Every week, Recall Knowledge recaps the Know Direction content of the past week, a preview of the Know Direction content of the week to come, and the director of operations, Ryan Costello, thoughts on the state of the network.

May 2020 might be the Know Direction Network’s busiest month to date. As you’ll see in the important reminders, submissions to Battle of the Pantheons -the brainchild of our own Dustin Knight that quickly ballooned into an official contest co-hosted by Paizo with an exciting prize that makes me jealous of those who could enter- closed yesterday. Now that they’ve been made anonymous by submission curator John Godek, myself and my fellow Know Direction staff judges Perram, Alex Augunas, Vanessa Hoskins, Owen K.C. Stephens, and of course Dustin, are busy reading through them and asking ourselves “what makes a great pantheon”?

Once judging is complete, we won’t have time to pat ourselves on the back for a job well done, because we almost immediately jump into PaizoCon Online 2020 mode. That is, the next phase of PaizoCon Online 2020 mode. The truth is, we’ve been in some phase of PaizoCon Online 2020 mode since Emerald City Comic Con was cancelled in March. Speculation turned to planning turned to collaborating, and now we are on the cusp of our biggest convention coverage yet. Which is something we’ve been able to say for every convention since Gen Con 2018, when Perram first turned our convention coverage into an official partnership with Paizo. The pressure is on this year, because if there are any issues on our end, it doesn’t just cost the portion of the PaizoCon audience watching from home. This year, that is the entire PaizoCon audience. We are installing redundancies, training additional staff to be backup Perrams, and in many  cases taking time off of work to make sure we are there the live seminar coverage. We mean it when we say we con when you can’t. It just happens that this year, no one can con without the help of the many companies and organizations Paizo has partnered with to make PaizoCon Online 2020 possible.

I do feel the pressure to deliver, although as a guest wrangler and on air personality, I am hardly the one carrying the PaizoCon Online 2020 seminar coverage load. That would be Perram and Vanessa Hoskins, both of whom are in charge of the stream. Meanwhile, Alex Augunas, Dustin Knight, and John Godek will be doing what the streamers ask, taking questions from the audience, and making sure the seminars transition smoothly on the back end. It’s exciting to be a part of PaizoCon history, and the evolution of online conventions.

In the meantime, we’re still churning out our normal podcast and article content. Here’s what you might have missed last week, and a look forward at what to expect next week on the Know Direction Network.

Recap of May 4^th to May 8^th

What happened last week on knowdirectionpodcast.com and twitch.tv/knowdirection?

Monday, May 4^th

PODCAST
Adventurous 0036 – Lily Goes Catfishing 
The dust settles on the encounter with the lovelorn, and our Adventurous heroes try to determine where to go next. Luckily (?), Lily has an idea.

ARTICLE
Recall Knowledge – April 27th to May 8^th
By Ryan Costello
Know Direction’s new weekly table of contents and editor’s note launched. On a personal note, I’m super happy with how the banner turned out.

Tuesday, May 5^th

PODCAST
Legend Lore 003 — Primal Spells
Luis and Loren break down the primal magic tradition. Loren, always one to look beyond the label, points out how many builds open up if you ignore the nature flavour of this tradition and instead focus on how many elemental spells are on its list.

ARTICLE
Groundbreaking – Bringing the Outhouse In
by Randal Meyer
Randal works out the mechanisms, and the backstory, of indoor plumbing in a fantasy setting. 

Wednesday, May 6^th

PODCAST
Presenting – Amanda Hamon
John Godek speaks with Starfinder Managing Developer, X.T.R.E.M. GM, and Stellar player Amanda Hamon about how she went from journalist to RPG developer, her part in Starfinder’s creation, and the future of Starfinder on Alexa.

ARTICLE
The Dev Pit: Tales from Azeroth Part 1, Setting the Stage
by Alex Augunas
Alex is a fan of the World of Warcraft who is unsatisfied with its tabletop RPG adaptations. There must be a better way, he says. But he doesn’t just think it, he does something about it. In his new Tales from Azeroth, Alex creates a WoW-inspired setting using the Tales from the Loop RPG system.

