Esther: Hello, and welcome to Know Direction, your number one source for Pathfinder news, reviews, and interviews. I’m Esther.

Navaar: And I’m Navaar.

Esther: And today we have a host of news for you as well as a review slash breakdown of a book we’re very excited to talk about Pathfinder Lost Omens Firebrands.

Navaar: Yes! It is, again, another gorgeous book, but also touches on some stuff that came up in other books, and I’m very, very excited to get into it.

Esther: And before we do that, we actually have a lot of news to talk about because there have been some big announcements in the Paizo Pathfinder-verse lately, namely that there’s gonna be a remaster coming out. The Core Rulebook, Advanced Players Guide, the Bestiaries, and the GM Guide are gonna be remastered, broken down, recombined into four volumes: the Player Core, the GM Core, the Monster Core, and the Player Core 2.

And there are some pretty big shifts coming here. I don’t know if our listeners have gotten the chance to read any of the Paizo blog entries about this, but there’s some stuff up on the Paizo blog and they did a livestream on Twitch that is now up as a VOD where you can listen to Jason Buhlman and Logan Bonner talk about some of these big changes that I’m excited to get into.

Navaar: Yeah. The books look fantastic. Yeah, a lot of cool stuff. I think some great changes, but I think also some ways that, it’ll ease, ease the minds of people afraid of another edition. 

Esther: Definitely. So one thing Jason Buhlman said in the presentation they did is he was talking about their philosophy — and this is a pretty direct quote that I wrote down in my notes — and he said, “when we have to change something, we wanna make it more expansive.” And he also really emphasized that everything in this remaster is gonna be compatible with how you’ve been playing Pathfinder 2E up til now.

And if you wanna keep playing the game as-is, that is totally fine. Everything will still work. There’s no like, earthshattering changes, but there are some changes I’m excited about. 

Yeah, so before we get into them, just a little bit about the structure of the books. The Player Core is gonna deal with things like ancestries and classes and basically stuff like that.

The Core ancestries are gonna include Leshies and Nehpilim, which– Nephilim I take it are basically planar entity- descended people. So like, Tieflings, Aasimars are gonna be under this heritage now. And they’re changing up the classes a little bit. The new eight Core classes in the first Player Core are gonna be Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Ranger, Rogue, Witch, and Wizard.

And I think part of the reason that maybe a couple didn’t make it into this first one is one of the big changes that are getting talked about it sounds like maybe the classes that are dependent on alignment are gonna be a bit more in Player Core 2 because they’re doing away with alignment.

Navaar: Yeah.

Esther: Yeah.

Navaar: Which is, I think… has been a point of contention for many years in the TTRPG fantasy space. for sure. And many people have different feelings about it, and older versions of games have had more to do with alignment. But I think a lot of people have had problems with the idea of alignment and I think so.

Yeah, kind of talking about like, of course there’s still gonna be like good and evil, but that like, predetermined box that you fit into on the grid doesn’t have to be specific, it’s just we’re all kind of shades of gray. So yeah, I love that.

Esther: I love it too. They say that they’re gonna do this by working it into the edicts and anathema system, so your character can have like things that they really follow and things that are anathema to their moral code. This really works for me. I’ve been a longtime ditcher of alignment in all my games unless it’s like absolutely necessary and even then it, it doesn’t take a, a forefront.

So I’m really excited about this. They talked about the system of holy versus unholy for deities and — so this was a, a slight question I had. They talked about like, entities being metaphysically unholy. So for people who are worried about, like, in their words, “good demons running around everywhere, you don’t have much to worry about”. Now as a person who leans toward having good demons run around… [laughs] 

I was like, I do question what holy versus unholy mean and how we’re defining that. I think it all goes to show you can never go far enough for some people and you can go way too far for others. So… 

Navaar: [Navaar laughs] Yeah, for sure. I mean, it is like, there’s still an aspect that’s still a judgment call, right? And so it’s like, how, how does this fit into your game? What does unholy quote unquote look like? Because that might not fit with what each person wants to do. And I think ultimately, there will be a canon answer and then there will be also the, but do what you wanna do. Which, is sort of a, sort of a saving grace and maybe a little bit of a cop out.

But I think it’s good to know that in this situation a lot of this is being addressed, but also you always have that to kind of fall back on of like, okay, this is a thing that I just want to change because I think my game at home will be better served. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Esther: And one of the things I love is the first rule of Pathfinder text box, which is, it’s your game, it’s your system. Make it what you need to make it. And that gives so much power to folks who are like, “Nah, I wanna really, really, Kind of blow this up and change it around and do my own thing with it.” And folks who are like, “I’m good with the first version we got and I wanna keep playing it that way.” And both can work. 

So the next thing they talked about is the GM Core, and basically this book is gonna have what you need to know to run the game. And it’ll talk about things like building encounters, subsystems, victory points. They will have a treasure trove, which is gonna be based on the Treasure Vault organization, and they are gonna have a settings chapter for the Age of Lost Omens settings.

They also spilled that talismans are getting a remaster and that in the treasure trove, most alchemical items are actually gonna be with the remastered Alchemist in Player Core 2. Which I guess can take us briefly into Player Core 2, where we’re gonna get the Hobgoblin, Lizardfolk ancestries, Catfolk, Gnoll — which is gonna be called Kolo — Kobold, Ratfolk, Tengu, Dhampir, Duskwalker, and a new heritage.

And then we’re definitely gonna get the Alchemist and Champion classes, remastered, and the majority of alchemical items in this book. 

Navaar: So still no Sorcerer, right?

Esther: Yeah.

Navaar: Interesting. 

Esther: Well, I feel like we didn’t get a whole list of classes for this one, so I was kind of assuming it would be in there. But who knows?

Navaar: Yeah. That’s fascinating though, ’cause I think like… it is interesting, ’cause the Sorcerer in a way, like if you’re looking at how it ties into perhaps your alignment, like, I think it’s no — to me, it seems no different than Cleric, right? And even then, like a Sorcerer is like, this is where you got the power, but it doesn’t mean you’re attached to that thing. It’s just the thing that you got. So it is kind of fascinating. I’m curious what they’re gonna do with that because, I’m sure that there are plenty of people who love a Sorcerer. I play a Sorcerer. So yeah, fascinating. 

Esther: Yeah. It’ll be interesting to see when we get a Sorcerer again. 

Navaar: Yeah. But Witch is still good. So play a Witch.

Esther: Yeah. Play a Witch. And apparently they’re gonna like, take some of the feedback they’ve gotten about the Witch and incorporate it and make the relationship with the Patron even stronger. I think I’m not making that up. I think that got dropped. I was excited about that.

