[Frog God Games] New PDF Line - Lost Lore

[Greg A. Vaughan]

Hi All,

I just wanted to get the word out about a new product line of pdfs that Frog God Games has launched called Lost Lore. These are short, bite-size pdfs of Pathfinder crunch mixed with Lost Lands flavor that John Ling has been working on and developing for the last year or so. We've finally gotten enough of them through development to launch them for sale.

John can give you more detail on them, but I'll give the short version. These are pdf-only products that run around 10,000 words (roughly the length of the average adventure in the old days of Dungeon Magazine) priced at $3.99 (though, of course, with our daily deal sales, folks who receive those emails can probably get them discounted from time to time). They are currently only written for Pathfinder (though with enough demand we could probably do Swords & Wizardry and/or 5e versions of them as well).

They'll be released on roughly a semi-monthly schedule, so there should be two new offerings available for your review each month, and we'll maybe do more in busy months like around Christmas or what have you.

Each is its own self-contained bit of rules creation like: new classes, magic items, spell lists, schools of magic, rules for establishing a town, monster ecologies, even short adventures. Really whatever the write can come up with that sounds cool is fair game. They are also the means by which we're reaching out to freelancers who are interested in doing some writing for Frog God Games, since we haven't had a formal way to do so since the days of Necromancer Games and people have often asked.

In addition, each of these pdfs is 100% canon for the Lost Lands campaign setting we're developing, so folks who want to play with our adventures in that setting don't have to worry about dropping stuff from these pdfs into play. They all receive a thorough canon review before going to publication.

John Ling of WereCabbages, Razor Coast, and even these very boards fame is the lead developer and point of contact on these. He's also done some writing for them, though by no means is it limited to his work alone. We began releasing them at the beginning of July, and our first two releases were authored by Michael Kortes and Russell Brown, who are no strangers to long-time Paizo fans, and there's plenty more waiting in the wings.

The first two releases are:

Portalist (a new class) by Michael Kortes

On a battlefield where positioning is key, the portalist is king. By uncovering the secrets of leaping through hidden tears in the fabric of reality the portalist changes the rules by which ordinary melee is fought. Part warrior and part planar sage, the portalist keeps himself lightly armored and lightly armed, maximizing his ability to move in ways previously thought impossible. A true rarity, some portalists form a secret order dedicated to the mysteries of dimensional travel, while others are loners who study the secrets of teleportation on their own. Individual portalists are as different as the style of portals they create. Many are flashy, travelling through inter-dimensional wormholes with a cacophony of thunder and lightning, while others silently slip in and out of the world through tiny fissures near-invisible to the untrained eye.

and

Town of Glory (a town-building system) by Russell Brown

Grand Duke Iltobarus has taken a sudden interest in the Windreft, a remote area of dangerous wilderness made accessible by resolution of the civil war that has raged for decades in the Westmarches of Reme. He has granted lands and charter to a small group of settlers — good, loyal Remen everyone — to establish a new town there. These settlers will face danger, so the grand duke has called for brave and clever protectors to watch over the new town as it grows. That’s you.

To keep the town safe, you’ll have to be on constant watch for enemies, and there are many in the Windreft. Orc tribes control much of the nearby foothills, hobgoblins camp in the north, boggards infest the waterwoods across the river, gnolls hunt in the open plains, and trolls sometimes wander down from the Green Mountains. And if some scholars are correct, Glory sits right above a mythical subterranean world called the Kingdom Beneath.

The Town of Glory presents a new rules mini-system for building and growing frontier communities, giving players and GMs multiple options to add onto their existing game play.

With many more to follow.

The links above take you to the Frog God Games webpage, but soon they'll be available here at Paizo.com as well.

So, enjoy, and let us know what you think of them!

[Steve Geddes]

Fingers crossed they sell well enough for print compilations down the track.

I can do without the mechanics, but it's disappointing to miss out on the lore - I can try to keep up, but I just know they're going to fall by the wayside.

