13th Age: The Fleshcrafter, An Alternate Icon

All year long we are releasing alternate icons for 13th Age. We started this series off with the Usurper and continued it with the Deposed Heir. This month we continue the series with the Fleshcrafter, the equal and opposite of the Archmage.

In some ways the Fleshcrafter is just like the Archmage: they both seek knowledge and arcane power and want their followers to learn and educate themselves. That is where the similarities end, however. Where the Archmage wants lift many up with magic, the Fleshcrafter wants to suppress the masses with magic. The Archmage’s power comes from the living mastering eldritch power, while the Fleshcrafter’s power comes from a few crafting an unthinking army of the dead and various constructs. Where the Archmage thinks of the good of the many, the Fleshcrafter thinks only of the desires of the few.

Quote

“You displease me. Run fast or my hoard will devour you.”

Frequent Location

Bone Hill, a city that built around the Fleshcrafter’s tower.

Common Knowledge

The Fleshcrafter’s source of power centers around his mounds of dead bodies that he turns into his undead hoard. Such creations unerringly and unquestionably follow his orders.

The Icon and Adventurers

New adventurers seeking missions from the Fleshcrafter receive missions frequently involving disruptions in the flow of dead bodies to Bone Hill. He has also been known to hire adventurers to retrieve some new type of undead creature so he can study it. He may disguise these for those with a conflicting relationship as helping the people bringing corpses to the tower or by helping the local population by ridding them of some uncontrolled undead and bring it back to study.

Adventurers that the Fleshcrafter knows better and has more experience with are sent to find unique and exotic components to craft new golems and undead.

Allies

The Usurper supports the Fleshcrafter’s experiments like no other. In return, his undead armies keep the masses from rising up against the unlawful successor to the throne.

Enemies

The Lich Queen sees the Fleshcrafter as competition, stealing bodies that she can use to create for her undead army.

While the Dwarf King respects the Fleshcrafter’s skill in golem crafting, he finds the use of dead bodies, especially dwarven bodies, to form his creations as utterly repugnant.

History

Few considered the Fleshcrafter a person of consequence until his army of undead and golems marched upon the land. Before then, he was an overlooked wizard that the Archmage ignored. He was chased from town to town when the locals discovered what his creations involved. Now he is looking for payback for perceived wrongs.

The Reason to Fear

The Fleshcrafter believes that anyone not subservient to him is against him. He sends his creations after them.

The icon that opposed the Fleshcrafter more than anyone is the Herald, the one that knows how to call upon the power of Heaven and even bring angels into a fight in desperate times. Read all about this alternate icon next month.

Support the series by sharing it on social media and by downloading 13 Wizard Cantrips and Spells at the JBE Shop, DriveThruRPG, and the Open Gaming Store.

Pathfinder 1e: What Kinds of Products Do You Want For Your Game?

We’re hard at work here at JBE on the upcoming Book of Beasts: Character Codex. While we have a number of our own ideas, we want to hear from you: what kinds of products do you want in your game? Vote in the poll below. If you have something specific in mind or if you can’t see the poll, leave a comment below.

Before we talk more about the poll, check out our existing Pathfinder 1e products at the JBE Shop, DriveThruRPG, and the Open Gaming Store while they are up to 40% off their regular price. This sale won’t last much longer, so grab these titles now.

Options include:

  • Low-level adventures (levels 1-5)
  • Mid-level adventures (levels 6-10)
  • High-level adventures (levels 11-15)
  • Game-ender adventures (levels 16-20)
  • Long adventures (cover 10+ levels, able to make a full campaign out of them)
  • Options for existing Paizo classes (includes archetypes, classes produced by Paizo only)
  • Options for existing Pathfinder Compatible classes (share which ones below, there’s quite a few)
  • New classes (something totally new, yes, we do have ideas)
  • New monster / NPC books
  • New feats or spells
  • New / expanded races
  • Small settings (cities, towns, etc that can be incorporated into any setting)
  • Large campaign setting (able to play several campaigns here)
  • Other (describe in the comments below)

EDIT: Because we can’t seem to allow multiple option voting (to many options, I guess), I allowed repeat voting. So you can vote in the poll as many times as you want. I ask that you don’t vote for the same option more than once; it will make the results less accurate. So let us know all the options you want.