Navaar: I love that. I think, again, you and I, we’ve talked about this already on the show multiple times, but like the idea of having this higher power entity have some kind of control, or some kind of like, string to pull on your character, I think is a lot of fun for story.

I do think it’d be interesting to have that incorporated more with a Witch. Because it is… in the Witches that I’ve had at my table or that I’ve seen played, I don’t think Patron comes up a lot. It’s has a lot more to do with — the relationship with the Familiar’s there. But the Patron, for me, it doesn’t seem like it is as involved as say, a Cleric or something like that.

Esther: So the last time I played a Witch — the only time I played a Witch as a player character, I played a Ranger-Witch multiclass. So her primary class was Ranger and then her Free Archetype was Witch. And she had a pretty close relationship with her Patron, who was an Archfey or a powerful fey from the First World. And they met each other in dreams a lot, and they knew each other that way. And then my GM sprung it upon me unexpectedly that her Patron was also her Familiar.

Navaar: Oh!

Esther: And her familiar was a, a raccoon who loved just lazing around and eating things. 

Navaar: Nice. 

Esther: And he was able to live a dual life through complicated mechanics. But he, uh, he wanted to just chill out in the Material Plane being a trash panda with her. And it was a, a complex relationship, but one of my favorite articulations of a Witch and Patron relationship ever. And gotta hand it to him. It was a genius move.

Navaar: Yeah. I mean you gotta do it. Now that I’m thinking about it, I’m like, well, I did have a player who played an Anadi Witch and I think decided that his Patron would be Grandmother Spider. And so the one thing that I did in our campaign before we stopped playing it was give him some visions via Grandmother Spider. I do think again though, that having stuff that’s written in there to mechanically encourage you to do things is beneficial, because there are so many players who play the game and who are used to this stuff and have like, “I know this is how I’m gonna run it. I know how this is how I’m gonna play it.”

And as we’ve seen there are so many new players. Pathfinder Society had record-breaking numbers over the past few months. And so yeah, with so many new players, having something that mechanically informs them to do a certain thing I think is a, is a lot of fun, because not everybody is a master roleplayer and not everybody, told stories their whole life, you know what I mean?

So there’s a lot of these things that like, you need something to help you encourage you to do a certain action, or take a certain path in a story, et cetera, et cetera. And having these things pop up, I think does a lot of good. I am all for rules when they’re not too abundant and they don’t get in the way. And I think that that’s something that could easily be placed without being an obstacle. 

Esther: Totally, totally. That also — I don’t know why, but that gets me excited to talk about a couple of the other changes they dropped or hinted at, which are that there’s a very cool remastered version of genies in the works, and they’ve been working with a cultural consultant named Sarina Sharani, I believe. And they were just very excited to announce this. So I’m curious to find out more. 

And then the thing I must mention because of my obsession with and love for dragons: they are remastering the approach to dragons, and several got mentioned during this video. There will be dragons of different traditions, and so you’ll be able to have different traditions of dragon within the same family. There are diabolic dragons, arcane dragons, divine dragons, primal, occult, and then more that got dropped were mirage, fortune, omen, and imperial. And so things like arcane dragons may have connections to lore and magics and specific traditions in that way, and the others we’re gonna find out.

But that was extremely exciting to me because I’ve… I’ve personally struggled with the baked- in alignments of chromatic and metallic dragons and what that means, especially if we’re like determining somebody to be metaphysically evil or good and, and not able to go against that nature.

Navaar: Yeah.

Esther: For me — it doesn’t have to be this way for everybody — but for me, it limits my options as a storyteller so greatly that I wind up chafing against it.

And I’m also like, “Well, why are we, why do you have to be one thing forever? You can’t change at all?” So this makes me very excited.

Navaar: Yeah. No, I agree. I think especially when it falls into that trope, right? And again, like if you’ve got players who’ve played long enough, and they see it, it’s like, “Oh, okay. Well, this is a Gold dragon, so I know we’re probably fine here, right?” Or “Oh no, this is a Green dragon. We might be screwed here.”

So yeah, it limits you, the GM, into what you can do. Because even if you are playing it in a way that seems gray, there’s always gonna be that distrust, right? Or trust in the other direction. And so I think taking away that aspect of it — whether they still have the colors or not — taking away that aspect of it and applying something else that is intangible that you have to discover, like, from talking to them, learning about them, et cetera, I think is really, really good.

Like, that’s such a good change. ‘Cause not knowing the answer, I think, is much better in the story. To go into this and be like, “Yeah, what do you do?” It’s not just like, “Oh, it’s Green, we fight.” [chuckles] It’s like, “No, it’s chilling and you don’t know what kind of aspect it has until you ask questions or find out. So what are you gonna do?” Yeah.

Esther: It gets you more into the moment as a roleplayer, like you’re not on autopilot being like, “Okay, we’re fighting a Red dragon. That’s automatically gonna be a rough fight and it’s gonna try to kill us.” You really get to be more like, “Okay, what, what am I bringing to this scenario? What do I need to be on the lookout for? What’s happening in the moment?” And I’m all about that. I love that. 

Navaar: Yeah, I agree.

Esther: What else did they say? Basically that we are gonna get the Player Core and GM Core in November of this year, and the Monster Core is coming early next year, I think March 2024. There’s gonna be previews and lots of in-depth stuff at PaizoCon and GenCon, and Rage of Elements will be the first book to look forward to the remaster, incorporating some stuff from the new way of thinking about things and some stuff from the current system as it is.

So yeah, there was lots of tantalizing hints and I’m really, really excited to find out where they’re gonna go with all this.

Navaar: I agree. I think it’ll be good. I love Second Edition, for a lot of reasons, but I, it has just been the smoothest, and the most fun for me as a player who likes to feel like my — in a fantasy world, like my player character is powerful. 2E does that instantly. First level, you’re doing three attacks, you’ve, you’ve got more HP, you know, like all of these things that really help make you feel good about your character.

But I think like any system, regardless of how long initial production went and game design and all that stuff, like, there’s still stuff once it’s out in the wild and people play with it and times change. Like, there’s things that we can do to make it betterand, and so I’m excited to see what that looks like, 

Esther: I forgot a really important thing. 

Navaar: Yes! 

Esther: They are doing away with ability scores and going to ability modifiers, and I, for one, am really, really excited about that. Yeah, I–

Navaar: I was gonna say: as a person, in the game that I designed, who only uses ability modifiers and no score, I love You’re welcome, Paizo. I’m I’m totally kidding. [Esther and Navaar laugh] Uh, but genuinely, I really do love that. It’s complicated in math — well, it’s math for no reason, and it can be complicated, right?

