The Rival Guide presents 10 fully detailed rival adventuring groups, complete with specialized spells, equipment, magic items, and unusual minions. These groups cover a wide range of themes, from haunted pirates to drow death cultists, monstrous slavers to nigh-unstoppable arch-villains, and much, much more! Inside this 64-page book, you’ll find:
- Full stat blocks for 40 different NPCs, ranging from relatively minor foes at CR 2 to world-shaking menaces at CR 19. Use these as rival adventuring parties, or split them up when you need specific NPCs or even last-minute player characters.
- Background information on each group discussing its history and goals, as well as on how to incorporate its members into your game as rivals for your PCs to clash against.
- Several new alchemical items, feats, magic items, poisons, racial traits, and spells, along with a new template for characters haunted by ancient, sinister spirits and a simple template for alchemically invisible creatures. Cover art by Alex Aparin
Author
By day, Brandon Hodge owns and operates Monkey See, Monkey Do! toy store and the world-famous, steampunk-and-circus-sideshow-themed Big Top Candy Shop in Austin, Texas. When night approaches, he produces his pen to set nightmares to paper. A proud member of the Werecabbage writing guild, Brandon's design credits include numerous Open Design projects, including Halls of the Mountain King, Sunken Empires, and the Midgard Campaign Setting, the Paizo adventures From Shore to Sea and Feast of Ravenmoor, and three popular books in Paizo Publishing's Adventure Path line: Shadows of Gallowspire, Dead Heart of Xin, and Rasputin Must Die! Brandon also stays busy with freelance work with Kobold Press, 0one Games and Green Ronin in between big projects. The demented twists he brought to Midgard's Wasted West region can perhaps best be explained with his extracurricular hobbies: when he isn't writing, he brings curses home with him collecting ouija boards, haunted antiques, planchettes, and other Spiritualist-related items, and displays his world-class planchette collection on his website, www.mysteriousplanchette.com. Brandon is a respected lecturer in the occult history field, and has loaned his expertise as on-air talent for dozens of popular radio and television programs, including a segment featuring his séance artifact collection on Science Channel’s hit show Oddities. Brandon also appeared on Travel Channel's Ouija-related "Patience Worth" episode of Mysteries at the Museum. In addition, he makes frequent guest appearances in both print interviews and popular radio shows, and Brandon help curate the phenomenally successful Let the Spirit Move You event, the first-of-its-kind Ouija board exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Industry. Brandon is currently working on a picturesque coffee-table book on the subject of spirit communication devices from their early beginnings to their modern equivalents. Titled "Talking Tables & Scribbling Spirits: A Complete History of Spirit Communication Tools," the book is slated for publication in the near future, and includes the most in-depth historical research ever performed on talking boards. Brandon lives in the historic Hyde Park neighborhood in Austin, Texas, with two imps disguised as children, Jack and Elliot, and their porch cat familiar, Ellie Crews.
