Hi there,
I'm a bit confused by the Temple Found map on p.29. Are areas D1 and D2 below D3? The stairs make me think they are but I'm not sure.
Thanks!
Richard
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I've been wondering about this too - using the aiudara in the ruined observatory higher up the mountain seems like a great way to skip an anticlimactic return trip :)
Where would be a good spot in Galorion to put Parsantium? Sorry, I missed this question! I'm not an expert on Golarion but somewhere near Taldor and Qadira could work well. Maybe it could replace Oppara, since that city is also partly inspired by Byzantium?
Thank you so much - glad you enjoyed it!
Hi there, I’m going to be running the adventure next Monday and wondered if anyone had created any NPCs for the investigation section on Absalom Station? Cheers Rich
Just found this via Google search as I wanted to make some pawns for my Starfinder game - brilliant stuff!
However, reprints are scheduled to become available in November. Phew! Was wondering why I hadn’t seen it on sale in the UK yet.
Pregens to download Thank you!
Hi there, Are there any plans to make the Starfinder Society or other 1st-level pregens available for download? I'm planning on giving Starfinder a whirl with my Monday night group (mostly casual gamers) and these would come in jolly handy. Cheers! Rich
Hi there, Very pleased to announce that my 1st-level Parsantium adventure, Whispers of the Dark Daeva, is now available to buy for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. You can buy the PDF at drivethrurpg.com or Paizo for just $4.99 Praise for the 5th Edition version (also available) “A stirring adventure which gives the party a chance to make a name for themselves… It’s full of neat tricks to build up atmosphere and add to the realism of the town, as well as to provide a suitably creepy feel that grows along with the body count!” – Megan Robertson “Each act and area in the adventure reads as well thought out, planned and as [if] the author has a real passion for what they’re writing and the world they’ve created – The Dice Trip We spent a lot of time on layout for both versions to get the monster stat blocks on the same page as the adventure text. If you’ve run or read the adventure, I’d love to know what you think about this! Cheers Rich
Very pleased this is out - congratulations!
I'm afraid not. There's a map of the sewers & temple - the dungeon portion of the adventure - but it's a standard one page map, rather than one created for Roll20 or other VTT.
The 5e version is now available here at Paizo and on drivethrurpg.com Hoping to get the Pathfinder version finished and uploaded in early January :)
This is well worth a look for anyone who missed out on Open Design. I learned a hell of a lot from taking part in those projects :)
Thought it was about time for an update on Whispers of the Dark Daeva! Kate has been incredibly busy with her day job as a freelance editor so we haven’t had much time to work on the adventure in the last few weeks. Nonetheless, we have managed to get the introduction, and first three chapters of the 5e version styled up and laid out, including stat blocks, art and maps. It was a year ago that I first asked you all how you liked to see monster stats presented in adventures and overall the feedback was in favour of including the stats on the page with the encounter description – my preference too as a GM. I want to make the adventure as easy as possible for the GM to run so that’s what we’re doing with Whispers of the Dark Daeva. This can prevent layout challenges but so far I think we’ve managed to achieve this while keeping the layout as clean and uncluttered as we can. Formatting 5e stats in InDesign has been a bit tricky too but we’ve cracked it now (I hope!) and things should be easier for the final two chapters. That’s just as well as these contain lots of monster and NPC stats. Once the 5e version is laid out, Kate will edit the text and then it will be on to the Pathfinder version. We’re off on holiday in the next few weeks too so it’s likely to be Autumn/Winter before the adventure is finally published unfortunately, but I’d rather take the time we need to get it right rather than rush things. More news to follow in due course. Any questions, please do let me know Cheers Rich
It's only at 64 pages, but Parsantium: City at the Crossroads is pretty cool! I'm really glad you like Parsantium! The book actually has 175 pages :) I love city sourcebooks and tried to make it as detailed and user-friendly as possible.
Hi all, Just wanted to let you know that both Parsantium: City at the Crossroads and Icons of Parsantium are 25% off in the drivethrurpg.com Christmas in July sale until 29th July. Cheers Rich
Looking forward to seeing this :) Cheers Rich
We’ve been on holiday this week so I’ve been able to make good progress on Whispers of the Dark Daeva. I went through all the excellent feedback I received from the 5e and Pathfinder playtests in detail and made a number of improvements to the adventure, tightening up the story and the game mechanics. I’ve expanded some of the encounters and redrew the dungeon map with slightly bigger rooms to give the PCs and monsters more room to manoeuvre before tidying it up and labelling it in Photoshop. I had to remember to update both versions of the text too – thank goodness for Word’s track changes functionality. Overall, I’m pretty happy with the final drafts I will be passing over to Kate to edit. I’ve copied the 5e draft into InDesign and styled up the headings and most of the text. InDesign is tricky to master but I am learning a few tricks here and there which is cool. We do still need to come up with a style that works for the 5e and Pathfinder stat blocks as this is the first Parsantium release that has included monster and NPC stats. Next, it’s on to editing and layout. More news to follow soon...