You have like a half score that doesn’t mean anything, but it’s a high number and it’s a whole mess.

Esther: And I feel like the, the more I’ve become disabled and learned about like, disability justice and the history of disability, the more uncomfortable I get putting a number on things like intelligence and even strength in a lot of ways. It really feels like there’s better ways to reflect, where a character shines and where they don’t shine as much.

I’m really excited about this. I think they said this about ability scores or alignment, and now I don’t remember which one, but it was essentially like, “We were questioning whether to carry them over at all from 1E to 2E. And we did it basically because we didn’t wanna upset too many people at once, but now there’s no reason to keep ’em around.” And like, way to go!

I’m really glad that it seems like we are at the point, and Paizo feels comfortable as a company and as a design group of being like, “Yeah, we’re, we’re at a point where we don’t need that anymore and people are gonna be cool with that.” And that’s really encouraging to me.

Navaar: Yeah, I agree. I think it’s, I think it is good. Good positive changes for this because so many things of this are just holdovers, right? And like we mentioned before, it’s holdovers for stuff that we don’t even really use anymore. If you want to use alignment that bad, you can go play an old edition. So, yeah, when it comes to Second Edition, I think it’s important for it to have — I 100% think that the people at Paizo understand where the game came from because a lot of the people who made it are still there. And I also think that you can have that and understand it and still go, “Yeah, but a lot of these things aren’t perfect or aren’t great or et cetera. And so now we can make this change for the better, in a way that the people who used it normally without issue are fine, ’cause it’s the same. But now it’s more accessible for people as well who had trouble with this.” 

Esther: I think one of the gifts that came out of the whole OGL fiasco, if there is a gift, is something like this, where they’re making these changes in part because these elements are tied to the OGL, and in order to move beyond it, they are moving beyond some of this stuff. And —

Navaar: Yeah.

Esther: — that, to me, is really promising. And for folks who like playing in that system, it still exists and you can still do it and that’s fine and we’ll have something new to try and hopefully have a lot of fun with.

Navaar: Yeah, for sure.

Esther: So the other piece of news that I wanted to briefly get to is that Paizo announced a collaboration with BKOM studios on a Kickstarter for a hack-n-slash version of Pathfinder Abomination Vaults for up to four players. And yeah, so this is gonna be a video game version of Abomination Vaults. The Kickstarter launches in May of 2023, so this month that we are recording this episode and that it will drop. Just FYI to our listeners!

I watched the trailer. It looks really cool. As someone who has never actually played Abomination Vaults — I am, I’m outing myself as never having done that — 

Navaar: Same!

Esther: — I was excited this. I was like, you know what, maybe I’ll play it through this video game!

Navaar: Don’t get mad at us, y’all. We are both, as we mentioned, the GM more often than not, so… And when I’m not the GM, I’m playing Strength of Thousands, which is an amazing Adventure Path or a Star Wars campaign. So don’t yell at me.

Esther: Don’t yell at us. If you want a GM for us, you know, let us know.

Navaar: Yeah, for sure. Abomination Vaults, ’cause that’s what we we apparently need to play. But yeah, no, I agree. It’s funny because Abomination Vaults is like, I’ve never played it, but it is a major adventure path for Pathfinder. I think it was the first one they converted, right, to 5e? For folks who weren’t gonna switch over? So yeah, I think it’s, it’s a lot of fun. I enjoy the, the other style of Pathfinder games that basically acts as a video game of the TTRPG. But I also think like, a hack-and-slash that you can play cooperatively is, is a great time. So yeah, I’m here for it.

Esther: It’s funny, I always talk about how I’m like Madame Nuance, who’s like, “I wanna play a morally gray character in a morally gray universe and like, do things, you know, with a lot of like complex web of relationships.” And then I get to something like this and I’m like, big sword, hit things! [laughs]

Navaar: [laughs] Let me be Amiri! Yeah, for sure. It is fun. The Iconics are fun. And so it’ll be cool to see them in game. I’m seeing here on the blog that only lists two of them, Amiri and Ezren. But it says there’ll be four. Hmm.

Esther: Hmm.

Navaar: Interesting. Yeah. But I do love it. And it takes me back to, to like the old like, Baldur’s Gate days, like playing it out with my brother. I’m excited for more, more media that features this stuff. 

I’ve seen some folks on Twitter talk about like, this– “Literally, make any kind of game. Just do it, please. I’ll play whatever you make in Pathfinder. Just keep doing this. It’s fine.” So, yeah, I agree. I would love it.

Esther: Awesome. Well, I think that takes us into our breakdown slash review section of the show tonight.

Navaar: Yeah. There was one other… well, we kind of touched on it. I was just gonna say the other two things were the Remaster books are also getting special covers that are just like, the sketch cover from the artist and they look amazing. They’re like, in a sort of beige map, old map color. And they look really, really good.

And the other thing was what we talked about, I, kind of touched on was the Pathfinder Society basically having record-breaking numbers in terms of people playing in it. And so I think it’s just really great and amazing, like to just acknowledge that there’s so many new people coming over to the system that are excited about playing it. I’m seeing friends who have never tried it before get to play games and talk about it and be excited about it. And so, yeah, I really love that. I think it’s, it’s a lot of fun. It’s one of those things where change is hard, right? But if you make this change, there’s a really high chance that you really love it.

So I’m glad that the change was made for me, and that I was gifted the Core Rulebook for Christmas, and I was like, “Well, I got it. We’re gonna play it.” And I love it. I literally have never looked back unless somebody asked me to be in their game for like, a oneshot. So I’m excited that more people are coming over, checking it out. I’m excited that all these people who bought up all the Core Rulebooks from Paizo are putting them to good use and starting to play games. I think that’s very exciting. 

Esther: It is super exciting. I hope that at least a few of these folks have found their way to this show. If that’s you, welcome! Welcome to playing Pathfinder, we’re so happy to have you here. 

Navaar: Welcome to Talking Pathfinder!

Esther: Welcome to Talking Pathfinder! I was looking on my phone as we were, as you were talking, because I wanted to confirm that my memory was correct for the GM Core Special Edition cover, where it’s this beautiful drawing of a dragon. If you haven’t learned it about me yet, you fast will: I love dragons. So I was like, I think I remember there was like a gorgeous illustration of a dragon on one of these, and yeah, it’s absolutely beautiful. I am so excited to, to get my hands on these when they drop and figure out what’s in them, but also just admire the gorgeous art.

