Didn’t see any thread specifically on the Shades of Blood campaign. What I like about it is that it supposedly will be an action adventure rather than a gothic horror AP. Noth’un wrong with gothic horror but vampires have now fundamentally crossed over beyond their original source material and it’s nice to see a fresh take on vampires amidst the ruins of Old Azlanti.
Expectations:
I expect this campaign to feature Zura somehow and explain her past. It’s also in Azlant so expect Mordant Spire elves to make an appearance, as they more than anyone wish to keep the ancient Azlanti’s dark arts hidden and slumbering.
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"Let's Go Beat Up Dracula" is one of my favorite microgenres, so color me happy about this one.
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Big fan of Zura, would be an even bigger fan of a meaty look at the Mordant Spire's elves (I wanna know what they call themselves!) in a backmatter article. In my wildest dreams, this hopefully involves some Arcadian seafarers, not just those leaving Avistan.
I don't care about Mordant Spire at all, but would be happy to see Azlant geographycal guide.
I too would like a map
What I like about the premise is that it promises to be less traditional of a vampire story. Like, how do the vampires even move around from isle to isle? Aren’t they unable to cross moving water?? Unconventional vampires also mean unconventional vampire hunters as well.
Time to bust out that warpriest of Valani character!
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For expectation management, yes, the Mordant Spire elves have an interest in Azlant, but they and the Mordant Spire are based in the Inner Sea region. I wrote the 2nd volume of Shades of Blood, and there's no Mordant Spire elf action in that one, but there might be some minor stuff in one of the adventures on either side.
Still, the focus is aimed elsewhere.
Also for expectation management, this is first and foremost a dungeon crawl. There's plenty of roleplaying stuff going on though—I for one love creating dungeon crawls where there's a lot more going on than just going room by room and killing creatures and taking their stuff...
...but dungeon crawls are among the easier genres of adventure to write, develop, and create. And since this one came at us in a time when we were scrambling with all-hands-on-deck to get out of the "rain shadow" of the back end of the OGL crisis, we decided to do something pretty simple, conceptually.
So... this Adventure Path is not one that does a big reveal on the Mordant Spire elves (in part because the previous one, Spore War, already focused a lot on elves—not the Mordant Spire ones, but still), nor is it going to give a huge map of Azlant or spend a lot of time on Azlant's geography. Expanding new settings (be they Azlant or Arcadia or anywhere else) also makes for a much more complex project, and again, we had to make this one simple in scope.
It's another baby-step toward doing something like that some day, but it's not the point of Shades of Blood. It's a pretty small-scale and tightly focused action-packed vampire-themed campaign.
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THAT SAID: Traditionally at Gen Con we'd do an Adventure Path focused seminar and get more info out about the new announcement. We didn't have the time to do that this year, but I didn't want us to go without announcing the next Adventure Path. I'm working with folks here at Paizo to figure out where and how and when we can present more about Shades of Blood (and frankly, Spore War for that matter) as well as the still-unannounced Adventure Paths beyond, but I'm not yet sure how that info will be spread out yet. Stay tuned, I suppose!
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I like expectation management. It helps me focus on what to get excited for and lets me down early and easy when things aren’t as I’d expect.
Dungeon delving is always an interesting affair, though I hope there’s some civilization to interact with on the side. Admittedly, I’m disappointment probably has more to do with the fact that I’m an exploration and hex crawl adventure fan.
Hopefully we learn more about Vampirism and old Azlant? Maybe with a big reveal or major plot event? No spoilers.
At least we still get to slay vampires. Risk becoming vampires. Learn about their origins hopefully.
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We’ve been on a hot streak of adventure path themes that really excite me and my players for a couple years now, but I have to admit that straightforward action-adventure vampire dungeon crawl is… less exciting. My favorite quality of recent APs like Wardens of Wildwood and Seven Dooms are that they’re deeply entrenched in the setting of Golarion, so I hope that as more info comes out about Shades of Blood, it turns out to be less of a campaign that could exist in any TTRPG, and more of a distinctly Pathfinder story.