Looking forward to this!
Hi there, Just wanted to let you know you can save 25% on Parsantium: City at the Crossroads in print & PDF through to 20th June. Parsantium is a melting pot, a cosmopolitan city where trade routes meet and great cultures collide. Inspired by real-life Byzantium with its rich Greco-Roman heritage, the setting is packed with characters, monsters and magic from the Tales of the Arabian Nights, ancient India and the Far East, alongside traditional medieval fantasy elements. “Parsantium BREATHES authenticity and love—New York City meets Byzantium, modern metropolis meets swords & sorcery – this book actually manages to portray a believable, interesting, unique city that oozes the spirit of Al Qadim, early weird fiction and recent phenomena like the god of war-series, all while staying believable.” —Endzeitgeist Cheers Richard
Hi I’m very excited to announce that top fantasy cartographer Jared Blando has created a beautiful, brand new map of the wider world of Parsantium. You can check out the low res version here – a full resolution version of the map is included in the revised PDF of Icons of Parsantium. If you have previously purchased this supplement, you can download the updated files with the new map for free from your Paizo or Drivethrurpg library. Parsantium: City at the Crossroads is a melting pot, a cosmopolitan city where trade routes meet and great cultures collide. Inspired by real-life Byzantium with its rich Greco-Roman heritage, the setting is packed with characters, monsters and magic from the Tales of the Arabian Nights, ancient India and the Far East, alongside traditional medieval fantasy elements. “Parsantium BREATHES authenticity and love—New York City meets Byzantium, modern metropolis meets swords & sorcery – this book actually manages to portray a believable, interesting, unique city that oozes the spirit of Al Qadim, early weird fiction and recent phenomena like the god of war-series, all while staying believable.” —Endzeitgeist Cheers Richard
We've updated this product with a brand new colour Lands of Parsantium map by top fantasy cartographer Jared Blando.
Here's a link to the finished cover. Playtest feedback is still coming in and I've got one more session to run myself, then I'll produce a final draft for my editor :) Rich
I used both in my 4e campaign - there are some great characters from Wrath like Lady Sorreminx which reappear in Courts.
Thanks both - glad you like it! I still need one or two more groups to playtest - please send me a PM if you are interested and can run the adventure in the next 3-4 weeks :)
Hi there, I've been busy this Easter working on Whispers of the Dark Daeva, converting the adventure from Pathfinder to 5e. This has involved rebuilding most of the NPC and monster adversaries from scratch and also remembering which skills exist in both editions, which have different names, and which need replacing with an ability check! The first draft is done - the next stage will be incorporating learnings and feedback on the story structure and roleplaying encounters from the Pathfinder playtesting. Last Monday I ran a Pathfinder playtest session for our Monday night group which was very useful, and gave me plenty to think about in terms of making the adventure more enjoyable. We got through about half the adventure in a single 2.5 hour session, so should finish it next time we meet in April. I also had some very useful feedback from veteran GM Paul Baalham on the scenario, and am eagerly awaiting playtest reports from several other groups. Once this is all in I'll revise incorporate the relevant feedback into both versions of the adventure and get a revised 5e draft ready for playtesting. If you're interested in running the 5e version in late April/May for your gaming group and giving me playtest feedback, please email me at parsantium@gmail.com In other news, Joe Shawcross is working on the painting for the cover and Matt Morrow is doing initial sketches for the interior art. Hopefully I'll be in a position to share these soon. In the meantime, you can check out the colour cover sketch here. I'm very excited about how this first Parsantium adventure is shaping up and am looking forward to seeing it out there in the next few months :) Cheers Rich
I just downloaded the Inner Sea World Guide as part of the Humble Bundle and was having trouble seeing any of the maps properly on my Mac using Preview. Switched to Acrobat Reader and they all look fine - works on the iPad too. I think it's to do with how the files for this one were created. Hope this helps Rich
Hi there, It’s taken me a long time but the first draft of Whispers of the Dark Daeva for Pathfinder is done. Word count is 12,800. I’ll do a revised draft next ready for playtesting, then start work on the 5e D&D version :) I’ve had a few offers to playtest the 5e version, but none for Pathfinder. If you’re interested, please let me know. Cheers Richard
I may be. It depends on how far down the line. No problem - I'll post on here when the work on the 5e version is nearing completion ;)
Might you need help playtesting/converting for 5th edition? It's a bit further down the line, but yes I will need playtesters. Are you interested?
