Wanda V'orcus's page

All of the shards are detailed in Pathfinder #61 in their own article. It talks about the Sihedron, the shards, and skymetals.

Thanks for the prompt reply, Adam! :)

I'll have to re-peruse PF61, then...

Cheers, JohnH aka Wanda

Also,

;-D

Cheers,
JohnH aka Wander

Is there any particular reason why the magical properties and curses of the *shard of gluttony* (and the *shard of lust* from the previous installment) don't seem to be listed in either Adventure Path?

Or am I missing something completely obvious? (Wouldn't be the first time...)

Just curious...
JohnH aka Wanda

Just remembered this thread had been started up.

It's a little late, I know, but - Happy Pride everyone.

Also, just curious - anyone here in the Greater Boston area?

I live in Rhode Island, just over the Massachusetts border... :-)

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

I got this email as well! >:-/

Can the folks at Paizo do something about this, please??

So... Miss Piggy's going to be a half-orc monk/bard, then?? ;-)

Fozzie Bugbear -- ROFL!!!

Yay!

Thanks, peoples!!

I've just now heard about this business with Amazon "not being able to get" Distant Worlds (which is totally false). Our top folks are working on getting that resolved as we speak. And that cover you see on Amazon is the mock-up cover... it takes a lot of time (and effort) for them to update those.

Thanks for letting us know!

My pre-order of DISTANT WORLDS was cancelled by Amazon as well! :-<

This is the first time I've had that happen with a Paizo product -- what restitution (if any) do we have??

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

Hey folks--thanks so much for letting us know! Amazon canceling preorders is a Big Problem, and management has been alerted. Hopefully this'll get cleared up in short order...

My pre-order of DISTANT WORLDS was cancelled by Amazon as well! :-<

This is the first time I've had that happen with a Paizo product -- what restitution (if any) do we have??

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

Exactly.

Hey, if DOCTOR WHO can have two versions of the Yeti, why can't Pathfinder?? ;-)

Cheers,
JohnH / Wanda

P. 40, Wildblooded Archetype, "Arial" variant of Stormborn bloodline -- Should be "Aerial"?

Perhaps it's a reference to the character from The Tempest?? ;)

That, or it's a font-related metamagic ability!

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

Wow!

Didn't expect thread necromancy on this 'un, but I'm glad to see it discussed again... :)

IIRC, isn't "Rise of the Runelords" being updated and released as a hardcover campaign book this year? Maybe Hannah will be remained as an alchemist, since the character class didn't exist back then...

Also glad to hear that more gay characters will be appearing in print, even if it's most likely the novels.

Perhaps the upcoming Pathfinder comic will allow us to find out which of the iconics is family??

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

gbonehead wrote:

Create an sanity score. Add up all the ability scores or just the mental ones. Every time you see a Lovecraftian monster you make a will save to avoid losing sanity. When your sanity hits zero you are insane and useless. Now the game is trying to defeat the enemy before you lose your mind.

If you plays the Call of Cuthulu game then you can see I roughly adapted the sanity mechanism from there.

One of the recent installments of the Ustalav Adventure Path has rules for sanity in Pathfinder.

I thought it did a good job, even if it "overegged the pudding" in certain respects.

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

That is the good ole United States Postal Service.

I once had a box come to my house for a item of books I won off of Ebay. The box had been obviously torn and ripped up fairly badly, it was taped back together and had some packing materials in it but otherwise was empty, no books. The USPS =quality and pride in their work.

But on a side note Send an e-mail to Bill at talesofthefroggod.com and I am sure he can probably help. He mentioned upthread he would do his best to make things right in the event that something like this happens.

Thanks for the advice!

BTW, is there any easy way to upload a photo to this site so I can show the damage?

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

Well, the good news is, my copy of the TOME OF HORRORS arrived the other day.

The bad news is, the upper right-hand corner of the ENTIRE book has a GREAT BIG *DENT*, and the upper left-hand corner has a BIG *DENT* in it!!! >:-l

This, despite the book being wrapped in bubble wrap and in a cardboard box...

