Frightful Fridays! Preview

Welcome to Frightful Fridays: Halloween Edition! Theodric and his associates find many unusual images that beg to be turned into monsters for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, so I'm hoping to turn this into a regular feature. The first offering is based on the image of the creepy assassin bug, which uses its victims as armor and as a convenient place to hide so it can ambush other prey.

Stay tuned for the next monster a week from Friday!

Giant Assassin Bug

This large, brown insect has an elongated head with a distinct narrowed neck, long legs, and a prominent, segmented rostrum. It has a pair of corpses impaled on spiky bristles jutting out from its abdomen.

Giant Assassin Bug     CR 3

XP 800

N Medium vermin

Init +1; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +5

Defense

AC 15, touch 11, flat-footed 14 (+1 Dex, +4 natural)

hp 30 (4d8+12)

Fort +7, Ref +2, Will +2

Immune mind-affecting effects

Offense

Speed 40 ft., climb 20 ft.

Melee bite +7 (2d4+5 plus poison)

Special Attacks poison, stridulation

Statistics

Str 19, Dex 12, Con 16, Int —, Wis 13, Cha 9

Base Atk +3; CMB +6; CMD 17

Feats Improved Initiative^B

Skills Climb +11, Perception +5, Stealth +5, Survival +5; Racial Modifiers +4 Perception, +4 Stealth, +4 Survival

SQ corpse armor, corpse camouflage

Ecology

Environment any terrestrial

Organization solitary, pair, gang (3–6), nest (7–12)

Treasure none

Special Abilities

Corpse Armor (Ex) A giant assassin bug may take a standard action to pick up a corpse and use it as natural armor. Every Medium corpse (or two Small corpses) it attaches to itself provides an additional +1 natural armor bonus, up to a maximum of +4. The assassin bug does not benefit from smaller or larger corpses. A typical encounter with a giant assassin bug starts with the creature having enough corpses to give it AC 16.

Corpse Camouflage (Ex) An assassin bug gains a +8 bonus to its Stealth checks when it buries itself under at least two Medium creatures’ corpses.

Poison (Ex) Bite—injury; save Fort DC 15; frequency 1/round for 6 rounds; effect 1d2 Con; cure 2 consecutive saves. The save DC is Constitution-based.

Stridulation (Ex) An assassin bug rubs its rostrum against ridges in its prosternum to produce a frightening sound. All creatures within 60 feet of the assassin bug must succeed at a DC 11 Will save to avoid becoming shaken. A victim who succeeds at the save is immune to that particular assassin bug’s stridulation for 24 hours. This is a mind-affecting fear effect, and its save DC is Charisma-based.

A giant assassin bug is no different from the considerably smaller, normal version of the creature…with the disturbing exception that it is large enough to grab a fallen member of an adventuring party and use the corpse as a shield against the corpse’s former allies. A typical specimen is five feet in length (excluding the six-inch rostrum) and weighs about 100 pounds.

Much like the normal assassin bug, the giant version preys on large arthropods, and characters may interrupt a single assassin bug (or a group) tearing through a giant ant hive. The creature relies on its rostrum to deliver a powerful bite that also injects its prey with a liquefying poison. An assassin bug fighting multiple foes will switch to a new opponent when it successfully bites one. When any of its foes die, the assassin bug instinctively moves to grab its dead victim as impromptu armor by impaling the corpse on its otherwise harmless spikes.

Occasionally, an enterprising necromancer employs giant assassin bugs as weird allies to the mindless undead he creates. A bug hides among decaying zombies and sometimes bears a couple of the creatures on its spikes as writhing armor. The bug is, of course, immune to channel attempts used to harm undead creatures, and once the bug has feasted on the liquefied remains of its victims, the necromancer has more corpses to replace any fallen zombies.

Happy Halloween!