[sepik121]

grabbed the portalist. sounds like a super silly class that seems like a lot of fun

[Ask a Shoanti]

Excited for the new line - thanks for the scoop Greg!

@sepik121 - I'm biased, but the portalist has added a new "dimension" of tactical fun to our table. Those little buggers seem to get everywhere. No BBEG hiding behind his minions is safe.

[Luthorne]

Out of curiosity, will these be released on Paizo? I was planning on picking up the Portalist here at Paizo, just because I like to have most of my pdfs together when it comes to downloading them, but I haven't seen it make an appearance here, unless I've just missed it?

[brvheart]

I am not really interested in new classes, but if someone can review the Town of Glory I would consider it.

[Thanael]

Town of Glory sounds interesting. Any reviews available? Is this also sold through paizo?

[Readerbreeder]

At the end of his post, Greg says the these should be available soon at Paizo. So, I guess you just have to decide what he means by soon... :)

[sepik121]

Ask a Shoanti wrote:

@sepik121 - I'm biased, but the portalist has added a new "dimension"...

booo

that said, the class seems incredibly interesting overall. definitely love the flavor of it too

[Ask a Shoanti]

Sorry, that was uncalled for. A bad habit.

Just so I don't thread derail, here are a few of the basic portal tricks a portalist can master, in case others such as Luthorne are interested:

- boomerang portal
- double portal hop
- elemental blast portal
- retaliatory portal
- stealth portal
- transposition portal
- immediate portal

And here are some of the arch portal choice available at higher levels:

- contingent portal
- ghost portal
- matador portal
- karmic portal
- rapid portal strike
- redirecting portal

and then there's the portal storm...

[drunken_nomad]

Part 3 of this line is NOW AVAILABLE! Horses of the Wild.

from the text: While most overland travelers only need use of a generic light or heavy horse as described in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook, some players might have use for a more exciting animal in their adventures. One that needs protection from theft or destruction. More expensive, yes, but well worth the extra coin. The equines included feature a wide variety of bonuses for a multitude of needs as the player desires. Other riders may want to learn new tricks to make their mounted combat shine. For there are bandits on nearly every road and the wilderness is full of dark and terrible creatures. Having a way to incorporate the mount in battle enables the character to shine.

Lots of new twists on mechanics and fluff/ecology paragraphs!

[Zherog]

Howdy, all. Now that I'm back from GenCon and back to work after the post-GenCon haze, it's time to dive in here and chat.

I've been very lucky to have some very, very good authors work with me early on to get the product line up and running. You've already seen pieces from Mike Kortes, Russ Brown, and Rob Manning. We'll also have Lost Lores written by - among others - me (though you may not care), Hal Maclean, Jeff Swank, Vicki Potter, Brian DiTullio, Jeff Erwin, and more. We'll probably have one or two, at some point, by an up-and-coming author named Greg Vaughan too. (If you're one of my writers and I didn't mention you, please understand I haven't had any coffee yet, and was up late last night for a soccer game.)

The themes will run the gambit. There are new base classes, such as the portalist. There is a prestige class, with a gaggle of anciliary material (feats, etc) useful to both members of the prestige class as well as others. We have the new mini rules system with Town of Glory, and we'll have others that go ahead and experiment with making changes or adding new layers. We have new organizations, new monsters, new mini adventures that can be played in one 4 hour session, and - one I'm actually excited to see released - a line of pre-generated characters. It'll offer stats for the character at levels 1, 5, 10, 15, and 20; each level will have a background that is open-ended enough for the player to expand as he or she sees fit - or ditch and provide their own, of course. All through the background text will be little tidbits of Lost Lands canon lore - references to places, people, events, and so on. Each character also provides information necessary to tweak it to become legal for organized play. And there's a sidebar that helps a GM use or tweak the PC as an NPC - for example, how to deal with the character having a lot more treasure than an NPC of that level should. I think it'll be a useful product to a lot of people.

