Goblin Squad Member
|
Reward Survey
Thanks for supporting Pathfinder Online! We promised you the ability to vote for the themes of the Thornkeep dungeon levels by Jason Bulmahn, James Jacobs, and Erik Mona, and now's your chance! We need your answers Reward Survey
Thanks for supporting Pathfinder Online! We promised you the ability to vote for the themes of the Thornkeep dungeon levels by Jason Bulmahn, James Jacobs, and Erik Mona, and now's your chance! We need your answers by 12:01 AM Pacific Time on Thursday, June 14. We also need your T-shirt size.
Options for Jason Bulmahn's level:
Haunted Crypts: The dead do not rest easy in the crypts beneath the goblin warren. Undead prowl the ancient halls, but one lone figure moves among them, clad in scarlet robes, bearing an ancient silver lantern. What's worse, the dead seem to follow his commands.
Lord of Webs: The halls beneath the goblin den are the home of countless spiders, spinning thick webs that block the way and snare the unwary. More than just mindless hunters, the spiders act with purpose, funneling their prey into the deeper halls where an even more dangerous foe awaits.
The Statuary: Some master craftsman must have spent a lifetime carving all the statues carefully placed throughout the halls beneath the goblin lair. Oddly, the statues seem to be telling a story. While the meaning is not entirely clear, one thing is certain: Something terrible happened here and the malevolence behind it still lurks nearby.
Watery Grave: The caverns beneath the goblin tribe's lair are flooded in places, apparently intentionally. Cunning traps and deadly chambers await those brave enough to risk the dark waters. Worse still, there are creatures that have taken up residence here, hunting in the stagnant pools.
Forgotten Laboratory: The goblins of the dungeon's upper level took more than one trinket from the ancient laboratory that dwells beneath them. The wizard that created these items also performed dangerous experiments, many of which have gone out of control over the years. Stranger still, someone appears to be using the ancient equipment with sinister results.
Options for James Jacobs' level:
Caverns of the Blind God: The degenerate descendants of the wizard's apprentices live on in these tangled caverns in a way, although their lives are in fact unlives, for they have become ghouls and worse. They follow the commands of the squirming thing they know as the Blind God, a creature that dwells at the heart of the caverns and who will soon wish to spread its influence into the lands above.
The Clockwork Crux: The mad wizard who built and dwelt in these dungeons kept many secrets in a complex, clockwork library whose chambers at once point shifted and moved, yet now these chambers have fallen into disrepair and lie in a tangled, haphazardly connected mess—a mess that has become infested with strange and sinister intruders from the Darklands deep below.
The Enigma Vaults: In ages past, the mad wizard who dwelt in these halls collected many strange items in his travels—and the strangest of those he put on display here, in a museum-like complex he called the Enigma Vaults. When a group of thieves made their way into the vaults in hopes of a huge payday, they released something far beyond their capacity to control, and now they serve as the thralls of a sinister influence from a dark and distant world.
Fane of the Serpent Fiend: In the halls of a vast temple once devoted to the demon lord of serpents, strange shapes slither through the shadows. Here, a monstrous serpent infused with strange magic from the Abyss rules, and its devoted followers chant prayers to its squamous glory as they scour the wilds above for fresh sacrifices.
The Shrouded Chambers: In what was once a magnificent complex of glittering banquet halls, fine bathing chambers, silk-draped harem rooms, and decadent deviations, strange fungal growths have taken root. What dwells here now is a foul mockery of the beauty that once graced these halls, and the creatures that now dwell within comprise the foul court of a sinister fungus queen who has turned her eyes to the lands above.
Options for Erik Mona's level:
The Halls of Refuse: The malignant leakage of 100 centuries pools in this fetid ruin, smeared with ancient oozes and polluted by far more contemporary mutants. With rival adventurers seeking to plunder the halls of their remaining treasures and a bizarre intelligence fueling the amorphous inhabitants, the Halls of Refuse promise rich rewards for those willing to risk an oozy oblivion.
