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#1

Business: Black Dog Tavern
Goods/Services: Alcohol and Spirits/Food and Provisions/Rooms/Companionship
Owner/Operator: Macol Tesmotter, aka: 'Miss T', 'Mom'

Description: The Black Dog Tavern is an rickety old haunt known for its colorful staff and questionable clientele. Originally a respectable ale house, the Black Dog has come to be known as flophouse and brothel under the direction of 'Miss T', the tavern's ostentatious transvestite manager.
The Black Dog is also said to house a lost-boys gang of miscreant rag-tag orphans who have come to be called the Black Dogs.

Notable NPCs:

Miss T, Macol Tesmotter (Human, expert 3): A flamboyant transvestite who acts as owner/operator of the Black Dog. Aside from handling the tavern's day-to-day affairs she also acts as a caretaker for the group of orphans she lets live in the tavern's basement. Though generally pleasant, if not a bit too friendly, Miss T has a short temper and no tolerance for playing games, especially when they involve money.

Lotely the Coin-Operated Clockwork Barmaid (clockwork creature, human, expert 3): This coin-operated construct acts as barmaid and house-keeper at the Black Dog and is an attraction that draws many curious patrons. Lotely's self winding mechanics are triggered by the insertion of a coin and people from far and wide come to watch the automaton whir around the tavern. How Miss T came to own Lotely is a mystery.

Wiely (human, commoner 2): Leader of the Black Dogs, Wiely is a rough and tough street-smart orphan. As he is the oldest, the younger orphans look up to Wiely and follow his lead.

Plot Hooks:

Hair of the Dog: A local business owner was recently robbed. As the criminals fled, the shopkeeper managed to grab one by the hair which yanked right out of the thief's head. The shop owner thinks that the Black Dogs are responsible and requests that criminals be found and be made to return what was stolen or pay for their crime.

Extraordinary Machine: Miss T's clockwork construct is a mechanical marvel and a local alchemist would love to get his hands on the machine to study it's inner workings. He promises to pay handsomely for a chance to peak under the hood and requests that the construct be acquired for him, legally or otherwise.

The homebrew campaign I have been running has come to an important point in the story and I am at a bit of a loss. Here is some information on the background of the campaign and what the players have faced so far:

*Joined up with the King's Army to face a mutual threat
*Reclaimed a ruined fort that would be the setting of a large battle
*Rode south to recruit more aid for the war effort
*Defused a secret war and recruited the help of two warring tribes
*Returned to the fort and engaged in a huge battle
*Turned the tide of war by achieving a great victory
*Received news that an important sight to the north was under attack
*Rode to the north to discover the enemy and face it head on
*Followed the enemy into the Ethereal Plane

So, in my world there are ley lines of magical energy and physical manifestations of concentrated magical energy known as nodes. These nodes have been researched by magic users but as of yet no discovery of their origin or use has been made.

It seems the invading army has taken a great interest in the nodes and has been conquering and expanding their empire to hold power over more and more of them. The PCs have found out that the nodes themselves link the material plane with the ethereal plane and they serve some greater purpose.

Now here is my issue: What is their purpose?

I have thought that perhaps each node holds within it the shard of a powerful artifact that can grant the owner of all the shards immortality. So the PCs quest would turn to preventing the enemy from collecting the shards and attaining immortality.

I am not 100% sold on this plot, there are so many things left unanswered and so many holes to fill. Any advise on which direction to take the story would be greatly appreciated!

I am currently DMing two campaigns in my day-to-day and I would like to joining a game as a player, even if it is PBP. Anyone know of any games that are starting up or ones in progress that are looking for more players?

This may seem like a silly questions but after looking over the races in the core book I was left wondering why none of the core races have a +2 to the Wisdom Ability Score as a Racial Trait?

Is this for balance reasons? Would characters with a higher base wisdom need some complicated level adjustments? Please cure me of my ignorance!

Thanks!

I love the idea of this optional encounter and was curious to see how other DMs might have fleshed it out.

I imagine Zavilerira to be an exotic variety of harpy, possibly sporting bright colors of tropical birds. I changed her alignment to NE to give her a bit more cognitive freedom and flexibility. As this battle is sure to prove difficult there should be some great reward or big pay-off. What treasure have you given to your PCs?

Also, what motivation did you give the harpy to want to protect her perch other than 'she is obsessed with the wreckage'? Perhaps her mother arrived on the Shiv aboard the vessel and it has become something of an heirloom to her?

As I know this is the best place to address an issue like mine, I have turned once again to the limitless wisdom and guidance of the Paizo Forum masses.

I am currently running a homebrew campaign setting and my players have discovered an old temple once used by cultists who worshipped an evil goddess. Presently the temple is occupied by a Sorcerer and a Witch who have kidnapped all the children from a neighboring village and are performing terrible experiments on them.

In the last adventure the PCs stormed the temple and laid waste to six Soulbound Dolls that had been constructed from the remnants of murdered children. They also discovered the skinned corpses of many more children and even some children left alive and mentally scared for good measure.

Tomorrow night they will continue their investigation and I would like them to encounter a flesh golem that is made from children. I was thinking that the traditional flesh golem is too physically strong and was wondering if there are any variants out there that would be more suitable. Something like a quick and vicious flesh golem about the size of a teenager?

Any other moster recommendations would be welcome as well.

I will be starting up this AP in a few days and I have been wondering how I can give the PCs a sense of where they are on the island without giving them an actual map. As no detailed map of the island is provided (in game) to the characters, I feel a bit odd giving them a map, even if it is a blank version depicting just the island.

I thought that perhaps one of the PCs might be bright and take ranks in Profession (Cartographer) or Craft (Map) but as these are not listed along side common options for the respective skills I doubt that will happen.

So I am curious about how other DMs have delt with this issue. Did you simply give them the map in the AP or did you let them nagivate blind? I was thinking that I could have one of the NPCs take ranks in Profession (Cartography) and they could then make a simple outline of the island, drawing from the map of the inner seas found in Jenivere's wreckage. As the PCs explore the island, they could fill the map in.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

One of my players is interested in playing a Rogue with the Poisoner archetype but after looking it over we were left wondering if the substitutions are a fair trade.

First, 'Poison Use' replaces 'Trapfinding'. Being able to apply poison without fear of harming yourself is a great talent but to loose the ever increasing bonuses to finding and disabling traps is a big loss. 'Poison Use' dosen't get better as you gain levels but it might be a fair trade, I'm on the fence. I feel like there should perhaps be the same bonus (1/2 Level, min +1) given to Fortitude saves made to resist being poisoned as a result of exposure and building up an immunity. Any thoughts on this?

Second, 'Master Poisoner' replaces 'Trap Sense'. This is another example of an ever improving trait being replaced by a stagnant one. Will the rogue loose its trap sense all together or would it just pick up at level six? Is the ability to change a poison's type worth loosing the ever improving bonuses to avoid taking damage from traps?

I would be interested to hear anyone's experience playing with this archetype and how the adjustments worked out. Any advice would be great.

I've decided to share with my community a campaign setting I have been working on. Please keep in mind that most of the artwork is barrowed from various other artists and sources so please do no publish or repost my work without the proper disclaimer.

The PDF can be downloaded from here.

Always looking for critiques but keep in mind that this is my first guide and still needs some tweaking and supplementary material. Looking forward to hearing what you all think.

Remember this is fan created media for free use. Enjoy.