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The deity articles in the first couple adventure paths each had two or three stories from their holy texts, like the story of Desna and Lamashtu and the origins of Abadar's herald. Then, suddenly, they stopped. There's something very powerful and revealing about the stories different religions and cultures choose to tell. So, I guess that leaves the rest of them for the community to write.

Has anyone written any they would like to share or perhaps have any ideas for stories from our world that could be adapted to fit? For example, I thought a variation on the Ugly Duckling would work wonderfully for Shelyn.

Before anyone gets too worried, I have not (yet) been nominated for this, but if I was... How would I go about nominating the Paizo staff?

ETA: I mean, is that something we are allowed to do or is there some company policy against it? And if we can, where/how do you want those nominations to come?

So... Just started Skull & Shackles and one of my players and really good friend is playing a paladin of Iomedae. I had talked to him going in about how difficult it was going to be, and he understood. We've had one game so far and he is roleplaying it very well. He's making a nice nuisance of himself trying to be honorable and just. He even protested at the keelhauling.

I've been using Sandara to help keep him from getting himself killed on a couple of occasions. So far, he is taking to her very well. She hasn't made it completely obvious that she is a cleric of Besmara yet.

The other players are both good, so I know that once we get them their own ship things will be much easier. I plan on using Story Archer's good(ish) spin on the campaign, and I think it will be very easy to send him after the Chelish Imperial Navy, being that they're devil-worshippers and all.

What I really need some help on is the thing that brought him to the Shackles in the first place. He chose the artifact hunter trait, and I need a little help. I am thinking of giving him an item that can grow with him, that way it doesn't unbalance things. I'm thinking of using either the Weapons of Legacy rules or create kind of an item set.

I know the base item (the one he knows he was sent to find) is going to be a combination of the Azant Pendant from Gods & Magic and the folding plate from Ultimate Equipment. I'm calling it The Eye of Aroden.

The backstory that I've come up with is that it was forged by Aroden for Arazni, but was lost when she was defeated by the Whispering Tyrant. Not sure where it goes from there, but I know it needs to end up on Bonewrack Isle. Maybe it was brought to the Shackles right after Aroden's "death" to see if it could be used to revive him.

I would like some ideas on where to go with this. Should I use the multiple items idea? Maybe have an item specific to Arazni and Iomedae as well? I think Iomedae wants it back because it's a relic of her original patron, and she can use it to make the paladin her champion in the Shackles region. Is that a good enough motivation for her? Enough for the paladin to stick around?

Any input is more than welcome. Thanks in advance guys

So, last night's RotRL game kinda didn't happen. But I was introduced to the Pet Shop of Horrors anime (all 4 episodes.) For those that aren't familiar, the gist of the story is there is a mysterious pet shop in Chinatown that sells exactly the pet that a person needs. For example, a grieving couple that just lost their daughter was sold a rare species of rabbit that exactly resembled their daughter. Of course, there were specific rules (never show the pet to anyone, keep a specific incense burning at all times, and never feed her anything but water and vegetables) and of course they weren't followed, with tragic results.

I have been trying to figure out a way to incorporate the shop and it's "owner" into Golarion.

I see the Count as either some kind of sorcerer or fey of some kind. You could truly argie for just about any alignment you wanted for him. He definitely seems to care more for animals than humans, but he also seems to try to teach his customers a lesson. Most of them don't seem to learn it until it is too late, though. I personally feel like he is some kind of neutral, as he does not inform his customers of all possible consequences and will not take responsibility for whatever may happen if the conditions of the contract are violated. He does repeat that the pets are only animals, even though they appear human; most of the problems arise when the customers forget that fact and break the conditions.

All of the "animals" he sells appear to their owners as some kind of human/semi-humanoid (one was a mermaid, one was a medusa), but they are in truth animals or magical beasts. From what I can guess from a quick scan of the manga and watching the anime, it seems to be the incense that provides the illusion. I assume that the reason why no one else can see it; they might not be affected by the illusion. It seems that it at least some of the animals gain a measure of intelligence over long-term care.

I think the incense burner would probably be the main magic item sold. Maybe it has to attune to a specific animal or magical beast, then creates an illusion of a humanoid. The Count can shape the illusion to fit a specific customer's needs. The contract is a connected magic item. A customer who signs it takes a -10 to the saving throw against that specific illusion, and also sets up the conditions that will cause the illusion to end and the incense burner to become nonmagical. Perhaps the illusions cast are only temporary until the contract is signed.

