#Pathfinder Unchained-compatible | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

dailycharacteroption · 5 years ago

Text

Story Summoner (Summoner Archetype)

A recurring element in the lore of Pathfinder, particularly in Varisia, is the concept of the harrow deck, a divinatory tool that every card not only has prescient symbolism, but also is associated with a story that inspired the artwork on the card and indeed the events that it might presage.

We’ve talked about the Harrow before on the blog, as well as various archetypes associated with the cards and their mystical power, but today we have an archetype associated with the stories behind the cards.

Story Summoners, to put it simply, use their eidolon to bring the various stories and characters to life, bringing whimsical beings like the Rabbit Prince into existence, or more sinister ones like the fallen paladin of the Betrayal.

Whether these eidolons are merely normal eidolons altered by the desires of the summoner, or are associated with the Harrowed Realm demiplane or some astral record of those stories, these summoners add a surprising bit of whimsy and fantasy to already fantastical settings.

Due to the special otherworldliness of their eidolon, they are subject to the effects of wards that protect against summoned creatures. However, by drawing a card from a harrow deck, the summoner can temporarily alter their eidolon, which takes on an appearance and moral alignment of the associated card, as well as a temporary boost to the ability score associated with suit the card comes from.

They can also use a harrow deck to alter and bolster summoned monsters, the card drawn granting an appropriate alignment template to the creature, even allowing them to summon the creatures as alignments they wouldn’t ordinarily wish to summon.

Given the sheer variety of stories associated with the Harrow, these summoners eventually gain the ability to shift the base physical pattern of their eidolon every time they reach a milestone in their own mastery, reshaping them to better emulate certain stories and serve their current needs.

A fun and thematic archetype, while the benefits can be somewhat random, in the right hands they can be very useful. The ability to change base forms with level in addition to all other evolutions means these eidolons can be easily adapted to any environment as well, but beyond that, feel free to build your eidolon based on your favorite storykin figure, either using the storykin guideline for ordinary summoners, or the storykin eidolon type for unchained summoners, as this archetype, while not stated as such, does seem compatible for the most part!

As you can imagine, this archetype is loose enough and open to interpretation that it is begging to be reworked for use with any collection of fictional characters from fiction that exists within your favorite universe, and story summoners might simply be fans of certain collections of works like children’s fairy tales or the extended works of a particular author. Alternatively, perhaps these stories have taken on a life of their own in the thought-realms of the Astral Plane, reaching out to mortal listeners. Either is a good enough reason to build some flavor.

Though long ago out-performed and slain by a wandering bard, the fossegrim Brooktongue lives on in the stories of his predations and in the tale of his final defeat. Sometimes, a story summoner seeking to capture the deadly allure will shape their eidolon in his image, granting it what mind-bending spells they can muster.

A curious story summoner, Alquist claims not any one specific story as her own, but rather, the concept of the everyman, her eidolon taking the form of an ordinary humanoid drawn in a woodcut style, shifting between different versions of himself with every tale she references from her collection of works, such as Aroc the legendary mason, a hero of strength and law.

Oral history is an important part of lizardfolk culture, and they mark their greatest figures, both hero and enemy, in the stars. Some of their mages even call down these constellations to fight for them, figures of translucent shapes and linked stars.

#pathfinder #archetype #summoner #story summoner #storykin #fossegrim #lizardfolk #Harrow Handbook

9 notes · View notes

kayawagner · 6 years ago

Text

Everyman Minis: Microsized Monsters

Publisher: Rogue Genius Games

By Matt Morris

For the Pathfinder RPG customer who wants a little more, Everyman Gaming is proud to introduce Everyman Minis! Uniting several high-quality Pathfinder RPG freelancers under a single product line, each week a different Everyman Gaming author or freelancer tackles an exciting new topic by creating a miniature product specially designed to scratch that product’s particular itch.

This installment of Everyman Minis includes: 1,000 words introducing three all-new monsters capable of cutting PCs down to size using the microsized creature rules found in Microsized Adventures! Creatures include a music box mimic whose bite whittles away at its victims, an addler that shrinks those it envemons, even an elemental capable of “condensing” the PCs with a ray attack! Also included is a new bardic masterpiece compatible with Everyman Gaming’s unchained bard class, and more!