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We’ve been on a hot streak of adventure path themes that really excite me and my players for a couple years now, but I have to admit that straightforward action-adventure vampire dungeon crawl is… less exciting. My favorite quality of recent APs like Wardens of Wildwood and Seven Dooms are that they’re deeply entrenched in the setting of Golarion, so I hope that as more info comes out about Shades of Blood, it turns out to be less of a campaign that could exist in any TTRPG, and more of a distinctly Pathfinder story.
Shades of Blood is also pretty deeply entrenched in Golarion's setting. That's something we actually work hard to do on ALL of our adventures.
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Shades of Blood is also pretty deeply entrenched in Golarion's setting. That's something we actually work hard to do on ALL of our adventures.
Does it all occur over one island or do you get to move around a bit?
We’ve been on a hot streak of adventure path themes that really excite me and my players for a couple years now, but I have to admit that straightforward action-adventure vampire dungeon crawl is… less exciting. My favorite quality of recent APs like Wardens of Wildwood and Seven Dooms are that they’re deeply entrenched in the setting of Golarion, so I hope that as more info comes out about Shades of Blood, it turns out to be less of a campaign that could exist in any TTRPG, and more of a distinctly Pathfinder story.Shades of Blood is also pretty deeply entrenched in Golarion's setting. That's something we actually work hard to do on ALL of our adventures.
That’s great to hear then, and shame on me for doubting you!
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Does it all occur over one island or do you get to move around a bit?
Shades of Blood is also pretty deeply entrenched in Golarion's setting. That's something we actually work hard to do on ALL of our adventures.
There's some back and forth between the starting place and the island the dungeon is on, but it's very much mostly focused on the expansive dungeon below that island.
My adventure, for example...
Shades of Blood is a site-based campaign, not a wilderness/hexploration one or an urban shenanigans one. It's much closer to Seven Dooms for Sandpoint or Abomination Vaults than it is to Curtain Call or Season of Ghosts.
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I hope we get more vampire archetype feats in one of the AP volumes, personally.
Come to think, this might be a fun AP to play a good guy vampire, assuming the plot hasn't got something to do with undead mind control that could prove disruptive to the party.
The vampires in this Adventure Path are villians to fight. As such, I doubt there's going to be any player-facing vampire options in these toolboxes. There certainly aren't in mine, and playing a vampire in this Adventure Path would be all kinds of awkward and complicated and headache-inducing for your poor GM. Still, folks have played goblins in Rise of the Runelords and paladins in Skull & Shackles and Thrune Agents in Hell' Rebels. So... it'll be possible, but it's something you'll be doing in contrast to the Adventure Path's purpose and themes and support, so your GM will need to do a lot of extra heavy lifting.
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I guess being free of the OGL means someone can write an adventure where you kill a vampire besides Strahd for the first time in almost 40 years so that is a plus.
The OGL has nothing to do with it. We've published plenty of adventures where you kill vampires who aren't Strahd over the course of the past few decades. Vampiers, with all their real-world lore from countless sources, are one of the monsters LEAST affected by the OGL situation.
I mean, I suspect one of the reasons Strahd was created was that the copyright issues involved in using the actual Dracula weren't completely clear in 1978.
But now it's well understood that Dracula is in the public domain, so if Paizo wanted to do a "let's go beat up Strahd" analogue they could literally use Dracula. Also, hopefully, the Cowboy that kills Dracula (it's in the book!)
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I mean, I suspect one of the reasons Strahd was created was that the copyright issues involved in using the actual Dracula weren't completely clear in 1978.
But now it's well understood that Dracula is in the public domain, so if Paizo wanted to do a "let's go beat up Strahd" analogue they could literally use Dracula. Also, hopefully, the Cowboy that kills Dracula (it's in the book!)