Yes, I've been crazy busy and having trouble finding time for posting.  I did find time to finally read two contemporary vampire classics that I'd been planning on for this Halloween: 'Salem's Lot and Anno Dracula.  The former hit my horror button harder and the latter hit my Victoriana fanboy button harder, but I enjoyed and recommend both if you haven't gotten around to them.  I am Legend will just have to wait for some other year.  What did you sink your teeth into this year, my blood-thirsty ramblers?

Paizo and the Art of Book Covers

 The older Planet Stories covers above are awesome.  Above is a selection from my library.  Most of the covers are by Andrew Hou.  The Kline covers are by Daryl Mandryk and Brandon Kitkouski, respectively.  The Moore cover is by Arnold Tsang.  Sadly, at this point, I'm still missing from my PS collection Brackett's wonderful Skaith books.  James Ryman did the covers for Paizo.  Let's not deprive ourselves of the pleasure.  Below is his illustration for Hounds of Skaith.

After the redesign of the Planet Stories line,  Kieran Yanner appears to have gotten a lock on the series.  I struggled a bit to get decent shots of them, so I took doubles.

Leaving aside any judgment on the two different formats (I'm truly torn on which I like best), the suspended series did a wonderful job of taking inspiration from the past and producing new, attractive art that generally was well-grounded in the contents.  When Paizo started its Pathfinder Tales line, it faced the new challenge of providing quality covers for the much smaller mass market paperbacks.  I guess it is not surprising that a line of new fiction, tied to the RPG setting would go with totally different artists than those used for the reprint line named for a classic pulp periodical.  But while I enjoy most of the illustrations, and they aren't bad, I generally haven't loved them like I have most of the PS covers.  Check out the line so far below.

 Of these, the best so far of PF Tales seem to me to have the same kind of feel as the best PS covers.  Those would be Lucas Graciano's for Master of Devils, Kekai Kotaki's for Death's Heretic, J.P. Targete's for City of the Fallen Sky, and Tyler Walpole's for Nightglass.  The latest volume, Blood of the City, unfortunately has the weakest PF Tales cover so far.  (While the colors are nice, and the attempt to at a high action scene is laudable, I don't think Adam Danger Cook pulls it off here.  Hopefully, this remains an anomaly in the series.)

So, this is my question for Ramblers who are more skilled in the criticism of art than I: what is that I am drawn to in these Paizo cover illustrations?

Two Great Tastes that Go Great Together

I finally picked up Richard Pett's Your Whispering Homunculus, published by Kobold Press when I was at The Dragon's Lair for Pathfinder Society Organized Play last week.  Man, this book is a thing of twisted beauty.  Reading through its imaginative jottings, many of which inspire guffaws, others extended flights of fancy, and some, occasionally, retching, I thought of how it could enrich your game planning or could be used on the fly to generate elements for your game.  GMs should definitely check this out.

GRADE: A+

It made me think of another fun book of tables, with which it pictured above.  

The Mini Maniac's Pathfinder Lodge

Hey all Jeremy here aka The Minis Maniac on Paizo.com. I thought I would share a pictures of my gaming room dubbed "The Pathfinder Lodge" as well as a look into my Pathfinder Battles addiction. So here is a little view of my psychosis.

So enjoy the images. I know I look forward to the next Pathfinder Battles release. So much so I am already planning to buy a second glass display case for when the one I have becomes too full.

I will also add a small guide to the large merged photo:

• Under Golarion map are what remains of the old DDM line of minis in 3 large tupperwares and the blue drawer case which is about 3.5 feet high all packed full of minis
• Beside window next to desk are 5 large boxes of Dwarven Forge Terrain which I will someday dig out and do pictures of when I have the time and energy

With a Little Help from my Friends!

