle of Arenway. The druids of the Wildwood Lodge saved Califax's life, but not his livelihood, as the childless widower was thereafter unable to manage his skiff and trot lines one-handed.

Reduced to a subsistence living pulling carp from the river with a line and pole, Califax spent long hours sitting on the bank, growing old, growing bitter.

But then, one day now a half century gone, the old man claims, the channel cat that took his arm bellied up out of the brown depths and spoke to him. "My name is Grandmother Bottom," she said, "and I was here before the druids. All these waters are mine, no matter what them or that old rat Hanspur say."

Reliable witnesses independent of both the Wildwood Lodge and Califax Drew's tiny cult have reported sightings of a preternaturally large catfish throughout the Sellen River system, and divinations indicate that some creature unaccountably old swims those waters. Cutters of lines and stovers of boats, Drew's followers are radical even by the lights of the druids of Arenway, claiming that all the fish in the rivers and streams of the Verduran Forest are the sacred get of Grandmother Bottom.

I was just thinking about how maybe some witches could be said to venerate their patrons and shamans their spirits when I remembered the god callers of Sarkoris, summoners who clearly venerate their eidolons.

Geographical features have been mentioned, too. I could see interesting character concepts involving veneration of the Sellen River or the Sanos Forest, for example.

How about veneration of the Eye of Abendego by Shackles pirates or natives of the Sodden Lands? A Molthuni fishing village that venerates and propitiates a great dragon turtle in Lake Encarthan? Duelists who venerate the Perfect Swordswoman or even an intelligent weapon, nomads who venerate wild horses, characters of various class-specific "bloodlines" who worship examplars of that bloodline like dragons or fey?

I’m looking for ways to increase the land speed of a human 6th level cleric of Desna with the travel domain. She already has the untyped bonus from the travel domain and routinely casts longstrider gaining her a +10 enhancement bonus to speed, and she took the fleet feat once. So usually during play her base speed is 55’ (base 30’ + untyped 10’ bonus from travel domain + untyped 5’ bonus from fleet feet + 10’ enhancement bonus from longstrider).

Class “dips” into monk and barbarian aren’t really an option for story reasons for this character, so those means are out. I’d hate to use another feat slot for the stackable fleet bonus (though at this point it’s the only thing I’ve found). And every magic item I’ve found that increases land speed provides an enhancement bonus and so doesn’t stack with her longstrider casting.

Is there something I’m missing? I was hoping maybe there’d be an ioun stone or something that provided a non-enhancement bonus to speed, but if there is, I’m not finding it.

Completely changing tacks, as a sidelight on my research into this I decided to figure out what the fastest creatures in the game are, for values of “fastest” that involve tactical speeds measured in feet and ignoring things like teleportation effects and non-standard movement modes like earthglide. Confining my checks to the five Bestiaries, it seems like they are:

Land speed: the cerynitis from Bestiary 5 with a speed of 180’, beating out the second place quickling by full 60’.
Fly speed: the anemos from Bestiary 5 with a fly speed of 480’ (the fastest creature in the game as near as I can tell).
Swim speed: the mogaru kaiju from Bestiary 4 with a swim speed of 100’ (there are various swimming creatures with “jet” speeds that beat this, though).
Climb speed: the titan centipede from Bestiary 2 with a climb speed of 60’. Note that this creature also has a land speed of 60’ so it’s crazy fast.
Burrow speed: here we have a tie between the shaitan genie in the first Bestiary and the glaistig in Bestiary 5, both with burrow speeds of 60', but note that the glaistig also has land and climb speeds of 60’!

And finally, a highly honorable mention must be given to the penguin, found with other familiars in Bestiary 5, for having the fastest—and as far as I was able to find, also the slowest—“toboggan” speed in the game at 30’.

Vampire and lich,
Lich and vampire.
Holding cold hands,
By the campfire.

Lich says to vampire,
“Love me do.”
Vampire says,
“No blood in you.”

Vampire vamps,
And lich he liches,
Vamp’s got looks,
But lich got riches.

Half a vamp's
A bit scary (semi),
But save us from,
A lich that’s demi.

I fail to see how a completely roleplay fluff option would create abuse.

