Blogging Paizocon 2009 - Saturday - Part I

What a day! What a fun, fun day!

Started off at 8am with Greg Vaughan looking Marine happy and all perky behind his screen. 4.5 hours of Slumbering Tsar preview. Awesome! For those not in the know, Slumbering is Vaughan's 500,000 word Orcus mega-adventure, commissioned, written and ready to publish. With luck a Paizo/Necromancer games publishing collaboration is in the works. Cross your fingers, pester Clark Petersen and Eric Mona without letup because if this was any indication...it rocks.

We headed into the bone dust desert (literally a desert, literally of bone dust from an ancient battle, long ago) in search of the Silent Watcher who Points the Way, seeking the lost tomb of an Asimar hero reputed to await awakening in the world's time of need. In Slumbering that time has come; only, the forces of darkness have managed to sabotage the awakening. Now its up to us.

Giant sand creatures, a domed lost tomb, secret entrances, flaming outsiders, rhasts, once mighty companions of good rendered into ghast-hood, a drow, a broken clock mechanism, a giant black pudding behind the wrong door (slain from inside with a punch by our Scottish-accented dwarf hero) and a freed hero later -- wow. Good times.

Even if he's the author who writing has killed more of my PCs than any other, I love Vaughan's work for its classic 1E feel that somehow never ceases to be 3.5 and never ceases to make sense. We experienced, as Greg put it, "1/7th of 1 chapter" in a mega-adventure that'll take you all the way to 21st level. So yes, folks, you heard it right - there is 1/2 million words of this! Pray it sees print. Soon.

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After Slumbering we had some time to kill, so off to lunch I went with Greg, Mike Kortes, and a great bunch of Paizo crew. Jeff Alvarez, Cosmo, Brock, Chris, and Allison. These are the folks who make our products show up in our mail boxes (amongst other things) -- great folks and a great lunch. Especially since Greg had never tried Sushi before (applause - he was game) and Mike Kortes is just a grand man and spanking good writer.

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Later that evening, the premier event -- the preview banquet for the Pathfinder RPG. All 578 pages of it. Let me say that again, 578 pages! Plus, Erik Mona (hah Erik -- see, I can spell it right) announced an upcoming 350+ page book revealing all Paizo's secrets of adventure path, world and campaign bulding. A book specifically designed to bring the DIY back to D&D, just as the PFRPG itself is NOT Paizo campaign-world specific.

And now, I'm going to be a little mean. The hotel gym, a shower, coffee and breakfast all call. I'm going to leave y'all hanging a bit, go sneak in my last day of gaming and blog about the second half of Saturday (banquet, book details, Werewolf, and party) later today!