Art Preview Coliseum Morpheuon (PFRPG)

Dream Theft by Jason Rainville

for the Coliseum Morpheuon patronage project

"In this image I tried to get more dynamic with the pose/perspective, mainly because it would be easier to see both characters but also because of the dynamic actions taking place. The pose of the rogue indicates arrogance in victory, and his head tattoos help solidify images of his less than savory lifestyle. For the dreamburning specifically, consistent images of love are seen (along with magical wisps) out of the eyes of the victim and to the sphere, to help get across the fact that his dreams are being stolen."- Jason Rainville

In every heart live the dreams and nightmares to inspire and fuel all of us. On the Plane of Dreams, characters find it to be the literal truth. Adventurers in the Khan of Nightmare’s demesne may power their actions through an act known as Dreamburning. By slowly degrading the Dreams that lie in their soul, travelers become capable of breathtaking acts. For those in dire straits or undaunted by the terrible choice, sacrificing Dreams provides even greater power. But there is still hope for the merely desperate, because so long as some degraded scrap of the Dream remains yet unsacrificed, potent healing magic restores Dreams to their original state. The unscrupulous and dreamless seek out the Dreams of the noble, pious and artistic—stealing or buying others’ most precious Dreams to fuel their own selfish aims, for in the Dreaming even your most secret desire is just another coin of the Coliseum Morpheuon.

Wanted: Players and DMs who love figurines of wondrous power

“The Agate Companion is a figurine of wondrous power that grants you an animal companion or your existing animal companion is granted the benefits of being a figurine of wondrous power. Like you I love figurines of wondrous power even long before a certain black panther and dark elf teamed up, and the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game gives me a window to something marvelous and make it work seamlessly with this simple addition. There is this wonderful twist I added too but you will have to read about that for yourself”- Steven D. Russell (Designer of the Agate Companion)

The Agate Companion is an extraordinary magic item that you can smoothly integrate into any campaign at any level of play while adding an additional piece of roleplay to the mix. The Agate Companion is the first piece in the Reverse Design project where game material is crafted based on pitches done submitted by the patrons and staff of Rite Publishing on a single piece of evocative artwork

Within you will find:

• An innovative figurine of wondrous power balanced for all level of play.
• Extensive Lore DCs so that DMs can impart the background of the magic item to the PCs.
• An original creature template that can be applied to any animal companion.
• Two example NPCs that can be used to introduce this new item into an existing campaign.

Special introductory price of $1.99 is available for the first 30 days only, after that it goes up to the regular price.

Pathfinder and associated marks and logos are trademarks of Paizo Publishing, LLC, and are used under license. See paizo.com/pathfinderRPG for more information on the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.

Interview with Clinton J. Boomer (PART 5)

Welcome to Part 5 of a 5 part interview with the designer of Coliseum Morpheuon The Damnation Epoch, Clinton J. Boomer; You can find part 1 HERE, part 2 HERE part 3HERE and Part 4 HERE

41. What are your recommendations for making Coliseum Morpheuon relevant in an existing campaign (Pathfinder, 3.5, AE game or hybrid)? My hope is to make the Coliseum Morpheuon sort of a mini-setting; like the City of Brass in the Plane of Fire, it's a living, breathing place with a lot of stuff going on under the surface, that players could explore again and again, even from one campaign to the next. There's more than one story to be told here, but I think that GMs will find the Damnation Epoch a perfect introduction to the place - and then can do with it as they see fit.

42. How do magic and the supernatural affects of the plane of dreams affect the culture and ecology of your mini-setting? The plane of Dreams is highly 'morphic' - that's, honestly, one of the reasons that I chose the name 'Morpheuon', along with the connection to Morpheus in classical (and pop!) literature. My intention is to make the Coliseum a realistic place - realistic, here, meaning that it borrows a lot from my own subconscious and from really interesting fiction which deals heavily with the subconscious, like Neil Gaiman's Sandman or Sam Keith's The Maxx, a lot of Lovecraft's & Steven King's work (like the Dark Tower), the film Waking Life and the much-beloved Pschonauts game. The ecology, of course, will be the easy part: there's no real sunlight here, but weird plants may grow along the banks of rivers thick with multi-eyed squid, their tattoed leaves fed by the flashing ghost-lights of sleepwalking children passing in and out of Dream. In short, anything goes. The culture, however, is going to be the really challenging and fun part: in short, it all comes down to the Khan. The Khan of Nightmares and his servitor race have to be usable to GMs even if they've never run a Jade Oath-style game before, although of course his inspiration comes from kung fu films. During my chats with Steve, I've started thinking of him almost as The Mayor from Season 4 of Buffy, or like Leland Gaunt from King's Needful Things - a sort of of "Affable Evil", or "Evil with Calculated & Pleasant Tendencies". The Khan is a manipulator and a collector, so the Coliseum has to be a hodge-podge of civilizations, some of them lost to time or existing only in the minds of particularly potent dreamers. Part of the Coliseum will be almost like a slummy, shifting Casablanca - it's where people with nowhere else to go find themselves; yet, other parts are the 'public face' of the Khan, more like a dreamy Exit to Eden where the Kahn entertains visitors.