Thursday, May 7^th

PODCAST
Know Direction: Beyond 48 – Witchwarper Class Feature
It’s finally time for Character Operations Manual class features. Owen, Alex, James, and special guest co-host Perram look at everything the Witchwarper brings to Starfinder. Having worked on the Character Operations Manual while he was still with Paizo, Owen has some insight into the changes from the playtest to the published witchwarper, including the great name debate. 

ARTICLE
Investing In: Art & Artists
by Rob Pontious
This week, Rob is investing in people. As COVID-19 changes the landscape on a global scale and impacts lives on a personal level, Rob finds artists particularly impacted by the pandemic, as well as artists who are going out of their way to help others.

Friday, May 8^th

ARTICLE
Monstrous Physique — Appa (PF2E)
By Luis Loza
Appa took Aang and his allies to the skies in Avatar: The Last Airbender, and now Luis brings Appa to Pathfinder 2e.

PATREON
Announcing the Know Direction PaizoCon Online 2020 Behind The Scenes Special
By Ryan Costello
We give our Patrons an early insight in what to expect from next week’s special episode of Know Direction. 

Preview of May 11^th to May 15^th

This is Block 2 of our 2-block schedule.

Monday, May 11^th

PODCAST
Stellar 008 — One Foot in the Grave (available now)

ARTICLE
Recall Knowledge
I’m somewhere between “obviously I don’t need to include this” and “obviously I need to include this”.

Tuesday, May 12^th

PODCAST
Digital Divination 004 with John and Ron
John and Ron talk about equipment and item levels in Starfinder. They touch upon design issues for game balance, different ways loot can be handled by GMs, and why there are distinctly separate economies between player equipment and starship build points.

ARTICLE
Burst of Insight by Andrew Marlowe

Wednesday, May 13^th

TWITCH
Know Direction PaizoCon Online 2020 Behind The Scenes Special Live!
The 2020 KD Con Team need to practice the wrangling and live streaming we’ll be doing in a couple of weeks for PaizoCon Online 2020, and so we decided to do it in front a live Twitch audience! 

ARTICLE
Fox’s Cunning by Dustin Knight

Thursday, May 14^th

PODCAST
Know Direction PaizoCon Online 2020 Behind The Scenes Special
See how smoothly our test run simulation of live streaming went in preparation for PaizoCon Online 2020.

ARTICLE
Something Creates by Andrew Sturtevant
Andrew starts gathering the pieces for the first quest, and maybe, a title for the quest line will be found too?

Friday, May 15^th

TWITCH
Adventurous Live!
We are recording episode 39, and maybe also episode 40, on the birthday of our illustrious Adventurous GM, Crystal Frasier.

PODCAST
Intrepid Heroes

ARTICLE
Bend The Knee by Loren Sieg
In this special edition of Bend The Knee, Loren asks three guests involved in charity work to define what “a hero”.

Important Reminders

Like a bulletin board of all the adventures you should be on.

• PaizoCon Online 2020
  The biggest news on the last week is Paizo’s announcement that they will be hosting a virtual PaizoCon this year called PaizoCon Online 2020, running from Tuesday, May 26^th to Sunday, May 31^st.  According to The Know Direction Network’s official Countdown Correspondent, Darran Caldemeyer, we are 15 days away from PaizoCon Online 2020.
  The Know Direction Network is partnering with Paizo for this event, and they are giving us the keys to the Paizo Twitch channel in order to host the panels. Now more than ever, the KD Con team’s motto is We Con When You Can’t.
• Battle of the Pantheons
  The submission deadline has passed. Thanks to all those who submit. The judges are diligently looking over the submissions we received right now. Watch for the announcement of the 20 finalists soon!

Now you know,
Ryan Costello