Pathfinder Adventure Path #25: The Bastards of Erebus (Council of Thieves 1 of 6) (PFRPG)

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Pathfinder Adventure Path #25: The Bastards of Erebus (Council of Thieves 1 of 6) (PFRPG)
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Chapter 1: "The Bastards of Erebus"
by Sean K Reynolds

The city of Westcrown is dying. Since being stripped of its station as the capital of Cheliax, the wealth and prestige of the city has gradually slipped away, leaving the desperate people to fend for themselves in a city beset by criminals, a corrupt nobility, and a shadowy curse. Can the PCs fight back against champions of both the law and the criminal world?

    This volume of Pathfinder Adventure Path launches the Council of Thieves Adventure Path, and includes:
  • "The Bastards of Erebus," a Pathfinder RPG adventure for 1st-level characters, by Sean K Reynolds
  • A gazetteer of Westcrown, the shadow-haunted City of Twilight, by Steven Schend
  • An investigation into the lives of tieflings, along with hundreds of fiendish variations, by Amber Scott
  • A deadly mystery of nobility and intrigue for Pathfinder Varian Jeggare and his tiefling bodyguard Radovan in a new series of the Pathfinder's Jounal, by Dave Gross
  • Six terrifying new monsters by Mike Ferguson, Sean K Reynolds, and F. Wesley Schneider

A Pathfinder Roleplaying Game adventure for characters of 1st to 3rd level. The Council of Thieves Adventure Path is the first to take full advantage of the new Pathfinder Roleplaying Game rules, and works with both the Pathfinder RPG and the standard 3.5 fantasy RPG rules set.

Pathfinder Adventure Path is Paizo Publishing's monthly 96-page, perfect-bound, full-color softcover book printed on high-quality paper. It contains an in-depth Adventure Path scenario, stats for about a half-dozen new monsters, and several support articles meant to give Game Masters additional material to expand their campaign. Pathfinder Adventure Path volumes use the Open Game License and work with both the Pathfinder RPG and the standard 3.5 fantasy RPG rules set.

ISBN–13: 978-1-60125-190-9

The Bastards of Erebus is sanctioned for use in Pathfinder Society Organized Play. The rules for running this Adventure Path and Chronicle sheet are available as a free download.

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Strong Low-Level Module, Not a Great Start to CoT

4/5

I enjoyed this module. It has a lot of what you're looking for in a low-level adventure. A really strong start that kicks the action off with a bang. A feeling like the PCs are an important part of what's happening. A lot of NPCs to interact with. A good setting, and an interesting premise.

A lot of it could have been laid out a little better. Encounters are mostly setpieces where the GM has to fill in the gaps-- but that's a lot of TTRPG prep, to be fair. It might even be a strength for somebody who wants a looser game. And of course the rules were written when Pathfinder was just getting started, so you might have work to do to adjust encounters if your players are running later material with all its power creep.

However, overall, this is a fun adventure for low-level characters. The issue is that it isn't a good start to the Council of Thieves AP. This book leads the PCs to believe that they'll be part of some rebellion against Chelish rule in Westcrown. But the AP doesn't really touch on that a lot throughout most of the narrative. So this volume doesn't do a great job of introducing important themes, story beats, and NPCs that will be important later. This is a persistent problem with Paizo APs, and it's definitely present here.


Personally very good

5/5

I like its story telling.
Actually I unsatisfied from it's core-based setting (because CoT published 2009), but this is external factor.


Underrated Module

5/5

Just finsihed running this mod last week and I must say I really enjoyed this module. Though it is not perfect I think it has some very enjoyable qualities/situations, interesting NPCS, and a good story.

I must admit, that as a GM I did alot of editing and work (mainly to adjust my group being 6 players instead of 4, but also fleshing out side quests etc) to make it work.