The shop could truly fit in just about any big city in Golarion. To do a literal translation, all you need is somewhere with a sizable Tian population. But, anywhere with a run-down section of town would make a perfect place to tuck the tiny facade of this shop. The shop seems much larger on the inside, but that could simply due to extensive underground space, and space behind neighboring storefronts.

So, I am running the anniversary edition and my players were just sent by Sheriff Hemlock to check the crypt and found Father Tobyn's remains missing. They reported back to Zantus and now are wanting to investigate. I want to give them some clues to point them in the right direction, but I don't want them to rush off to Thistletop right now (they are mostly 1st level, one or two are 2nd). Any ideas?

So, long story short, I have some brand new players (to tabletop and to my campaign ) working their way to Sandpoint to join my campaign. One of the sidequests I plan on giving them is the chance to explore some newly discovered Thasilonnian ruins in the Mushfens. From the campaign setting, it looks like Eurythnia, the kingdom of lust, is what was there.

So, from what I remember about the architecture, I am planning on a kind of Egyptian style to the place. I figure it would have been basically a temple/bordello in ancient times, maybe to Callistria, if she was an active goddess in Thassilon, and of course Sorshen herself. I need some ideas for what kinds of traps and monsters there might be. Any thoughts?

I am getting ready to run a certain module that prominently features ghouls. Normally not a problem, but one of my players (my girlfriend actually) has a phobia of zombies, specifically the Night of the Living Dead kind. So, how do I make this ok for her? I know I'm going to make a certain aristocrat ghast look and act more like a vampire, but what can I do about the generic ghouls? Any ideas?

I am working on a one shot adventure based on Disney's Haunted Mansion, the ride not the movie. I know that I want to include several iconic scenes and characters, like Madam Leota and the ghostly ballroom, but I'm having a tough time getting it together. Anyone have any ideas?

Can anybody recommend a good image editing software? Something like Photoshop, but cheaper?

So, I know there are certain people on here that have very fond memories of a monster from a free D&D adventure called "Something's Cooking." I want to adapt it to Pathfinder for a Runelords campaign I'm running. Problem is, I've never built a monster for Pathfinder before. Anybody have any advice, or actually converted this guy?

So, my players managed to get through BO without quite reaching 3rd. So, I've got to give them some extra exp. I'm sending them into Brinestump for a quest and thought I'd intro them to one of the creepier (human) residents of the marsh, the Swamp Witch. My plan is to use the same scenario of her getting attacked by a faceless stalker. I think I'm going to have it play her as a sweet old lady who just likes to live in the swamp. Probably invite them in for a clumsily poisoned to tea.

At least that's what I'm gonna do if they're not suspicious of her. If they are already suspicious that there's somethig going on, it will actually be her, but she wants more than the groceries they're delivering. She wants guinea pigs.

Here's where I need some community creativity. I want whatever she does to them to be temporary, not fatal, and maybe something they can turn to their advantage, if they get creative. Any ideas?

First of all, let me say that I really enjoyed being back in Sandpoint. I'm running a RotRL campaignrigt now and its really nice to have more material to draw from. The thing that. I'm wondering is about a certain monster in he Brinestump Marsh and how log he's been there.

I remember reading somewhere on the boards that the APs are assumed to take place during the time they are published in, which would make Jade Regent set 4 years after Runelords. This particular creature really shouldn't have come been made after then. The adventure points to sightings only going back 3 years. So, where was it before that? Is it only 3 years old? If so, how? If not, where was it before? I may be sending my players into the Brinestump soon and need to know what's there.

So apparently my search fu is off, because I can't find a thread I just saw yesterday. Can anybody point me towards the thread with the list of non combat wilderness encounters broken down by terrain and season? If not, let's start a new one.

So I was reading through some of the old DnD downloads I had on my laptop, and I came across the Deity Do's and Don'ts. It had some useful ideas, along with a chart of the FR deities and what their sacred attributes were. Things like favored colors, animals, etc. So, that got me thinking about what the Pathfinder deities might list if they had a chart like that.

I will post some of what I come up with here, but I'm also interested in community response. (or response from James, since they were from his home campaign originally.) Was looking for something like this. Feel free to add more categories if you think of any.