As Readerbreeder mentioned, these will be on Paizo eventually, as well as DriveThruRPG. Consider the release on just our page to be a "soft" release, of sorts, so we can gauge interest and work out some kinks. If you have one of the three, I would love to hear your thoughts. Obviously, I'd love for you to sing our praises and proclaim everything is perfect. But if you have an issue or something just seemed off, I'd like to know that too. If something just didn't work, let me know so I can steer efforts elsewhere on future pieces; if something was over-the-top gonzo and you want more of that, let me know. If you just want to give props to the awesome authors (or our awesome artists), by all means go ahead and stroke their ego. If you'd rather not post your feedback here, you can drop me a PM on the site or you can email me directly: zherog at yahoo dot com.

For those who have already purchased The Portalist, Town of Glory, or Horses of the Wild already: Thank you! Please spread the word and let others know about them. For those who haven't, Greg and I will keep this post as current as possible; when they release here we'll let you know, and as new ones release we'll tell you about them.

Cheers!

[Jeffrey Swank]

Who is this Greg character you speak of? lol I can't wait for these releases!

[BPorter]

Ok, I bought Town of Glory last night and have done a preliminary read-through and started a test-build. I plan to post an actual review once the product is offered here on Paizo.com.

First Impressions:
Flavorful
Intuitive
Reasonably quick resolution
Lots of room for expansions & future add-ons.

Kingmaker is probably my favorite AP. The sandbox approach that they took is, IMO, brilliant and while I know that the initial kingdom-building and mass combat rules were rough, I liked them enough to want to see them refined and expanded - which they were via Ultimate Campaign and Legendary Games' Ultimate X line.

The downside to kingdom-building is that it really is geared for what it's name implies: kingdom-building. I've looked at using kingdom-building as a nation-tracking mini-game for myself but to take existing nations and develop them, the process is very front-loaded with work and the level of abstraction doesn't really work for me. I can't lift a settlement stat block and easily reverse engineer it into Kingdom-building settlement stats, for example.

However, I'm a huge fan of the Downtime system in Ultimate Combat.

Town of Glory is closer to the Downtime system than Kingdom-building. It has a fair level of detail but a GM or group of players don't have to devote a campaign's focus to developing their settlement. The development of a frontier town or outpost is also a far likelier scenario for your average campaign than developing a new kingdom.

Reading through the PDF, I can't help but get a Warcraft-style vibe from it, as population, food, goods, and trade interact within the outpost/community rather than having stats focus on contributing to the kingdom-level stats. There are Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced buildings and while Kingdom-building has pre-reqs and dependencies as well, Town of Glory lays the options out by Building Complexity so understanding the town's possible "feat chains" is clearer when reading.

Also unlike the Kingdom-building settlement rules, I was able to quickly start out a thorp and generate growth for a couple of months as a quick test-drive. It's intuitive, yet flavorful.

I seriously hope this line gets additional expansions. Additional buildings, event generation, integration/intersection with the Downtime rules, and extrapolating this mini-system to other parts of the game seem like they could be easy and logical extensions of the game. Remember how everyone liked Jade Regent's caravan rules in concept but had problems in execution? I could see a Town of Glory approach to caravans, shipping, and trading.

Best of all, it doesn't replace or invalidate the Pathfinder system's normal settlement stat-block building rules. If the settlement stat-block is the summary-level view, Town of Glory can be used to drill down to street level if desired.

My "first impressions" reads like a mini-review but, honestly, this PDF impressed me with it's utility. It was an impulse buy in the hopes that it would generate some ideas.

My only regret is that I can see the potential lurking within Town of Glory and can't apply it (yet) to a broader swath of my campaign. I would love to see it get a much broader and in-depth treatment.

Minor criticism: The "Town Walls" basic structure is incorrectly listed as "Town Halls". "Town Halls is also listed in it's correct placement as an Intermediate Structure.