With Everyman Gaming, innovation is never more than a page away!

Price: $2.95 Everyman Minis: Microsized Monsters published first on https://supergalaxyrom.tumblr.com

0 notes

ladylili13-blog · 5 years ago

Text

Rise of The Runelords

I decided I would try to chronicle the adventures of the campaign I have just begun. This will contain spoilers for the Pathfinder adventure path Rise of The Runelords.

<Description> :: OOC explanation of what PCs or Players were doing :: (Backstory that other players don’t know)

First, the party consists of a Half Orc Cleric of Sarenrae known as Hrex, A Ratfolk Alchemist known as Schniz, an Elven Primal Companion Hunter known as Garrel and a human Unchained Monk of the four winds who currently has no name. The player for the monk was unable to make it to the first session, so she will come in later. I did my own homebrew for both the Monk and Hunter due to the Monk of the Four winds Archetype not being compatible with the Unchained Monk and the Hunter Archetype having been -I feel- nerfed too far. I will upload those after the post.

The session started the day of the festival. Schniz was coming to town to look for a job again after something had happened to his last one. (He worked for a baker outside of town who recently passed away.) He ventured into the Rusty Dragon Inn as it was the best place to find a job thanks to the tavern owners “Adventure Board”. There were not many people in the tavern that morning due to the huge festival later in the day. He tried to talk to the tavern owner and the halfling lady helping her but they had little time to answer his questions. They were busy prepping for the days work and festivities. Finally, Ameiko told Schniz if he was looking for work, to check the board but really “Go enjoy the festival today!” Schniz then looked at the board and found the two jobs posted there. “Bring goblin ears to the Goblin Squash Stables! 2 gold for a set!!” “Hiring farm hand and guard for local farmers. Need help keeping livestock safe from predators. 5 silver a week.” As he exited the building he cam across Garrel, with his lynx companion. They stared at each other for a moment then, as rats do, he scurried off into the now large crowd of people heading north towards the cathedral. Garrel decided to follow the crowd and ended up in the square as Mayor Deverin took the stage. She greeted everyone and welcomed them on “this momentous day as we celebrate Desna and the reopening of the Cathedral.” She then handed the stage off to Sheriff Hemlock who warned everyone to be careful around the bonfire later in the evening. The sheriff was not the best speaker, but at least he tried. Then, Cyrdak Drokkus was welcomed to the stage in lue of Lonjiku Kaijitsu falling ‘ill’. He thanked everyone and invited everyone to “Come see the newest production of The Harpy’s Curse featuring the leading role of The Harpy Queen played by none other than the famous Magnimarian Diva Allishanda!” Finally Father Zantus took the stage to thank everyone and being the Swallowtail Festival. Schniz began running around trying to find people that looked like adventures to help him hunt goblins for money. :: He was set on searching for jobs alone and was not interested in any of the games set up for the festival :: He ran into Hrex who was standing guard by the stage. (She has been with the church in Sandpoint most of her life and thus was burnt in the fire five years ago.) <Part of her face and side is scared from the fire.> He looked her over and decided she looked tough enough to help him and began to ask for her aid. :: In a broken russian accent. Was quite funny :: She told him to go enjoy the festival and that she wasn’t going to help him search for goblins in the woods. She was not very enthused with the days festivities as it was still painful for her. As the day went on he ran into Garrel again whom he brought back to Hrex and assumed they’d join him. They were bewildered and confused by this “ratboy” as Hrex continued to call him even to his corrections every time of “Ratfolk!” :: I was finally able to entice him to play a few of the games when changing the reward to money. :: They went through the games, winning a few, losing a few. Rhex lost the tug of war to some teenagers, but