While the product is great, the condition that it arrived in really made me think, "I spent a hundred dollars on THIS?!"

And I suppose that since the original printing is sold out, I don't have much recourse available, right?

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

Och samma på engelska: I doubt non-Scandinavian posters would think it's fun if we keep posting in Swedish or Norwegian (even if we translate it to english). ;)

Even though my paternal grandmother and her family immigrated to the U.S. from Sweden, I'm afraid my extent of grasping the language ends at "Börk börk börk..."

;-)

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

BTW, did any of you ever play the AD&D module UK2 The Sentinel back in the day?

Part of the adventure path was a xvart lair, but every time I DM'd it, whenever the villagers got to the description of "little blue men," all the players started laughing and talking about Smurfs!

The fact that the village elder was called "Papa Kurst" didn't help any either... >:-/

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

I remember back in the day, a friend of mine -- in one of his other D&D campaigns -- had a character whose preferred weapon of choice was a +2 Smurfsmasher...

;-)

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

I would probably sleep during a german game.

And I probably couldn't follow an english one.
Playing in a foreign language ? You were crazy, sir ! :D

Yeah, it was a dumb idea in hindsight, but I went along with it.

Trust me, there was a lot of verb tense mangling and "le / la" followed by the English word, and many sheepish expressions!

To this day, whenever I think of that module, those are my overwhelming memories! :-/

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

Wanda V'orcus wrote:

I'd have to say that one of the worst gaming experiences I had was when, as a teenager in high school, one of my friends had the "brilliant" idea that we should speak/play/DM the entirety of Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill in French (which we were both taking as a class)...

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

Bah, we do this everytime !

(The fact we and my friends are french helps a bit, though.)

Fair enough! ;-)

In that case, for the proper effect, substitute "French" for whatever language(s) you lot are/were taught as a second language in school...

Let's just say that Gothic Horror fumblingly translated into a language you're still learning doesn't exactly keep you "in the game"...

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

Actually, some of the most unpleasant gaming experiences were with the last group that I played with a few years back.

Things were going fine until the new additions -- a step-father and his older step-son -- joined the group.

The first time the step-son joined in -- a few hours late due to work or something -- his character attempted to punch out one of the other characters because he didn't agree with the player's decision to play the character's reactions the way it ought to have been played. (In other words, a fighter continuing to fight in a losing battle rather than retreating.) Right then and there, I suspected there would be trouble.

The next gaming session, the step-father was present, and their method of playing soon became evident.

Apparently they played D&D in their own gaming group a few times a week; were extremely competitive with each other; knew 3.5 rules inside and out (whereas most of us were relative newbies to 3.5, but experienced gamers with earlier AD&D rules); were impatient with people who didn't have their encyclopedic knowledge; and kept having their characters (a ranger and a rogue) go off on "scouting trips" that soon turned into solo adventures for them while the rest of us twiddled our thumbs impatiently.

The step-father assumed control/leadership of the party with (admittedly) little protest from the rest of us, except for my closest friend, who was playing again after a very long time away from the game. He's one of those people who doesn't take guff from anyone, speaks his mind very plainly and audibly, and bristles at being told what to do.

I think you can see where this is leading... To make a long story short, the whole kerfuffle ended up ending my 15-year friendship with the DM because he refused to intervene in the deteriorating situation! "Sort it out amongst yourselves," was his reply. Mine was, "Um, no. You're the DM, this falls under your purview."

In protest, three of us did not turn up at a gaming session and didn't let anyone know until the last minute. We ended up getting tossed out of the group as a result, and the DM and I haven't spoken since.

As far as I know, the rest of this group is still meeting, and one or two other players of a similar mindset have taken up residence in it...

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

I'd have to say that one of the worst gaming experiences I had was when, as a teenager in high school, one of my friends had the "brilliant" idea that we should speak/play/DM the entirety of Ravenloft II: The House on Gryphon Hill in French (which we were both taking as a class)...