Deity:
Colors:
Animals:
Plants:
Monsters: What the deity likes or dislikes
Gems/Metals: Either what is sacred to the deity or popular among followers.
Misc: Other specific signs that the deity uses to convey favor or lack thereof.

Will post Desna as an example in the morning. Getting too sleepy to make sense.

So my players are just finishing up Burnt Offerings and I am going to have a problem when we start Skinsaw Murders. I only had 2 pcs that really met Foxglove, a barbarian and an elf rogue. The barbarian's player hasn't really been able to play since then. And the elf was killed in Thistletop. So I'm kinda runnig short on pcs that bag contact with him. Our druid has seen him briefly but that's about it.

So I'm trying to come up with some options. One idea was to have aldern play up like the rogue has come back as an undead and assume his identity. Was also thinking about having him blame the druid for not saving the rogue.

So how bout the rest of you? I'm sure somebody has had this happen. How did you deal with it?

So my girlfriend is going to be joining us for our RotRL campaign. She started out playing the iconic cleric. After my party wiped, we were talking about what she wanted to play next. She's never played PFRPG or DnD, she's mostly done white wolf. She wants to play something that can really dish out damage as well as heal. We mentioned paladin, but she doesn't want to be that goody-goody. Was thinking maybe druid, but we've already got one in the party. Maybe try cleric with different spells? Any ideas?

So my players finally made it to Thistletop yesterday. They breezed through everything up to the chief's room. Due mostly to some really bad rolls on their part, they blew all their heals on the commandos. When the chief finally attacked, they couldn't cope and were wiped out.

Now, as it happened our druid couldn't make it this week, so there is still that connection to the original party. We also have a barbarian that hasn't been able to play for a while due to work schedule.

What I'm curious about is how you think Thistletop would change after the attack. All of the commandos were killed, along with the sleeping goblins and the goblin dogs in he exercise yard. They didn't find the goblins playing Kill Gull or their dogs. They also completely avoided the thistle tunnels, so the Birdcrunchers are still there along with Gogmurt and Tangletooth.

I'm expecting Gogmurt still wont help Ripnugget directly but will set up an ambush in the tunnels. Might have the Birdcrunchers move into the main fort, minus a few for the howling hole.

I don't know what, if anything, Nualia and crew would do. Bruthazmus seems like the one most likely to do something, but not sure what.

I'm going to add all their gear to the treasury, so they don't lose out on what they have picked up already.

Anybody have ideas?

THE LATE UNPLEASANTNESS
I started the players in the town of Sandpoint, five years prior to the main campaign, at the height of Chopper's murder spree. For their own various reasons, they were all working with the militia and Sheriff Casp Avertin to stop the murderer. Among them were two monks, an elf rogue, and a young Belor Vishkalai.

The sheriff sent them to investigate the latest murder. unfortunately they werent able to find any new clues. They decided to start making nighttime patrols until Chopper was caught. After a briefing with the Sheriff over dinner at the Red Herring (which would become The Hagfish) and meeting Jargie Quinn, his lovely wife Pearl, and his less than lovely sister Norah, they set out for their first night patrol.

The night started off quiet. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until Calitus, the rogue, passed by the Iron Dragon Inn (which would become the Rusty Dragon). He heard a thud and saw a body fall against a seond floor window. Rushing inside, he found the body of one the barkeepers strewn over the bar, her eyes plucked out and hands and feet cut off and stacked beside her. The rest of the room was dark and empty, the coals barely smoldering in the fireplace. Upstairs, he found the bodies of the innkeeper and his wife the same condition.

A quick search of the inn revealed only guest, a belligerently drunk man by the name of Derrick Weiss, who claimed he had slept through the whole thing. The fact that he was the only suspect, and tried to start a fight, lead them to take him into custody. Once in jail, Derrick continued to be uncooperative and refused to answer questioning. Sheriff Avertin agreed to keep him in jail for a while, on the grounds of assaulting an officer. On the way out, they had a brief meeting with Almah Avertin, as she came to bring some of her famous biscuits to the men on duty.