Vote in the poll now:

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Pathfinder 1e: Blood Scion Archetype

We’ve said before that we revised the Book of Heroic Races: Occult Intrigue in the Wilderness based on feedback. JBE wants to produce the highest quality gaming material on the market and your feedback concerning when we mess up is a critical part of that.

One of the revised archetypes is the Blood Scion for those that want to play a dhampir mesmerist. This class archetype now exude flavor of vampire and the mechanics work as intended. Read the full archetype and download the book at the JBE Shop while it is 40% off for the GM’s Day Sale.

Blood Scion

Vampires are known for their supernatural ability to charm others, which they often use to lure their prey into vulnerable positions. All dhampirs inherit some of this charm, but those with an affinity for psychic magic can tap into their bloodline to emulate their sires. These blood scions can charm even their enemies with a well-timed look, and the creatures of the night heed their call just as they would a true vampire’s.
Associated Class: mesmerist
Associated Race: dhampir
Replaced Abilities: touch treatment, mental potency, glib lie
Enchanting Stare (Su): At 3rd level, the blood scion can lock eyes with the target of his hypnotic stare as a standard action. The target must make a Will saving throw (DC 10 + 1/2 the blood scion’s mesmerist level + his Charisma modifier) or begin to see the blood scion as a friend, as per the spell charm person. The blood scion must be able to see the target to use this ability. The target remains charmed as long as it is under the effect of the blood scion’s hypnotic stare. Regardless of whether or not the target succeeds on its saving throw, it cannot be targeted by this ability again for the next 24 hours. The creature has no memory of a blood scion’s enchanting stare once the effect ends.
Servants of the Night (Sp): At 5th level, the blood scion can call allies once per day, much like a vampire. As a full-round action, he can cast summon nature’s ally III, though he can summon only dire rats, wolves, or a dire bat. At 10th level, this ability can be used three times per day and functions as summon nature’s ally IV (allowing him to summon additional creatures of these types), and the blood scion can also choose to summon a dire wolf. At 15th level, this ability functions as summon nature’s ally V, and at 20th level, it functions as summon nature’s ally VI.
Enthralling Stare (Su): At 11th level, the blood scion’s hypnotic stare can bend individuals to his will, drawing on his vampiric lineage. The blood scion must take a standard action and lock eyes with the target of his hypnotic stare in order to use this ability. The target is allowed a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 the blood scion’s level + his Charisma modifier). On a failure, the target is affected as if by a dominate person spell. The blood scion must be able to see the target to use this ability. The target remains dominated for as long as it is under the effects of the blood scion’s hypnotic stare. So long as the target of this ability remains dominated, the blood scion can maintain his hypnotic stare against it regardless of the distance between them. Regardless of whether or not the target succeeds on the saving throw, it cannot be targeted by this ability again for the next 24 hours. The creature has no memory of a blood scion’s enthralling stare once the effect ends.
Greater Servants (Su): At 14th level, creatures the blood scion summons with servants of the night gain the advanced creature template.

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My Pathfinder Renaissance

I’m going to deviate from my typical posts here for a moment and talk about myself personally instead of my company. I am going through what I can only describe as a Pathfinder Renaissance. What do I mean by that? Dan Rydell (played by Josh Charles) of the underappreciated Aaron Sorkin TV show Sports Night described his New York Renaissance as, “I have lived in New York my whole life. This is the time I should be sick of it, but I’m not,” and then he proceeds to tell everyone about how he wants to do classic New York things like riding the Staten Island ferry or getting a hot dog and going for a walk in Central Park.

