Chief Technical Officer
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We've just announced a bunch of Pathfinder Chronicles products!
October: Pathfinder Chronicles: Gods & Magic
November: Pathfinder Chronicles—Item Cards: Second Darkness Deck
November: Pathfinder Chronicles: Into the Darklands
December: Pathfinder Chronicles: Guide to Absalom
Note that the covers are provisional.
We haven't officially decided what edition these products support yet, but we expect to announce a decision within a couple of weeks.
*explodes with joy*
*squee*
Good stuff.
Sounds like you settled on the "Darklands" for Golarion's Underdark. I was hoping for something a little more exotic sounding, myself. Also sounds like Absolom will be Golarion's Greyhawk (the city, that is). Nice.
Gods and Magic.
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Score.
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Creative Director
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Yup; Golarion's "Underdark" is indeed known as the Darklands. Although the creatures that dwell therein certainly have various other names for it... it's what the surface folk call it that sticks up here. And they call them the Darklands. We wanted a name that was simple and descriptive, like, well, like "underdark." Which is, itself, not all that exotic sounding.
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Yup; Golarion's "Underdark" is indeed known as the Darklands. Although the creatures that dwell therein certainly have various other names for it... it's what the surface folk call it that sticks up here. And they call them the Darklands. We wanted a name that was simple and descriptive, like, well, like "underdark." Which is, itself, not all that exotic sounding.
Darklands is a lot more evocative than Underdark, if you ask me. Underdark is what you find molding under the bed. Darklands are where you find Things that skitter just out of range of your light, chirping and chittering as they go.
I am also definitely looking forward to Gods and Magic. I just hope it has plenty of detail on things like the holy days, ceremonies, and other fiddly bits about the religions to help add a lot of character to a religious PC.
How many of these new products I pick up will depend partly on what edition you guys go with (I know that you won't have a decision made for a few more weeks). But the Absalom (sp) and Darkland suppliments will probably end up in my collection just because of the maps alone (I am a HUGE sucker for maps).
I had so much money, too...
Now, where was my third and fourth kidney again? *fails Search check*
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Now, where was my third and fourth kidney again? *fails Search check*
Heh. Those are an Epic-level DC to find, I'm afraid. Even a Human with Doctor 20 and maxed-out Profession (Surgeon) and Search rarely manages to discover them.
Me, I'm glad I have a reasonably reliable and profitable job to fund this all with...
October: Pathfinder Chronicles: Gods & Magic
[snip]
We haven't officially decided what edition these products support yet, but we expect to announce a decision within a couple of weeks.
*Hopefull little Kobold crosses his fingers that its all in 3.5*
We've just announced a bunch of Pathfinder Chronicles products!
October: Pathfinder Chronicles: Gods & Magic
November: Pathfinder Chronicles—Item Cards: Second Darkness Deck
November: Pathfinder Chronicles: Into the Darklands
December: Pathfinder Chronicles: Guide to Absalom
Note that the covers are provisional.
We haven't officially decided what edition these products support yet, but we expect to announce a decision within a couple of weeks.
I'll buy it if its 3.5. I'm holding off on all Game Mastery and Pathfinder and for that matter Paizo purchases until I know for sure this series will be 3.5.
Yup; Golarion's "Underdark" is indeed known as the Darklands. Although the creatures that dwell therein certainly have various other names for it... it's what the surface folk call it that sticks up here. And they call them the Darklands. We wanted a name that was simple and descriptive, like, well, like "underdark." Which is, itself, not all that exotic sounding.
Since WotC and the Lady Penitent series virtually nuked my City of the Spider Queen - sequel attempt, yet the material is still there, Paizo does not actively looking for more input on that book right now, I suspect? Setting, NPCs from high to low level, new monsters, freshly converted tentacle rods and the like all at the ready.
We've just announced a bunch of Pathfinder Chronicles products!
December: Pathfinder Chronicles: Guide to Absalom
Awesome! That'll be the one I'm getting! (And maybe even if it's 4e, since a lot of the other Chronicles city books are very light on the rules, supposedly.)
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October: Pathfinder Chronicles: Gods & Magic
November: Pathfinder Chronicles: Into the Darklands
These are the two I'm looking forward to the most. :)
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This lineup excites me, but it also concerns me. Here's why: One of the frequent criticisms of WotC was the push to have about 3 new books each month. Is anyone else concerned with 1 GMM, 1 PF, and 1 PC product each month? So far the products have been very good, and by my tag line you can see that I am a strong supporter, but I worry about "too many" products. I personally think the PC products could be spread out a little more. Is it just me?