So Firebrands: a few things about this book before we really dive in. The development leads were Eleanor Ferron and Luis Loza. It’s 127 pages, with 4 main chapters. And we, instead of doing a really detailed breakdown on everything in this book — it’s a fairly short book compared to the last two we’ve broken down — we’re just gonna hit like some of our highlights and give you a general overview of what the lore is, what you can find in what chapter, and talk about things that really stood out to us.

Navaar: Yeah. Yeah. I think where this book differs from the other books that we’ve reviewed is that it’s more… it’s a lore book about an organization and how to play in that organization, or with that organization in your game. It’s amazing, but it doesn’t read quite the same as like, The Impossible Lands does, for instance, or Treasure Vaults. It’s, it’s somewhere in, in between or on a different level, I guess. So yeah, it just doesn’t make as much sense for us to do that. But I think it’s really fascinating and it ties into my favorite book, the Mwangi Expanse.

And so yeah, when I saw what this was, I was very, very excited to open it. [chuckles]

Esther: It’s funny, when I saw what it was, I — I feel like I didn’t know as much about the Firebrands going in, and so I was kind of prepared to be swayed either way and was pleasantly swayed into like, I’m, I’m really charmed by this. I’m really glad I read this. This is fun. It also features, in addition to the Mwangi Expanse — always a delight to visit — another of my favorite areas The Shackles.

So I was excited to visit with Pirates, and there’s some good visiting with pirates. And it visits another area I’ve wound up spending a lot of time in in my Pathfinder campaigns, Cheliax. My version of Cheliax has often diverged from canon lore, but there’s a lot of familiar locations that I’m like, “Oh, cool. Yeah.” So, yeah, I’m excited to get into it.

Navaar: Every story needs a good enemy, and Cheliax is right there. [Esther and Navaar laugh] So, I love it. But yeah, so basically what the Firebrands are: it’s a group of revolutionaries. So in sort of the Golarian lore, there are multiple states — countries, if you will — who were under occupation by other — evil is probably the best word for it — countries.

And this included slavery and, and a bunch of other heinous awful stuff. And so I believe just kind of during the rewriting of a lot of the lore for Second Edition, the idea of like, removing this stuff came about and how does this work in the canon and can there be good stories told? So I think like this is probably a good place to just preface by: telling a story about slavery and you know, racism and things like that in a fantasy game is something that is a very nuanced conversation that should be a discussion with the table before it is actually brought to the table because not everybody wants to do this. The Firebrands are an organization that is revolutionary and they, portray people who have overcome a lot of this stuff and are fighting back and they’re doing everything that they can to fight against these systems and these people in power. But it still touches on those elements of the story, and I think it’s important for, for people who are coming into this book to understand that aspect of it and to take the time to have the conversation about, is this something you want to do? So I think that’s just a really good disclaimer up top for the Firebrands because it is a very important aspect of, of how this all works out. It’s, it’s built into the canon. 

I just wanna preface this book with that because I think it’s important to understand, that these are sort of the elements that we’re dealing with, but ultimately this book is about, the revolutionaries who work against the oppressors, and those stories.

it’s a lot of fun. if it’s something you’re willing to play with in your game.

Esther: Yeah, and like definitely use of safety tools, extensive conversations, everything Navaar talked about.

Navaar: Yes, yes, please. but yeah, so essentially, people kind of got tired of all of this and decided, you know what? We are going to start fighting back. and these uprisings started to happen, and. Basically the Firebrands became this group and they used the symbol of, what was the name of the place that they took it from?

Esther: Two crossed swords.

Navaar: Is it Ravounel?

Esther: Oh, is it Ravounel?

“Freedom fighters learned to hide some of their actions in plain sight, reclaiming a symbol from the very flag of their oppressors to serve as a symbol of guidance and hope. The Sargavan flag featured two crossed swords, and the revolutionaries quickly made use of these swords as a symbol to mark important sites like safe houses or crucial targets.” Yeah, so Sargavan. Sargava.

Navaar: Yeah, so they used the symbol of Sargava, which was these two crossed swords, to communicate with each other. And even when like, they started to catch on with this idea, they found different ways to implement it, to tell these specific things. And yeah, the Firebrands began to grow, and they have a really fun history and a really fun way of joining and leveling up in, in the system.

I guess like from the beginning, you know, the overview of it, what was some of the things that like stuck out to you or that excited you about this book?

Esther: So as I was reading this book, what came into my mind was this would be a great organization, settings, et cetera, to play as a Bard, a Swashbuckler, or a Rogue. And then in reading through the book, there is literally a side panel where they’re like, “Well, you might think Bard, Swashbuckler or Rogue… you could also play these classes.”

Um, so one of the highlights for me is it really does call forth like these bold, flashy kind of characters. And the writing itself is pretty explicit that Firebrands are daring. They want attention a lot of the time. They are fashionistas, they do things to catch the attention, the witness, of a lot of populations of people.

And so I was like, if I wanted to play like a really bodacious character who’s very confident in themselves and liberation-minded, this is just a great organization to go with.

I was really struck by the organizational system. So the Firebrands in general are pretty relaxed. So relaxed that at times I was like, how do they hold all of this together?

But they have four ranks, which are called Marks. The way you join the Firebrands is that you just declare you’re a Firebrand. The way you get a little bit more official is to have somebody who is a Second Mark declare you a Second. The Third Mark, you only achieve if you get regional fame, and the Fourth you have to get international fame.

So, there’s like way less Third and Fourth marks, and a lot of First and Second from what I gather. And the group membership is pretty loose. You’ve just gotta say, “I wanna do this!” And you can do this. And that’s gotten them some really good traction, and also from time to time makes it challenging to figure out who is actually a Firebrand and who’s not, which I think could just be fun from a player perspective or from a GM perspective, trying to figure out who your real allies are and maybe having a little duplicity in there.

Navaar: I love how it’s this split faction, right? Like it’s this idea of, there are these rebels who started this and were doing this very specifically for a good reason. And then, one rebel, Devran, sort of declared himself a Firebrand to the Hurricane Queen. And then she kind was like, “Oh, okay. Well yeah, these were ships that you stole from slavers and are fighting back and so I’m just gonna let you get away with this.”

And other people were like, “Wait. If you’re a Firebrand, you can just get away with stuff?” So then it kind of became these two things of like, so there’s these rebels who are truly doing stuff specifically because they care about this cause. And then there are braggarts who are like, saying that they’re Firebrands and they just want to have notoriety.

And they coexist because, because nobody can tell who’s who. It’s hard to just arrest somebody for the thing, right? Like, it’s hard for these governments to be like, “I don’t know if you are actually going to bomb my castle on the beach, or if you are just here to make trouble and you know, get notoriety for your name.”