So what do I mean by I am having a Pathfinder Renaissance. I love Pathfinder 1e. I have been supporting the game now for 11 years. At this point in my life, I should feel this is old hat, like I have played this game out and I should be have moved onto 2e or D&D 5e, 13th Age, or Traveller, but Pathfinder 1e is the game in my head as my mental default for gaming and I am loving it.

Where is this coming from, you ask. There are two main sources. First off, is all the work we at JBE are doing with Pathfinder these days. We have been hard at work at producing the upcoming Book of Beasts: Character Codex that I am falling in love with all the options available to characters again. No other game we support has the number off character choices available to them from the main publisher. Add in 11 years of compatible publishers creating other choices and you have a wealth of options that are simply unmatched in today’s game market. This level of freedom to make the character you want is something I am finding irresistible at the moment.

Add in to that the other main source of my Pathfinder Renaissance: a recent episode of Fear the Boot. If you are unaware, I joined the crew of Fear the Boot last year and am having tremendous fun being on this podcast. Our most recent episode we talk about supplements (or the term that the other hosts use, “splat books”). Listen to the episode and the other parts of it when they are released since we went long. But in that episode I defended supplements as a wonderful thing because they add variety and flavor to a game, giving players and game masters ideas for their games. But recording that episode reminded me of how much I love to just sit back and read a supplement filled all kinds of flavor and ideas and enjoy the thoughts of characters and adventures presented in those books. I had not done that in so long, and I am doing that again and am enjoying every moment of it.

Do you love Pathfinder as much as I do? Share your love in the comments below.

If you are sticking with Pathfinder 1e because you love this game as much as I personally do, check out our books at the JBE Shop, DriveThruRPG, Paizo, and the Open Gaming Store. with the GM’s Day sale going on now, you can grab our books for up to 40% off the regular price. Grab our books today.

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Pathfinder 1e: Mercenary Priest

Not long ago, we mentioned that we are working on an NPC Codex-style book titled the Book of Beasts: Character Codex. That post has a poll where you can vote on some of the classes that will be covered inside. Read that post to find out more details about that upcoming book and subscription to help us produce the book.

The first in the subscription covers warpriests. Today, we are sharing with you one of the warpriests detailed in this book. The odd-numbered levels are a build that you would expect from the class.

Download the Book of Beasts: Warpriest Codex today at JonBrazer.com, DriveThruRPG, the Open Gaming Store, and Paizo.com.

Mercenary Priest CR 2

XP 600
Dwarf warpriest of Ares 3
CE Medium humanoid (dwarf)
Init +4; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +2 (+4 to notice unusual stonework)

Defense

AC 20, touch 12, flat-footed 20 (+8 armor +2 deflection)
hp 29 (3d8+12)
Fort +6, Ref +1, Will +5; +2 vs. poison, spells, and spell-like abilities
Defensive Abilities defensive training

Offense

Speed 20 ft.
Melee mwk spear +6 (1d8+3/×3 plus 1d6 vs good)
Ranged light crossbow +2 (1d8/19–20)
Special Attacks blessings 4/day (Evil: unholy strike, War: war mind), fervor 3/day (1d6), hatred, sacred weapon (1d6, +0, 3 rounds/day)
Warpriest Spells Prepared (CL 3rd; concentration +5)
1st—bless, cure light wounds, doom (DC 14), shield of faith
0 (at will)—bleed (DC 13), detect magic, guidance, stabilize

Tactics

Before Combat The warpriest casts shield of faith.
During Combat The warpriest casts bless and doom and then engages in melee combat, using unholy strike.
Base Statistics Without unholy strike and shield of faith, the warpriest’s statistics are AC 18, touch 10, flat-footed 18, Melee mwk spear +6 (1d8+3/×3), CMD 16 (20 vs bull rush, 20 vs trip).