At this point, they decided to follow the murderer's suspected M.O. and sleep the rest of the day, the better to stay awake and patrol all night. Unfortunately for them, they always seemed to be just one step behind Chopper. That night, they found Veznutt Parooh on the beach, standing over the body of Jargie's wife Pearl. They realized that Veznutt was clearly innocent, but discovered one of the best kept secrets in Sandpoint: Pearl was actually a mermaid. Her body, like the previous Chopper victims, had her throat cut, eyes plucked out, and hand chopped off and stacked nearby. Being a mermaid, she had no feet to cut off, but she did several fresh bite marks on her side, that looked like some kind of large predator.

Jargie was grief-stricken when they broke the bad news to him, but begged them to help keep his late wife's secret. Norah, meanwhile, was being true to her spiteful nature. She thought Jargie was better off without Pearl and made sure everyone knew about it.

The body count continued to pile up over the next few days. Rynnshin Povalli returned home from a business trip to Magnimar to find her mother murdered in their home. An actress from the theatre and a gentleman visitor were found in an alley behind the theatre. With this latest murder, they were only a few steps behind. They caught a fleeting glimpse of a dark shape flying away and found several fresh black feathers on the ground.

This immediately made them suspect the local druid community, but a quick cup of tea with Madame Mvashti put their fears to rest. They briefly suspected Jarvis Stoot, but quickly put that idea of their minds. After meeting him, they realized he was just a harmless artist. Sheriff Avertin even made the suspect list briefly, but was also eliminated.

That night, they made a plan to disguise the monk as an old man, with the rogue shadowing him along rooftops and alleyways, hoping to draw out Chopper. Unfortunately, Chopper chose not to take the bait. He went for Weiss, who had just been realized on a technicality. Passing by the Red Herring with the Sheriff, they found that Jargie had finally had enough of Norah's vindictive ways and had thrown her out. The Sheriff offered to walk her over to a friend's house while the others continued their rounds. They would meet at the Garrison in an hour.

But, of course, the Sheriff would never make it to the Garrison. The heroes discovered the bodies of Norah and the Sheriff, along with a fresh trail of blood leading towards Stoot's home on the island. They didn't want to believe it, but the proof was clearly there. In an ancient-looking chamber under Stoot's house, they found a hidden shrine to a demon whose name none dared speak aloud. Stoot's lifeless body lay sprawled before the altar, his own eyes and tongue the final offering. Destroying the altar brought forth a fiendish eagle, but they were able to dispatch it with relative ease.

Stoot's body was cremated. His ashes were blessed by Ariel, a priestess of Shelyn, and scattered over the ocean. She briefly told Calitus of what she knew of Stoot's troubled past. He was raised on the streets of Korvosa by Gaedran Lamm. When he was old enough, he ran away to Magnimar, where he was taken under the wing of a Shelynite priest. The old priest taught him how to channel his pain into creating the beautiful woodcarvings of birds for which he would be famous.

The tragedy would soon be nearly overshadowed only a few weeks later, as the town woke in the middle of the night to find the Sandpoint Church in flames, along with many nearby homes and businesses. Both the beloved high priest, Father Tobyn, and his adopted daughter Nualia perished in the blaze.

In a few short weeks, the town began to try to settle back to normal. Belor Vishkalai was elected Sheriff for his work in bring an end to Chopper's reign of terror. Rynnshin expanded her mother's tailoring business into a full-scale tailor's guild. The Red Herring, which had closed only days after Pearl's death, was eventually reopened as The Hagfish. The Iron Dragon would sit empty for years, until its sculptural namesake rusted. Ameiko Kaijitsu would eventually return from her adventuring career to settle back down in Sandpoint and reopen it as The Rusty Dragon Inn, much to her father's disdain.

And, five years later, the Sandpoint Church would finally be completely rebuilt as a very impressive Cathedral, housing shrines to the six most prominent faiths in the region: Abadar (civilization and wealth), Desna (dreams, stars, luck and travel), Erastil (farming communities, family, and the hunt), Gozreh (nature and the wild places), Sarenrae (sun, healing and redemption), and Shelyn (love and beauty). A great festival was planned to celebrate both the dedication of the new Sandpoint Cathedral and, finally, an end to the bad times.

I know that there has been some concern about the whole "siding with evil to fight evil" aspect of RotRL. Part of my alternative to that is I'm slightly tweaking the way I'm keeping track of sin points for my players. I'm still going to track how much they go into the seven sins, but I'm also tracking the seven virtues of rule along side that, as well as the virtue of charity (as a direct counter to greed). Somewhere on the boards someone posted a list of alternative components for runeforging virtue weapons that I plan on using as well, once they get that far.