And so it’s used, right, for the rebels are still using that idea, and using that against those people. I love that too, of just like, “Yep, I’m standing on a table, I’m a Firebrand.” And then the idea that it’s not always– some of them are like, “Well, what I want to do doesn’t require me to be at a higher mark. I’m a spy. I do this thing, I get these information, and I don’t care about getting to Mark Two or Three or Four.” So yeah, I love the nuance and the amount of storytelling. And again, like, the sort of subterfuge and the dynamics of like, you could be in a, in a place with two, groups of fifty each, some of them rebels, some of them braggarts. You don’t know who’s who or what’s what and or what, what’s to be gained here. And trying to suss all that out in also dealing with the fact that you’re going up against this, you know, tyrant that you’re trying to take down as well. It’s just fun. 

Esther: It’s super fun. There’s actually a lot of really amazing NPC characterization and worldbuilding in this book. Like, you get deep dives into a lot of canon NPCs who are active in this organization. One of the things I love is they give four Firebrand roles: Embers, who are the more subtle revolutionaries, they do behind the scenes work.

Sparks, who go in places and catalyze things. Blazes, who love being the center of attention. And Flames, who I took it to be kind of a mixed bag of all three of those who are also the most populus of the Firebrand roles. And you can really trace these roles in all of the NPCs in this book. There’s some that I read and I was like, you are definitely a Blaze.

And some that really come across as Embers who are doing behind-the-scenes, more subtle, long-term work. I love that they emphasize some Firebrands sweep through like a fire. They arrive, they do the work, and then they’re gone. But some like to stay behind and are more like the slow burn in helping folks rebuild, make long-term networks and strategies.

So it’s just a highly variable organization that you can do a ton with as a player, a GM, a worldbuilder, and that’s always really satisfying to feel like you get in a book — a setting book, particularly.

Navaar: Yeah. I think like, what’s really great, too, is that idea of: even if your whole campaign doesn’t revolve around this, let’s say you have a player who is a Firebrand and it’s just the one player, and when you’re in a town, they do just that one thing. They’re that Ember that kind of like, does it, or you know, they, they convince the group to come in and, and do this big flashy thing and then they leave.

And what that looks like in a group dynamic when it’s like, do the other people in the group decide to come along and join this or, you know, like, are they kind of just caught up in this thing and not really like — they’re just here to help their friend and they didn’t realize what they were getting themselves into.

And there’s so many fun dynamics like that, that I think you can get into. The fact that you can tie in this stuff into almost every aspect of a game and in different ways of roleplaying. 

Esther: So I was just looking back at my notes and I wanted to flag for our listeners, I feel like we’ve been talking a lot about some of what’s covered in the first chapter. So the first chapter is Among the Firebrands, where they go over like roles, code, fashion, Firebrand slang, relationships, and foes. And then Chapter 2, they get into Firebrand Options. And Chapter Three is Firebrand Efforts. Among the Firebrands is more of the NPCs and I feel like we’re also kind of getting into that.

They have just a wealth of different characters whose history they walk you through. They have like, the four main famous Firebrand organizations, each of which have a different flavor. I wrote down the Fire’s Finest are fashionistas, they go around just like making impressions and having like intergroup competitions and doing their Firebrand thing.

The Nightwave, which is Devran’s ship, I wrote “weird pirates and Firebrands.” The Salt Breakers, which are the ship of one of the Manux sisters who is just like, they’re an amazing set of NPCs who like, co-found the Firebrands. They are like, freedom sailors. And then the Silver Ravens are one of the two OG Firebrand groups.

They’re theater kids from Kintargo and Ravounel who got freedom from Cheliax. And those were just all super fun to read through. I had more enjoyment than I thought out of getting the lore from each of these groups. And it was just, it was genuinely enjoyable. This is a great book for lore about an organization, but also like, learning places in Golarion and in like, the history and what’s up there.

Navaar: Yeah, definitely. I think that’s another great thing is I mentioned this tying into the Mwangi Expanse and like Firebrands being involved in the liberation of Vidrian and yeah, it’s really fun to like think about like, how does this play out in your game? And like, how much of this leaves remnants, right?

Like, even if you’re playing in a, in a community that doesn’t have any of this stuff left over, if you’re still playing in the canon timeline, like how much of that, how many like, Firebrands are still around making sure stuff stays kosher or working those secrets and like passing along information? Or are there other countries that are still trying to come back and invade again? And what does that look like? And do you tie the Firebrands into that? 

And so yeah, having all of this information to bring in and, and have easy answers, I think is a lot of fun. I think having like heroes or notable figures who are– have a ton of information about them that you can just like, pull from and be like, “Yep, I’m taking this player. I’m gonna introduce them to my players, and I know exactly how to roleplay them, and you know, what they look like and the players get a picture of it.”

Like, I think that’s a lot of fun. It’s almost like in that same way of, this is a celebrity in, in the canon, right? And so what does that look like when your players get to meet somebody like that who has notoriety around the town they’re traveling? 

Esther: Did you have a favorite NPC?

Navaar: There’s so many really good ones. I love the page that has Ishii Bunji and, uh, Kar… Karthival?

Esther: Oh my gosh, yes. I wrote both of them down.

Navaar: I know. It’s, it’s a good page, ’cause it’s on one side you have, this like very muscular trans man with a spear and this beautiful beard. And on the other page you have this dragon that’s lounging and looks like they are suggesting ‘paint me like one of your French girls.’ And, uh, it’s so good.

Esther: [laughs] It really does.

Navaar: Yeah, and I really love the idea also of a dragon being involved in the Firebrands, 

Esther: There’s actually two dragons that get mentioned as Firebrands members. I’ve forgotten exactly what page the other was on and her name, but she’s like an older dragon who got chased out of Cheliax in the civil war and her wings got scarred and then they like, take her in and she becomes a part of the group.

The thing I loved about Ishii Bunji’s art, he’s called the Tyrant Breaker. Which like, what name! Great character page. I loved that he has top surgery scars. I just thought that was like, a beautiful detail and so meaningful for so many people who are gonna read this book. Gorgeous art, amazing character. 

And I gotta shout out the Manux sisters, Shimali and Vulmia. They’re on pages 49 and 51, and they’re like two of the original Firebrands, liberators of Vidrian — just hot, amazing, badass looking women. Check ’em out.

Navaar: Yeah. Yeah. The other cool thing is, because there is a Vigilante archetype that you can pick, there are two different sets — or I think at least two different sets — of Vigilantes in here: the Mockingbird and the Sapphire Butterfly. And I just love that idea of just like, yeah, there’s masked superheroes running around in this group.