Details:

To make this module work (as a whole as well as with future volumes) I would emphasize the shadows being a huge problem (A large side quest I wrote helped with this) in Westcrown from the beginning. It also helps to throw in Ailyn Ghontsavos (The pathfinder from vol 2) in the wagon w/ Arael, establishing her as a major character from the beginning, as she does her "research".)My party also enjoyed/ understood the idea of the "children of Westcrown" and they recruited a more members into the organization. I also had them do a few side quests (Variations of suggested ones in book, plus a few I threw in) to gain some more fame in Westcrown. (as well as get a better "feel" for the theme/setting of Westcrown. I had a tiefling ambush/encounter/story(from locals) in between each side quest to build up the suspense on the final lair as well.

NPCS:

I really enjoyed the NPCs in the adventure. .From the Leaders Arael and Janiven, to Monosino (the boy everyone ended up loving to hate), to all the children of Westcrown and their individual personality's and motivations. There was alot of interesting stories and it was fun role playing the different personalities with my PCs. They enjoyed this as well. (All there stories also help set the tone of the city)

My Favorite NPC from the module was Thesing Umbero Ulvauno. I look forward to his reoccurring roles in future APs.

The Meat and the Bones:

This module has some fun encounters/situations.
-The sewers are fun and the randomness a nice twist (though I would recommend "building" sewers before game to save time)
-Rescuing Arael was a fun and well written encounter. One of my favorite things in the module
-The tiefling lair is well built. Many ins/outs makes the tieflings extremely mobile (ambushing the PCS!) , and lead to fun encounters and situations
-The two tiefling baddies at end were well written and fun to GM. (I recommend combing them for a particularity lethal and super fun encounter)

The back matter of this Module is worth the price alone.

--A great detailed article on Westcrown. Essential for the AP, and a good read on its own.
--An awesome article of Tieflings, including all kinds of great fluff , but also many racial options and alternative traits (100 of them!).It also includes a wonderful chart of Random tielfing features (100 again) to help flesh out what the tielfings look like visually.
--Part one of a Story by Dave Gross. Need I say more?
--A wonderful bestiary that is also very helpful for the module itself. (Adding some old favorites from 3.5 as well as some fun new monsters)

Overall I really enjoyed this Adventure Path Volume!


On the wrong foot …

1/5

This review is about the Bastards of Erebus adventure, not the AP as a whole.

Bastards of Erebus fails both as the launching of the Council of Thieves adventure path and as an adventure in its own right. While I am willing to forgive the the conversion issues; there are several MAJOR problems with the story itself.

Spoilered for those individuals who intend to run this AP (including myself).

Spoiler:

  • The first problem starts before the adventure, with the CoT Player’s Guide. The provided “campaign traits” simply suggest little to no motivation for the heroes to want to accomplish the tasks of the Bastards, let alone the AP as a whole. The adventure attempts to fix this by requiring that the heroes must have a problem with the way the Westcrown is run, but that leads to the next problem.
  • Janiven Kay’s speech, two or more battles with the Order of the Rack Hellknights, and the introduction of Ariel’s group all imply that the heroes will be part of a resistance movement against House Thrune. Unfortunately, this is not what the AP is about at all, so this sets up a “bait-n-switch” almost as bad as Second Darkness.
  • As a side note, the battles with the Hellknights in this adventure ruin the buildup that the Hellknights had received in both Rise of the Runelords and especially Curse of the Crimson Throne. This adventure sets the Hellknights up as "keystone cops." Also, fighting the Hellknights in this adventure creates a dissonance with The Twice-Damned Prince where the heroes are expected to ally with the Hellkights.
  • The titular "Bastards of Erebus" gang seem to pop out of nowhere in “part 5” of a six part adventure. As they have done nothing to the characters, nor have any of the crimes in the city even been mentioned before now, so why would the heroes want to fight them? Worse, if any of the PCs are Tieflings themselves, these PCs are – if anything – going to be sympathetic to the Bastards.
  • Beyond that, the support articles are fine, though I wish that the included monsters in the AP installment’s Bestiary were more used in the adventure itself.

    All in all, I find myself needed to re-write this entire installment.