I'm 99.9999% sure that Strahd was inspired by Dracula, but not meant to be a "we can't use the word 'Dracula'" ploy. The original adventure he showed up in for 1st edition AD&D was groundbreaking in many ways—it had amazing art, had staggering never-before-seen orthographic maps of an immense castle, included a groundbreaking card-based mechanic that manipulated the entire adventure's plot, and was one of the earliest full-on attempts to do a horror-themed adventure for D&D.
That adventure's success resulted in a sequel adventure and, eventually, the creation of an entire campaign setting named after it.
Horror, it turns out, is an immensely popular genre, and one that D&D was no stranger to toying with (the end of "The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun" is my favorite of those early delves into horror), but Ravenloft was really the first "all in" horror adventure that put mood above the action... even though the details of the adventure itself still had plenty of combat.
Strahd's enduring legacy as a favorite of D&D is the result of all of that.
As for using Dracula... personally, nah. To me, his story's more interesting when it's set on Earth. For vampires I'm much more interested in developing new legends.
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Thx for the info! While I’m less sure if this AP is for me that’s perfectly normal and okay! Glad the melee fans get a whole new playground to explore. Looking forward to reading the player’s guide and, who knows, maybe I will play it eventually. I like the idea of playing as a team of vampire hunters.
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Break out those clerics with ranged weapons, spellstrike ammunition, and Divine Weapon... And/or warpriests with Channel Smite...
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Note that James did not mention Zura at all in his expectations management posts.
James invented Zura.
James wrote an adventure for Spore War.
Those are the only facts at this point I'm comfortable pointing out. There is no need for expectation management as far as I'm concerned. Read into that what you will. ;-P
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So is this another mega dungeon ap? Just me or has there been a lot of these for 2e (Seven dooms, ghostlight and now this one.Oh also that absolm module If it ever comes out I'm guessing.)
Dungeon crawls are the most popular style of adventure. Be it because they're fun, or because they're the core assumption for the game engine, or because of tradition, or whatever, but they generally do pretty well for us. AND they're easier to create, so they're a useful type of adventure to weave into the schedule now and then to give production a bit of a breather.
That said, and respectfully, I think it might be just you if you're suggesting we do a lot of Dungeon Crawl adventure paths. As evidence: we do try hard to vary things up and not do them all the time. In between Abomination Vaults and Seven Dooms we did Fists of the Ruby Phoenix, Strength of Thousands, Quest for the Frozen Flame, Outlaws of Alkenstar, Blood Lords, Gatewalkers, Stolen Fate, Sky King's Tomb, and Season of Ghosts. Several dungeons in those, but I wouldn't call any of those a "Dungeon Crawl Adventure Path." That's about 3 years of content ranging from volume 163 to 200, in which there were effectively the equivalent of 5 volumes devoted to dungeon crawl campaigns.
And then for Seven Dooms, we had that one followed by Wardens of Wildwood, then Curtain Call, and going forward from there we have Triumph of the Tusk and Spore War before we get to Shades of Blood. A shorter span, yeah, but still over a year.
If anything, we could and should probably be doing MORE dungeon crawls than this, but we at Paizo, just like all of you who buy and play Pathfinder, love variety, so we do our best to mix things up. But none of that changes the fact that Dungeon Crawls are very popular overall.
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Wasn't dungeon crawls in general I was talking about and more what I meant is whan I say mega dungeons is basically where the ap takes place all in one dungeon. Also when I say a lot I mean compared to 1e (Only one that comes to mind over the whole 10 year run of 1e is the emerald spire). The other thing ive noticed is that all the megadungeons seem to always be low-mid lvl so might have been more interesting if it had been a mid-high lvl mega dungeon (Probably also has to do with me always viewing vampires as more high lvl foes.)
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Wasn't dungeon crawls in general I was talking about and more what I meant is whan I say mega dungeons is basically where the ap takes place all in one dungeon. Also when I say a lot I mean compared to 1e (Only one that comes to mind over the whole 10 year run of 1e is the emerald spire). The other thing ive noticed is that all the megadungeons seem to always be low-mid lvl so might have been more interesting if it had been a mid-high lvl mega dungeon (Probably also has to do with me always viewing vampires as more high lvl foes.)