I kinda got the idea when one of my players wanted to play a vow of poverty monk. Figured I would let him "purify" any runeforged weapons they made in Runeforge. Unfortunately, he's not going to be able to play anymore, so I'm looking for some new ideas.

Halloween may be almost two months away, but I after thinking about some of the awesome costumes from the community, and seeing some pretty spectacular costume pics from Dragon Con (steampunk Batman!), I have been hit with a sudden desire to create some Pathfinder themed creations and share how you can make your own.

I will be the first to admit that I am only an amateur costumer and makeup artist. So, if I can do it, you can, too.

I've got a bunch of ideas in the works, but the ones that I'm excited about are a Nethys makeup design and an actual Skinsaw mask. Both of which can be done on a budget!! Once they're done, I will post them to YouTube for all to enjoy.

I am more than willing to consider requests for more ideas, but my hope is that I inspire all the very creative people on the boards to get out and make some of their own to share.

So, since the goblins of golarion are so wonderfully insane, I thought it would be fun to come up with as many crazy things that goblins might be found doing. I'm a little surprised that I couldn't find anything like this on the boards already.

I'm going to start with some fun goblin moments for

1. You see a goblin menacing a small puppy with his dogslicer. The puppy darts away down an alley. The goblin follows, cackling maniacally. A second later, the laughter turns into a scream of terror. The frantic goblin bolts out of the alley, chased by a pack of stray dogs.

2. A stealthy goblin is sneaking along the roofline towards an unsuspecting victim below. As he climbs down onto a second story windowsill, the window is flung open and a chamberpot is emptied out of it, knocking the poor goblin into the street. A maid with very thick glasses looks out the window, "Stupid pigeons."

More to come later. Brain fried after looong week at work.

I'm going to be running the RotRL campaign in the near future, but I thought I'd start it off with a short mini-campaign set during the Late Unpleasantness. I don't know yet what all of my players are going to be playing, but I know that some of them won't be Sandpoint locals. I'm thinking about having my local characters playing themselves five years younger. But, for the out of town characters, I think I'm going to let them play some of the major npcs involved in saving the town.

My plan for the story is to split up the group. One plot will be for the town militia, trying to hunt down Chopper, which will be more martial pcs. My second plot will be likely be shorter. For younger pcs (under 21), or more vulnerable characters, I plan on having the prologue focus more on the fear of Chopper.

I know that I want to end both prologues with the Sandpoint Church fire, because that is the event that sets up the start of the actual campaign.

I want to play up the darkness and fear in this prologue, so I can contrast it with the brightness and happiness of the Swallowtail Festival. It's more of a celebration if the players actually have something to celebrate as well.

I guess what I need help with is some ideas for how to fill out each mini-campaign. I know I want to run each in one session or about 4 to 5 hours. I haven't really run that much horror or mystery type campaigns, so I'm at a loss here.

Any advice on how to introduce Stoot himself would be great, also. I don't want him to be too obvious; my players tend to latch onto any really detailed npc as important. So, should I try to put as much detail into several minor npcs as well, just to throw them off track?

I was also wondering about including Nualia briefly. What is she up to during this time? Was she in her coma during the whole thing or had she woken up?

I'm going to be working on a timeline for the Late Unpleasantness and an actual list of chopper's victims. If anyone else is interested, I will post it once it's done. I will try to come up with some ideas for how they may have wronged him.

I was planning on running Hangman's Noose sometime in the near future for my group of usually five or six. It looks like a really fun and creepy adventure, which I can definitely do. The problem comes with having eight jurors following the PCs around. I tend to have problems with roleplaying several NPCs at once. They tend to disappear quickly into the background.

So, I thought, why don't I let one of my players handle an NPC as a PC. I obviously don't want to give any of the jurors who are due to die. The most obvious choice, of course, is

I think the player would have fun with it and is mature enough to handle the character. The rest of the players would probably love to hate the fact that "one of their own" was the "bad guy."

So my question is this: What are the potential downsides to this? Do you guys think this would be game breaking? I plan on regularly taking each PC aside and giving them their visions individually. The NPC/PC will be given instructions, as he already knows most of what the visions would tell him.

I have not talked to the particular player in question, just in case I decide to not make that NPC a PC, so the idea is not set in stone yet.