Which I’m pretty sure I’ve seen the Sapphire Butterfly before, I think she might be like the — not necessarily the Iconic — but like basically the same image, or same character for the archetype in, in the Advanced Player’s Guide. 

Esther: Oh sweet.

Navaar: I just, cause I remember her mask, she has like, this butterfly mask.

But yeah, I mean, that’s such a fun thing. I’ve listened to an AP that had a character playing a Vigilante, and I think it’s just, it’s such a fun — like if you love comics or superheroes like it, it’s so good to just be like, “Yeah, my character is just a normal person. And then they put on a mask in a costume and go out and fight crimes–“

Esther: And they be a hero!

Navaar: Because it’s so like in a world where like, magic and power, extremely powerful fighters exist, the idea of having this secret identity and secret power seems almost a little absurd, but it’s, it’s so absurd that it’s like, “Yeah, I get it. It’s, it’s cool.” I dunno. I’m here for it. 

Esther: There’s, there’s many things about this universe that I’m like, it’s so absurd that it’s cool.

Navaar: Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Esther: Another thing I really loved from this section was they talk about faith, and they have a lot of pages on a lot of different deities. Shoutout to my number one girl, Niv Rhombodazzle! But the things I loved the most were their sidebars on blended faiths and then pantheons.

I loved the acknowledgement that there are natural occurrences of people worshiping two deities, two or more deities at once. And that just is a thing for people. I think often in our real world, people forget that folks can have multi-faith experiences, whether because that’s they’re raised in an interreligious household or they find two different paths as an adult. And I just think this is a really cool reflection of that. That makes so much sense to me, in a fantasy world where there are literal divine beings who you know exist and influence the world. And then, yeah, the pantheons, which are on page 70 and 71, they talk about different groupings of gods that are worshiped commonly among the Firebrands.

And there’s the Divine Dare, the Last Breath, the Perplexing Jest, and the Resplendent Court. And the Perplexing Jest is my favorite of those. It’s a collection of trickster deities that get revered all at once. Or trickster deities, fate deities, people who are like, jesters of the divine — the Lantern King, Grandmother Spider, Picoperi, Sun Wukong, and Gyronna — I wanna — I dunno how to say that name.

Navaar: Yeah… Jir-ahn-uh?

Esther: We’ll go with Jir-ahn-uh. 

Navaar: Yeah. Yeah, I love that. I think it’s, uh, the — you bring up a good point because I remember like when I first got back into… yeah, when I first started playing TTRPGs again in 2019, I wanna say? I was immediately like, yeah, I’m gonna have — my character worships two gods.

And I think like the idea, right, because if you think about it, like everybody in this world is polytheistic in the sense of they all know that there’s multiple gods out there. We just don’t pray to all of them. But it does make sense to have more than one, unless it’s like, I’m devout to this specific one.

Like it wouldn’t, it would make more sense to be like, yeah, but for this thing, I pray to this. For this thing, I pray to this deity, and that’s okay. And when I need my, all of my tricksters, I just pray to all of them. [Esther and Navaar laugh]

Esther: Yeah, I, I love that. I also love — they gave a special shout out to atheist Firebrands, which was super cool to me. I think we can often forget that in like, a fantasy world that has actual deities. And to me that’s such an interesting identity, positionality to hold in that kind of world. 

Navaar: Yeah, it really is fascinating because it’s like, for real, these guys in this world, these gods exist. So to take atheism as a, as a stance in — and I say this as an atheist in, my real life — to take atheism as a stance in Pathfinder is such a funny thing because it’s like you just, it’s just so like, so you just don’t believe, then? You just… they’re not there? They’re just – what is happening? How does this work? 

But I think it’s, it’s fun. Again, like it’s one of those things that’s like, as story, I think it’s, it makes it interesting. It’s a great way to have good conversations at table, in your roleplay, to have things happen, I think, in game and see how the characters react to that and stuff like that. To have a Cleric, right, or a Champion in, in the party as well alongside your atheist character. I just, yeah. It’s such a funny dynamic.

Esther: It, it is, I gotta say like as somebody who’s converted to Judaism, and has like a complicated multi-religious identity and has been an atheist at points in my life, one of the things that resonates with me about my personal practice is that — somebody on Twitter once said “Jews reserve the right to fight God in a Denny’s parking lot at 3:00 AM.” [Esther and Navaar laugh] And I really resonate with that.

And I think if I existed in a world like where there are literal, measurable deities in some way, I would wanna fight them in a Denny’s parking lot at 3:00 AM and I would wanna be like, “You know what? You exist, but how can you let bad things happen in this world?”

Navaar: Yeah.

Esther: “I guess you’re fighting other people?” But I think I would take like a very humanist approach to it and be like, “They’re just playing out squabbles on a divine scale and does that make them better than me? Than us? I don’t think so.” So I think I’d really relate to that path in a lot of ways and I, I kind of love that, like the idea that folks like that fit in with the Firebrands really easily. And that’s a compelling story for me.

Navaar: Yeah. No, yeah, I agree. Like especially thinking of it that way. and to bring it back to like the Firebrands, I think when you’re talking about people who have had to overcome oppression, the idea that there is a divine being that could have stepped in at some point and didn’t… yeah, that truly resonates with people in real life now today.

So, yeah, I think that is a, it’s a great storytelling — I think maybe, and this is just because I’m pedantic, the word atheist means something in our world that I feel like it doesn’t mean the same thing in Pathfinder. Which is fine, but I think that’s probably also part of my hangup with

Esther: Yeah, I, I kind of agree. It’s a very complicated word in the context of this world, and I’m like, I, wonder what a more precise term is.

Navaar: Yeah. I don’t even — because even agnostic doesn’t necessarily feel right. It’s like, it’s almost like a, like Divine Denier or something, you know what I mean? Like something, something that would be a mouthful to say, but I, whatever. It’s there. It makes it fun. I don’t know. Play an atheist in your next game. Tell us what happened. Tell you felt. But yes, I agree. Like, I think it is, there’s a lot of really, really cool options. And I think it is important that, like we talked about before, like there’s so many things. Like, the Firebrands can fit into whatever.

It doesn’t have to be a very specific thing. It may have started in certain areas because of the things that were going on in, in the world, in, in those areas at the time. But it’s not all built down to just like, one day and, and one practice and, and one group of peoples. There’s so many different people.

Uh, what next?