played it off as she allowed them to win. Lunchtime came and Father Zantus told the parable of Desna’s first fall to earth and how she was saved by a small blind child. All the while Hrex made fun of him talking. The butterflies were released from the wagon, and as the alchemist would do; he caught two in a jar and stuffed it in his backpack. Lunch was provided. Schniz slurping up the Hagfish’s lobster chowder while Garrel and Hrex enjoyed some venison from the White Deer. Finally as the sun began to set, the thunderclap from Father Zantus’ thunderstone quieted the square. However, a shriek, a yelp, and then chanting began as small creatures ran through the square. “Goblins chew and Goblins Bite, Goblins Cut and Goblins Fight, Stab the Dog and Cut the Horse, Goblins eat and Take by Force! Goblins Race and Goblins Jump, Goblins Slash and Goblins Bump, Burn the Skin and Mash the Head, Goblins here and You be Dead! Chase the Baby, Catch the Pup, Bonk the Head to Shut it Up, Bones be Cracked, Flesh be Stewed, We be Goblins, You Be Food!!!” The crowd scattered and three goblins took up against the party. :: Inititive! :: Schniz threw his first firebomb and blew the first goblin away. The second goblin ran across the courtyard towards the party and his goblin buddy. Garrel sent his lynx to attack the goblin that ran towards them doing a good bit of damage but not killing it. Hrex moved up to attack but missed. The fight continued with a goblin doing some damage to Schniz but he blew that one up with his bomb and setting the cart on fire. Hrex had the last one at her feet, after it ran towards her and tripped. She offered mercy to the goblin but it screamed in her face “Longshanks must die!!” She stabbed it in the neck with her scimitar and ended it’s life. She was not happy with the excessive fire bombs of this little ratboy but then she heard more screaming and barking and chanting. The party ran to an alley way to find four goblins surrounding a dog and another on a box singing the same song. Schniz thought the dog was going to die anyway so he threw another firebomb on the dog itself, killing it and a few of the other goblins. Again, Hrex had to take a moment and argued with him about using fire and killing the poor dog. At that Garrel also took issue. ::Hrex rolls will saves any time there is massive fire damage due to her history with fire:: They battle, Schinz switching to acid and melting the warchanter. Hrex is only slightly better at that, but at least it isn’t fire. Garrel’s Lynx attacked again and Hrex decided to use a spell to try to take care of these Goblins. She focused on her pain and sent a firebolt but missed. The memories flooded her mind as she sent the spell :: She took the Fire-Ash domain :: As they finished the battle with these goblins the party heard another shriek, a mans voice screaming “Help me!!!!” and several more high pitched laughs “Kill the Longshank!” That is where the party left off! We will see if the party is able to save this man or if the goblins get have some fun! {In all it was a good session. However, as any GM will know..plan something and it will go off the other way. However I did have to box them in a bit as it was indeed a festival and logically no one would be offering a job. Then there was little roleplay available if they didn’t play the games. The party was welcome to Roleplay amongst themselves, however the day was a celebration and everyone was looking at vendors or playing games in the town. This it my first attempt at running something more than a meat-grinder so I’m definitely green. Things will get better as I go and learn. Can’t be a Mercer, Coville, or Perkin’s out of the gate! :D Not that I want to be them exactly, they are just good teachers. I hope you enjoyed the story! Welcome to Sandpoint!! }

#pathfinder #RiseofTheRunelords #Roleplay #RoleplayingGames #TTRP #DnD #DungeonsAndDragons #AdventurePath #GMJournal

0 notes

fic-dreamin · 7 years ago

Photo

If you want to play spellcasters... The this book has a few interesting options for you. There are also options for the Unchained Monk from Pathfinder Unchained. That said, some of the spells are to narrow in there scope of compatible characters. This is the main reason for the 4 of 5 stars. Go to Amazon

