Marcus Ewert's page

I don't have this awesome book yet- and I'm getting it no matter what - but please soothe my [human][for now] heart and let me know if we get in-world fiction in this book - just like we got to enjoy here on the site. Those characters - that crew - and their stories and disquisitions were the BEST.

I'm just happy the pictured Leshy took the Slay comma Drag Queen feat.
With the versatile ancestry Fierce.

If this doesn't become *at least* a 3-part adventure path, then why even tease us like this??? Cause I would play the schnitt outta this!!!

It looks like Safa's pronouns are they/them, and not she/her as some have posted...

It's funny, I was just re-reading the classic 1st ed. D&D module AGAINST THE CULT OF THE REPTILE GOD, and was struck by the presence of benign harvest goddess Merikka...

If I were running a Pathfinder campaign right now, I'd totally let Dyrani ascend! And then have Her church grow, with the PCs - a whole adventure path! Love the idea of Urgathoa as an antaganoist - and like Ghlaunder, and Mazzmezz, and some die-hard followers of Deskari...

I alwayyyyyyyyys love Tim Pratt's fiction - and the work he does for Paizo is always a thing of joy.

Happy Halloween to you, O Pharasma!!

I immediately want to read the novel that would sprout from this, just like I felt the other day when I read Tim's story about Ishaani and the efreeti.

Tim Pratt writing for Paizo is always a great good thing.

I for one will deffo be buying from *both* product lines at least initially. I may drop off on Starfinder after awhile, as I'm way more of a fantasy guy, but SF can count on me buying *at least* its first AP, in full. And if I go nuttsballs for Starfinder, I'll follow it to AP #2 and beyond... While still buying as much Pathfinder as I currently do.

I.e. - I will be an exemplar of Vic's Situation 3, above. Overlap.

Interesting sidenote?: i'm one of those happy Paizo customers (I'm sure there's more than just me) who doesn't even *play* RPGs anymore. I just love reading the good words and ogling the pretty pictures. I buy Paizo stuff purely to read (and gawk at).

Indeed, even the Queen's accent itself seems to change a bit in less than 30 years: to my ears her 1984 speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSA-iuHXrps&nohtml5=False
sounds a bit less poncey than her 1957 one, above...

As to Ameeko vs. Amayko -
As a one time student of Japanese, that bothered me at first too.
On the other hand, a good friend of mine in the 2000s was named Mariko, and at first I persisted in calling her mah-ree-koh because that was 'right.' But eventually I stopped 'cause I sounded like boob because she herself always used "muh-REE-koh" though she knew that 'technically' that wasn't right. And everyone else said "muh-REE-koh" too - in America, that was her name. Though she had a few friends from childhood who'd call her "mah-ree" for short - i.e. with the 'correct' vowel sounds.

I now know another Mariko, the wonderful YA writer Mariko Tamaki, and she uses "muh-REE-koh" too come to think of it. Though I'm sure when either Mariko's in Japan, they'd totally roll with being addressed as "mah-ree-koh."

I think the other thing people tend to forget in discussions of correct pronunciation is how vastly different words are pronounced WITHIN THE SAME LANGUAGE in the real world.

"a-luu-MIN-ee-uhm" versus "uh-LOO-min-uhm" is just one obvious example, but even within the States alone the way vowels, especially, are voiced can vary dramatically. And then there are all the different regional accents in England, let alone Ireland, Scotland and Wales. And Australia. And New Zealand. And Canada. And the Caribbean. And what about countries like Nigeria? Etc etc etc... Even within one lifetime some styles of pronunciation die out (or arise). No one uses the old Hollywood "Mid-Atlantic" accent anymore, for instance. And my (heavily American) sense of things is that the precise accent of Queen Elizabeth and pre-50s BBC radio announcers has basically given up the ghost: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBRP-o6Q85s

I'm sure it's been said on boards before, by many others, but one of my least fave Paizo names is The Darklands. It's so not evocative enough, imho. Also not very specific. I have to say, "Underdark" was really a good coinage. (Though obvi Paizo couldn't just rip that name off.) "Underdark" was mysterious and broody and menacing, in part because "Underdark" only barely works as a legitimate formation in English (at the very least, it's a an *unusual* formation - 'dark' without a 'the' in front of it is an adjective) so right off the bat, for English speakers, just grammatically the name conjures up "everything is going to be VERY different down there." * I love it. As one of my fave regions in any campaign setting, I wish Paizo's name for it was more unsettling & unique. (This is the not even a ding against Paizo because 1. I'm a total fanboi AND 2. I don't EXPECT to like everything in a setting, just like I don't expect everything in the real world to always be named or described with my sense of appropriate drama & poetry.)