[Greg A. Vaughan]

Thanks for the great mini-review, BPorter! Glad you're liking it.

You heard him, John. Get to work on expansions. ;-)

[Zherog]

Thank you for all the kind words, BPorter. I also think Russ knocked Town of Glory out of the park, and I'm glad to hear others are enjoying it. I've been excited about this one since the moment I saw it. I've talked to Russ, and he's amenable to writing a follow up. He has some other projects he's currently working on that he'll need to wrap up, and then he'll get down to the task of creating an outline.

Again, thank you for all the kind words. Such feedback is always terrific to hear!

[Zherog]

Ecology of the Basilisk, by Jeff Swank, is now available. Take a look at the grouchy lizard that can turn you to stone, with information for both the GM and the player.

[James Thomas]

Any other "Ecologies" coming up? :^ )

[Greg A. Vaughan]

I think there might be some troll in there somewhere. ;-)

[Jeffrey Swank]

Oh, and Dark Folk!

[Zherog]

Howdy, all.

I've been a little remiss in mentioning that the Portalist and Town of Glory are both available here on Paizo now, as well as on our own site. The others should roll out in due time.

Cheers!

[Zherog]

Casts resurrect discussion

Howdy, all, and Happy New Year! There's some news to share on this product line. Recently, we added FIVE new Lost Lores to our site. Hopefully, everything gets listed here on Paizo soon as well.

Divine Hunters by some guy named John Ling

Deities, taken as a group, value their followers like a devil values souls. That is, followers are essentially currency and power for those with the divine spark. Unfortunately for most deities, followers possess free will; nothing gets in the way more of the best-laid plans. Most times when a true believer strays, a simple atonement spell — typically coupled with a suitable quest — is enough to steer things back toward the deity’s favor. Sometimes, though, the offense is so severe an atonement spell just isn’t enough. Some offenses are so severe, so drastic, that forgiveness is nigh impossible. The only recourse in these circumstances is to dole out swift and severe punishment. Most of the time, deities are loath to interact directly with mortals. To handle these special circumstances, they have an unusual breed of hunters called the nel’barzoth. Divine Hunters presents four new monsters, including a CR 22 mythic version, to hunt your infidels; it also presents the GM with rules for creating new versions.

Ecology of the Troll by James Thomas

Ecology of the Troll takes an in-depth look at this creature of myth and legend, proffering its potential genesis, special physiology, and psychology. New feats, equipment, and alchemical items aid characters in their hunt against the regenerating giants, along with combat strategies so characters can exit the fight victorious. The GM, too, has new options: G'Mash the Troll King, complete with background, custom magic items, and a full stat block.

Eminent Domains by Hal Maclean

Gods oversee the cosmos. They control the ebb and flow of the seasons. They ensure that the risen moon gives way the morning sun. They apportion all manner of mysteries, terrors, and wonders upon mortals. Gods truly do govern the fundamentals of reality. But domains are those fundamentals. Air and Chaos. Earth and Evil. Fire and Good. Law and Water. When clerics choose their domains they form connections with the deepest and most powerful facets of existence. Whether something primal like the elements or the very foundations of morality, it only makes sense to offer them a chance to expand and enhance their bond. This book gives clerics a host of new options tied to their domains. This product includes three new feats and three new spells, each with customizations specific to the elemental and alignment domains. In addition, each domain describes a holy water variant that provides interesting options to clerics and other pious followers.

Schools of Thought by Hal Maclean

Conjurers summon monsters to fight for them. Necromancers create undead to fight for them. Enchanters corrupt the will of others to… make them fight for them. Why are those different? What if, instead, we created a school for wizards who get others to fight for them? Let’s call them Lords. This book presents eight new schools of wizardry — schools defined by what their members want to do with their magic instead of how it works. It treats wizards as people. As members of a larger society who must coexist with others. After all, no one, not even the most powerful wizard, is completely self-sufficient.