Ultimate Magic The Ultimate Magic sourcebook for Pathfinder RPG was a surprisingly valuable and intriguing addition to the game. One of the strongest additions Pathfinder has over D&D 3.5 is the well-designed customization for characters, and the new abilities and archetypes add even more to that. Most role-players have tried to make a character their own, often focusing on a specific facet of a class to the exclusion of others, and archetypes help you build in a variety of directions. Your cleric, for example, might focus on necromancy and become an "Undead Lore" or a "Cloistered Cleric" with extra skills and knowledge (and a few related abilities), but fewer spells and less armor. Every class capable of casting spells gets new toys and tricks to play with, so long as they're willing to trade away some of the base abilities from their class. Monks are the exception, in that you don't have to give up any class abilities to take a vow. Be careful about their drawbacks, though. While obviously designed for game balance, some can be a bit silly (a monk who's taken a vow of celibacy, for example, couldn't receive healing spells because they involve "pleasurable touch"). I particularly enjoyed the new witch hexes "find children" followed by "cook people". Go to Amazon

Great product. Exactly as describe. Great product. Go to Amazon

He says it is a good book, I didn't buy this for myself. The person whom which I bought it for loves it. He says it is a good book, Go to Amazon

Adds a bit to the game without major imbalances. Since I spend most of my time as a DM (or GM as they call it now) by review is from that perspective. Overall, the book adds some new material to the game that players who have exhausted the standard core classes will find appealing.Fortunately, nothing has (yet) surfaced from these additions that has unbalanced my campaigns (which occurred a few times with 3.0/3.5 books). As such, while the book is not a must have, players will find it useful and fun-especially players who are weary of the core classes or who love to tweak (or freak) their characters. Go to Amazon

A Magical Must-have! As a DM I split the cost with my group mage and he loved it. If you're creating npcs or creatures and want to give them some umph it's a must have. If you're a mage player, please ask your DM before purchasing this book since it does have VERY powerful spells and archetypes. Go to Amazon

Four Stars ok Go to Amazon

Happy with item Product arrived as described, Happy with item, thank you Go to Amazon

As expected Five Stars Phenomenal expansion on my favourite classes. A ton to work with for Oracles Five Stars Good supplement Five Stars Five Stars

0 notes

haloovfire · 8 years ago

Text

Talking Bloodlines & Black Magic

So tomorrow night, @thatboomerkid and I will be on a podcast supporting our Kickstarter for Bloodlines & Black Magic. In preparation for that Kickstarter, I’ve went ahead and tackled some of the questions posed to us. If you’re interested in learning more, continue reading below...

1. Provide your name and your role on the project. This is to tell the audience who they're hearing from.

Hi, I’m Jaye Sonia, the co-creator of the Pathfinder compatible campaign setting, Bloodlines & Black Magic. [Assuming all goes as planned, Clinton Boomer (author of The Hole Behind Midnight and longtime Paizo freelancer) will be joining us, as well]. You’ve already spoken with Erik Frankhouse, who is handling some of our material and is working on our social media and advertising.

2. In a nutshell, what is the story behind Bloodlines & Black Magic? What is the setting like and what are the hooks for players and GMs?

Bloodlines & Black Magic is a darker, modern setting designed to be compatible with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. It’s set in the current year, but presents an alternative explanation for everything from current events to many of the urban legends we take for granted. It’s a setting that embraces conspiracy theories, esoteric traditions, and occult mysteries (it’s built to support Paizo Publishing’s Occult Adventures). What’s the story behind it? Well, that’s a pretty broad question. It’s a setting Boomer and I have been building for about 2 years now, and its chock full of strange supernatural assumptions.

Simplified, there’s a secret war going on between a legion of entities known collectively as Goëtic Spirits and the Archons - semi-divine servants who are trying to keep Earth and humanity precisely where it is - static and stagnant. This is not, however, the classic “Good vs. Evil” trope, because both sides cross all of the alignment lines.

3. Why did you guys decide to use Pathfinder instead of another system? For that matter, why use a modified Pathfinder system instead of the original SRD?

We’re Pathfinder guys. We’ve been collectively supporting the system since its original play test, and we collectively like how it handles a lot of the standard d20 assumptions (more so than the original SRD). That said, we’ve made our own modifications to the system, which has evolved into the O7 rules, which are the foundation for this setting now (although still 100% Pathfinder compatible).