I think it's the "lands" part of "Darklands" that really dulls the word. "Lands" to me implies something knowable, mappable. Makes everything too prosaic. It's too familiar. Also, I really do think any name for an underdark region has to include SOME reference to 'belowness.' 'Cause I hear the Darklands and I immediately think of surface-stuff: Mirkwood. The Badlands. The Land of Shadows. "Land" also conveys a broad expanse, where is one of the key things about underdarks is how twisted and cramped and claustrophobic they are. Even the biggest cities like Menzoberranzan or Zirnakeynin (sp?) feel super-tight and pressurized. No rolling plains of anything... No skies! No real weather... no spaciousness...

OMG this is a long post. Let's subtitle this "A Writer Avoiding His Real Writing for the Day"

* Please no one lecture me on how compound words are formed in English. I know how they're formed.

As a children's book writer myself (ahem!), and as someone who loves reading aloud to kids, one good thing to note is how *loving* the act of reading aloud/storytelling can be, IRL. If nothing else, you're spending time your time with someone, spending your time on them. It can create a space of great tenderness and closeness.

So, stereotypical evil drow would NOT be about that. Who's gonna waste their time on weak children? Why on earth would you try to create something rich for them? You wouldn't. Unless....

I believe that the tales the drow DO tell their children always have a horrid little twist at the end... aimed at the CHILD. A drow adult gets sadistic pleasure from lulling a child along with a gripping tale, but the end of the tale always ends up viciously skewering some particular aspect of that child's personality, for instance. (Or something else equally psychologically shattering.) The moral of the story: Don't ever let yourself be lulled!

By the way, need I say that I think doing this in the real world is deplorable? Terribly abusive. Utterly cruel. I.e., perfect for an evil and sadistic demon-worshipping race, alas. People weaker than you are mere victims and playthings. Alas.

I also think that this scenario probably happens: while one adult is telling the tots a riveting tale, another adult is sneaking into the kids' bedrooms and smashing all their possessions. "Ha ha, that'll learn ya."

A deaf iconic would be great, too. And I'm all for a Committee for Promoting Sakvroth Awareness.

Jus' sayin'.

Here's me spitballing a deaf iconic:

Let's say there's a relatively high occurrence of deafness in halflings. (Or the halflings of one specific region.) Due to brutal suppression of halfling culture in Cheliax, the indigenous sign language that Deaf AND hearing halflings developed together* was forcibly eradicated. (~A la all too many real world examples, like the efforts of settler boarding schools to stamp out Native American languages.)

And now the a-hole fascist Chelaxians have another reason to denigrate halflings: for their community 'harboring' so many 'disabled' members, and also for the hearing community 'enabling' their 'handicapped' members with a 'rude' language made of 'crude gestures and twitching.' (~This is how many many hearing people in the real world have responded to the languages Deaf people created on their own, alas.)

Anyway, one deaf halfling slave gets sold down into the Underdark when her new Chelaxian master discover that she's 'useless.' She ends up a slave in a drow city, where she sees Sakvroth being used all the time. She thinks about how amazing such a language could be, for use among her kin. (Not realizing that such a language existed not that long ago, but was harshly redacted out of existence by the Thrunies.)

This slave, let's call her Zace (no last name, she's a slave), eventually escapes from the drow, of course, and makes her way back to the surface world. The caves she emerges from have brought her to Andoran, birthplace of freedom! And Zace is now ready to bring (back) a sign language for use by her kin. "What a handy (ha ha) thing this will be to teach the Bellflower Network)..." she thinks...

Paizo folks, I'm happy to write Zace up- give me a jingle!

*(See Martha's Vineyard Sign Language for a great real world example! But there are actually many other instances of such a language, i.e., one utilized by both the Deaf and the hearing organically arising in communities with a high rate of deafness.)

I shall watch these eagerly!

I could not love this anymore!
I LOVE that she's a dwarf! I LOVE that dwarves have a whole venerable, ancient tradition of the rivethun. I LOVE that she's a shaman! I LOVE her tuatara (which somehow I missed the very first time I read this, back when it was first published).

Last of all, I LOVE Wayne Reynold's character design!

Oh... and I LOVE how many awesome trans characters (including an Empyreal Lord or two!) that Paizo now has. A growing smorgasbord...

Yay yay yay to Crystal, Shardra, and Paizo! I wish I had a rivethun shaman I could go to (bearing a gift or two) and ask her advice on the year ahead...

I'm pretty sure it's a BUNGLE of goblins.
Or a FUMBLE.
Or a FREE-FOR-ALL.

But I think it's BUNGLE.

I don't believe in dice. I don't think they exist.
I have a LOT of trouble playing tabletop RPGs.

So, if my calculations are correct, Hell's Rebels will be the 'gonzo' AP, following the more 'conservative/traditional' Giant Slayer one. Any ideas/hints as to what gonzo elements will be introduced in H.R.?