Esther: What next? I was just looking at that. So I wrote down a few more things from this particular section of the book that they give: options, equipment and magic items. They include 5 new Backgrounds and 2 new Rare Backgrounds. They offer 11 new Skill Feats and a bunch of new feats for many different archetypes: the Acrobat, the Alter Ego, Archeologist, Assassin, Celebrity, Dandy, Duelist, Gladiator, Horizon Walker, Marshall, Pirate, Scout, and Vigilante. So you might wanna take a little gander through some of those things and, and see if there’s anything juicy if you are thinking about or currently play a character with that archetype.

They include some fun new equipment and gear and magic items and spells. I’m happy to hit anything in there; the thing I really wanted to hit was at the end of the chapter, Services, so…

Navaar: Services, yeah, we can go into that.

Esther: Sweet. I particularly liked this section because it lays out a lot of like, different services that might be provided in the world of Golarion that are useful for an organization like the Firebrands. Or, frankly, your characters in other campaign settings.

So they talk about Canary Networks, which essentially provide you information and tailing services. They have an entire mechanic for both of those. I particularly liked the one that went into, if you wanna have somebody like, tailed for an amount of time, what that will take and how long it’ll take before they start to notice. They have mechanics for if you want a guide to a particular location, and how you can get a guide of your level who can like, essentially guide you to a few levels higher of a place, mechanics for how that works.

They have Item Caches, which essentially let you plan to pick up items that you need at a certain destination for a slightly higher price than you might normally pay. They talk about propaganda that can be disseminated, how to find safe houses and smuggling rules, and they provide a table for each of these services with various levels and costs associated with all of them.

And I just thought this is something I would use in many campaigns, a lot of these. Characters want information? Now you have a whole built-in way to do that through Canary Networks. You need a guide to go someplace? Now you have rules for how it can work to hire a guide and what level of a character you need to find in order to get to a certain place.

I just thought that was so well done, so apt for this book, and also such good planning for a contribution in general to the canon and the mechanics lore.

Navaar: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there’s so many things that — we kind of talked about this, too, some of the things that we take for granted. And I think like, there’s so many things like this where it’s like, “Yeah, you know what? That actually would be good to have somebody tailed because I’m not good at Stealth and I need somebody who is good at Stealth to do this, but our Rogue is doing this other thing. So how can we get this going?”

Or the Item Caches, right? Like, yeah, like “I don’t have this item in this store. I can’t find it, but maybe I can find a Firebrand who can get it for me and I have to pay a little bit extra, and pick that up.” Safe Houses, that’s another like, major one, you know, for when you can’t get back to your home base.

And so like, yeah, there’s so many things like that. These are great aspects to add to the game that, again, like you said, it doesn’t even have to be a Firebrand game. You can just literally plug this into whatever game you’re playing, and have it makes sense with tables and everything and how much money you need. That’s always great!

Esther: With tables and everything! I mean, how often do you, you need to like, smuggle an item somewhere covertly? And now there’s mechanics for how to do that. I think this is just gonna be so useful across the board and that makes me really excited. 

Navaar: Yeah. I mean, I think one of the things we talked about before was the idea of like, having options so you don’t have to play a certain character. And so when your players don’t wanna have to play — when nobody wants to play that stealthy character, how do you get around that? And to have options in there that aren’t like, massively expensive either.

To hire somebody to be able to do it, and still be able to play your game the way you wanna play it, I think is a lot of fun and just really beneficial for the campaign overall. I really love the idea of people not having to feel obligated to fit a party for balance. I just want you to play whatever seems cool to you. If you were really hyped on playing a Cleric, I don’t want you to be like, “Ah, well, we need a Rogue, so I guess I’ll play a Rogue.” Like, no, play a Cleric in loud armor who’s really clanky and doesn’t move around fast and can’t be quiet. And then hire somebody to do that for you when you need it, you know, or smuggle your stuff into the castle and you go in dressed as a noble or whatever. All these different things that I think would be really great that now there’s these options to help you know, somebody be able to facilitate it.

Esther: That reminded me of a really cool item I did wanna shout out, which is the Charm of the Ordinary, which essentially lets you Meld Into Stone but with an ordinary object for like, 10 minutes and become that object and hear things. I was just thinking of being smuggled into a castle, and I’m like, yeah, literally put on your clanky armor, then meld into this charm, get the castle!

Navaar: “We brought you a gift! It’s this beautiful statue.” “Um, thanks. I guess put it… put it here?”

Esther: Boom. You’re good.

Navaar: You’re good. You’re inside. Good to go. And you have your armor on you still? I also love, our Firebrand smuggler here in, in a wheelchair that has a little secret cache of golden jewels on page 94.

Esther: That art is so good. I remember looking at that and being like, nice, nice chair, first all, with that little hidden compartment. Also, this person just looks really cool. Like, I wanna talk to them.

Navaar: Yeah, for sure. I know I could gush about art in these books all time. 

Esther: Always, always.

Navaar: So the next section is the Firebrand Efforts, which kind of gives you just like different ideas on campaigns that you can run with this. Which I think is great in just the sense of like, again, going back to the idea of how do we make this stuff more accessible?

If you are a new GM and you feel like you don’t have that idea yet that you want to do or you’re not like, completely like, enthralled with something or sold on an idea, having the opportunity to just like read this book and go like, “Oh, here’s a thing. This has now inspired me to make this campaign and I have all the tools here to do this.”

And then once you get started, that’s gonna build on to making your campaign better, ’cause you’re gonna come up with your own stuff Or it’s just like, “Hey, like it’s an impromptu game. I didn’t have anything planned. Like we’re just all together and we wanna play some Pathfinder 2E. Now I can just open this up and be like, yeah, we’ll just do this. This will be fine.”

Esther: Jump on in. Yeah, they talk about a lot of settings in here and again, even more NPCs. And the first setting they get into is the Vaunter’s Carnival. And on reading it, I was like, oh, what a gift of a place to just launch a campaign from, or launch a campaign to! Either way could work. 

It happens in a different port city each year, so you can literally pick any port city you want, basically, and say it has the infrastructure to do this. I wrote “event planner’s dream slash nightmare.” Um, it sounds incredibly complex, but really fun and you could literally jump off from anywhere in the world or need to get your players to anywhere in the world, and this is just such a great way to do that.

Also, they have parkour races, which was just such a fun little detail. They sprinkle lots of fun little details like that into this very colorful, brash, attention-seeking organization’s culture.

Navaar: And you’re like, “Well, parkour races, I’m gonna do that.” 

Well, there’s also Boots of Free Running in there, which I think is actually the item that I was like, “Hmm, I need this.” Listen to An Unwavering Force to find out if those ever show up one day.

But yeah, I think that’s, it’s all this really great stuff of like pulling it in, right, and making it easy. Even– and in these sections it’s like, okay, you want to pick a place, like here’s a port. Here’s three, four paragraphs about this place just to get you going, to get you started. 