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This lineup excites me, but it also concerns me. Here's why: One of the frequent criticisms of WotC was the push to have about 3 new books each month. Is anyone else concerned with 1 GMM, 1 PF, and 1 PC product each month? So far the products have been very good, and by my tag line you can see that I am a strong supporter, but I worry about "too many" products. I personally think the PC products could be spread out a little more. Is it just me?
but for the WOTC monthly products, each was 29.95+ - where you can get the pathfinder and GMM for that, and there are 5 times as many interesting pages in just the 32 page GMM than there were in the normal WOTC product (in my view)
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but for the WOTC monthly products, each was 29.95+ - where you can get the pathfinder and GMM for that, and there are 5 times as many interesting pages in just the 32 page GMM than there were in the normal WOTC product (in my view)
More like $39.95 for everything these days. All that shiny colorful art costs money, y'know! Gotta keep people distracted from the lack of useful content *somehow*... And by useful content, I mean both fluff and crunch. One chapter of helpful information is seriously outweighed by several chapters of drek.
I personally think the PC products could be spread out a little more. Is it just me?
It's not just you. It's a concern of mine as well.
I'd prefer Paizo concentrate on adventure and setting books rather than books about mechanical options for PCs.
Just to clarify: By PC I mean "Pathfinder Chronicles" as opposed to "Player Character".
My bad. Never mind then. When I see PC I can't help but think "Player Character". It's part of my D&D conditioning.
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I wonder how the Gods & Magic book will complement the deity-articles from PF.
Will we see reprints of Desna etc. in the book?
It would make perfect sense to have everything in the same place.
Will you use the format from the deity-articles for the descriptions in the book as well?
And will there still be deity-articles in PF after the release of the book?
I'm really curious...
Looks to me like most of these items are relatively edition-neutral anyway, Gods & Magic being the obvious exception. I'll pick them all up in any case, as I'm sure they'll be useful no matter which way Paizo goes.
Now to push for earlier release ;D
To be honest, I hope the Gods and Magic is still relatively system-neutral, at least the Gods aspect. The Book of the Righteous (by Green Ronin, IIRC) is one of the best gaming books on Gods I've ever seen, with most of the book devoted to useful fluff, and very little to crunch. I hope that Gods and Magic follows that format, at least the Gods section of it.
(Of course, I realize I'm in the minority - I'm using all of Paizo's stuff for Savage Worlds, so I am a bit biased on the fluff to crunch factor. For all of the Pathfinder material so far, this hasn't been an issue because the story and the fluff is _SO_ good that converting pieces of crunch here or there is well worth it, and I really hope it continues that way.)
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Creative Director
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While we still haven't outlined "Gods & Magic," I've got a relatively good idea of how this book will probably break down, so I can answer these questions with 96% accuracy.
Will we see reprints of Desna etc. in the book?
All 20 of our core deities (including Desna, Lamashtu, etc.) will be represented. Each deity will get a two-page treatment that will likely include an illustraiton of the deity, notes about the deity's faith, what kind of characters worship that deity, a unique spell used by worshipers of that deity, and certainly some other info. We'll also have information on several lesser deities (like Groetus, Ghlaunder, Droskar, and Minderhal) as well.
Will you use the format from the deity-articles for the descriptions in the book as well?
No. This book won't be long enough to do a full Pathfinder-style writeup for each of the 20 core deities. The information in Gods & Magic will compliment the info in their Pathfinder articles, but won't be complete duplications. A good analogue on how this'll work can be seen in how we handled the Demonomicon of Iggwilv articles in Dragon and then did some more info for the same subjects in Fiendish Codex I: Hordes of the Abyss. (NOTE: Gods and Magic will NOT have stat blocks for the gods!)
And will there still be deity-articles in PF after the release of the book?
Yes, there absolutely will.
We'll also have information on several lesser deities (like Groetus, Ghlaunder, Droskar, and Minderhal) as well.
And will there still be deity-articles in PF after the release of the book?
Yes, there absolutely will.
YEAH AND DOUBLE YEAH!!!
(NOTE: Gods and Magic will NOT have stat blocks for the gods!)
That fact alone may get me to buy this book regardless of rules.
Ahh well so much for dispoable income. Look forward to these products. I'm really interested to see what paizo does with the darklands. I personally never really got in to the underdark for some reason. It was/is an amazing concept but I am just not that in to it. At least these product seem to be well spaced out.
I don't mind pathfinder chronicles becoming a more regular subscription if its well written and well scheduled. Just as long as I don't have to spend $60 on it in one month (just looked at the chronicles page again and march is looking a little less crowded now).
Anyway excited about all these products. Final I'sd be really happy with a pretty big section on the more minor gods as sometimes they can be the most interresting.
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a question about the Gods book.
Will it include any myths or some other flavor about the gods or their worshippers. What I mean is take he Greek Myths and you find lots of interesting gods, but also stories bout what the gods did, heroes of the gods and such.
D&D has never really had stories like Hercules, and Troy and Zeus and Leeda (sp?) and it has always seemed so lacking of interest.
Rather than some facts about worship or domains I would rather stories that make characters want to worship them. Some myth, in other words.