A big thanks to Dave for his guest blogpost considering the state of fantasy illustration from a young artist.  As you can see from the drop in my posting frequency, the new classes and departmental responsibilities at my new institution, while a great blessing, are cutting into the time and energy I have for Rambling.  I've got some things in the cooker, but my friends have noticed this, and in their expansive FaWTLy spirit, have offered to guest post from time-to-time.  Keep your eyes out for more of these contributions in the days to come, as well as some new posts from Yours Obscurely.  There efforts are going to enrich things around here.  Thanks a lot, friends!  This is not the first time or only venue in which you have gotten me by.

Fantasy Illustration: The State of the Industry in Brief

So the ineffable Theodric has requested I write a blog entry on the subject of the current state of fantasy art. As someone who occasionally thinks of himself as a fantasy artist, it seems I'm obliged to answer the call. In brief, we seem to have entered an interesting time in the world of fantasy illustration.

With the ever-rising popularity of role-playing games such as Pathfinder and D&D 4.0, the demand for fantasy illustrators has reached new highs. In addition, the influx of new material from major publishers has also caused a surge in the popularity of products produced by smaller, third-party companies. As a result, the market is becoming flooded with new artwork on a daily basis.

This, as I've come to find, is a double-edged sword. The glut of phenomenal artwork has driven a small number of talented illustrators to the forefront, with a much larger number pushed to the sidelines, or, more commonly, forced by the nature of the market to imitate the artistic styling of more popular artists. Illustrators like Wayne Reynolds, Tyler Walpole, and Todd Lockwood have definitively set the standard for others to follow, with somewhat mixed results. The competition for top jobs has led smaller-name illustrators to abandon their own artistic directions to follow in the footsteps of the industry trend-setters.

 One other side effect of this is that art directors, in many cases, will not give art orders to illustrators that they feel do not "fit" with their particular "style," meaning that artists who fit with more comic book-esque styles (such as Steve Ellis and Peter Bergting) or less realistic work (such as Jeff Laubenstein, and Kev Crossley) are not hired as frequently as those who imitate the big names.

Still, the market is still massive, and up-and-coming illustrators have more of a chance than ever to break into the industry through third-party publishers like Fantasy Flight Games and Headless Hydra Games. If you want to keep an eye on the next big thing, here are some links to the portfolios of a few up-and-coming illustrators in the field:

Noah Bradley
Mike Burns
J.S. Choi 
Hugo Solis
J. Edwin Stevens

- Dave Mallon, freelance illustrator and writer

Random Rambles of Late

Picture Linked

Went shopping this evening after the first day of school to replenish my depleted larder.  I ran across the above, BLAECORN UNIDRAGON Russian Imperial Stout (for clearer picture, see here).  At over twelve dollars for 1 & 3/8 pint, it's a little rich for my blood.  Anybody ever try it?

I picked up James Enge's Blood of Ambrose.  I remember it was getting a lot of great buzz a few years back when it came out, but there is something stubborn in me that resists new books in a way that I do not resist new movies.  So I know I'm late to the party, but so far, this book is a first rate piece of sword and sorcery -- well-written, attention grabbing and holding, interesting characters.  It seems that the good buzz was justified.  I'm pretty sure this is going to turn out to be a "Strongly Recommend."

When the hell did summer get so short and school years get so long?  Happy Mythopoeic Monday, all!

Madness of the Butterfrog

I have featured the work of Hugo "Butterfrog" Solis on my blog in the past, but as I have gotten busier, and at the same time tried to keep up with the doings of more and more creative folks, he too has gotten busier.  Little did I know that amongst his current projects, he had taken up turning his nom-de-net into a Pathfinder RPG creature.  Download your free guide to the freaky butterfrog, here.

Further, the guidebook serves as a guide to create more variant butterfrogs for PFRPG, with a chance to win prizes and glory.  To join in this madness, read more about the contest here.
Bon Frogage!

GM at the Improv

Little Game in the Big Woods

Well, another summer comes to an end in which I have done a lot less gaming than I had hoped to do.  The only place I even got to game was in some time away in Minnesota to see my daughter.  I ran Pathfinder a game for her and her boyfriend.  Now, I had come pretty much fresh off of the teaching the last summer session.  They wanted a full Pathfinder game we could play in about a three solid days, and I had not time to prepare.