4. What are the bloodlines of the setting and why are they important to the game?

Each bloodline is a supernatural, magical bloodline that has links back to either powerful Goëtic Spirit or one of the Archons. These bloodlines replace races in your traditional fantasy roleplaying game. So, instead of having elves or orcs or halflings, you have fey-blooded, seraphic-blooded, or infernal-blooded heroes. Why are they important? These bloodlines are ancient and have established themselves as powerful agents in the modern world. Although they operate in shadows and silence, their actions can (and do) have global impact, both in the mundane and in the secret, supernatural worlds beyond the ken of mortals (I love saying that).

5. What are some central themes you hope gaming groups see in a Bloodlines & Black Magic campaign?

This is a very awesome question. When people ask me about Bloodlines & Black Magic, I describe it as “Modern, supernatural-themed Pathfinder.” Our themes are arguably strange, weird, and esoteric, but with one foot in conspiracy theories (think the Illuminati) and the other in supernatural horror (all those urban legends you’ve heard about). Most groups are going to be able to take these themes and run with them, at least that’s our hope.

6. Do players get to be part of these bloodlines? Are they minor members or do they get to run the world too?

Yes! All of the characters start out as minor players. If they go on to run the world is entirely up to their GMs!

7. The character generation system is described as point-buy rather than a static racial template, allowing players to choose a personal array of powers. This is something that should appeal to veterans but are there shortcuts for new players (new to Pathfinder or to RPGs in general)?

Yes. The character generation system is standard Pathfinder, but when it comes to picking your race, you instead pick up a customizable bloodline instead. So, all of these characters are very much normal humans, but with innate supernatural and magical powers, not all of which are obvious (at first). We’ve been working on this for several years now, and so far in play test, people have really flocked to the idea. I wouldn’t say there’s a big learning curve, either, so newer players are likely to easily pick up the new system and its assumptions.

8. You say that "Bloodlines & Black Magic draws liberally from the lore of our day-to-day world, weaving historical facts, modern myths, urban legends, and popular conspiracies into a supernatural world that could be our own." What myths and legends really inspired you writing this world?

Oh man. How long do you have? We’ve definitely tackled a bunch of the regional urban legends (stuff like Slender Man, Bloody Mary, Cry Baby Bridge, and so on), as well as the classics - popular themes like the Illuminati, secret governments, MiB, and occult-aligned super bankers. You’ll hear us references everything from Bohemian Grove to Stonehenge to the cryptic symbology of the dollar bill.

9. You list a number of different d20-based games that you pull from mechanically and thematically including Occult Adventures, the Advanced Class Guide, Pathfinder Unchained, and dD20 Modern. How do these games show up in Bloodlines & Black Magic?

These are the mechanical roots of our rules and setting. All of the starting classes, for instance, are modified versions of the classes found in The Advanced Class Guide and Occult Adventures; the brawler, the investigator, the mesmerist, the occultist, the psychic, the slayer, and the spiritualist are your starting classes for this setting.

10. Do you need other books to run Bloodlines & Black Magic? Which ones?

As a Pathfinder Roleplaying Game compatible product, you’ll want to have access to the Pathfinder Core Rulebook, although we also recommend you have a copy of Occult Adventures as well. That’s really it. All of the modified classes and all of the bloodlines are in Bloodlines & Black Magic, as are the new skills, powers, Feats, weapons, gear, and all the other fun stuff you’ll need to play in the setting.

11. You also list the World of Darkness (and presumably also the newer Chronicles of Darkness lines) as inspiration and just reading the introduction makes that inspiration clear. How is your world different from the World of Darkness? Is it an either/or thing or do you think that solid fans of WoD would be interested in your game as well?

I’d be honestly surprised if World of Darkness fans were not interested in this setting. While this is a distinct, specific take on our modern world, it’s still dark, supernatural horror. That said, we’ve made a point to make sure this is not the World of Darkness we all know and love. There are no clans of vampires, no tribes of werewolves, and no traditions of mages (although we do have seven, distinct occult traditions). There are definitely all of the supernatural foes you’d find in World of Darkness, but you’re not playing them - you’re playing blooded humans who are either fighting or aligned to these forces.

