Kaidan Adventure Pre-Orders on Cubicle Seven, Paizo Store and Amazon!
The first and second adventures for (Kaidan) Curse of the Golden Spear: Part 1 - The Gift, and Part 2 - Dim Spirit are now available on pre-order at the following locations:
Cubicle 7 website (http://shop.cubicle7store.com/epages/es113347.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/es113347_shop/Products/CB76802) | Paizo Store (http://paizo.com/store/byCompany/c/cubicle7/pathfinderRPG/v5748btpy8kao) | Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/Gift-Curse-Golden-Spear-part/dp/0857440756/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1304781489&sr=1-1)
Curse of the Golden Spear: Part 3 - Dark Path should be available for pre-order soon.
The release dates (at least the month, not the day) is: June 9th for The Gift, July 9th for Dim Spirit, and August 9th for Dark Path.
This is a feudal Japan inspired horror setting designed for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game The Curse of the Golden Spear is a 3 module mini-arc recommended for 4 players of 5th level, reaching 8th by the end, if they survive...
Of course, if price is the issue, Cubicle Seven has the list price: $19.99, Paizo Store has it reduced to $17.99 and Amazon has it for $13.59. You can also order these adventures through your local game store. If you read the product descriptions on the above linked page its says 54 page, this has been altered to 58 pages - all the adventures will be slightly under 60 pages. Its how we got a price of $19.99 retail in the first place.
Note these are full color printed, softcover adventure modules and PDF bundle for the price. It includes setting information in the appendixes: reincarnation rules, new monsters, monster templates, archetypes, feats, glossaries, and pre-gen characters. There are many regional, community and encounter scale maps.
[For those who don't know, Kaidan is my concept, my outline for the mini-arc, my development of the setting, maps, many illustrations,and page layout. This is an imprint under Rite Publishing, with Jonathan McAnulty of Kobold Quarterly as author/designer - I've had help, but this is my 'baby'.]
Michael "GP" Tumey
I was in on the Patronage project for these adventures. The designing was fairly transparent but it didn't have the issue of the patrons compromising it by wanting to inject silly ideas into it (though the Golden Spear thing wasn't in the original plans...heh). Based on what I saw there and other stuff done by the people involved, I'd say you can expect a solid product here.
Congratulations!
Thanks, Seraphine!
And what NinjaD means, is that originally the artifact comprising the Gift was supposed to be a gaijin artifact. NinjaD suggested it be a 'golden spear' used against oni long ago, but was lost to the 'west'. That gave Jonathan McAnulty a hook that liked so much that the adventure arc's name changed to Curse of the Golden Spear. So that was NinjaD's direct contribution. We would have allowed him to contribute game mechanics ideas, but Pathfinder rules is not NinjaD's forte.
Like NinjaD suggested, the patronage went very smoothly. There were some suggestions that I wasn't ready for at first, but grew to incorporate those ideas into my setting, so there was participation by the patrons, but not overly forceful and out of line for the story arc. It turned out to be a pleasant experience.
Oh, and NinjaD - look in your Email, all patrons have the The Gift pdf sent to them. Check it out, maybe give an informal review of it here.
Michael
I really half expected the patrons to try to rape it into some pseudo-Japanese setting like Legend of the Five Rings. I was surprised that didn't happen.
It will take me at least a day to get to the full adventure properly, I think, but I will see if I can hunt down my review of the Kappa book Jonathon did while working on this.
Here it is:
I'd first like to say that I don't play Pathfinder. This means that I have no opinion on the mechanics of this product, only the fluff and the overall quality. That said, here goes;
I could sum things up and simply say, "buy this," but who would listen to that sort of thing? I'm not going to lie and say that this is the best RPG product I have ever read or purchased because it's not. It's closer to the top of the list than the bottom, though. The book is about a kind of creature from Japanese myth that is interesting and, until now, hasn't gotten this sort of in-depth treatment anywhere (at least as far as I know). The writer is from the Kaidan (Japanese based horror setting) patronage, too, where special attention is being paid to accuracy while still making things good for gameplay. I can assure you of this because I am a patron.
The artwork is also not bad. Really, to see better artwork in an RPG product you'd have to go for one that spent more time in development (this book happened quickly) and had artists hired that focused more on this sort of subject matter (a good deal of the illustration was done by the creator of Kaidan, who is a fantastic cartographer). And for that, you would be paying more than this for the product. The images convey the feelings that they probably should and go above simply getting the point across.
To conclude, I'd like to just say, "buy this". The writing is solid, the artwork is solid, and even if you don't play the system (which you likely do if you're reading this) you can get some enjoyment from this product. Also, it came from Kaidan, which is worth supporting (though it can be used in other settings and a kappa is a European style setting would probably be pretty cool). I think the product is good regardless and unless you have no money for game products right now, it is well worth the $3.99 asking price.
I went and put that review up in a couple of other places, too.
The PDF download version only is available at the Paizo Store and DrivethruRPG for $9.99 and the Print/PDF bundle will be released June, 9th - in one week!
We have been guaranteed at least one review by tomorrow.
Exciting stuff.
The first two reviews for The Gift: Curse of the Golden Spear 1 adventure for Kaidan - both 5 out of 5 stars!
Megan Robertson (http://paizo.com/store/byCompany/c/cubicle7/pathfinderRPG/v5748btpy8l2r/reviews#tabs)
Game Knight Reviews (http://www.gameknightreviews.com/)
These could be only be good things!
GP
Where's the star rating for the second review? I don't see any sort of quantitative score at all.
Its on his facebook page. Apparently he doesn't post star ratings from his site directly. He calls it "an instant classic..."
That's unusual. I know more care was taken in making this actually feel Japanese than in anything else I have seen. Maybe people will enjoy that and we'll see a bigger line. Let me know if there will be any other patronages for it. This wasn't the best experience but I'd do it again for Kaidan.