One of the biggest challenges when starting a new campaign is getting your players invested in the world. Sure, you may have set up the adventure and prepared all your notes, memorized your maps and picked out accents for the various local NPCs the party will meet... but what about your players? They can't exactly read the same source material you are without tripping over spoilers, and sitting down for a three-hour lecture about the local history and customs of their home region isn't most groups' idea of a fun first session. So how do you get that information across?
For Pathfinder, we've made it easy. Instead of all that hassle, you can just hand your players the Rise of the Runelords Player's Guide (which you get as a free bonus if you sign up as a charter subscriber before the first book ships in August) and let them go to town, entirely spoiler-free. What's more, each Adventure Path to come will have its own specific player's guide filled with information to help players get their bearings in the world and craft unique, interesting backstories for their characters... so much so that DMs will probably want to pick a copy up for themselves as well.
Inside the player's guide, you can expect to find:
Full-page maps and art of Sandpoint (the starting town from "Burnt Offerings") and Varisia (the whole region the Adventure Path takes place in), plus detailed write-ups on both.
World-specific information on the core races—the things that make elves, dwarves, and all the rest unique in Pathfinder and GameMastery Modules.
How to tailor the core classes to Varisia, and specifically to the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path. Trying to decide which deity or favored enemy to pick? Unsure what your wizard's motivation to go adventuring is? This section's for you.
New world-specific feats.
New non-magical items and weapons popular in Varisia. (What the heck is a "star knife" or a "dogslicer," anyhow?)
Since this is one of the first detailed looks the public will be getting at Varisia and our campaign setting as a whole, all of the information in the player's guide will eventually be available online for free download in addition to the printed version. But after seeing the amount of art and information presented in this 16-page booklet, you might not want to wait... particularly since it's likely cheaper than any of the snacks at your gaming table (and free to subscribers).
Still not excited? Pathfinder editor and Adventure Path veteran Wes Schneider, who's writing the guide, kindly offered this preview quote which shows that, despite its mysterious monuments, rich adventure, and fierce independence, the land of Varisia isn't for everyone:
Savagery and regressivity epitomize the disfigured lands of Varisia. Jagged mountain chains break the worthless, dusty clay at queer and reckless lengths. Tangled forests grow wild with titan weeds—the flora of these fecund briars little more than tenacious brambles. Blasted reaches of cracked earth and rolling scrub form the parched paradises of all manner of backward savages, including the doomed final generations of humanity's brutish ancestors. And everywhere the land bears the scars of a forgotten people whose eroding ruins and savage attempts at artistry litter a landscape already scarred by its own geological leprosy. —Darvayne Gios Amprei, Merciless: Abendigo, Belkzen, Varisia, and Other Hells