    Dreadfully underwritten and poor structure

    2/5

    As an introduction to the Council of Thieves AP, this adventure fails to impress. The first section is "have random encounters until you get bored", and the final section is terribly short. There are good ideas here, but they are buried by horrible writing and editing. It took our group of five players about 5 hours to play through the entire thing.


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    Paizo Employee Creative Director

    Rauol_Duke wrote:
    Out of curiousity, is there going to be an alternate cover for this issue like there was last GenCon for Shadow in the Sky and the GenCon before for Burnt Offerings?

    Yeah; the alternate cover tactic worked well for the first Pathfinder, but not as well for the third; it's not something we'll be continuing into the future.

    Paizo Employee Creative Director

    Spawn of Rovagug wrote:
    I'm curious - will the Council of Thieves Adventure Path have a player's guide like the previous four? 'Cause I can't seem to find one listed on the website. Or is it that the Pathfinder Companion book, Cheliax: Empire of Devils, is going to be the equivalent? (I have found the player's guides *very* helpful for giving guidelines for what sort of characters are most appropriate or useful for the game, as well as hints or interesting flavor for the campaign.)

    To add to Sean's answer...

    There will be a Player's Guide for Council of Thieves. It's going to be a free PDF; there won't be a print version of it. We're not 100% sure WHERE it'll be on the website yet, but it will be available at about the time Gen Con rolls around.

    EDIT: It'll be free, of course. :-)


    Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
    James Jacobs wrote:

    To add to Sean's answer...

    There will be a Player's Guide for Council of Thieves. It's going to be a free PDF; there won't be a print version of it. We're not 100% sure WHERE it'll be on the website yet, but it will be available at about the time Gen Con rolls around.

    EDIT: It'll be free, of course. :-)

    So.. will it cost anything?

    Does a happy dance.


    How comprehensive a gazetteer of Westcrown will we be looking at between these various documents? My GM made most of the Guide to Korvosa required reading prior to the start of our CotCT campaign, and I must say that having a reference for the city and its people has HUGELY improved the experience.

    RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32

    Majuba wrote:
    James Jacobs wrote:

    To add to Sean's answer...

    There will be a Player's Guide for Council of Thieves. It's going to be a free PDF; there won't be a print version of it. We're not 100% sure WHERE it'll be on the website yet, but it will be available at about the time Gen Con rolls around.

    EDIT: It'll be free, of course. :-)

    So.. will it cost anything?

    Does a happy dance.

    Only your soul.

    Paizo Employee Creative Director

    Jer wrote:
    How comprehensive a gazetteer of Westcrown will we be looking at between these various documents? My GM made most of the Guide to Korvosa required reading prior to the start of our CotCT campaign, and I must say that having a reference for the city and its people has HUGELY improved the experience.

    There's a 12-page article about Westcrown in PF 25.

    Each of the 6 adventures is 40 to 50 pages of additional Westcrown content, including descriptions of key locations, NPCs, and stuff like that built into the adventure.

    The Cheliax Pathfinder Companion will have 2 more pages on Westcrown (mostly player info) and lots more about Cheliax itself in the other 30 pages.

    The free Player's Guide to Council of Thieves PDF will have more information about the campaign and Westcrown. There's also going to be a section that talks relatively extensively about the immediate surroundings of Westcrown.

    Various other support articles in Pathfinder (such as the Tiefling article, the Hellknight Keeps article, etc.) will have more Westcrown info scattered inside.

    In the end, there'll probably be less information overall about Westcrown than there was about Korvosa, but the information about Westcrown will be, overall, more applicable to the adventure path than a fair amount of Korvosa's guide was. Since Curse of the Crimson Throne and Guide to Korvosa were created at the same time but not by the same writers, there ended up being more elements in the Guide to Korvosa book that didn't support elements in the AP as much, as well as elements that went into great detail about elements that didn't figure at all into the AP. This is a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you look at it, I guess.


    So, is that a new painting of Valeros on the cover? It certainly looks like him.