Esther: Yeah. Just to give you a a very brief idea, they talk about the Vaunter’s Carnival, which happens in different places. They talk about several places in the Mwangi Expanse; Old Cheliax, which is inclusive of current Cheliax and a few different countries around it; the Shackles, my favorite collection of islands, just love ’em, the pirates’ homes; Galt; Katapesh; and then a few smaller paragraphs on the Eye of Dread, New Thassilon, Nex, Numeria, Osirion, Qadira, River Kingdoms and Taldor, and even more like small sidebar notes on places. So they give you a lot of morsels of just places you can go, settings you can explore. I really enjoyed that. This is a very international organization.

Navaar: Yeah. Absolutely. So again, a book you don’t necessarily need, but I think a fun book for sure. A book that would easily, like, if you like revolutionaries, if you like pirates, if you like the idea of playing like these boisterous heroes, like I think it’s a great book to pick up and easily run a game or create a character around and work with your GM, too, to figure out how Firebrand can fit into that and just have a ton of fun. It’s stuff that’s constantly just gonna feed that story in its own. And I think that that’s always great for a long-term campaign. 

Esther: Totally, totally. I really enjoyed this book, more than I was expecting to, frankly. It gave me a lot of ideas for how I might incorporate this organization into the world or what I might wanna do with them. And, and just like the lore and the items are, are really fun. This is definitely not a book you need for your Pathfinder collection to have like, a core understanding or to have your like, core build in any way. But if you’re at all interested in that kind of a vibe of a liberator, a flashy, like fun, Roguish, Bardish, Swashbuckling organization, it’s a great, great purchase for that reason. 

I’m curious, was there anything about the book that let you down in any way or that you weren’t so into?

Navaar: No. No, not that I can think of. I think like, it does a great job of encapsulating the story that you’d want to tell with it, and I think it does a good job of capturing the identity of what these revolutionaries are and kind of where they came from. Which I think I already had like high hopes for, because of the Mwangi Expanse, because of, like, Vidrian was the first place that I ran a campaign in on my own.

Which is a place that like in the canon was recently liberated in part because of Firebrands. So, if I’m remembering that correctly, but either way, I think I felt confident that it was going to be handled well, and that might have been like my only worry was that I could have been let down at that point.

But yeah, I think I enjoyed it and I think that I really loved what was given in these options and I think it was a good length for, for a faction. I think any longer or any shorter might have been a disservice. 

Esther: Yeah, I feel largely the same. I think it’s a really solid introduction to a lot of people, places, to the organization, really well done. And had it been longer, I think it would’ve felt a little too padded, but this is like a really good length and it’s a good chunk of information. 

Any final shout-outs? Any like little particular things that you’re just like, fun, and wanna shout out as we end?

Navaar: Um, gosh, I think I covered most of it, but I like — the items are a lot of fun because it’s all centered around things that would be helpful, right, to a Firebrand. So the other one that I liked but we didn’t talk about was the Wrist Launcher, I wanna say, is called.

Esther: Mm-hmm.

Navaar: Yeah, Wrist Launcher. “A slender tube is attached to a large strap worn on the forearm. You can fire a dart from the tube with a twist of the wrist. The wrist launcher uses darts as ammunition.” Yeah, it’s just a little sneaky little thing you can put up your sleeve and that I really loved. I mean, all of this stuff, like, there’s four different pictures on this thing and the Armored Cloak is also obviously another really cool one.

What about you?

Esther: Oh yeah, the Armored Cloak was amazing. Okay, so there were several spells I loved. I wanna shout out, Blinding Foam, Bursting Bloom, and Rose’s Thorns, which all do some amount of damage that I thought was really great for their level. And like, the Rose’s Thorns feel especially Milani-flavored to me, and she’s one of the deities included in this book.

But my last shout-out goes to the Level 3 spell Sparkleskin. “You coat a creature’s body in a layer of brilliantly sparkling glitter. The target gains a +2 status bonus on Deception checks to Make A Diversion and to Feint and on Performance checks to Perform that have the visual trait. When the target takes damage, glitter bursts out of its wound in a 5-foot emanation. Creatures in the area must attempt a Fortitude save.” Thank you to whoever designed a spell that turns someone into Edward Cullen and then gives them advantage on all this stuff! [Esther and Navaar laugh]

Navaar: Yeah.

Esther: That’s what I wrote down. “Edward!” Exclamation point. 

Navaar: Yeah. God, that’s so funny. Which just a lot of fun stuff — I think like, having a specific vibe to write for and then making cool stuff for that vibe really worked out in favor of the Firebrands. So yeah. I enjoyed this book. Again, it’s just a font of inspiration.

So, if that’s your thing, definitely, definitely check it out.

Esther: Check it out! And where can we check you out on the internet?

Navaar: Yeah, you can check me out at NavaarSNP. That’s N-A-V-A-A-R-S-N-P. I am here. I am also on hiatus at Secret Nerd Podcast, and I am also on An Unwavering Force, which you heard me mention before, which is a new Star Wars Pathfinder 2E podcast that just launched on May the 4th. And we have two campaign episodes up plus a special pre-campaign episode, with me and my GM, about my character and what kind of sparks the events of, of our story, as well as a Q and A, for with the cast.

So yeah, check it out. We’ll be dropping episodes every other week until I can convince my GM to let us drop them every week, which means more editing for me, but also I want you to listen to it. So my excitement versus my workload is fighting me right now. But yes, I’m very excited about it. It’s been, it’s an amazing story to tell and we’re all-BIMPOC, queer-led cast. Yeah, check us out.

Esther: Definitely check them out.

Full disclosure, I spent part of my afternoon listening to the first episode and I’m getting through all the character introductions. It’s really fantastic. I’m having a lot of fun as a listener, and I’m not just saying that because we’re co-hosts and you’re my friend. I’m having a lot of fun listening to it. So please check out the podcast. 

So you can find me on the internet everywhere @dungeonminister. And I am also the GM of a Pathfinder2E actual play, Chromythica. We are on social media @chromythica. You can also find us at Chromythica wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube, and visit us on our website at chromythica dot com.

And you can find Know Direction @KnowDirection on Twitter and YouTube and other places like Mastodon. You can also feel welcome to come over and join our Discord, where we talk about all of the network shows and blog posts, as well as Pathfinder and Starfinder and other systems and other things we like.

So if you want to hang out and talk about all that cool stuff and even like, tell us what you might like to hear about on future shows, come over and chat for a while. Thanks so much for tuning in. Until next time!