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

[drums fingers]

Some of us are still waiting on bios for previously released iconics, like Balazar the Summoner, Feiya the Witch and Imrijka the Inquisitor, y'know...

;)

[drums fingers some more]

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

Tiefling, behir, stirge, otyugh, bulette, ankheg, tarrasque...

Many of the monsters in the bestiary derive from obscure yet real-world sources (rakshasa, marid, couatl), while others I know were invented by early designers (rust monster). The ones up top, though, I couldn't nail down or find. Much the same with many of the demon names (many sound quasi-Hebrew, and it wouldn't surprise me if they were based on Jewish folklore).

Any old-schoolers care to enlighten me?

Well, the tarrasque comes from French legend:

Erol Otus created the ankheg:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankheg

The stirge may have been inspired by ancient Roman/Greek folklore:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strix_%28mythology%29

The name "tiefling" came from Wolfgang Baur:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiefling

I believe that the otyugh and behir were created by Gary Gygax, but don't quote me on that! ;-)

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

I would like to throw in my support for the "Mythic" label.

"Legendary" also has a nice ring to it, but I realize this might have Gygaxian overtones due to his "Lejendary" product line.

I don't have a problem with levels beyond 20, per se. But I think it would be a kewl nod to the past if Level 36 was the limit for player characters... :-D

Besides which -- what level d'you suppose Tar-Baphon the Whispering Tyrant was, anyway??

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

Part of me was wondering -- would seasoned adventurers genuinely go mad / lose sanity points simply as a result of seeing some of these critters, especially things like dimensional shamblers and the colour?

I could see the sanity loss for things like the gestation of the moit from stage one to stage two; the results of the mi-gos' surgeries; and the manifestation of Somebody; but I should think that adventurers would be made of slightly sterner stuff than the usual Lovecraftian protagonist... ;-)

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

P.S.: What other types of monsters would result in sanity loss? I'm thinking qlippoth at the very least -- any other candidates?? %-)

Half-elf Rouge

I was going to resist the urge to make a smart-arse comment saying that player characters' wearing cosmetics should be up to their players and/or DMs, but then I saw the above and tanked on my Will save... ;-D

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

Where can I find more info on Dagon? I'm a long way off from running this, but once I get there, I feel like I'm going to need to know a little more about the faith. For example,

page 22 wrote:

Caleb Voltiaro ... vizier of the Order, currently occupies this room, instructing a cultist in the finer points of Dagon’s worship.

What could that entail?

A lot of careful pronunciation, I should think...

"Nonono -- it's 'eeeee-ahhhh eeeee-ahhhh,' NOT eye-ayyyyyy eye-ayyyyyy!!!"

"Fuh-- fuh-- fuh-thay-ginnn?"

"[exasperated sigh]"

;-)

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

Ross Byers wrote:

Pick an action that takes 6 seconds, any action, and repeat it for 10 minutes and see how it makes you feel.

....

....

...should I say it?

Absolutely!!!

After all, a dirty mind is a terrible thing to waste... :-D

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

Hey everyone,

Is it just me, or the older that actor Kevin Bacon gets, the more he starts to resemble the Githyanki depicted on the cover of the 1st Edition Fiend Foliio??!

;-)

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

You lucky stiff! I'm still waiting (grrr....)

Well, it's not supposed to show up until next week sometime (I chose the free shipping option, which gives new meaning to "snail mail"!), so until it actually arrives in my doorstep, I ain't exactly trumpeting, if you catch my drift...

Also, the last Pathfinder rulebook that I ordered through borders.com (the revised Inner Sea Guide arrived well-packaged, but the book itself was badly damaged -- the spine was cracked and torn between the front hardcover/endpaper and the first bound pages of the book!

How somebody in their shipping department didn't notice this is beyond me.

Needless to say, I immediately returned it to my local Borders for store credit (which is how refunds from online purchases are handled)...

Hopefully I have better luck with Ultimate Magic!

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

Elf Gate, duh.

