During the hubbub over the Previous Big Announcement, Paizo staff mentioned that those of us who aspire to publish something with them should think about submitting monsters for the Pathfinder books. We were told to wait until the dust settled, and there would be an announcement of how to do it.
Sorry if I've missed something, but has this announcement been made? If so, could you direct me to it? If not, is there any further word? I know you're all still busy trying to get the thing off the ground, so I'll understand if we're not there yet.
...Paizo staff mentioned that those of us who aspire to publish something with them should think about submitting monsters for the Pathfinder books....Sorry if I've missed something, but has this announcement been made?
Check the "Writing for Paizo" thread. Some of the commentary shared at GenCon addressed monster submissions...
Here's the paraphrased details from that thread:
#1 - Pathfinder Monsters
-- Within a week or two they'll post formal guidelines.
-- They're mostly looking for completely new monsters or something inspired by real world mythology (see the Sandpoint Devil from Burnt Offerings for an example).
-- Each monster submission will comprise 1200-1400 words in a 2-page spread. The write-up should include the creature's stat block, ecology/habitat, then some interesting sidenotes or sidebars detailing such things as: variant forms of the creature; using one as a PC; nursery rhymes or folklore about the creature; legends, superstitions, or origin stories; roles the creature might fulfill; sample treasure it might have; how the creature might function in different climates; etc.
-- Stat block format should generally follow what you see in the current issue of Pathfinder.
-- As a general rule, monsters should never have 4 or more special abilities because they likely won't get to use them in a single encounter. Special abilities also eat up too much word count, so avoid too many.
-- They're looking for monsters of all levels and CRs in each issue, because some GMs will not be running the adventure but will still want use a creature for their own game from the Pathfinder bestiary section. That being said, each Pathfinder will have a certain theme associated with the region in which the adventure takes place. So they're more interested in monsters that will fit the region or locale (i.e., arctic vs. aquatic vs. forest vs. desert vs. mountains...and urban vs. wilderness vs. subterranean...and so on).
-- They don't have an official cap on CRs for creature submissions, but you're much more likely to get published if you can keep it at CR 15 or lower. Also, keep in mind, the higher CR creatures tend to take up more word-count with their stat blocks and special abilities. The "sweet spot" for monster submissions will probably fall in the CR 5-12 range.
-- Re-imaging of existing monsters (like the goblins or ogres) will primarily be done by the Paizo staff. So a submission in that area will need to be highly creative to gain acceptance. If you do pursue a re-imaging of an existing monster, don't just make it a stronger variant. Instead make it specialized somehow.
-- They're only doing 6 monsters per book. At least 3 or 4 of those are created by the author of the adventure...but the rest are open for someone else to create. In Burnt Offerings, some of the Paizo staff contributed the extras, I believe.
-- They've already booked all of the monsters that will appear in Pathfinder's 1-4. Pathfinder 5 and 6 still have some openings. And, of course, the second Pathfinder campaign arc is open as well.
-- You can post your monster submissions on the Paizo messageboards or you can email them directly to someone on the Pathfinder team. Eventually, they'll have a pathfinder@paizo.com email address for submissions, but they don't have it working quite yet.
Hope that helps,
--Neil
Creative Director
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Pathfinder 6 actually won't have any openings; Greg Vaughan's adventure includes nine new monsters, from what I hear.
Pathfinder 5 currently has 1 opening, and we're doing the art order today so we'll probably get that sixth monster from one of our current freelancers or just build it in-house.
It's probably not going to be until Pathfinder #7 that we'll really start looking for monster submissions as a result. By which point we should have our writer's guidelies up on our site somewhere.