Pathfinder - Rise of the Runelords - Player's Guide.pdf - Pathfinder - pan_wu

Chopper’s

Isle

The Old

Light

Junker’s Way

Undercliff Way

Rat Alley

Bent Street

Sand Street

Rusty Nail Alley

Bishop Street

Wet Dog Alley

Prickleback Lane

Water Street

Mud Street

Sandpoint

Harbor

Sandpoint

150

feet

Chopper’s

Isle

The Old

Light

Junker’s Way

Undercliff Way

Rat Alley

Bent Street

Sand Street

Rusty Nail Alley

Bishop Street

Wet Dog Alley

Prickleback Lane

Water Street

Mud Street

Sandpoint

Harbor

Sandpoint

150

feet

Rise of the Runelords

Player’s Guide

by F. Wesley Schneider

Editor-in-Chief • James Jacobs

Art Director • Sarah Robinson

Associate Editor • F. Wesley Schneider

Assistant Editor • James L. Sutter

Senior Art Director • Sean Glenn

Managing Art Director • James Davis

Production Manager • Jef Alvarez

Brand Manager • Jason Bulmahn

Marketing Director • Josh Frost

Publisher • Erik Mona

•

Cover Artist

UDON with Roberto Campos

Cartographer

Rob Lazzaretti

Contributing Artists

Jef Carlisle

Andrew Hou

Ramón Pérez

Paizo CEO • Lisa Stevens

Corporate Accountant • Dave Erickson

Technical Director • Vic Wertz

Director of Operations • Jef Alvarez

Special Thanks

Mike McArtor

The “Rise of the Runelords Player’s Guide” introduces new players to the realm of Varisia, setting for the irst Pathinder Chronicles™ Adventure Path™. This Player’s Guide is compliant with the Open

Game License (OGL) and is suitable for use with the world’s most popular fantasy roleplaying game. The OGL can be found on page 16 of this product.

The following text is Open Gaming Content: all game mechanics.

Paizo Publishing, LLC

2700 Richards Road, Suite 201

Bellevue, WA 98005

paizo.com

Paizo Publishing and the golem logo are registered trademarks of Paizo Publishing, LLC. Pathinder, Pathinder Chronicles, Adventure Path, and GameMastery are trademark of

•

“Like no other land I have visited in all my vast and fevered travels, here in Varisia art and environment are truly

one. The monoliths of a mysterious and romantic people weather the ages, telling the voiceless tales of a race lost

to silence. Each inspired day colors the skies in vivid palettes of placid blue, raging red-orange, and sorrowed

gray—heavenly emotions painted across an endless, cloudless canvas. Even the natives live like masterpieces

on display, their tattoos becoming the likenesses of their lives, their dances telling their endless tales, and their

wisdom tempered by murmured harmonies echoing from both past and future.”

— Cevil “Redwing” Charms Esq., Eidolon

WELCOME TO VARISIA

S carred by the depravity of ancient wizards and reclaimed

area, regional characteristics of various character classes, dei-

ties commonly worshiped, new feats unique to the region, and

equipment created and utilized by natives. The latter sections

detail the lands of Varisia, with a special focus on Sandpoint,

a town that takes particular prominence in the Rise of the

Runelords Adventure Path. While any character, new or old,

can take part in the Rise of the Runelords, those created and

equipped using this guide are likely to have an advantage as

the events of the Adventure Path unfold.

As the irst adventure, “Burnt Oferings” in Pathinder #1,

begins in the coastal town of Sandpoint, characters should

consider being local to that community or having a reason

for visiting the area. If you choose to create a character from

beyond Varisia’s borders, work with your GM to establish a

reason for being in Sandpoint.

If this guide whets your appetite for more information about

Varisia and the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path, Pathinder

#1 includes a complete description of the town of Sandpoint.

Beyond that, the Pathinder website ( paizo.com/pathinder )

and each subsequent issue of Pathinder will reveal ever more

information about this fantastic and mysterious land and the

world around it, as well as new options for players to further

immerse themselves in the ongoing adventures.

Rest assured, this guide is merely the irst step, and your

journey into Varisia is just beginning!

How to Use This Guide

Aside from introducing the Rise of the Runelords Adventure

Path, this guide reveals much of the history and background of

Varisia and aids players in the creation of characters native to

the region. All of the information presented herein should be

considered common knowledge, especially to characters who

call Varisia home—players are encouraged to create characters

with ties to this varied land.