Really? What if the completely roleplay "fluff" option (and as ever, I wince at that word and all its dismissive connotations) is that a character is a vicious bigot? This campaign has a set of standards set out that preclude that, doesn't it? If such roleplaying wasn't abusive, why the language (and linked policy) under Community Standards at page 4 of the Guide?

I'd keep it exactly as it is and just add an extra sentence. "Deities, pantheons, and philosophies may be venerated regardless of their legality for worship."

Nice both good stuff. I'm amused that the two people talking about their characters and food have halfling characters. I really would like to see more on local dishes. There's a whole pathfinderwiki page dedictd to drinks, but nothing on foods.

Great thread.

There's a really fun sidebar at p. 33 of the Guide to Korvosa called "Ten Korvosan Delicacies" that I wish was emulated in more setting guides.

Christopher Rowe wrote:

pH unbalanced wrote:

I get that, but in practice I don't see how veneration of the Great Old Ones would be any more disruptive than worship of Groetus.

I don't either. That's why I think, as I said, both should be disallowed.

Ah, I thought You just said evil deities, which Groetus is not.

No, no, that was an error on my part. I thought Groetus was evil. I don't know enough about Groetus or--I don't even know enough about Groetus to know what pronoun is appropriate--or his/her/its following to know what kind of disruptions are likely. Something about the end times, entropy is all, embodied in a planar death moon thing, that's all I've got.

Anyway, that does bring up a fair and valid point about whether Chaotic Neutral (not that I'm saying Groetus is Chaotic Neutral if Groetus is not Chaotic Neutral) is likely to be disruptive. I don't think it has to be. Any alignment can be played in a disruptive way, probably. This organized play campaign bans evil characters, presumably because its been judged that evil alignments are definitionally disruptive.

I get that, but in practice I don't see how veneration of the Great Old Ones would be any more disruptive than worship of Groetus.

I don't either. That's why I think, as I said, both should be disallowed.

You're looking for the power to control a characters thoughts, words, actions, and appearance, something very personal to the player and something that requires an extraordinary level of evidence for rules breaking or immersion breaking for the DM to step in. That takes WAY more than what you have here.

Wow, I haven't seen that from anybody here.

On another front, since we message boarders tend to be the worst logicians in the world, at least in terms of thoughtfully and complexly deploying terms of logic, I say up front that the intentional fallacy is not such a term, being sourced in literary theory instead. I say this because I'm about to bring up the intentional fallacy.

To thoughtlessly and over-simply use an argument from authority, I have been a professional writer for almost two decades, and even if grad school hadn't pounded the truth of the intentional fallacy into my noggin, my experience of having people actually read my words and, well, apprehend them in exciting and unexpected ways, would have. Which is to say, just because you intended a certain meaning in something you wrote--and just because you think what you wrote was clear--you, whoever the hypothetical you might be in this case, don't get to decide that. You, in fact, might be the person least well equipped and "authorized" (ethically, logically, and artistically) to do so.

Oh, and BNW, while I agree that we (whoever that is) can't tell them (players, presumably) they can't venerate a Golarion-specific deity, we do tell them what they can and cannot do with their characters and even their personal behaviors. We do it all the time. It's built into everything from the Additional Resources Document to the Community Standards Policy.

While it's my opinion that veneration of any and all Golarion-specific deities is currently legal even if worship of those Golarion-specific deities is illegal, I must now acknowledge that Rysky has swayed me enough (because I think Rysky's arguments are based on sound logic and a demonstrated understanding of grammar and diction) that now I'm thinking maybe this does need to be addressed by Campaign leadership, whereas I initially did not.

I don't think anybody is saying anybody's a bad person.

I understand the impulse to and would myself most likely give the side-eye to any PC (not player) who claimed to venerate any of the illegal deific figures, not just Old Spaghetti Mouth.

But Lune is, I think, right to give me the side-eye right back for the assumptions built into my initial mistrust. There's nothing in my reading or understanding of the Old Ones as presented in either the Mythos literature or in Pathfinder's repackaging of same that indicates a character exhibiting such a veneration could be anything but a disruptive and actively evil presence, but that's my reading and understanding, which doesn't trump, well, the wide world, and so I should give such a PC the benefit of the doubt.

