Pathways Issue 3

By Thilo Graf

This free e-zine from Rite Publishing is 49 pages long, 1 page front cover, 1 page of SRD, 1 page editorial and 16 pages of advertisement, leaving 30 pages of content, so what do we get?

After a rather nice editorial by Dave Paul, we get the quite cool wrathful template that enables you to create creatures consumed by the desire for revenge and outbursts of rather uncompromising wrath. The CR 15 sample-creature (an angel), can be seen on the cover and comes with lore-sections etc. – Hugo Solis’ artwork comes as a one-page spread and is disturbing to say the least – a nice fusion of great design by Steven D. Russell and nifty artwork!

The next article by Jonathan McAnulty offers 3 feats that enhance crafting and information on the channeling (as per the excellent secrets of the divine channeler) of the construct and toil domains.

Master of haunts T.H.Gulliver presents us with Kalil Tamar, ghost antipaladin (CR 17) and his neat statblock as well as 4 cairn field haunts the dread apparition uses to soften up his opponents. They range from CR 1 to 7.

Michael Welham’s Synergixxiks, weird insects that can form colonies and combine their strength and add individual qualities to their merged form and were easily among my favorites in Pathways. From CR 2 scouts to Cr 6 bombardiers and CR 7 commanders, these make for disturbing foes the players will be sure to remember.

Creighton Broadhurst, of Raging Swan offers you a little encounter with an ogress – a nice encounter ready to drop into your campaign.

Of course, we also get an interview, this time with From Shore to Sea’s/Sunken Empire’s excellent designer Brendon Hodges – informative and cool!

Some reviews by Dark Mistress, Shane O’ Connor and yours truly of some of the best files 3pp have to offer are next.

Finally, we get a short 10-question interview with illustrator Malcolm McClinton.

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are very good, apart from my misspelled name and one glitch that omits my name, I didn’t notice any glitches. Layout adheres to the beautiful new full-color 2-column-standard set in many RiP-products nowadays. The content you’ll find herein is top-notch and adding the fact that this pdf is free, it’s essentially a no-brainer. Free pdfs, especially of such a high quality (featuring even a beautiful full-color piece of original art) should definitely be supported and if you’re even remotely intrigued, give it a shot. My final verdict will be 5 stars.

Endzeitgeist out.

Pathways Issue 3 is available from: