I may have started my love of tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs) with Dungeons & Dragons, and I’ve dabbled with other game systems since, but these days I’m primarily a Pathfinder guy.
My introduction to Pathfinder came right after D&D released their fourth edition, which I didn’t like at all. I was a big fan of D&D 3.5 and this departure was a step too far for me. Pathfinder swept in with what I called “D&D 3.75” and basically made the d20 system I wanted to continue playing.
But that’s not what really made me a Pathfinder guy. What sold me on Pathfinder was its setting, and more specifically the people within it.
The Inner Sea region is a kinda-sorta mirror of the Mediterranean Sea, with Europe to the north and Northern/Central Africa to the south. This was not the first time I’d encountered this, as 7th Sea offered the opportunity to play European equivalents in their game, but it was the first time in my experience since Al-Qadim in D&D 2E that African and Arabic peoples were featured. I loved Al-Qadim back in the day, so I was intrigued.
What finally, finally sold me as a Pathfinder guy was both Old-Mage Jatembe and the Magaambya. In Pathfinder’s setting, Old-Mage Jatembe was the wizard responsible for bringing magic back to humanity after an ancient cataclysm; and the Magaambya is the school he founded, the oldest and most prestigious in the world. For the first time in my experience, a fantasy game setting’s most powerful wizard and school weren’t European-influenced, but African-inspired. I was like, “this is the world for me.”
For years I didn’t realize how much the awful concept of “race science” had penetrated the fantasy genre, especially games. “All dwarves are like this, all elves are like that, all orcs are inherently evil.” Pathfinder was the first game I played, especially in its current remastered 2nd Edition, which has taken the extra steps to de-emphasize that aspect of our beloved genre, and they’ve all been steps in the right direction.
The comic’s introduction of Imandu and its emergence on the world stage has been influenced by Pathfinder, and the character of Makena by the Magaambya. Roleplaying games have always been a huge influence on my comic ideas, and Pathfinder is no different.
I’m a Pathfinder guy.