    Contributor

    The large picture on the cover is a new character you meet in the adventure. He's not Valeros.


    Would it be possible to add a "go to next adventure in this adventure path" button for the individual AP product pages? Just would make it much easier to cruise through all six rather than having to back out to the AP product list.

    And if the button is already there and I'm missing it please go easy on me -- it's 3am. =)


    Also the cover of this first release of the CoT AP is beige but the other five have a very dominant red coloring -- are they all going to look alike or will this one stick out? (Yeah, I'm OCD.)

    Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy

    BigWeather wrote:
    Also the cover of this first release of the CoT AP is beige but the other five have a very dominant red coloring -- are they all going to look alike or will this one stick out? (Yeah, I'm OCD.)

    The exact color scheme of an AP is usually not present in the placeholder art. When the final covers come in for everything after 25, they'll match as well.

    Speaking of which, do we have art for Sevenfold Trial, or any of the other September books yet?

    Dark Archive

    Adventure Path Charter Subscriber

    Ship already. The wife and kids are gone this week. Plenty of time to read. I know it's unlikely I will get them before the family gets home but I wish it would.

    Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

    BigWeather wrote:

    Would it be possible to add a "go to next adventure in this adventure path" button for the individual AP product pages? Just would make it much easier to cruise through all six rather than having to back out to the AP product list.

    And if the button is already there and I'm missing it please go easy on me -- it's 3am. =)

    Not a bad idea...

    Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

    BigWeather wrote:
    Also the cover of this first release of the CoT AP is beige but the other five have a very dominant red coloring -- are they all going to look alike or will this one stick out? (Yeah, I'm OCD.)

    This one is the finished cover; the rest are all mockups. The finished products will have this look.


    Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber

    I just downloaded my PDF and I had to pop over here and comment. Best Tiefling article ever! I mean, I really like David “Zeb” Cook's article in KQ6, but 100 alternative tiefling abilities is very cool.

    Now I want more articles about planar heritage races!

    Scarab Sages

    Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber
    deinol wrote:

    I just downloaded my PDF and I had to pop over here and comment. Best Tiefling article ever! I mean, I really like David “Zeb” Cook's article in KQ6, but 100 alternative tiefling abilities is very cool.

    Now I want more articles about planar heritage races!

    Just got mine too, and was looking to see who else did. I'm outta here!


    Hi all. Just got this. Will read it with interest tonight.

    Question, though, do AP subscribers not get the player's guide this time around? I don't see it in my downloads.
    M


    It won't be the Companion (no longer free), but a smaller Player's Guide, which I thought was going to be free. Not sure what the news on it is, though.

    Paizo Employee Creative Director

    mearrin69 wrote:

    Hi all. Just got this. Will read it with interest tonight.

    Question, though, do AP subscribers not get the player's guide this time around? I don't see it in my downloads.
    M

    The Player's Guide is a free PDF; there's no hardcopy version of it this time. It's also not done. It'll be available next week on the first day of Gen Con.


    There we are! Never try to outrun a fiendish T-Rex.

    RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32

    James Jacobs wrote:
    mearrin69 wrote:

    Hi all. Just got this. Will read it with interest tonight.

    Question, though, do AP subscribers not get the player's guide this time around? I don't see it in my downloads.
    M

    The Player's Guide is a free PDF; there's no hardcopy version of it this time. It's also not done. It'll be available next week on the first day of Gen Con.

    You are truly ... EVIL!


    Thanks for the clarification. I missed that news. Sad about no printed copy but I totally understand...can't have been terribly cost-effective. PDF is fine with me. I've looked at the RotRL guide much more than my players ever have. :)

    I'll just print a copy to have around if we ever get to this AP - you guys make more good stuff than we can ever get around to playing. Two years of publication and I've got 5 years of material (at least) to play through with my group!
    M

    Grand Lodge

    Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

    "Dramatis Personae"

    That's awesome. Thanks for putting that in there.