If I were up to me--and thankfully it's not--I'd ban the veneration, too. But if it were up to me, all evil deities would be illegal for worship or veneration, "alignment steps" notwithstanding. A minority opinion, I'm sure, and not one I hold strongly enough to die on a hill for.

I don't think this is really in question, is it? The definition of "venerate" in Appendix 7 of the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Guide says that "[p]layer characters are able to venerate any Golarion-specific deity, pantheon, or philosophy they wish without
alignment concern" (p.40).

Setting aside a level of pedantry that would be impossible even for the likes of me (that language about "Golarion-specific" being exclusionary because obviously Cthulhu doesn't meet the letter of that law), then next we turn to the list of deities in the appendix of Inner Sea Gods, where, yes, we find the Tentacled One and some of his pals listed at pp. 324-325.

Finally, we check the latest Additional Resources document entry for Inner Sea Gods which, yes, excludes the Great Old Ones and various other categories of supernatural baddies as "legal choices" but then goes on in the following sentence to use the word "worship" in such a way that the clear intent of the previous sentence is to exclude them from worship, not veneration.

Frankly, the concern I have with all this isn't its technical legality, but what I see as the possibility for what the Guide calls "dysfunctional or uncooperative play" in the Community Standards material. Where we read this, which seems germane: "When participating in public Pathfinder Society events, be mindful of any controversial or edgy concepts in your character and consider limiting them to bylines or dice rolls."

Be mindful. I'd add "be considerate" but maybe that's just me.

If you would like to use the term "venerate" rather than "worship" you can feel free to do so. My character will be using the term "worship" and there is no rule against what words my character can say to describe the fact that she will be gaining no mechanical benefit from her worship.

I don't suppose clarity and courtesy are rules for everyone, no. Knock yourself out.

Yeah, we talk in the introduction to the section about how all three of those can take these same boons. Maybe someday there'll be a bigger book where we can expand even further... though given how long this one took, I wouldn't hold your breath. :)

You get that book fast-tracked and make sure there are celestial obediences in it for the so-called "lesser" (harumph) empyreal lords, and specifically for Cernunnos, well, then, Mr. Sutter, let's just say that there's a crisp green piece of legally negotiable paper engraved with a portrait of a certain Father of our Country in it for you.

I actually don't like the term Venerate to be honest. It has no mechanical application so it is somewhat meaningless compared to Worship. Is there a need for creating another term when there can only be Worshiping and not Worshiping? It just makes people confused.

I'm kind of in the opposite boat, as I like the venerate/worship divide as defined in the Roleplaying Guild Guide. In fact, I think that if one carefully reads the definitions for the two terms in what is, after all, our guiding document, then it pretty much answers all the questions and concerns raised in this thread (with the exception of the tone and intention stuff that are probably ultimately unanswerable, though I must say I wish people would be more, well, thoughtful, before throwing around terms like "thought police.")

If you "venerate" a deity (or pantheon or philosophy) without gaining a mechanical effect, then you may do so so long as it's any Golarion-specific deity, pantheon, or philosophy without alignment concern. If you "worship" a deity that means you're gaining mechanical benefit, and you may only worship one campaign-legal deity and must always be within one step of the deity's alignment. I don't see that as confusing

Well, this made me curious, so I went and looked up what I could find about the skin tones of the 25 or so Golarion human ethnicities I'm familiar with. I've pasted that in below for anybody who's interested.

As far as the OP goes, as others have said, naming conventions on Golarion are different enough that you're not going to find what you're looking for, which is no reason you can't just say, "Hey, this person's name is Rodrick Smythe-Smith-Smythe, deal with it." I think most folks would be fine with that.

I think the ethnicity you're looking for is probably Chelaxian, as others have suggested. Chelaxians aren't just in Cheliax. They're also widely present in Andoran, Galt, Isger, Molthune, Nirmathas, and Varisia, which offers you a nice variety of cultures to choose among.