Is that the same thing as a hole in the plot?? ;-)

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

The great race of Yith, unfortunately, doesn't make much sense to include in a Golarion product like an Adventure Path. Unlike the creatures in this volume's bestiary, the the Yithians themselves aren't fro outer space or from another dimension—they're natives of Earth. While the great race itself which inhabited the Yithian bodies ARE from elsewhere, I'm not all that interested in presenting stats for these monsters outside of their most iconic and famous body shapes.

A non-Golarion product, though, like a Bestiary or something like that would be a great place for them someday.

Your point is taken, sir.

However, I would add that the Pnakotic Manuscripts, which show up on Golarion in Carrion Hill, originated in the enormous library of the Great Race, located in the lost city of Pnakotus in what is now the Great Sandy Desert of Australia.

So how it did get from there to Carrion Hill, praytell?? ;-)

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

Wouldn't hurt half as much if this wasn't the Paizo product that I've had the most anticipation for since the moment I became aware it was coming.

I know the feeling, and can sympathise completely! :-/

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

P.S.: If it's any other consolation, last night I finally got a confirmation email from Borders.com saying that my copy of Ultimate Magic was en route!

I know the original printing had a lot of typos, but from what I've read this leatherbound edition eliminated most of them.

I was not aware of this development -- kewl!

And why is it that I always seem to be in the last batch of subscribers to get the PDF download added to my account?

The stars weren't right . . . ? ;-)

If it's any consolation, mine didn't show up until after 10:00 pm last night!

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

BTW, isn't there a reference in The Revised Inner Sea Guide to "sentient colo(u)rs" or "radiances" prowling the Mana Wastes and/or the wastelands of Nex??

Dunno about you, but that immediately put me in mind of The Colour out of Space!

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

I think that perhaps one of the best deals going for Lovecraft books at the moment is H.P. Lovecraft: The Complete Fiction, one of the Barnes & Noble Leatherbound Classics Series.

It's riddled with typos, but otherwise is an eldritch bargain for what they're asking for it!

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

The nightgaunt AND the flying polyp got cut, much to my sadness and chagrin.

I'm hoping we'll be able to get them IN print in a Jade Regent installment.

You mean you weren't able to manipulate the Euclidean geometry of the Adventure Path to fit them in?? :-<

I'm glad that you included the Elder Things, though! And the thought that they battled with the aboleth -- and lost -- is a kewl one.

If the polyps do make it into a future installment, is there any chance of the Great Race of Yith as well??

(BTW, am I the only one who thinks that "Pollip" would be a good gnome name??)

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

Hell, Lovecraft himself drew a quick sketch that showed the world that his artistic talents were almost entirely literary. :P

Excellent point.

Here's a link to that sketch.

Wot's this?? A sketch of Great Cthulhu taking a cyclopean dump?! =:-o

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

What about some Yog-Sothoth? Can we see some Yog-Sothoth in this volume?

*cough* Carrion Hill module! *cough*

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

Fell by the wayside. For all of the nation entries, I deliberately ramped back on the society and government sections in order to get more gazetteer type entries in there, and for some of the nations that meant condensing material that was in the previous version of the book.

Thanks for getting back to me on this, James -- it's much appreciated!

And I suspected as much, that it just fell by the wayside; not that big of a loss, IMHO.

(If anything, that text reminded me of a passage from a Terry Pratchett novel, regarding a club for gentlemen who did not enjoy the company of women -- accompanied, of course, by a footnote saying this wasn't *that* sort of establishment, which was located in a different section of Ankh-Morpork and was much more tastefully decorated...)

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

Opinion of the two lovers from the Rivals Guide?

I think it was inspired, and I applaud Paizo for including these two in Rivals Guide!

The whole wizard & fighter angle very much reminds of me of Rufus 'n' Byrne from The Temple of Elemental Evil (I mean, a 1st Edition magic-user with a 15 Strength?? C'mon!!! ;-D), and I like how the inter-party issues aren't with the gay relationship per se, but with the wizard's jealousy and the fighter's sister's overprotective streak frequently clashing. (Not to mention the wizard's understandable Worldwound-phobia...)

