Signs in Senghor: Part One

Big news around my house today! Some new Pathfinder Society Scenarios just released and one of them–Signs in Senghor–is written by my brother.

That’s right! Exciting!

For those of you who don’t know, the Pathfinder Society is a world-wide organized play program. It’s like playing Pathfinder in short sessions with a rotating group of people. All of your characters are members of the Pathfinder Society, which is like a organization of adventurers, explorers, scholars and archaeologists. You just make your character by following the Pathfinder Society Guidelines, take your nifty character and all their paperwork with you to your local game shop, a convention, or to play with your pals, and play a game together. One person GMs, as normal, but they have to use specific, short affordable (five bucks and under!) adventures, called scenarios–and follow them. After a few hours your session’s over, you fill out some more paperwork and show up again whenever you find the time. The GM sends records of the game to Paizo, and voila! Game done. You and some fellow Pathfinders completed a mission together. Maybe you’ll play with those people and their characters again, and maybe you’ll play with a whole new group.

Now, I’ve never played a PFS scenario in person before. Recently, however, I got addicted to Paizo’s message boards. Here, you can play by post. Join the message boards and play your characters–for regular Pathfinder or for PFS–online by posting their actions with your gaming group. Once you find a gaming group, that is. Although competition’s tight for most play-by-post campaigns, it’s quite easy to join a PFS game. They’re short, fun, and you get to play with people from all over the world. It’s a blast.

But, back to the topic at hand: my brother!

Now, this isn’t the first PFS scenario my brother’s written for Paizo. He wrote one other back in Season Six. Of Kirin and Kraken. Intended for play between levels 7 and 11, I haven’t had a chance to play it yet. As a newcomer to the Pathfinder Society I’ve got a bunch of characters, all still enjoying their first level. I’ve a long way to go before I can play through that beauty! So I read it, instead. A lot. Involving ancient sunken ruins, a magical instrument, weird cultists, a tribe of boggards and a spell-casting squid, it’s a fun, memorable romp with a surprising number of opportunities for role-playing with a colourful cast of NPCs. I really enjoyed it.

But his new scenario? Ahh! THAT one I can play right away. Intended for characters from levels 1 through 5, Signs in Senghor isn’t just going to be purchased. It’s getting played. Immediately.

So I bought it last last night, and read it this morning, and as I finished it I told my children: “Uncle Kris wrote an adventure for Pathfinder, and I have it. Do you want to play it?”

They shrieked out “Yes!” in a variety of ways, and jumped around a bit.

“It’s a Society scenario.” I told them. “Do you want to play it by all the proper Society rules? Or should we play it with some characters you already have, just for fun?”

They decided on the Society rules. And when I mentioned they would get to make new characters, no one was more excited than my daughter. She jumped in glee and immediately shouted: “I’m making a rabbit breeder!”

“…A rabbit breeder?”

“Yes! I raise rabbits! I have a whole farm of them! I’m a druid, you know.”

It should be noted, my daughter REALLY loves rabbits. This character concept did not surprise me at all.

“Why did you join the Pathfinders?” I asked her.

“I want to find treasure from the people who used to worship rabbits. Cause I think they’re holy. Oh! And also, Mom, I will be a fox-person!”

I laughed. “You’re a kitsune who raises rabbits? Do you eat them?”

“NO!” she shrieked, clearly offended at the idea. “I am a vegetarian fox-girl. I never eat rabbits. Or other animals. I cuddle them.”

Well, alrighty, then. A kitsune rabbit-breeder it is. And what did she pick for her animal companion? A parasaurolophus. BY NAME. She actually said: “Mom, I want a pet parasaurolophus.”

Seriously.

If you don’t know your dinosaurs as well as my daughter, you can learn about parasaurolophus here.

Looks like we’ve got a lot of (fun) work to do before we play tomorrow. I can’t wait to see what else they create.