Just released for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game is Bestiary 6. This volume presents over 200 new monsters, including demigods, kaiju, animal companions, playable character races, and templates. The hardcover retails for $45, the PDF (later this month) for $10.

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WizKids has launched two lines of unpainted, fantasy, plastic miniatures, one for the Pathfinder RPG, one for Dungeons & Dragons.

The Deep Cuts line for Pathfinder includes 20 different blister packs, the Nolzur’s Marvelous Miniatures line for Dungeons & Dragons 33. Each pack has 1-3 figures—monsters and characters in both lines—at a retail price of $3.99.

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With the launch date for Paizo’s Starfinder Roleplaying Game approaching this summer, the company has revealed some additional detail regarding the products being released. Starfinder is a science-fantasy game based on the Pathfinder RPG, set in space, and compatible but stand-alone.

The initial slate of Starfinder releases scheduled for Gen Con will include a Core Rulebook ($60), GM Screen ($20), and Player Character Folio ($10). Also available at the same time will be the first part of a Starfinder Adventure Path, Incident at Absalom Station ($23), as well as the usual adventure path accessories, a pawn collection ($25) and flip mats ($15-20). The core rulebook runs 560 pages and includes several new races, seven classes (technomancer, mechanic, soldier, envoy, operative, mystic, and solarion), science-fantasy equipment, spells, and rules for starship construction and combat.

Following in September will be Starfinder Condition Cards ($13). In October will be Starfinder Alien Archive ($40) with rules for both creatures as adversaries and creatures as player-characters.

Paizo also has in the works a Starfinder organized play program. The Starfinder Society Roleplaying Guild will be separate from but similar to the Pathfinder Society—the major difference being that Starfinder characters will be able to be members of more than one faction at a time, sort of like multi-classing.

To accommodate third-party products, Paizo has already published a Starfinder Compatibility License. It’s also licensed Syrinscape to produce official Starfinder sound-effects and is working with Ninja Division on Starfinder prepainted miniatures.

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Starjammer is rules for Pathfinder in space—different, by the way, than Paizo’s soon-to-be Starfinder game. Starjammer includes new player races, class archetypes, feats, and spells. There are rules for customizing spaceships, using skills with advanced technology, classifying planets, and adjudicating environmental hazards. The equipment section features such items as magnetic shields, misfortune lanterns, hardsuits, dwarven steam suits, and star marine armor.

The Starjammer Core Rules ebook is 238 pages published by d20pfsrd.com and available via DriveThruRPG for $15.

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Paizo Publishing is licensing out the Pathfinder RPG for third-party virtual tabletop applications. The company has singed deals with two VTT providors, Mesa Mundi for D20PRO and Smite Works for Fantasy Grounds, and is soon expected to sign with Roll20.

The new licensing arrangements will allow the companies to incorporate the full Pathfinder RPG ruleset, as well as Pathfinder adventure paths and modules, artwork included. Material is expected to start showing up on these services early next year.

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The newest project of writer and producer Dan Harmon (Community, Rick and Morty) is Harmonquest, a mix of animation and Pathfinder RPG actual-play. The half-hour show features Dan and friends roleplaying in front of a live audience, with animated scenes reproducing much of the action. The group plays loose with the game rules and freely with slapstick, taking particular delight in acting out critical-failure die rolls.

Ten episodes of Harmonquest are available through NBCUniversal’s Seeso subscription service online.

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The theater department of Cleveland High School in Portland, Oregon has a history of adopting Paizo’s roleplaying games to the stage. The school’s next production, Night of Ashes, is a prequel for the Hell’s Rebels Pathfinder Adventure Path. With performances scheduled for November, the school’s PTA has turned to Kickstarter for help in funding video equipment to record the event, including a GoPro to capture elements of the show that will be audience-interactive. Extra funds will be used to improve costuming.

Back when I was in high school (in the 1980s), there were fanzines, like The Oracle for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Now The Play Generated Map and Document Archive wants to reprint it bound in hardcover.

More on the cutting-edge, Aether Forge Miniatures is looking for support to produce a line of modular space ship miniatures. Individual sections would fit together to form custom ships. Though I love the idea, I do have to point out that Aether Forge is really just one guy still teaching himself how to use 3D modeling software.

With a slicker presentation is Less, a simple abstract strategy game played on a modular board. The goal is to jump one’s pieces in to the opponent’s corner, three moves per turn. The board’s modularity, however means that each game there will be a different configuration of walls getting in the way. Fortunately pieces can jump walls, just at the cost of an extra move.

Walls is another race-through-the-maze type abstract strategy game. What makes this one interesting, though, is that players can change the maze during the course of the game, clearing a path for themselves or blocking their opponents. Each turn, a player rolls two dice, one for the number of spaces they can move, one for the number of walls they can turn.

Booze Barons is a deduction game about competing bootleggers during prohibition. As players move their game pawns around to different speakeasies and other locations, they their goal is to figure out which other player is making which kind of booze. The game accommodates up to nine players, always in three aligned mobs.

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Earlier this week, Paizo revealed its plans for two new Pathfinder RPG books and the next Pathfinder RPG adventure path.

The first book, Bestiary 5, is scheduled for release in November with more than 300 new monsters, plus templates, lists by challenge rating and habitat, and universal monster rules for simplified combat. Among the creatures included are familiars and animal companions, fiends with new mind-warping powers, and entirely new types of devils, angels, demodands, and residents of the Great Beyond.

The second Pathfinder RPG book is to be Ultimate Intrigue, a hardcover that “delves into the shadows, where charm, grace, innuendo, and insult may be more powerful than a sharp sword or spell.” An open playtest for Ultimate Intrigue will open in June.

The next adventure path satisfies a long-standing request by Pathfinder players, a campaign for villains. Hell’s Vengeance will place characters in direct opposition to the previous adventure path, Hell’s Rebels. This time players will find themselves working for the devil-binding Empire of Cheliax and attempting to put down the rebellion.

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The newest roleplaying book from Paizo, Pathfinder Unchained, represents something of a departure for the game, the publisher, and the typical supplement. It’s the result of the company allowing its designers to “do what they want” with Pathfinder, unrestricted by backwards compatibility.

Pathfinder Unchained includes four entirely new versions of the barbarian, monk, rogue, and summoner classes; variant rules for multiclassing, alignment, and wounds; a simplified monster creation process; an alternative, stamina-powered combat system; and more. The book will retail for $40 in print, $10 as a PDF.

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Avalon Quests marks the launch of the Avalon Game Company’s new line of solo-gaming products for the Pathfinder RPG. In the 200 page ebook Avalon includes a core rule system, campaign setting material, an introductory adventure, record sheets, quick-reference pages, and color battle map tiles.

Avalon touts the system as working equally well for solitaire or cooperative, GM-less play, for an extended campaign or brief diversions.

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