Hi there, Happy New Year! I thought I would take this opportunity to update you all on what I’ve got planned for Parsantium this year. Top priority is to finish and publish Whispers of the Dark Daeva in both Pathfinder and D&D 5e versions. I am hoping to finish the first draft of the Pathfinder version in the next few weeks. The manuscript currently stands at 12,000 words with only the final climactic battle scene, the “Concluding the Adventure” section, and a few brief room descriptions left to write. I don’t think these bits will take too long to do, but I have a freelance project to complete for Raging Swan Press by the end of this month too. Once the first draft is complete, I will do a revised draft before sending it out for playtesting. Then, I’ll start commissioning the cover and interior art, and also begin work on the 5e version. If you are interested in playtesting the Pathfinder version of the adventure, please let me know in below or email me at parsantium@gmail.com Depending on how it takes to write, edit, lay out and publish Whispers of the Dark Daeva, I may or may not get the chance to go back and finish writing Flotsam and Jetsam, a second adventure for 3rd-4th level characters which follows on nicely from Whispers. Quite a bit of this is already written as I worked on it on and off in 2015 before deciding I needed to publish a 1st level adventure first! Please do let me know your thoughts, and if there is anything else you would like to see for the setting. Thanks to everyone who bought Parsantium: City at the Crossroads or Icons of Parsantium or wrote to me with questions and feedback in 2015. I really do appreciate it :) Cheers Rich
Hi there, It’s been a while since I’ve posted an update on Parsantium: City at the Crossroads on these message boards so I thought it was high time I wrote something! For the last couple of months, I’ve been working on Whispers of the Dark Daeva, a new 1st level adventure set in Parsantium’s Dock Ward, to be published in PDF in 2016 by Ondine Publishing. If things go to plan, this will be followed by a second adventure that can be played as a standalone, or the two can be used together in a Tales of Parsantium mini-campaign. As the boat town of Flotsam gets ready to celebrate the Festival of Flowers, a series of violent murders threatens to spoil the upcoming festivities. When the PCs delve into what’s been going on, they uncover an ancient evil lurking below the city streets in the Hidden Quarter that must be stopped before more innocent people die. My original plan was to write a short adventure of around 10,000 - 12,000 words, playable with Pathfinder, D&D 5e and 13th Age. Following on from some very helpful feedback on these boards, I’ve decided to write and publish separate versions of the adventure for each edition. Since then, I have been hard at work on the Pathfinder version and have been enjoying building some fun, crunchy NPC villains for PCs to battle in the adventure. So far, the introductory section (adventure background, synopsis and hooks) and the first seven scenes/encounters are written, with the manuscript clocking in at nearly 9,000 words. I’ll definitely be honing my prose on the second draft, but I've still got around seven to eight scenes to write, so it looks like the adventure will run longer than I initially expected. The plan now is to get a playtest draft written by early January, before working on the 5e version. If you’re interested in running the adventure and providing playtest feedback, please let me know below. More news to follow... Any questions, please shout :) Cheers Rich
Hi all, Thanks very much for all your comments! Plenty of food for thought here... My original thinking was to include the encounter information in edition-specific appendices – a bit like Murder in Baldur's Gate and Legacy of the Crystal Shard but with all the information needed to run the encounter together, including how to vary it by PC level. But that doesn't allow for differences in treasure and skill/ability DCs per system and I wasn't sure how best to handle those, hence this thread. I'm 2/3 through the Pathfinder version of the first adventure and have been wondering how to make various details work in the different systems. I'm basically running into exactly the issues Thilo pointed out in his first post! @Tinkergoth – one of my players mentioned Achtung! Cthulhu's adventures in a comment on my blog post on the same subject on parsantium.com. I need to have a proper look at one. @Ben – I remember those Atlas adventures and I have to say the dual-systems put me off buying them, even though I bought most of their Penumbra stuff. Point well made ;) I definitely need to check out Breaking of Forstor Nagar too as someone else mentioned that one to me recently. I'm very familiar with the Kobold Press adventures – I did some stats for the 4e Halls of the Mountain King and have run many of them – and it was very interesting to compare and contrast the 3.5 and 4e versions of each. I'm not sure Pathfinder and 5e are as dissimilar, but 13th Age is a different beast entirely and I wouldn't want to shortchange those gamers. Having said that the maps and art will need to be the same across all three versions to get them to stack up financially. Overall, some pretty strong and very useful feedback that doing separate versions of each adventure is the way to go. Any other thoughts or suggestions gratefully received! Cheers Richard