12. Tell us about the Whispers & Rumors campaign "seasons." These short PDFs of game resource will be produced for a year start in October 2017, and how often can we expect them to come out? Any chance of going longer than a year?

Just to clarify, Whispers & Rumors and our Bloodlines & Black Magic episodes are two different things. Let me tackle Whispers & Rumors first. Six+ times a year (bi-monthly), we plan to release new content about the world. This could be anything from new locations, new haunts, new monsters, new class options, new careers - anything. Each of these releases will be compiled and released as Whispers & Rumors. Additionally, some of these will include cyphers, hints, and additional content that supports the episodes that we plan to release.

Campaign seasons, on the other hand, are designed to be similar to a season of your favorite supernatural-themed television show. Each episode is designed to be resolved in a single sitting (3-5 hours; ideally convention length), and each season will contain roughly thirteen episodes. We have currently planned out the first season, but have enough episodes outlined for 2-3 seasons (right now). We’ve toyed around with the idea of only supporting 7 seasons, but that’s an ambitious endeavor. I think we’re up to it, but that really depends on fans, community support, and if folks rally to the setting like we hope they do.

13. Only your first stretch goal (at $14k) has been revealed so far. What can you tell us about Apex Infernal?

We’ve actually revealed the first three stretch goals. As for Apex Infernal, that’s a solo project by a musician named Arjay Murray. He focuses on very dark ambient music, with supernatural overtones, which is perfect for what we’re building in Bloodlines & Black Magic. Fans of Lamia Vox, Randal Collier-Ford, Cryo Chamber, and Lustmord will likely notice Apex Infernal's influences. All in all, he’s made some pretty awesome music, so teaming up with Arjay seemed like a smart move.

14. Any teasers you can provide about future stretch goals?

We have two stretch goals we really, really want to tackle. The first is a series of short stories based in the setting called Tales From the Shadows (which unlocks at 21k). The second is a special bestiary for the setting, called Monsters & Madmen that unlocks at a higher tier.

15. What are some challenges about running this Kickstarter? Anything you'd do differently next time?

This is Storm Bunny Studio’s third Kickstarter, so we’ve ironed out a lot of the bugs. That said, each Kickstarter has its own challenges, not all of which you can anticipate (like competing RPG Kickstarters, for instance). All in all, I think Kickstarter suffers from two problems. The first is exposure. This is a pretty basic, signal-to-noise ratio problem. You’re competing with any number of projects, which means you potentially lose pledges to other projects. There’s not much you can do about that. The other challenge is one of trust. Backers tend to flock to very established names and projects, even if those creators don’t really need Kickstarter to fund their projects. Much of this has to do with trust - too many gamers have been burned on projects. Luckily for us, we’ve delivered everything we’ve set out to do, so we’ve got a fairly faithful and dedicated audience of repeat backers!

16. What are your favorite games to play at your own gaming table? Are you always playing gritty supernatural modern games or do you mix it up?

I can’t speak for the rest of the team, but I know I play a lot of things. My personal go to game is my campaign setting, Rhune: Dawn of Twilight (which was our first Kickstarter). It’s a fun magic-technological fantasy setting we call Stormpunk. When we’re not playing that, we also play some old school fantasy (including jumping back to 2e).

17. Are there any elements from classic Pathfinder settings like elves or orcs that show up in this setting?

No. Shadowrun and d20 Modern’s Urban Arcana both handled that already. We’ve been avoiding modern orcs, beholders, elves, and similar fantasy tropes on purpose. Our material is definitely its own.

18. How global is your book? Does it have a default city or can you use it anywhere in the world?

It’s definitely global. We have seven, principle locations described in the main book (several in America, one in the U.K., and one in the Middle East), but there’s plenty of room for GMs to set games anywhere in the world they want to. We’re not locking anyone into a particular area. That said, there are some fun locations (I’m looking at you, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Chicago, New Orleans, and New York) for players to explore - especially if we hit those stretch goals!

#bloodlinesNBlackMagic O7rpg Pathfinder roleplaying modern horror supernatural

0 notes