43. How do you feel about working with Jonathan Roberts as your cartographer?

I fell in love with his work a while ago, and I think that we're going to be a great team - his style is pretty much EXACTLY how I would draw if I could. Of course, I don't have even the barest modicum of drawing talent, so seeing what he's capable of gives me goosebumps.

44. How do you feel about Ashton Sperry joining up to do ColiseumMorpheuon Paper-Minis? I'm not JUST a huge fan of Ashton's work - I'm also a friend! In short, I would have petitioned Steve to get Ashton on board if I had thought of it first; the fact that Steve snagged such a cool and talented guy to be a part of this project with me makes me even more proud to be working on this team.

45. Patron Question: Any newly released (or soon to be released) products you are excited about? Well, I'm obviously excited to see the fan-reaction of the Pathfinder RPG, but I'm even more juiced to finally get my hands on the Pathfinder Bestiary - it's been a long time since I've gotten giddy about a book of monsters, but I know how good the team is! The next year also promises to unleash a whole slew of Pathfinder RPG-liscensced products from other companies, and I'm really excited to see what pops up.

46. Patron Question: What other projects are you working on currently? Since you didn't specify "gaming" projects, several of which I'm not really at liberty to discuss at the moment, I'll talk a little about some of my other writing: I'm right now in the editing phase on a second, expanded edition of my short-story collection, I'm working on two comic books tentatively titled "Tale of the Empty Hand" & "Soapscum Unlimited" and a young adult novel called "The Brand New Knockdown"; I'm also finishing up the Pathfinder fan-novel "Road to Varno", and although we're on summer-hiatus from working on more PSAs, there's plenty of CreativeJuices stuff that I've got my hand in at the moment. As for specific gaming material that I can talk about right now, I'm always looking out for new projects that spark my interest - for the moment, however, I'm focusing all of my energy on Coliseum Morpheuon!

47. Patron Question: What will the bibliography of Coliseum Morpheuon look like? Bibliography, eh? You mean, like, what other texts will I be referencing? I suppose, upon further consideration (and a note from Steve - thanks, Steve!), that you mean, like, what literary works influenced the brainstorming on Coliseum Morpheuon. Well, I've already gone over some of the well-springs that I keep going back to: Lovecraft, including his Dreamlands stuff (I'm love to have a couple of Men from Leng show up!), a certain Bruce Lee film called "Enter the Dragon" that I quite like, and the complex political maneuvering that I've found works well in Vampire: the Masquerade or Unknown Armies. If you mean what OGL gaming supplements I'm most likely to reference, especially for adaptation into the new Pathfinder Chronicles RPG, there's a soft spot in my heart for the Advanced Bestiary by Matt Sernett (from Green Ronin) - I'll be really surprised if there aren't a few monsters cobbled together from that book snuck in there!

48. What's your dream-project, if you got to work on ANYTHING? There's a fun old game that I like to play with other gamers & writers - it's called "What's the weirdest Intellectual Property you'd be willing to adapt to gaming?"

There's a "Wuthering Heights" game availible online that probably spawned from that sort of brainstorming:

... and although I aparently can't find it now, there's a fun D20 Modern variant/campaign setting that uses the universe from NBA Jam & psychic super-powers. I feel, in a lot of ways, that I really DO get to work on anything - if I had brought, for example, a "Transformers vs. Ninja Gaiden vs. Harry Potter - the RPG!" concept to Steve, I have a feeling that he would have at the very least taken it seriously. My "dream project", then, is just to get to work on stuff like this!