Hi there, Now that Icons of Parsantium has been released, I've started work in earnest on adventures for Parsantium: City at the Crossroads. I want the adventures to be usable by as many gamers as possible, so my plan is to include stats for Pathfinder, D&D 5e and 13th Age. I've been giving this a lot of thought, but would really like your feedback and have a couple of questions for you: Which products have handled multi-system adventures well and how did they do it? How do you like to see encounter stats presented in an adventure? Please do let me know what you think if you get the chance. Cheers! Richard
Hi all, Icons of Parsantium is now on sale here at Paizo and at drivethrurpg.com :) Any questions, please shout! Cheers Rich
Hi there, Just thought it was worth mentioning the latest Bundle of Holding, Fantasy Frontiers, which features my book Parsantium: City at the Crossroads, as well as eight other fantasy RPGs and supplements. Several are compatible with Pathfinder. This new collection of tabletop fantasy roleplaying games and campaigns takes you to exotic cultures and unusual times. Drawing from myths of many lands, eras of high intrigue, and even modern medicine, these games explore the far boundaries of fantasy RPG settings. For just US$5.95 you get all three titles in the Starter Collection (retail value $30) as DRM-free PDF ebooks: STARTER COLLECTION (US$5.95 - retail value $30) – Spears of the Dawn (retail $10): Stars Without Number designer Kevin Crawford designed this old-school sandbox game based on African cultures and folklore. – Castles & Chemo (retail $10): A remarkable D&D 4e/Pathfinder adventure inspired by a cancer survivor's chemotherapy. – Ehdrigohr (retail price $10): This Fate-powered game inspired by Native American myth recently drew strong praise on Boing Boing. If you pay more than the threshold (average) price, currently $17.96, you also get all the titles in the Bonus Collection: BONUS TITLES (retail value $86) – Spellbound Kingdoms (retail $10): Dark Renaissance fantasy where fashionable garb can take you further than a sharp rapier. – Yggdrasill - The Lands of the North (retail $25): Scandinavian sagas power this complete RPG from Cubicle 7 Entertainment and the designers of Qin: The Warring States. – Against the Dark Yogi (retail $15): Epic high-action dueling and mass battles in a land out of Indian mythology. –Egyptian Adventures - Hamunaptra (retail $24): Green Ronin's massive D&D 3.x setting, the fantastic desert kingdom of Khoti. – Parsantium: City at the Crossroads (retail $12): loosely based on Byzantium, Parsantium is a cultural melting pot with elements from the Arabian Nights, ancient India and the Far East. Total retail value: $116.00 10% of your payment (after gateway fees) goes to charity. There's a benefit to buying early. When new bonus titles are added to the offer, you'll receive the newly added titles automatically, regardless of whether you paid more than the bonus threshold. When you buy a Bundle of Holding, you never worry about missing books added later. Find out more at Bundle of Holding. Cheers Richard
Hi there, The cover for Icons of Parsantium is finished and we've completed editing and layout. Just need to proofread and upload the files to drivethrurpg.com and Paizo :) Cheers Rich
Hi there, We’ve both been very busy with our day jobs so work on Icons of Parsantium has been slow-going since my last update. However, I do have one bit of exciting news to make up for it – Rob Heinsoo has very kindly written an excellent foreword to the book in his own inimitable style. Rob’s connection with Parsantium goes back a few years when he found out I’d named a villainous rakshasa in my campaign after him. Fortunately, he took this in good spirits, and since then, he’s given me some great advice on how to adapt Parsantium’s NPCs into icons. I’m thrilled to have him write the foreword to Icons of Parsantium. Today I’ve been wrestling with InDesign as I make some final revisions to the text before editing, including adding a short section to each icon describing their NPC champions and followers. This has played havoc with the two-page layout for each icon but I’ve every confidence Kate will be able to fix this when she starts editing. More news and hopefully a finished cover to follow soon…. Cheers Rich
Hi there, I've just posted an update to the blog on the forthcoming supplement, Icons of Parsantium. Cheers Rich
Hi there, Here's a preview of the finished cover art for Icons of Parsantium – I think Joe Shawcross has done an awesome job! Cheers Rich
Hi there, Just a quick note to say that the PDF of Parsantium is 33% off in Paizo's GM's Day Sale. You can also get the print/PDF bundle for the special price of $19.99 while the sale is on. Cheers Rich
Hi there, One year ago this week, Parsantium: City at the Crossroads was published after more than a year of writing, revising, editing, proof-reading, layout and design by me and my wife Kate. I've written about how well it did in this post. Apologies for not cross-posting here but I don't think I can include the charts. Cheers Rich
Hi all, I've posted the cover sketch for the forthcoming Icons of Parsantium PDF to the Parsantium blog. Let me know what you think! Cheers Rich
So glad you liked the book and found it useful for your campaign! Cheers Rich
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