Sanctum of a Lost Age: Scholars claim the dungeons below Thornkeep were built by the Ancient Azlanti, but how do they know, really? If Rozimus of Tymon speaks true, the third level below the goblin warrens holds survivors of that long-dead empire eager to return to the world and share the lore of their glorious age. They're not undead, Rozimus claims, or illusory phantoms, but true living and breathing High Azlanti! But why does Rozimus know so much about them, and why is he so eager to return to the dungeon he claims almost killed him 5 years ago?
The Grand Estate of Marquis Dorvenium Thallan (In Exile): Agents of the Gray Gardeners have tracked the infamous Galtan noble Lord Dorvenium Thallan to a ruined dungeon below Thornkeep, where he and his murderous agents fled the justice of the Final Blades at the dawn of the Red Revolution. Rumors claim Thallan liberated the treasures of several high-placed Galtans before fleeing here, and ever since True Patriots of Galt and the scoundrels of the River Kingdoms have tried to crack his lair and return the ill-gotten goods to the People (or, alternatively, to their own barren coffers).
Dust of the Darklands: Delving deeper beneath the dungeons of Thornkeep leads to an ancient temple overrun by the vanguard of an army of Darklands beasts boiling up from the depths! What fell designs does the unlikely alliance of gray dwarves, and morlocks have on the surface world? What is the creature they refer to as the "Veiled Master" that seems to lead them? And why do they seem to be fleeing something even worse from deeper below?
Final Exam: Decades ago, a long-dead River Kingdoms lodge of the Pathfinder Society used a dungeon below Thornkeep as a makeshift headquarters and final testing ground for their most promising agents. Sealed records in the deepest vaults of the Society's headquarters in Absalom suggest that the "infernal exam" housed in the dungeon eventually spelled the doom of the entire lodge, whose corpses lurk there still as animate proctors, still administering their challenges to those brave enough to attempt them.
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I tend to vote for things I haven't seen before
so I like STATUARY for Buhlman's ... it gives a sense of story/mystery ... What stories do the statues tell? ... The others seem rinse/repeat oldies but goodies (undead, spiders, abandoned lab, etc)
ENIGMA VAULTS was my choice for Jacobs' level for the same reasons above, it just seems a story untold. Where were all these artifacts found, and what do they have in common?
SANCTUM OF A LOST AGE was my vote for Mona's level. The tie-in with the Azlanti was interesting especially the fact that they are not undead even after all of these years. How have they survived this long? Fountain of Youth? (although I also liked FINAL EXAM)
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
My picks!
My idea of perfect puzzle-driven levels:
Options for Jason Bulmahn's level:
The Statuary: Some master craftsman must have spent a lifetime carving all the statues carefully placed throughout the halls beneath the goblin lair. Oddly, the statues seem to be telling a story. While the meaning is not entirely clear, one thing is certain: Something terrible happened here and the malevolence behind it still lurks nearby.
Options for James Jacobs' level:
The Enigma Vaults: In ages past, the mad wizard who dwelt in these halls collected many strange items in his travels—and the strangest of those he put on display here, in a museum-like complex he called the Enigma Vaults. When a group of thieves made their way into the vaults in hopes of a huge payday, they released something far beyond their capacity to control, and now they serve as the thralls of a sinister influence from a dark and distant world.
Options for Erik Mona's level:
Final Exam: Decades ago, a long-dead River Kingdoms lodge of the Pathfinder Society used a dungeon below Thornkeep as a makeshift headquarters and final testing ground for their most promising agents. Sealed records in the deepest vaults of the Society's headquarters in Absalom suggest that the "infernal exam" housed in the dungeon eventually spelled the doom of the entire lodge, whose corpses lurk there still as animate proctors, still administering their challenges to those brave enough to attempt them.
:)
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
My selection : Statuary... Clockwork Crux... Final exam...
Very promising for the design of the levels : the statues, the clockwork library, the Pathfinder lodge... I'd like to explore that.