I've recently been enjoying the Iron GM podcast (see below), and was inspired to hear about the contest's assigning of special ingredients that had to be worked into the adventure that the contestants ran and interviews with the winners and their methods.  An interview with Wolfgang Baur likewise brought up how he DMed using a Monster Manual, which brought back lots of memories of college gaming.  I realized that the twin demands of no time to prepare like I did while running Rise of the Runelords and giving the players what they wanted (and not helping them to chose something prepared and then preparing them to play something that fit what they chose) would best be met by improvisational game-mastering.  So with only the first PF Bestiary to draw from (though I did keep my stack of recent KQs and Book of Drakes at hand in case), I asked the two players to give me eight elements for the game.  Their contributions are below.

NUMBER: 11
COLOR: Green
LOCATION: Beach
BBEG: Sylar
THEME: Hunger
OBJECT: Pineapple
EVENT: Shipwreck
NPC: Maes Hughes

Now, the game had to be set somewhere, so I used the Ygg setting (see tabs above) as that is the setting I had been thinking about that didn't require an authority outside myself for "getting it right" and one of it's great cities: the trade hub of the North, Farlangora.  A quick look at the Wikipedia entry from pineapple got me thinking -- I wanted a culturally specific term for the fruit that did not come from their resemblance to pine cones.  Thinking about their exoticness and how difficult and expensive it would be to transport them in a pre-scientific fantasy world,I realized that in a world where pineapples were hard to get, they would be greatly coveted.  It's difficult to get my head into a world where I couldn't have pineapple just about any time I wanted it, and most people would have never tasted them.  This plus the "crown" on top inspired me to rename Yggian variety of pineapple, "kingfruit."

So I thought of an undercover fey contingent in Farlangora that would have their own black market.  Such a presence in the city would be lucrative (think the fair in Stardust or the Goblin Market in Rossetti or Hellboy II) and a point of trade between the mundane and fey.  Something difficult to get like a kingfruit could be greatly desired by the fey as well -- especially if their was something that was hungry for them.  Magic is keeping the green pineapples from spoiling, but also will be used to ripen the pineapples as they are sold.

The Beginning of the Adventure

The characters were a pygmy (halfling) druid, her friend a dwarf alchemist, a half-elf barbarian who worked as a bouncer a the Green Dragon (after having lost her job as a guard for one of the merchant houses -- charisma dump stat!), and a changeling fey-bloodline sorcerer, the supposed daughter of said merchant.  Alas, the daughter's family throws a party, and the key attraction, the kingsfruit, is delayed in arriving.  Thy pygmy was a freed slave and friend of the dwarf.  She worked at the Green Dragon Inn for room and board while waiting for the ship she had bought passage on to return to her home in the Lands of the Sun.  This was the same ship bringing eleven large crates of kingfruit for sale.  It wrecks on a beach below the town and is discovered with the kingfruit stolen and the captain missing the top of his head.  Thus the network of relations between the characters drew them into the situation to investigate.  While a crowd gathers on the beach at the wreck site, a group of skum charmed by a nixie appear to drag women off the beach to watery (eew!) nuptials.  This is just a ploy by the fey to draw suspicion onto resurgent skum activity.  This is where the heroes get their first fight.

Skummy went a courtin' - PF Bestiary

Prominent NPCS:

Inspector Oxyscopos - the chief inspector of the Harbor Watch.  The characters think they are dealing with him, but they are really dealing with a doppelganger who is working with the fey to steal the kingfruit.  The doppelganger cleaves the skulls of his victims open, like Sylar.  The PCs later discover Oxyscopos body, which shows signs of having been dead for more than a day.