Cheers,

Christopher

Typical Skin Tones of the Known Human Ethnicities of Golarion

Azlanti: “Although true Azlanti no longer exist… Azlanti had bronze-colored skin…” —Inner Sea Races, p. 16

Bonuwat: “…swarthy…” —Heart of the Jungle, p. 12 | one of the extremely varied Mwangi peoples, who have “little to mark them as a single people beyond a strong and usually broad bone structure, dark skin tones, and a tendency toward dark hair.” —Inner Sea World Guide, p. 36

Bekyar: One of the extremely varied Mwangi peoples, who have “little to mark them as a single people beyond a strong and usually broad bone structure, dark skin tones, and a tendency toward dark hair.” —Inner Sea World Guide, p. 36

Chelaxians: “…offset the dark hair and deep-brown or midnight-blue eyes of their Taldan forebears with the paler skin tones of the Ulfen.” —Inner Sea Races, p. 20

Erutaki: I couldn’t find anything about their skin tones.

Garundi: “Their skin tones occupy a spectrum ranging from tawny to dark russet.” —Inner Sea Races, p. 24

Iobarians: “…the Iobarian people have a wide range of complexions…” —Inner Sea Races, p. 65

Jadwiga: “Most Jadwiga have very pale complexions…” —Inner Sea Races, p. 65

Keleshites: “Olive-toned, tawny, or gold complexions are most common among people from the various desert reaches of the empire, though residents of forested areas tend to be paler and inhabitants of the deep desert have dark bronze or umber skin.” —Inner Sea Races, p. 28

Kellids: “The Kellids’ rugged lifestyle shapes their features, making their naturally light brown skin deeply tanned and weathered from a life outdoors.” —Inner Sea Races, p. 32

Mauxi: “…ash-gray skin…” —Heart of the Jungle, p. 12 | one of the extremely varied Mwangi peoples, who have “little to mark them as a single people beyond a strong and usually broad bone structure, dark skin tones, and a tendency toward dark hair.” —Inner Sea World Guide, p. 36

Shoanti: “Though their skin tones vary at birth from medium fawn to dark brown, most have ruddy undertones, and by the time Shoanti are old enough to walk, any skin not usually covered by clothing has taken on a deep tan.” —Inner Sea Races, p. 40

Taldans: “…most Taldans possess naturally bronze skin…” —Inner Sea Races, p. 44

Tian-Dans: “…dark tan skin that approaches various shades of brown.” —Dragon Empires Gazetteer, p. 5

Tian-Dtangs: “…tan skin.” —Dragon Empires Gazetteer, p. 5

Tian-Hwans: “…tan skin.” —Dragon Empires Gazetteer, p. 5

Tian-Las: “Their skin is typically relatively light.” —Dragon Empires Gazetteer, p. 6

Tian-Mins: “Pale skin is considered the most attractive…” (but note that this doesn’t necessarily indicate that all Tian-Mins are pale skinned). —Dragon Empires Gazetteer, p. 6

Tian-Shus: “…dusky skin…” —Dragon Empires Gazetteer, p. 6

Tian-Sings: “…have the darkest of Tian skin tones, ranging from tan to dark brown.” —Dragon Empires Gazetteer, p. 6

Ulfen: “Their skin is naturally pale, but often weathered to a ruddy hue.” —Inner Sea Races, p. 52

Varisians: “Their skin tones range from pale in the east to richer hues in the west.” —Inner Sea Races, p. 56

Varki: I couldn’t find anything about their skin tones.

Vudrani: “Their skin usually has warm undertones, ranging from gold to mahogany.” —Inner Sea Races, p. 60

Zenj: “…darker-skinned…” —Heart of the Jungle, p. 13 | one of the extremely varied Mwangi peoples, who have “little to mark them as a single people beyond a strong and usually broad bone structure, dark skin tones, and a tendency toward dark hair.” —Inner Sea World Guide, p. 36

Man, I need to track [the Black Company novels] down someday. I read the d20 book years ago and really loved the Myth games way back when but somehow never realized it's an entire series.

Paizo's publishing partner Tor has the entire run of Cook's excellent series in a nice set of omnibus trade paperbacks: Chronicles of the Black Company, The Books of the South, The Return of the Black Company, and The Many Deaths of the Black Company. I'm coincidentally rereading them now and they really hold up, excellent stuff. Malazan fans will spot the obvious (and acknowledged) influence Cook had on Steven Erikson.