The Headhunter by Jeff Erwin

Headhunters are warriors who decapitate their foes — during or shortly after combat — and carry their heads as visible proof of their triumph. Some headhunters, the greatest among them, can trap a little of their victims’ essence in their heads, and can use it to replicate their foes’ unusual capabilities. Included in this product are a new prestige class, three archetypes, a new oracle mystery, and a magic item to protect the wary from having their head removed.

Check 'em out, and let us know what you think!

[Zherog]

Characters: Krel by Frog God Games staff

Whether it’s because you were invited to the game at the last minute, your GM just killed off your current — and favorite — character, you’re the king (or queen) of procrastination, or whatever other reason, you need a new PC — now. And we’re here to help. The Lost Lore Characters line presents a new PC, ready to roll, for you to use at the table. Each character has full stat blocks for levels 1, 5, 10, 15, and 20. In addition, each character level presented contains background information designed to immerse the character in a Lost Lands campaign while leaving you plenty of room to customize as you see fit. Presenting Krel, the half-orc barbarian.

[Zherog]

Just as an FYI for those interested - all of the above mentioned, except for Characters: Krel, are now available here on Paizo!

[cycnet]

I just picked up the portalist in a GM's day bundle, and I have the Town of Glory through the Blight kickstarter -

I really like the Portalist, this is a great class! I feel like it really fills a niche that was missing in pathfinder - a highly mobile, non mounted melee combatant. Well done. I hope you do some more classes cause really I can't get enough of them.

I don't have strong feelings about town of glory since I don't tend to do settlement building in my games but it looks good to me.

Keep up the good stuff!

[Zherog]

Thanks for the kind words, Cycnet.

We have the Headhunter available now. It's a prestige class rather than a base class, but it could scratch your itch. There's also some archetypes and a new Oracle mystery.

My group doesn't do much with settlement building either, but they ended up loving the process of expanding and protecting their own frontier town. I think Town of Glory can - for some groups at least - make a really good campaign starter, as it resolves the question, "Why are we together?" pretty easily. You're together because you were enlisted or hired to defend this small frontier town and help it grow.

There will definitely be new classes - and prestige classes - coming down the line. Thanks for the feedback, since it can help us steer some decisions later on!

[Zherog]

Two new ones to share!

Justicar of Muir by Frog God Staff

The Holy Order of Justicars is the living embodiment of the first and most important of the triune virtues of Muir — Truth. As an embodiment of truth, and in keeping with the strictness ofMuir, a Justicar of Muir must follow an extremely strict moral code beyond that required of a common paladin. The benefit of this purity and stricture is awe-inspiring. This prestige class is joined by 13 new feats for paladins of all faiths.

Supernal Dragon Dojo by Jeff Swank

Overlooking a sea of clouds, the Supernal Dragon dojo is located at the apex of the Xaojing mountain range between the Chi’en Hegemony and Gtsang Prefecture. At the foot of the mountain sits a magnificent and boundless staircase, aptly named the Heavenly Road. Should one attempt to climb this stairway, they will find it weaves a long and treacherous path up the side of the cliff. At the top of the staircase, sitting amongst the clustered snowcapped peaks, one finds the elegant face of the Supernal Dragon palace and dojo. Supernal Dragon Dojo presents 3 new resolve options, 2 samurai archetypes, 5 new samurai orders, and 3 new magic items.

Hope everybody enjoys them! If you check them out, please share your thoughts. We'd love to know what you like and don't like in this series as it continues to grow.

[Jeffrey Swank]

Love them Samurai!

[Zherog]

Especially the John Belushi kind...

[Dover Pro]

Cool! This is a product line I can get behind, with a page count and price point which fit my reading time and my budget. I have liked Frog God Games fluff writing from the first time I downloaded their PDF on the Camp for The Slumbering Tsar, "The Desolation, Part I: Edge of Oblivion". :D

[silverhair2008]

Allow me to hijack the thread for a moment. Please check out this thread.