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

What's the reference in question? While plenty of stuff got revised, I suspect that, unless it contradicted something already in canon, it probably just fell by the wayside rather than being deliberately removed.

Hi James,

I'll have to look up the exact quote tonight, but I remember there being a passage that discussed the inherent misogyny of most Taldan men and an oblique reference to a different reason why some of them were "women-haters"...

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

Dangittoheck -- I was hoping for a thinly-veiled Golarion equivalent of The Linear Guild and/or The Order of the Stick!! ;-D

Although the way that the elf wizard in the 20th level rival party keeps "accidentally" catching the dwarf fighter in the blast radii of his area-effect spells reminds me of V's constant unleashing of explosive runes on Belkar...

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

I've been reading the revised Inner Sea World Guide, and I noticed that the oblique reference to homosexuality in the "Taldor" entry appears to have been excised.

Did anyone else notice this?

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

Perhaps dwarven clerics cast create food and water a lot? ;-)

Or dwarven druids have secret caves where they cultivate plants sustained by continual light or daylight spells??

Aside from Underdark critters, I expect dwarves eat a lot of fungi. Perhaps they've even found a way to make giant slugs and purple worms palatable??!

(And in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, his dwarves eat rat as a dietary staple -- another reason why Ankh-Morpork is so popular with them -- and their bread items readily double as weapons, such as "battle croissants" and the like! Plus dwarf bread is a field ration staple; for most non-dwarves, the mere thought of eating dwarf bread is a natural appetite suppressant...)

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

Hi Lisa!

Thank you very much for taking the time to respond to my query.

It's not every company whose CEO would bother to do this, and I very much appreciate it.

I'm now able to see the situation more clearly, and realize that the burden is on these companies and not Paizo.

It's just frustrating for someone in my situation, as I hope you can understand.

You and your employees/freelancers put out a top-quality product, and it's a line I'm happy to support.

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

In short, we stay on top of the orders from Amazon, Borders, Barnes and Noble, and the other book stores, and when they haven't ordered enough, we bug them about it. But we can't make them order if they don't want to. All we can do is keep pushing.

We send our sales manager out to all of those stores and many more on a regular basis to get into their face and make them remember Paizo. Some stores really start to pick up more Pathfinder while others make promises but have yet to deliver.

There are plenty of books for all of those stores to get their orders filled. We made the books available in plenty of time for those stores to have placed orders and received them in time to ship out to customers on the release date. Truly, that is all that we can do. The rest is up to them.

-Lisa

There is an actual PF write up of deep ones using the name 'deep ones' somewhere... cant recall where I saw it though...

IIRC, the 20th level "capstone" of the sorcerer's Aquatic bloodline in Advanced Players' Guide is called "Deep One" -- could that be what you're thinking of?

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

BOTTOM LINE: Buying stuff from Borders/B&N/Amazon is a bad idea if you are interested in getting the book as soon as it is released.

Fair enough -- but as I don't actually play Pathfinder regularly (there isn't a group in my area as far as I know), and I have other things that take budgetary precedence, at this time I have to wait until it's available at a (to my financial situation) more reasonable cost.

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda

P.S.: And yeah, I know that I could purchase the PDF for less money, but call me old-fashioned -- I'd rather have an actual, physical book! ;-)

You could check out the myriad other discussions on this topic here, here, and here for answers from other posters and Paizo staff. (The last thread in particular deals with Borders) Hope that helps!

Hi Brandon,

Thanks for those links -- they were most illuminating! :) I don't always have a lot of time to trawl around the messageboards, so these were quite helpful.

However, I believe that my original question still stands -- why is there such a delay, and what is Paizo doing to address it?

Also, I wanted to point out that I support my local brick 'n' mortar store (Rivendell Books & Games in Rehoboth, MA) as best I can, but the spiralling costs of everyday things (especially gas) makes this difficult. I don't mind buying modules and supplements from him, but paying full price (i.e., $40 to $50) for a rulesbook just isn't feasible these days! :-<

Cheers, JohnH / Wanda