I'm loving the gonzo APs, myself…

Oh please.
This map is a LIE.
Mighty Razmir would never permit the Worldworld to encroach on His demesne!
Our Lord would send those demons packin' before you can say "participation mystique!"

I really hope I make it into the Top 32! I didn't submit an item, but I'm counting on the voters/judges/community to not be so prejudicial and elitist.

Homosexuality + Pathfinder, in the news:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/levi-a-miles/my-fathers-unexpected-response-t o-my-coming-out_b_3072636.html

Heads up (or has this already been mentioned in this thread)
the lovable guys over at the Pathfinder "Know Direction" podcast just did an episode entitled "Homosexuality in Golarion" (this thread is cited, btw).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW1_SV8WmT4&feature=g-high-u

Wes Schneider himself is on hand to do a great talk re. the subject.
I particularly like his comments re. lack of trans representation in RPGs (Pathfinder included) up till now- and how that's a failing. To me, he did a great job of modeling how to be non-defensive when you're basically called out on an internalized 'norm' - and how you set about addressing it. (= he hints that an upcoming Empyreal Lord will be on the trans spectrum! Exciting!

Gotta love Paizo!

oh- and shout-out to Know Direction- check out their podcasts (which are now also videos) - they're great!

Michael!
My fellow Bay Arean!

As of last round, you became the guy I most to win...and you still are!
But 'cocktail' ? Cocktail??? Don't taze me, bro!

Dude- "Egelsee Effluent" is RIGHT THERE for the picking!
It alliterates, it sounds grosser & more toxic (inna good way), and is more semantically precise to boot.

Or even Egelsee Sludge. Or Swill.

Regardless- I still dig this monster, it absolutely gets my vote, and you are still the guy I want to win!

Go forth, my brother! Prevail!

So, I really dug Kevin A Murphy's alchemist-in-Galt stories. Like, a ton.
I think I said as much in the comments section back in the day- but in case I didn't- let me repeat: I like them a ton.

Smart, packed full of erudition, beautiful prose, and characters that I actually got sad about. But the stories also had some great 'pulp' action, deft twists and turns.

So- I would like at least one whole Pathfinder novel by him, please.
I'm not picky- it doesn't have to feature the alchemist. Entirely new characters in a relatively unknown Golarion country would be fine by me...

I also liked all of the clever poems Mr. Murphy did for y'all, back in the day!

Have we had a novel with a bard main character yet?

~Marcus

The Wrath of Deskari

and on a similar theme: Wrath of the Righteous

Ding ding ding!

Congrats to Kajehase!

Individual Titles for AAPVMLtTVSGETIofHSISinaSRoDCATNQaMSAITMADOAOWSBISADCinSoKotTAoDiaEVSE

Dang, this is starting to sound GOOD.
Next stop, Kickstarter! ; )

Marcus Ewert wrote:

"An Adventure Path Very Much Like the TV Show GLEE Except That Instead of a High School It's Set in a Smoking Rift of Demonic Corruption; Also, There's Not Quite as Much Singing"

....has a certain ring to it

"Also Involves The Mutilation And Decapitation Of Any One Who Spontaneously Bursts Into Song And Dance"

Seriously, this AP name rolls off the tongue.

"...Culminating in the Sacrifice of Ke$ha on the Tainted Altar of Deskari in an Exceedingly Very Special Episode"

"An Adventure Path Very Much Like the TV Show GLEE Except That Instead of a High School It's Set in a Smoking Rift of Demonic Corruption; Also, There's Not Quite as Much Singing"

....has a certain ring to it

Wrong on so many things you are.

OH GREAT. Now even Yoda is anti-gay!

At Harther's genuine warmth, Mikmek all but capers up to the big man. "Hello, brave hat man! How you are? You remember Mikmek?" (Here the kobold's face all but splits open with a big grin, at the idea of being remembered, apparently.) "Me come fight with you all-you!"

In response to Harther's question: "No, Tartuk, no return! He big scared of youses!"

After a moment, Mikmek looks around at the group, and apparently notices something that makes him quite uneasy. "Where no pretty, scary bigfeet elf-lady?"

Mikmek... Berenkor mutters in Draconic.What brings you here, envoy of the Sootscales?

Mikmek perks up at hearing himself addressed in the Auld Tongue. Speaking in flawless Draconic couplets, the scaled creature responds:

"Sir, although our races habitual enemies are/
Know you that I have traveled far/
To beseech you, Sir, to let me join/
Your troop, when next you seek for coin,/
Or with sharp weapons, to put an end/
To rapacious beasts, with claws that rend./
In short, Sir, I beseech you/
-Ye Gods, let my prayers reach you! -/
I've had enough of petty Sootscale strife-/
Let me cleave to you, Sir, in your adventuring life!"

For the benefit of the other party members, Mikmek turns around and says in broken Common, with a big grin: "And me promise- Mikmek no stab you during you'ses sleepytimes! Swearsies!"