Statistics

Str 15, Dex 10, Con 16, Int 12, Wis 15, Cha 6
Base Atk +2; CMB +4; CMD 14 (18 vs. bull rush, 18 vs. trip)
Feats Combat Casting, Improved Initiative, Spell Focus (necromancy), Weapon Focus (spear)
Skills Diplomacy +4, Knowledge (religion) +7, Spellcraft +7; Racial Modifiers +2 Appraise to assess nonmagical metals or gemstones, +2 Perception to notice unusual stonework
Languages Common, Dwarven, Goblin
Combat Gear oil of magic weapon, potion of bull’s strength, scroll of bestow curse; Other Gear mwk half-plate, light crossbow, mwk spear, wooden holy symbol of Ares, 62 gp

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d66: We’re Back With More d66 Goodness

You asked for it. We delivered! Brand new d66 Lists are back and better than ever. We just posted for brand new d66 lists for your over at the JBE Shop. Grab them today.

Not only that, we are adding all of our existing d66 lists to the JBE Shop. The JBE Shop is going to be the new home of all our individual d66 lists. Doing it like this, you can add to your collection all at once from those you have been wanting to pickup and our new ones. If you picked up d66 lists in the past, have no fear. You will still be able to download them at other websites with no issue.

So which ones have been released today? Great question. First up we have d66 Reasons Traffic Control has Denied Take Off Clearance. Traffic control doesn’t always let you leave a star system when you want to. There can be a whole host of reason why they may say no, and d66 Reasons Traffic Control has Denied Take Off Clearance presents you with 36 such reasons. Use them in your game today. Download it at the JBE Shop.

After that, we have a new list of ship names for you: d66 Ships Named After a Breakup/Divorce. Not everyone names a ship after good times or happy memories. Some do it after a major life change. Inside d66 Ships Named After a Breakup/Divorce you’ll find all kinds of ship names that will help you give the ship’s captain or owner some personality. Download this d66 list today at the JBE Shop.

This next one was requested by a fan: d66 Things That Happened While You Were in Jump Space. Quite a bit can happen during that week when you are in jump space. The last you heard, all was fine on the planet and you emerge to food riots, a megacorp announce expansion plans, or perhaps war broke out. Perhaps something happened on your ship while you were away from reality, like a powersurge sending you off course or someone in low berth is suddenly pregnant and the unborn is experiencing rapid gestation. The list d66 Things That Happened While You Were in Jump Space will help you make a unique experience. Download at the JBE Shop.

Last but not least, we bring you d66 Vehicle Manufacturer Names. This d66 list delivers 36 names for vehicle manufacturers. Whether you are looking for a massive, multi-planetary corporation that produces gravcars and much more or a small local specialty company that hand makes flyers and ground cars, this list is here to help. Download at the JBE Shop.

If there is a specific list you would like to see, let us know in the comments below or on our Facebook page or on Twitter. We want to hear your thoughts.

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5e: Path of the Pyrorager

It has been a while since we talked much about Fifth Edition. This is a game we at the “office” love and enjoy regularly. We have several 5e projects in the works, but we’re not ready to talk about them further at this time.

What we do want to talk about is the Book of Heroes: Fearless Barbarian Paths. We released this one at the end of last year, but did not talk about it nearly as much as we would have liked. We did share with you the Path of the Giant and the Path of the War Avatar. Today I would like to share with you my personal favorite of the supplement: Path of the Pyrorager.

We shared with you a very early version of this barbarian path back in 2017, but we decided on a number of improvements to it. This is a chance for you to see how our products can change during the development process. We hope you enjoy this barbarian path in your 5e game.

Download Book of Heroes: Fearless Barbarian Paths today at the JBE Shop today. You can also find it at DriveThruRPG and the Open Gaming Store.

Path of the Pyrorager

While some barbarians describe themselves as burning with anger, the pyrorager literally catches on fire when they fly into a frenzy. Some pyroragers claim they descend from an ancient red dragon. Many scholars doubt the validity of that claim, but only voice such doubts when they are well out of earshot of any pyroragers.