49. Is there anything else the world should know about you? I'm a giant, giant nerd - I love Buffy and Green Lantern and Akira Kurosawa and the movie "The Mummy" and vampires and D&D in the most unironic way possible. And I can't wait to get a chance to nerd-out with my patrons!

50. Is there anything else the world should know about ColiseumMorpheuon The Damnation Epoch?

It's going to to be your project as much as it is mine - by which I mean that it'll have everything I love, and everything you love!

This ends our interview with Clinton J Boomer about Coliseum Moprheuon the Damanation Epoch. I wanted to thank him for taking the time to do this, and all the patrons who submitted questions. We will be releasing a podcast we did with him next week (Unfettered Development #002) You can learn more and/or sign up to join us as a patron on thiis project HERE

Monsters of Taboo Taker of the Unborn on sale now!

Rite Publishing has released Monsters of Taboo: Taker of the Unborn for sale today for only $1.99 The Monsters of Taboo line is designed with Grimmification in mind. To be used by GMs wishing to add topics and role-playing with an uncanny depth of emotional range.

New Product Teaser: Monsters of Taboo

Heroes of the Jade Oath Preview #5: Introduction

Rite Publishing has release another 14 page preview of their wuxia fantasy patronage project. This preview covers the central section of the Lands of the Jade Oath. The project is currently in proofreading and the BETA is expected to be released Sept 09.

Gencon 2009 Day 1

Special Note: Due to Tales of Zobeck winning an ENnie award it will soon be available for purchase.

Thursday: Bill Collin’s ran a Jade Oath adventure called 10,000 Demons of Demon Mountain. The quick and dirty version of the plot is our heroes are hunting down the 8^th and Last Son of The Demon, who has fled to his mother’s bastion of power: Demon Mountain and the 8 Infernal Valleys (some highlights include the river of blood that the demon’s mother spits out, and a land where obsidian shards fall upwards). This land is surrounded by a wall and a number of fortresses that encircle the valleys, and are manned by desperate but valiant guardian troops of the empire.

We had a great group of folks including Monte Cook, “Contraserrene”, amongst many other fine folks. I got to show off our print proof of Jade Oath which many folks joking spoke of stealing, along with a lot of praise on how lovely it turned out; I presented Bill and Monte with their Jade Oath t-shirts. I also had Bill sign his ENnie award winning design in Tales of Zobeck (before it won the silver).

Cute story in the middle of the game a fan recognized Monte, and was talking to him and thanking him for all the great games he has designed. Monte was patient, kind and courteous and as always was a shining example of how you wish every person you are a fan of would act when you meet them. This fan then started talking to Monte about Rite Publishing and praising our work. Please excuse me as it was very proud geek moment for me that someone was praising our work to Monte Cook, most days I do this due to my love for Arcana Evolved, but at that moment it was nice to see our hard work appreciated. I was sitting two seats over with my back to him when Miranda who was sitting next to Monte taps me on the shoulder and introduces me too him.

Turns out it was Ben McFarland one of Bill’s Co-Designer’s on the ENnie award winning Tales of Zobeck (soon you too can buy it in PDF or Print, I own a copy you should too). So I had him sign it too, now remember that is all before it had won the award J

I don’t want to go to nuts with this in case you ever play in this demo, but highlights included a Contraserrene’s negotiation to get us past the entrance, super jumps from mantis warrior on to slave barges in the river of blood, me breathing fire with the help ch’i, a hero point, and some sake; The Crowning Moment of Awesome: one fight before the climactic battle Monte realizes we need to hurry up because its almost 5 the point where the game was supposed to end, so a big nasty Poison Dragon rises up out of the river of blood and Monte says “We don’t have time for you.” casts vivification and turns it into glass.

Our next game that day was “Trolls at Large” again run by Bill Collins this one in Zobeck; we play really dumb trolls who are going to town in search of mom. It really was one of the best comedy games I have played in. Some of the highlights from this was Miranda’s troll having ADD, bad things always happening to the two smart trolls which led to the saying “Look what smart gets you.”, PCs grabbing hapless humans and saying in their best gruff troll voice. “Where’s Mom?!” Turning a darkmantle into a balloon, and us tearing down the clock tower of Zobeck and one of the great cathedrals, and the ultimate fate of Mom (again no spoilers).

By this time it was 9 pm and the quest for food began, a day just chucked full of awesome more tomorrow.