Tuesday, July 07, 2009

Balor ilo


I'm curious in an academic sense about the upcoming release of the Pathfinder RPG by Paizo Publishing, a kind of "3.75" Edition D&D alternate. I'm not actually interested in updating my 3.5, to be honest with you, but I might grab a handful of house rules from the betas of that game that I've got from them.

I am, however, very interested in what Paizo is doing with their setting, the Golarion setting, which I've reviewed here in the past. I've got many of their setting books, and I think they're excellent. And although I'm not actually a huge fan of the concept of published adventures, Paizo's are genuinely fun to read, and even if I don't run them as is, they've got tons of stuff I can "borrow" including great monsters, locations, NPCs, and just concepts in general.

As part of their Pathfinder RPG, they're releasing their own version of the monster manual, and they've put up a few art samples. Here's their version of the balor (I presume; it wasn't actually labeled as such), and frankly, it's one of the best illustrations of that iconic, balrogish monster that I've ever seen. The four eyes makes it look just alien enough that it differentiates itself from other balrog rip-offs, like Warhammer's bloodthirster, for instance.

Good stuff. Congrats to Paizo for putting together what looks to be (yet again) another quality product. I'm a big fan of their writing, their design, and---for that matter---their production values, which I think is an often overlooked and undervalued commodity in the RPG business.

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