Burning Fury

When you choose this path at 3rd level, your arms and weapons erupt into flames when you rage. Your melee weapon attacks deal an extra 1d6 points of fire damage when raging. This damage counts as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage. This damage increases to 2d6 at 6th level, 3d6 at 10th level, and 4d6 at 14th level. This damage does not stack with spells or weapons that deal additional fire damage, such as a flame tongue weapon. When your rage ends, you suffer one level of exhaustion (as described in Appendix A of the PHB).

Fire Speaker

Also at 3rd level, you become proficient with the Ignan language.

Flame Body

Starting at 6th level, fire runs through your veins, granting you resistance to fire damage. At 14th level, you are immune to fire damage and are resistant to cold damage.

Fiery Allies

Upon reaching 10th level, you gain advantage on all Charisma checks when conversing with elementals that speak Ignan.

Fire Breath

Beginning at 14th level, you gain the ability to vomit forth flames. All creatures in a 30-foot line take 3d6 points of fire damage on a failed Dexterity save (DC equal to 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier). A successful save reduces this damage by half. Once used, you cannot use this ability again until you complete a short or long rest.

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13th Age: The Deposed Heir, An Alternate Icon

Deadly Delves Reign of Ruin (13th Age)

All year long we are releasing alternate icons for 13th Age. Last month we started this series off with the Usurper. This time we bring you the rightful heir to the throne. The Deposed Heir is a true force in the world and a worthy part of your game.

The Deposed Heir is the equal and opposite of the Crusadress. Where she is highly organized and fights for herself when she is not battling the Diabloist and their demonic forces, the Deposed Heir fights to for the good of all people. While his ultimate goal is to retake the throne, he worked in the interim to prevent the good people of his empire to not fall at the hands of monsters and those willing to inflict harm for their own personal gain.

Quote

“For the good of one. For the good of all. We stand together, or we fall together.”

Frequent Location

Hurstshire, a small village hidden in the Fangtree Forest. This location serves as a hideout and base of operations to conduct hit and fade operations in the Usurper’s forces.

Common Knowledge

The Deposed Heir is a symbol of hope throughout the Empire. When monsters and the Usurper’s thugs attack, the people hope the Deposed Heir’s band of heroes will rescue them from their grim fate.

The Icon and Adventurers

The Deposed Heir has little ability to pay adventurers. As such few that rally to his cause stay when their bellies grow hungry. Those that do believe in justice and honor. His rewards tend to be in things unrelated to material wealth.

Allies

The Deposed Heir has no official allies. Those that would side with him protect their own. Unofficially, the Archmage and High Priestess send those loyal to them on missions that will help the Deposed Heir, under the guise that they are helping the people and unaware of how their actions thwarted the Usurper’s plans. Trade missions from the Dwarf King and the High Elf get raided with mysterious frequency and en up in the Deposed Heir’s hands.

Enemies

Unfortunately, the list of the Deposed Heir’s enemies is not so short. While the Usurper is the icon that pursues this icon with the most gusto, the Orc Warlord is not far behind in being well motivated. The forces of the Deposed Heir’s now deceased parent gave chase to the Warlord’s troops and now the Orc and those forces are eager to return the favor.

Less of an enemy and more of opportunists attempting to seize some power are the Diabloist and the Lich Queen. Should the Deposed Heir fall, these two will have one less symbol of good being a perpetual thorn in their figurative sides.

History

The heir to the Empire’s throne was taught both statesmanship and military tactics. Instead of taking an easy assignment with the military, he served as a battlefield officer, fighting, eating, and sleeping alongside those he commanded. That was where he was when the capital was attacked. The assassin sent to kill him did not count on the loyalty of his comrads choosing to die in his stead. Now he uses that same training to survive and strike at those that would do the people harm.

The Reason to Fear

Attack the weak and powerless and the Deposed Heir will hunt you down and make you regret your cruelty, at least for a short while.

All this leads us to the equal and opposite of the Archmage, the Fleshcrafter.