I like the scenarii which will help to create something visually unique for the MMO (Azlanti architecture... Pathfinder halls...). It will be more difficult to create a special environment with flooded caverns and cobwebs, IMHO
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
Just so everybody's clear here: this is not a voting thread; the actual voting is only available to Kickstarter backers, who must place their votes through the Kickstarter survey tool.
Feel free to discuss it, of course—I just didn't want anybody to get the wrong idea.
umm ... yeah I wish I could remove the word "Here" from my OP title
the OP was just a copy/paste of the email/survey
sorry to confuse
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
My votes were:
Forgotten Laboratory (Plastic tubes and pots n' pans why can no one understand~)
Clockwork Crux (Oooooh a tiny touch of steam punky magic)
The Halls of Refuse (Need more slimes!)
I wanted a mad wizard's ex-lair and the lab going into the clockworks that lead into a "garbage" floor just makes sense to me.
Goblinworks Founder
|
Watery grave, enigma vaults and halls of refuge were my choices. I love the concept of submerged sections of a dungeon inhibiting adventurers without being solely dedicated to underwater content. Enigma Vault has a cryptic feel to it that just stood out for me. Finally, Halls of Refuse just screams of ooze, otyugh, gelatinous cubes and toilet humor, so much adventure possibility to be found amongst the refuse.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
|
Statuary was a no-brainer on account of its new-ness, and from there, I kept hitting upon continuing the idea of each level presenting a neat little mystery from the past to the player characters which builds up, level by level.
The Enigma Halls naturally follows, and there would be no reason not to have the levels cross-talk, leave a few unresolved mysteries in The Statuary, then continue them down into The Enigma Halls before finally wrapping it all up neatly in Sanctum for a Lost Age.
Natch, each of those three easily lends itself to varied environments, so it could have sections or a whole level which uses the physical challenges of the others, which is why I struck against Clockwork and Watery Grave, even though I like both concepts on their own, the former in particular being a personal fave which brings back delightful Mechanus memories.
My $0.02.
Statuary
Enigma Vault
Final Exam
Statuary
Enigma Vaults
Final Exam
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
This one sounded the most interesting + back-backstory!
The Grand Estate of Marquis Dorvenium Thallan (In Exile): Agents of the Gray Gardeners have tracked the infamous Galtan noble Lord Dorvenium Thallan to a ruined dungeon below Thornkeep, where he and his murderous agents fled the justice of the Final Blades at the dawn of the Red Revolution. Rumors claim Thallan liberated the treasures of several high-placed Galtans before fleeing here, and ever since True Patriots of Galt and the scoundrels of the River Kingdoms have tried to crack his lair and return the ill-gotten goods to the People (or, alternatively, to their own barren coffers).
|
Goblin Squad Member
|
I tend to vote for things I haven't seen before
so I like STATUARY for Buhlman's ... it gives a sense of story/mystery ... What stories do the statues tell? ... The others seem rinse/repeat oldies but goodies (undead, spiders, abandoned lab, etc)
ENIGMA VAULTS was my choice for Jacobs' level for the same reasons above, it just seems a story untold. Where were all these artifacts found, and what do they have in common?
SANCTUM OF A LOST AGE was my vote for Mona's level. The tie-in with the Azlanti was interesting especially the fact that they are not undead even after all of these years. How have they survived this long? Fountain of Youth? (although I also liked FINAL EXAM)
LOL, i thought of the three the only one i was SURE that would get picked by this community was Statuary, was worried that the other two may get outvoted
and it was the opposite, Enigma and Sanctum won fairly by a good margin and Statuary was nipped by less than 10%
Anyone at paizo/GW know who came up with the Statuary concept and who I can talk to about where that was headed? Even if just a smidge more of a head start on that plot?
Chief Technical Officer
|
Anyone at paizo/GW know who came up with the Statuary concept and who I can talk to about where that was headed? Even if just a smidge more of a head start on that plot
Each author came up with his own list of five ideas, and all on pretty short notice. I doubt that any of the authors considered any of their ideas in much more depth than they provided to voters.