To aid in that task, this g uide is organized to facilitate char-

acter creation, providing you with details about races in the

“Savagery and regressivity epitomize the disfigured lands of Varisia. Jagged mountain chains break the worthless,

dusty clay at queer and reckless lengths. Tangled forests grow wild with titan weeds—the flora of these fecund

briars little more than tenacious brambles. Blasted reaches of cracked earth and rolling scrub form the parched

paradises of all manner of backward savages, including the doomed final generations of humanity’s brutish

ancestors. And everywhere the land bears the scars of a forgotten people whose eroding ruins and crude attempts

at artistry litter a landscape already scarred by its own geological leprosy.”

— Darvayne Gios Amprei ; Merciless: Abendego, Belkzen, Varisia, and Other Hells

by a wilderness of beasts and savages, only in the past few

hundred years have the steps of civilized men again trod

the wondrous and mysterious lands of Varisia.

Welcome to Varisia, the home of Pathinder ’s Rise of the

Runelords Adventure Path. It’s in these ancient and treacherous

lands that your character will take up arms against the return

of a centuries-old evil. Yet, before you dive headlong into your

adventures, there are things you must know. This guide seeks

to prepare you for your quest, supplying you with information

about Varisia: an introduction to the varied people that call the

land home, a primer to the unique skills and tools you’re likely

to encounter, and that extra edge that just might mean the dif-

ference between heroic triumph and an ignominious end.

RACES OF VARISIA

F rom the reclusive elves of the Mierani forest to the orc-blooded

all the tribes, and iery youths often raise their voices in bloody vows

against all those of Chelish blood. Of the seven remaining Shoanti

tribes, those of the Shriikirri-Quah—a people who hold great respect

for animals and claim to learn much from their ways—are most likely

to interact with other peoples. The other tribes, those of the Lyrune-

Quah, Shadde-Quah, Shundar-Quah, Sklar-Quah, Skoan-Quah, Tamiir-

Quah , typically prove more warlike and aloof.

The Shoanti are a hale and powerfully built people. Typically

of ruddy complexion, most men stand well over 6 feet tall, with

women only slightly shorter. Hair is viewed as a distraction and

possible detriment (especially in the complex arts of hand-to-hand

battle many tribes cultivate) and thus both genders frequently

Humans

Three distinct human societies dwell in Varisia: the expansionist

colonists of Cheliax, the tempestuous tribes of the Shoanti barbar-

ians, and the enigmatic Varisians.

Chelaxians: Beyond the Mindspin Mountains and far to the

south lies the cosmopolitan heresy of Cheliax. Once an empire of

unquestioned might, the death of the empire’s god Aroden allowed

the rise of a diabolical aristocracy who treat with the denizens of

Hell to aford their endless decadence and eternal rule. Although

unquestionably depraved and diminished by the loss of its deity,

Cheliax remains a beacon of culture, art, and magic that dominates

much of the southern part of the continent.

While expansionist Cheliax once coveted the riches of Varisia,

its decline has freed its colonies to their own fates. Now, the most

powerful of Cheliax’s city-states, monument-haunted Magnimar

and imperial-minded Korvosa, vie for control of its abandoned

Varisian holdings.

In these cities and the numerous vassal settlements of each,

the majority of the populace can trace their ancestry to the sharp-

featured people of Cheliax. Chelaxians possess dark hair and

eyes contrasted by pale skin—along with a taste for artistic in-

eries and high art—and the far-reaching and polyethnic holdings

of Cheliax allow humans of varied heritages to claim Chelish

descent. So numerous and varied are these immigrants that the

natives of Varisia now simply refer to all humans not of Varisian

or Shoanti blood as Chelaxians.

Shoanti: Across the northeastern reaches of Varisia, the seven

ardent tribes of the Shoanti make their homes. A turbulent people

adhering to traditions unchanged in hundreds of years, these natives

live harsh lives, preying upon predators and eking what they can from

an unforgiving land. Most of the tribes nomadically follow herds and

water as the seasons demand, but they typically stay within familiar

territories and return to favored homelands year after year.

The Shoanti once held all of Varisia as their own, sharing it only with

the Varisians, whom they coldly accept as distant cousins. The coming

of explorers and colonists from Cheliax changed all this, though,

sparking an age of bloody warfare. Few know how many tribes

of Shoanti were lost in these endless battles—and even today

the names of the so-called dead tribes are not spoken—but

inally the barbarians were forced to cede their homeland’s

southern reaches to the invaders. While they still claim all Varisia as

their rightful land, today the Shoanti tribes are limited the Storval Pla-

teau, the Cinderlands, the Curchainian Hills, and the Velashu Uplands.

Their loss of the south remains an unhealed wound shared between

interlopers from the Hold of Belkzen to the Varisian wanderers

from whom the region takes its name, diversity and conlict

characterize the varied cultures that make Varisia their home.

Pathfinder - Rise of the Runelords - Player's Guide.pdf

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