    -Skeld

    Grand Lodge

    Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

    By the way, when will the Player's Guide be available?

    -Skeld

    Dark Archive

    Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

    I skimmed it and read the Tiefling article. I liked the article a lot, the only thing is it wasn't clear on the random looks if you should roll once or more. Some of them in the book obviously had more than one at least one had as many as three.

    On that note it would have been nice to see more of them with out the horns in the artwork to represent that they are varied more like the article says.

    My only real complaint about the book... I wasn't a big fan of the style of the map of the city.


    Skeld wrote:

    By the way, when will the Player's Guide be available?

    -Skeld

    Posted above:

    James Jacobs wrote:
    mearrin69 wrote:

    Hi all. Just got this. Will read it with interest tonight.

    Question, though, do AP subscribers not get the player's guide this time around? I don't see it in my downloads.
    M

    The Player's Guide is a free PDF; there's no hardcopy version of it this time. It's also not done. It'll be available next week on the first day of Gen Con.

    Scarab Sages

    Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber
    Skeld wrote:

    By the way, when will the Player's Guide be available?

    -Skeld

    Not to be smart, but James answered this a few posts up. Next week on the first day of Gen Con. ;)

    Also there is mentioned a Council of Thieves Gamemaster Guide PDF in the AP. Hope this comes out at the same time.

    EDIT: Ya got me!

    Liberty's Edge

    I am so looking forward to this! That being said, Legacy of Fire has things like Paper minatures and 3-D Terrain (I give thanks to the respective companies) so will this follow suit or is this "putting the cart before the ox"? No problem if it's not! Just wondering.


    Dark_Mistress wrote:
    My only real complaint about the book... I wasn't a big fan of the style of the map of the city.

    That jumped out at me too. I could maybe grow to like it though.

    In general I sort of thought the design wasn't *quite* as nice as the previous APs. Something changed but I can't quite put my finger on what it was. Not complaining at all...it's lovely...just something I noticed. BTW, is the rest of the AP not going to look like the first volume or are those just old mock-ups on the product page? I actually like the darker cover of #2-#6 better.
    M

    RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32

    Dark_Mistress wrote:
    I skimmed it and read the Tiefling article. I liked the article a lot, the only thing is it wasn't clear on the random looks if you should roll once or more. Some of them in the book obviously had more than one at least one had as many as three.

    Now you are just being mean. ;)

    Dark Archive

    Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
    Lord Fyre wrote:
    Dark_Mistress wrote:
    I skimmed it and read the Tiefling article. I liked the article a lot, the only thing is it wasn't clear on the random looks if you should roll once or more. Some of them in the book obviously had more than one at least one had as many as three.
    Now you are just being mean. ;)

    Um yeah, and? You have noticed my name and avatar right? I think being mean is a requirement. :)

    Contributor

    Dark_Mistress wrote:
    I skimmed it and read the Tiefling article. I liked the article a lot, the only thing is it wasn't clear on the random looks if you should roll once or more. Some of them in the book obviously had more than one at least one had as many as three.

    Roll as often as you want, or pick traits that you like. The tieflings in the book weren't generated using the table.

    Dark Archive

    Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
    Sean K Reynolds wrote:
    Dark_Mistress wrote:
    I skimmed it and read the Tiefling article. I liked the article a lot, the only thing is it wasn't clear on the random looks if you should roll once or more. Some of them in the book obviously had more than one at least one had as many as three.
    Roll as often as you want, or pick traits that you like. The tieflings in the book weren't generated using the table.

    Yeah i figured, but thought I should mention it. Since I noticed it and it is not clear on that point.

    Don't get me wrong I liked it a lot but as I said noticed it and thought I would mention it. A sentence or two saying that I think would have helped make it more clear.


    This looks nice, but I do miss the stories on the inside covers.

    The Exchange

    Excuse me while I have a geek-gasim.

    Spoiler:
    OMG! Rot Grubs!!! Fracking bad ASS! I can't wait to see the look of sheer horror when the PCs come across these. evil grin

    Haven't read the Tiefling bits yet, but can't wait to get hopme tonight.