Support the series by sharing it on social media and by downloading our 13th Age titles at the JBE Shop, DriveThruRPG, and the Open Gaming Store.

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Pathfinder 1e: Character Codex Coming Soon

If you follow Jon Brazer Enterprises on Twitter or Facebook, you may have seen the announcement that we are working on our next major 1e Pathfinder project. We call it the Book of Beasts: Character Codex. This book is going to be similar to the NPC Codex by Paizo in that it provides 20 NPCs—one for each level—for each class detailed in the book. This way you always have an NPC at the level you need for that class. Unlike the original Codex, this book will focus on classes not in the core rulebook. We will be covering classes detailed in the Advanced Player’s Guide, Advanced Class Guide, and Ultimate Magic.

The obvious question is, “Why do this now?” Pathfinder 1e is no longer supported by the main company and at least some portion of the audience has moved to the new edition. So why continue to support the older edition? First and foremost, we at JBE prefer the older edition. This is the edition we enjoy, and we want to continue supporting it. Why didn’t we do this book years ago when it was still the current edition? Honestly, I always expected Paizo to do it. I learned a strong lesson from the Book of the River Nations, where we took the OGL Kingmaker rules and reprinted them in a standalone book for players: namely “don’t do books that I expect the main company to do in the future.” While the book sold incredibly well at the time and is still one of our top 3 selling books of all time, sales of it essentially ended the moment that Ultimate Campaign was released. So we held off on a number of very good ideas for Pathfinder 1e that we expected to be done by the primary publisher. Now that they’ve moved on and we are still here, we think now is a good time to produce those books and adventures we talked about before. Watch this space for more Pathfinder 1e books and blog posts.

We will be releasing this book as a subscription and bundling it all up when complete. We’re borrowing this idea from some of our fellow publishers that the earlier you subscribe to this project, the lower the price will be. The price will go up as we add more PDFs to the subscription. So if you know you are going to want this, subscribe as soon as it comes out. What will subscribers get? They get the individual PDFs and a PDF of the final Book of Beasts: Character Codex Compendium as well as a coupon to order the final print version at a reduced price. As an added bonus, subscribers will also get the Hero Lab classic files of the characters. We will be selling them separately for those that are not interested in the full subscription, but subscribers get them included.

So what is the scope of the Character Codex Subscription? As mentioned above, we’re limiting the classes we’re drawing from the Advanced Player’s Guide, Ultimate Magic, and the Advanced Class Guide. We will be utilizing feats, spells and archetypes from these books plus the core rulebook, Ultimate Combat, and the Advanced Race Guide. That will provide you with some excellent NPCs from a diverse set of books. Some quick math though: 18-ish pages for 17 classes in those three books comes to over 300 pages for the NPCs. Note that doesn’t include any possible appendixes we know we’ll need (eidolons, mounts, familiars, etc) let alone any we haven’t thought of yet, nor anything else that will require pages (i.e. Title Page, OGL, etc). That is more than a little intimidating for a company our size. Currently, the Book of Heroic Races: Advanced Compendium is our largest book at around 250 pages and that took 2 years and a lot of sweat to finish. So we are thinking of covering 12 classes in this outing. That puts this project at around 200 pages before everything mentioned above. While still a stretch, it is considerably more manageable.

The question then becomes which classes do we include. The warpriest is almost ready to send off to the editors, and we have artwork picked out for the arcanist, magus, and slayer classes so they’re definitely in. That still leaves us 8 classes to pick. This is where you come in. Tell us what classes you want to see by voting in the poll below. If you don’t see the poll because of the browser you are using or various settings or if there are some classes you want covered above all others, please leave us a comment below.

Are you excited for this project, for additional Pathfinder 1e support? Is there something you want us to produce that is not yet available? We want to hear your voice. Tell us your thoughts. Post a comment and let your voice be heard.

Download all of JBE’s Pathfinder 1e books at the JBE Shop, DriveThruRPG, Paizo, and the Open Gaming Store.

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