Fair enough. Then from the office of pedantry, I should note that Seven Dooms for Sandpoint doesn't take place all in one dungeon. About a third takes place outside of the central dungeon in other locations mixed between smaller locations and Sandpoint itself.
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In that case, I'll note that from the perspective of my DM and my fellow tablemates, we'll probably skip this AP. Dungeon crawls are probably one of the least interesting types of adventures for us. Nothing personal, but it's just not our thing.
Agreed!
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In that case, I'll note that from the perspective of my DM and my fellow tablemates, we'll probably skip this AP. Dungeon crawls are probably one of the least interesting types of adventures for us. Nothing personal, but it's just not our thing.
It's all good. As we've mentioned lots, a big part of the reason why we do multiple Adventure Paths each year (now more true than ever that we do 4 a year instead of 2) is because we know not every one will appeal to every table, and by doing multiples and switching the themes up between them, we minimize the time it takes for every group to have to wait before one that DOES appeal comes out.
EDIT: That said, telling us "we don't like something" doesn't really help us build things you do like. It's much more helpful to give a few examples, like "Our group likes roleplaying with NPCs" or "Our group likes PCs who have mounts and do mounted combat" or the like, so that we know more. (One often mentioned reason for not liking dungeon crawls is that they're perceived as not having any opportunities for roleplay with interesting NPCs, and that's why in all the dungeon crawls I write or develop these days, I make sure to put in a LOT Of interesting NPCs and roleplaying encounters to mix up the traps and fights.)
I am hoping for a Remaster update for the Strigoi Vampires.
Since they have a connection to the era of Azlant and they are the most unique and mysterious of the Vampires, in my opinion.
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I am hoping for a Remaster update for the Strigoi Vampires.
Since they have a connection to the era of Azlant and they are the most unique and mysterious of the Vampires, in my opinion.
Strigois have pretty much ZERO OGL complications; they were 100% invented in-house at Paizo based on mythology. The only thing we'd really have to do to remaster them is to call the plane they're associated with the Netherworld instead of the Plane of Shadow; the rest of their lore and flavor doesn't have to change at all.
Which is good news for folks who want to learn more about strigoi, because we don't have to restart or reset anything, and the next time we do stuff with them we can hit the ground running with new content.
I have never heard of this adventure path. When was it announced? Does it take place in Azlant? Is it a mythic adventure path?
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I have never heard of this adventure path. When was it announced? Does it take place in Azlant? Is it a mythic adventure path?
We'll (hopefully) have a more proper preview of the upcoming Shades of Blood Adventure Path at some point later this year. We're still working out how we want to handle doing 4 Adventure Path announcements a year when traditionally we had 2 and did them during Paizocon and Gen Con, something that the pandemic disruption of conventions also threw into chaos.
We have not yet announced any mythic Adventure Paths for 2nd edition.
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I have a player who really perked up when I mentioned that this was announced at GenCon.
We are just starting SKY KING'S TOMB, so we won't get to run this when it comes out, barring a glorious TPK, but I am looking forward to reading it, and maybe running it.
also, I really liked
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I have never heard of this adventure path. When was it announced? Does it take place in Azlant? Is it a mythic adventure path?We'll (hopefully) have a more proper preview of the upcoming Shades of Blood Adventure Path at some point later this year. We're still working out how we want to handle doing 4 Adventure Path announcements a year when traditionally we had 2 and did them during Paizocon and Gen Con, something that the pandemic disruption of conventions also threw into chaos.
We have not yet announced any mythic Adventure Paths for 2nd edition.
PAX Unplugged in early December seems like it might be a good occasion for an announcement. Early in the year, there's also MAGFest and Katsucon, but they're not really as close to TTRPGs. Perhaps DragonCon and PAX Unplugged?