    Over all, I like.

    Liberty's Edge

    I am feeling giddy with pleasure - it's pending! How much more time to wait now... I can almost hear my inbox say "YOU HAVE MAIL!"... aahhhh


    Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber; Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber

    There was only one thing that really confused me in the Tiefling abilities section. The ability where your Fiendish Sorcery ability treats your charisma as 3 points higher. Is this a new ability Tieflings are getting? Or is it in regards to say a Tiefling who is a sorcerer with the Infernal bloodline?

    Dark Archive

    Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
    Robert Jordan wrote:
    There was only one thing that really confused me in the Tiefling abilities section. The ability where your Fiendish Sorcery ability treats your charisma as 3 points higher. Is this a new ability Tieflings are getting? Or is it in regards to say a Tiefling who is a sorcerer with the Infernal bloodline?

    It would apply to bards as well I would imagine and any Sorc bloodline, though yeah it would only really make sense for a tiefling to have a bloodline that matched their heritage.


    This AP has forced my hand: I have subscribed. Now send me the glorious goodies! :-)

    Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

    mearrin69 wrote:
    BTW, is the rest of the AP not going to look like the first volume or are those just old mock-ups on the product page?

    I posted the answer 15 posts above your question:

    Vic Wertz wrote:
    This one is the finished cover; the rest are all mockups. The finished products will have this look.

    Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

    Kevida wrote:
    I am so looking forward to this! That being said, Legacy of Fire has things like Paper minatures and 3-D Terrain (I give thanks to the respective companies) so will this follow suit or is this "putting the cart before the ox"? No problem if it's not! Just wondering.

    I'm sure these things will eventually appear. When that happens is largely up to the respective publishers.


    Vic Wertz wrote:
    I posted the answer 15 posts above your question:

    Thanks. Missed that the first time through.

    M

    Liberty's Edge

    Ok I read through some of the book but mainly stopped at the Tiefling section. I thought it was a pretty great read except it was missing something that always bugged me about the core stuff to.

    CAN the parent be something OTHER then a human on the mortal side? Can it be elven? Dwarf? Whatever?

    If so does this affect their age and how long they live? How long DO they live anyway? Any longer then a human if it's a human as the mortal with the powerful blood of an immortal demon/devil (assuming they are immortal). What about if it's an elf (assuming it COULD be an elf).

    I was hoping something like that would have been answered so that was the only let down of the article. Otherwise good stuff.

    Paizo Employee Creative Director

    Misery wrote:

    CAN the parent be something OTHER then a human on the mortal side? Can it be elven? Dwarf? Whatever?

    If so does this affect their age and how long they live? How long DO they live anyway? Any longer then a human if it's a human as the mortal with the powerful blood of an immortal demon/devil (assuming they are immortal). What about if it's an elf (assuming it COULD be an elf).

    I was hoping something like that would have been answered so that was the only let down of the article. Otherwise good stuff.

    Nope; part of what being a tiefling is is that you had a human parent. There were several other variant planetouched races that had non-human parents detailed in, I believe, the Fiend Folio or maybe it was MM3 from WotC. But for a tiefling, you have to have a human parent. As for how long tieflnigs live—I'd say in the lack of anything to the contrary that their lifespan is about the same as a human.

    Liberty's Edge

    James Jacobs wrote:
    Misery wrote:

    CAN the parent be something OTHER then a human on the mortal side? Can it be elven? Dwarf? Whatever?

    If so does this affect their age and how long they live? How long DO they live anyway? Any longer then a human if it's a human as the mortal with the powerful blood of an immortal demon/devil (assuming they are immortal). What about if it's an elf (assuming it COULD be an elf).

    I was hoping something like that would have been answered so that was the only let down of the article. Otherwise good stuff.