Gershon Thusacles - introduced as the obnoxious Maes Hughes-like character at party thrown by the changeling sorceress' father, presumably unimportant, but the characters later learn that he is an assistant inspector with the Harbor Watch who takes over the case of the stolen kingfruit once Oxyscopos disappears.

Baratos Silberhülsen - the head of one of the great merchant houses of Farlangen.  Owner of the ship that wrecks, he stands to lose a fortune if the kingfruit is not recovered.

Ginger - Baratos' floozie.   So far, only a minor character.

Larsy Herringbone - proprietor of the Clockwork Gnome (you're welcome, Allen).  You will note his name is an anagram for Sylar.  He wore red and like Sylar, worked on clocks and clockwork mechanisms.  When the characters entered The Clockwork Gnome and met him, he had the top of the head of a Brazen Head off of it while he worked on it.  Larsy was a red herring for the real Sylar-style killer.  The players were tormented when they thought that their characters had befriended, and even aided, Larsy when they later made the false connection.  Use meta-knowledge for player fun, even as you guide your players (mine didn't need much guidance here at all) not to confuse their suspicions with their characters'!

Heraclesson - proprietor of the Green Dragon Inn. So far, only a minor character

Assessment

We had a good time this week and all their adventuring across the city got nowhere close to exhausting even the basic plot I had created on the fly, much less all the avenues their exploration and role-play opened up, and this reinforced for me how well improvisational GMing can go if you have good resources and a good imagination, and have kept your creative juices flowing even when you were not preparing to run a specific adventure.  My advice this Mythopoeic Monday is to get player input and go with it!  And if you haven't listened to the ENnie-nominated Iron GM podcast, click the link below and give it a try!

Concrete Inspiration for Characters

Character Creation Exercise

Grab four objects.  Arrange them together.  Suppose that they represent or even belong to a character.  Then flesh that character out.  

As I was clearing the shelves in my old office/library for its next regular occupant, I took the four above objects, put them on the shelf together, and snapped the picture above.  Whether you take the picture and set it aside for the future, or put the objects in front of you and begin brainstorming, I like this exercise for either RPG characters (and PC or NPC!) or fiction characters, and am working on a Pathfinder character that seems a real natural choice for these objects.

Have any of my esteemed readers used a method like this one?  I'd love to hear about how such an exercise went for you.  Does anyone regularly use an exercise like this one?  Or do you have a character to propose for the collection above?

Have Game, With Travel

Ah, summertime.  As I write this, my summer is rapidly coming to an end.  I look back on the past three weeks (short summer, huh?), and the gaming gear and reading that I brought with me, along with some acquisitions I picked up during these weeks, and I realize I brought more than enough to keep me entertained.  I only wish I had another three weeks to spend with it and interested parties!  So before I pack it up, I thought I'd post a couple of pictures to share.  So, what are the essentials you have to take with you, or the cream and timely stuff you would take with if you had room, when going away for an extended time?  It's sharing time!

A Glass Darkly

The latest entry to the Pathfinder Tales line is Nightglass by Liane Merciel.  As you can see from the image, the cover is beautifully illustrated by Tyler Walpole.  But Nightglass is really only the first part of the novel, ending on page 157.  However the fault is to be divided between Merciel and the editor, this addition lacks the level of cohesion required of a novel.  There is an admission of this fact in the formatting and division of Nightglass into Book I: Monsters and Book II: People, but the lack of development will not let Book I stand alone and, as it stands, it does not achieve unity with what follows. 

Book I: Monsters is grim.  Exceedingly grim: over 100 pages of growing up and coming of age at the mercy of a dark god and his twisted minions.  I can appreciate it as an exercise in world building, but this exceeds my tolerance for treatment of children in this kind of jeopardy of evil and of fundamental lostness on the part of the protagonist.  While it hints of more horrors than it actually details, the thoughtful reader with a vivid imagination may still find themselves disturbed.