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That fact alone may get me to buy this book regardless of rules.(NOTE: Gods and Magic will NOT have stat blocks for the gods!)
Stat blocks for gods don't bother me. What bothers me is what Wizards did in 3E.
Can't have gods until you have a set Epic rule set and Wizards forgot that. They created god rules before epic rules were finalized and while all that was going on they started on the Forgotten Realms stuff and ended up with 4 different level 20+ rule sets (even though the god rules didn't tell you how to get there.)
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Creative Director
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a question about the Gods book.
Will it include any myths or some other flavor about the gods or their worshippers. What I mean is take he Greek Myths and you find lots of interesting gods, but also stories bout what the gods did, heroes of the gods and such.
Yes, it will. That's one of the things we're already building into the articles about the deities in Pathfinder, in fact, but yes, there will be stories about the gods, myths, fables, parables, and the like.
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That fact alone may get me to buy this book regardless of rules.(NOTE: Gods and Magic will NOT have stat blocks for the gods!)
Stat blocks for gods don't bother me. What bothers me is what Wizards did in 3E.
Can't have gods until you have a set Epic rule set and Wizards forgot that. They created god rules before epic rules were finalized and while all that was going on they started on the Forgotten Realms stuff and ended up with 4 different level 20+ rule sets (even though the god rules didn't tell you how to get there.)
This should be the default stat block for any god:
COWER BEFORE ME, MORTAL.
Haven't seen the deities so far (can someone kindly point me at a PF book that covers/names them?), but I would like to know whether we have a set pantheon venerated by all (e.g. "Goddess of Night" venerated by elves, humans, hobgoblins, but under different names) or whether we will see a number of pantheons, e.g. for the elves, humans and orcs?
Regarding stats and deities, the latter do not need the former. The Forgotten Realms had a decent enough version presented in the F&A series, i.e. very powerful avatars. The deities were simply limited in the numbers of avatars they could have at the same time. That would be good enough for any hero to aspire (and write him-/herself into the deity's badbooks). The later books of 3,5E re-invented this by giving the archfiends so-called "aspects".
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Haven't seen the deities so far (can someone kindly point me at a PF book that covers/names them?), but I would like to know whether we have a set pantheon venerated by all (e.g. "Goddess of Night" venerated by elves, humans, hobgoblins, but under different names) or whether we will see a number of pantheons, e.g. for the elves, humans and orcs?
The pantheon of 20 is pretty much universal, from what we have been told. There are further minor gods, and some races have their own gods as well as modified versions of the pantheon.
There is some info in the AP players' guides: holy symbols, domains, favoured weapons, alignments.
There are extensive single deity articles in PF2 and PF5. There will be 2 per Adventure Path.
There is also some info in the forums and on the Blog, if you dig.
Other than that, we are all waiting for the Gazetteer, the Campaign Guide and Gods & Magic.
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Creative Director
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Haven't seen the deities so far (can someone kindly point me at a PF book that covers/names them?), but I would like to know whether we have a set pantheon venerated by all (e.g. "Goddess of Night" venerated by elves, humans, hobgoblins, but under different names) or whether we will see a number of pantheons, e.g. for the elves, humans and orcs?
Regarding stats and deities, the latter do not need the former. The Forgotten Realms had a decent enough version presented in the F&A series, i.e. very powerful avatars. The deities were simply limited in the numbers of avatars they could have at the same time. That would be good enough for any hero to aspire (and write him-/herself into the deity's badbooks). The later books of 3,5E re-invented this by giving the archfiends so-called "aspects".
The book itself will be 64 pages long. There'll be about 40 pages dedicated to the 20 core deities (each will get a spread, kind of like how we do monsters in Pathfinder, but there'll be less stats, obviously, and more flavor text). I'd love to have each of these deities presented with a new themed spell. These 20 core deities are worshiped by all manner of races in Golarion, be they human, elf, gnome, minotaur, or lamia. They're the 20 most "popular" deities in our world.
There'll be about 10 pages detailing lesser deities (such as Ghlaunder, Droskar, Minderhal, Groetus, and various other deities of our world), along with some philosophies and other non-deity religions. This is likely where you'll be seeing more specialized racial deities (likely no more than 3 or 4, and certainly not for every race in the world).
The final 10 pages or so will be new spells and magic items, I suspect. Not all of these will be cleric spells, either. Wizards and bards and rangers and paladins and sorcerers and druids and assassins won't be left out.
Which leaves us about 4 pages for the other stuff (table of contents, introductions, etc.).
We're not really taking a "Deities have avatars" thing in our world. Instead, each deity has a herald, a CR 15 creature that can be conjured, generally speaking, with gate or greater planar ally. Heralds actually fill mostly the same role as an aspect. We're presenting these in Pathfinder along with the corresponding deity article. This doesn't rule out the possiblity of us presenting deity avatar stat blocks at some point in the future, but that's not going to be a part of "Gods and Magic."