    Nope; part of what being a tiefling is is that you had a human parent. There were several other variant planetouched races that had non-human parents detailed in, I believe, the Fiend Folio or maybe it was MM3 from WotC. But for a tiefling, you have to have a human parent. As for how long tieflnigs live—I'd say in the lack of anything to the contrary that their lifespan is about the same as a human.

    Ok thank you. And yes, they had feytouched in fiend folio as well as half feys (feytouched being my favorite touched race to date which i still use) but was really curious how the tiefling/aasimar thing would go down.

    Now I know. And a big thank you for the age. That kind of thing sometimes matters in the campaigns we run based on how long things happen, etc etc.

    The Exchange RPG Superstar 2009 Top 4

    Sean, is there any chance the players will get to sell their souls to a devil... or am I going to have to write that in?

    Dark Archive

    Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber
    James Jacobs wrote:
    As for how long tieflnigs live—I'd say in the lack of anything to the contrary that their lifespan is about the same as a human.

    2e Planewalker's Handbook gave ages for Tieflings and Aasimar, though they're not quite the same as 3e ages. (I'm including the human ages for an idea of how to base a conversion if you want it.)

    Race_______Starting Age____Middle Aged____Old____Venerable___Max Age
    Aasimar____16+1d6__________62________83_____125_____125+2d20
    Human_____15+1d4__________45_________60_____90______90+2d20
    Tiefling_____17+2d4__________50________67_____100_____100+d%

    3e Humans are 15 +1d4/+1d6/+2d6, 35/53/70, Max +2d20

    Paizo Employee Creative Director

    TheTwitching King wrote:
    Sean, is there any chance the players will get to sell their souls to a devil... or am I going to have to write that in?

    That may or may not show up at some point in the adventure path. We'll see!

    Paizo Employee Creative Director

    Dark_Mistress wrote:
    I skimmed it and read the Tiefling article. I liked the article a lot, the only thing is it wasn't clear on the random looks if you should roll once or more. Some of them in the book obviously had more than one at least one had as many as three.

    As a general rule... role once. But if you want to roll more than once, there's no reason why you shouldn't. I can tell you one thing for sure: we're not going to be cross-referencing ALL of the tiefling art we get from here on out with this table. That's madness. The table should be an idea-starting point, not the LAW on tiefling looks. And since the tiefling appearance things are just flavor, you can go to town and roll a dozen times or more if you want. Won't hurt game balance at all, but it WILL make your character seem more like a weirdo to most commonfolk... ;-P

    Dark_Mistress wrote:
    On that note it would have been nice to see more of them with out the horns in the artwork to represent that they are varied more like the article says.

    I agree that would have been nice, but we're on a tight schedule... ESPECIALLY for books that release around Gen Con, and often we have to say "go with that art" when we might not otherwise, given infinite cash and infinite time to have the artists change things around. We will have a lot more tieflings illustrated over the course of the AP, though, and we're trying to make them all look different. Whether or not our artists play along... we'll see! :)

    Dark_Mistress wrote:
    My only real complaint about the book... I wasn't a big fan of the style of the map of the city.

    We're certainly trying a new style with the city map here. I kind of like it; it gets the idea of the city's shape across well but doesn't make it look like we're trying to show EVERY separate building on the map, which at a scale to do that, we would have had to print the map of Westcrown on a sleeping bag sized piece of paper. Also, the map itself looks like it's "in world" and thus, you can show it to the PCs and it'll feel more authentic.

    I'd love to hear more about what folks think of the map!

    Paizo Employee Creative Director

    Gray wrote:
    This looks nice, but I do miss the stories on the inside covers.

    We try to do something different with each AP's inside covers. The stories seemed to go over well... but that's also because there's a strong element of genies telling stories in that AP.

    For Council of Thieves, since the whole AP takes place on the same map, it made more sense to put that map on one inside cover. And since there's a LOT of NPCs in the AP, and since the theater and acting and lies and all that are such a big part of the AP, it made sense to use the other cover to present each adventure's NPCs in this way.

    We'll be doing something else for Kingmaker, of course. Not sure what yet...

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