Now, I am no opponent of literature's capacity to disturb, but when it comes to entertainment, it must disturb as a part of accomplishing its purpose.  If Book I’s purpose is to create the character and his predicament and Book II is his redemption from the realm of Monsters to the realm of People, then a tighter composition in which Book I is significantly shortened and the protagonist’s redemption begins earlier would bring about greater unity.  Giving into an excess of world-building and extraneous characterization in this case overcame the basic necessities: revulsion from the Nidalese way and sympathy for the main character.  To be clear, I am not saying that Book I as a whole was unnecessary.  On the contrary, Isiem could have appeared with little initial sympathy without the knowledge of how he was victimized by the followers of Zon-Kuthon.  Rather, what is at issue is balance, focus, and integration.

Book II is much more enjoyable.  Isiem the shadowmancer is fleeing the dark grasp of the evil god of he and his people’s slavery.  He struggles to survive in a harsh frontier and come to a life free of the shadows and of relationships twisted by domination and fear. 

In Book II, the classic trope of what is human and what is monstrous finds play as Isiem discovers that the fearsome, inhuman strix (pictured below) are more humane than the peoples he has known previously.  However, his escape from the world of the monstrously evil humans to the presumed, but human-hearted, monsters will only come with struggle, and this redemptive struggle makes Book II more plot-driven and active -- and ultimately, enjoyable.

I'm sorry to have to judge Nightglass as the weakest of the line so far.  In spite of its potential and its good parts, I grade it as it stands as a whole.
Grade: D

Brusting with Artistic Inspiration

If you've been following the MR blog, you know that this has been the year in which I finally got around to reading Steven Brust (or at least, the Steven Brust that everyone else was reading), and enjoyed his work a good deal.  If you are a Brust fan, be sure and catch this interview with him on Atomic Array.

Brust work's has inspired some gorgeous artwork over on DeviantArt that is not to missed.  So, with the kind permission of the artists, please feast your eyes on the these gorgeous and evocative interpretations, and if you aren't familiar with these artists, head on over to their DA sites (linked below) and give yourself an eyeful and them some love.

Vlad Taltos by Ashley Cope

Jhereg by Kerem Beyit

Grognards and Kobolds

My 2012 Economic Growth Program has resulted in my return to certain things I once enjoyed, like a KQ subscription.  (How sweet it is!)  So you will soon be hearing me talk about the religion articles in issue 21, but for now, I want to point out the growing connections between the Old School community and this excellent periodical.

If you find yourself a gamer who does not like 3rd and 4th era mechanics or new school RPGs like Dragon Age, you might question what KQ would offer you other than flavor material and inspiration.  The most recent issue shows that the magazine is open to Old School submissions as it continues to live out its polity of the "Switzerland of the Edition Wars."  Issue 22 includes nine monsters for Castles and Crusades.   It also contains a preview of another attempt to streamline the d20 system, undertaken by a mix of former TSR/Wizards designers, 13th Age.  If I were a gambling man, I'd take good odds on that the reason we haven't seen more reflects the submissions that Wolfgang Baur has [not] received.

KQ has also published on their blog an appreciation of the OSR written by long time D&D freelancer Steve Winter, who has also added an OSR Resources page to his blog.  (I recommend both of these blogs no matter what FRPG you play.  For that matter, writers who aren't gamers will also find items of interest.)  If this together with the C&C article isn't a toe in the water, then I'll be shocked.

So in addition to the inherent value of flavor and inspirational text (and art!) to Old School gamers, I would take this as a moment to be seized for those looking to spread the Old School love.  Go comment on Steve's post at KQ.  Look into submissions for the quarterly.  Even if your query was accepted to the KQ blog first, I know folks who started with blog publications and then went on to have things published in the quarterly and even in separate Open Design publications.  I know as a subscriber, I'd love to see things published for OS simulacra and evolved retro-games.

PS.  Steve, what's up with the OSR Croc?   I love it, but I feel like I'm missing a reference or something.