Chthonian Sun's page

This review was written after Issue 12 and the Goblins! issues 1-5.

The Pathfinder Comics line subscription is a lot of fun. The artwork can be a bit dark and overdone (particularly the plot-line following the Iconic characters) but the writing does its best to mimic the mixture of tension and fun that characterizes Pathfinder play. The Goblins! comics are head and shoulders and hips above the other issues for those of us who love goblin shenanigans and singing.

For those of you searching for deep rich plot and characters -- these are adventure pulp style comics. They are closer to Burrough's Mars series than to Gaiman's Sandman. I enjoy watching familiar characters come to life and live in Golarion without having to do the talking myself, but it is all in good fun and meant to entertain, not edify.

At the low price of $3.99/issue (and 20% off for the subscription) the comics are a great little treat if you can combine shipping with something else.

Comics good and fun to munch,
I eat twenty just for lunch!
Mash them, mush them, season them for stew,
Eat many comics, not a few!

This latest set of Pathfinder miniatures contains some of the best pieces yet, with a real leap in sculpting quality and a bright color scheme that really helps the pieces pop visually. This is particularly welcome given how dark the Shattered Star set was, making pieces harder to identify quickly.

If you have any interest in nautically themed, or just plain fun, miniatures from Pathfinder-- this is the set for you.

Having said that, the sculptors are clearly having too much fun and not being careful enough about making pieces sturdy. The clear stands in this set (on the hammerhead for instance) snap easily during shipping or while removing the piece from packaging. I try to be careful, but a number of pieces are also weakly connected due to small feet and such where they are glued to the bases and a few came loose during removal. I'm glad you can sculpt so wonderfully on your computer, but come on, these are rookie sculpting mistakes.

Then again, the sculpts really are very cool...

Do you love art? Do you love fantasy? Do you love Wayne Reynolds? If you answered yes to two of these questions just buy this book already. The special edition comes packaged in a handsome matte black cover with Wayne's signature inside (yes, the WAR is his signature) and a lovely little xxx/500 denoting how wonderful you are for buying the limited edition. There is also a black ribbon to keep your place and impress your poorer sillier friends who just bought the normal copy. And whose fingerprints you will not see on your matte cover.

As an art-book standing on the merits of its contents there is much to love here. Full-color prints, sketches, intermediate works, all the goodies and in profusion. No gobs of text to get in the way or take up the space where pretty pictures belong. Sure the colors seem a little off sometimes, and so much of Wayne's work is extra-wide that you will wished the book was a non-standard size, but do you have any idea how much the book would have cost otherwise?

No, wise heads made wise decisions and you could own this beautiful piece for a pittance. A pittance! Order now, operators are standing by.

This third set of Pathfinder pre-painted miniatures is both very exciting and very disappointing. The miniatures themselves continue to be well sculpted, posed, and have a few stand-outs amongst them(alchemical golem, I'm looking at you).

Most of the set, however, suffers from duller color-schemes relative to earlier sets and almost cartoonish design for too many of the monstrous figures. The smaller pieces in particular lack visual clarity and would not stand out on a busy gaming mat (is that a cleric of Zon Kuthon, or one of my 145 other evil darkly painted humanoids? And those hideous mites!)

The extremely elaborate and ambitious paint schemes for many of the humanoid pieces should be set-pieces, but are too often so off-center that half of the patterns are missing. I enjoy the detailed patterns, but I'd like to be able to see all of them.

I love many of the pieces, but the price makes it hard to justify continuing to buy entire sets instead of the handful of stand-out pieces. The first two sets had far more stand-out pieces and an overall much more colorful and identifiable theme. Unless you're rolling in money I suggest looking to the single's market and picking up the pieces that really stand out to you.

For those of you like me lucky enough to have substantial collections from earlier products, again, I would suggest looking to singles. The wyvern is particularly nice.

In closing, I would also warn that many of these pieces are relatively fragile and come off their bases very easily. Open carefully!

Having just finished reading the Jade Regent Adventure Path, the first volume of Skull and Shackles blew through me like a breath of fresh air.

This introduction to a pirate's life shines through with the author's love of and firm grasp on the myth of the occidental pirate. A fine blend of the mundane and horrible life of a real pirate seasoned liberally with the excitement and wonder of the piratical myth combine to reawaken in me the excitement of Treasure Island, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Peter Pan.

This first volume is relatively light on the supernatural, but bursting with wonderful opportunities to role-play and is sufficiently strewn with combat to keep the grid-strategists happy. The emphasis here is much more on the atmosphere of living on a pirate boat than on Pathfinder combat.

If this module is a good guide to the entire Adventure Path, expect plenty of opportunities to live the life of a pirate as grand as any in history, your name whispered and feared throughout the Inner Sea. This module is somewhat more RP heavy than Jade Regent was, but the Path should satisfy those looking for crunch with entirely new combat rules for high seas combat and some real use for all those skills usually ignored... I'm looking at you Profession(Siege Engineer).

I won't say more for fear of spoilers, but I suspect if you bear any love for Pirates (Sid Meier's in particular..) you will love this module and are doing yourself a disservice if you don't run/play in it.