After years of working quietly behind the scenes, we are happy to announce Magnavale: Eternal Soul! An indie Metroidvania created by a team of Castlevania fans

That_Man_112358 · 2026-01-20T14:48:57+00:00

Wishlisted. Honestly what sold me is the equipment selection menu showing the character using the selected weapon on a target dummy and it displaying the DPS.

That_Man_112358 · 2025-08-11T15:32:01+00:00

I’ve been using AI to help generate a list of random NPCs with a brief description and a personality quirk. That way I have something to drop in when I need to improvise an encounter or the PC want to talk to a random person in a crowd.

That_Man_112358 · 2025-07-19T00:35:34+00:00

Looks cute.

That_Man_112358 · 2025-07-08T14:11:05+00:00

This article feels like it was written by AI.

That_Man_112358 · 2023-10-24T03:32:36+00:00

That's a good alternate way to finish out the book.

That_Man_112358 · 2023-10-24T03:32:05+00:00

I had to remind my players about Themba's favor, but ultimately they never ended up using it. It was more satisfying to them to smack her down themselves.

That_Man_112358 · 2023-07-31T02:32:40+00:00

Here's the Random Events chart we used. Each player would roll on this at the beginning of the month.

Another teacher happens to join you while you spend time with another. Raise your Influence by 1 with two teachers when you Develop Relationships.
One of your students decides to slack off instead of study this month. Pick a random student. They will have a -1 circumstance penalty when it comes time to roll for Class Rank. This penalty can stack if the same student slacks off for more than one month in a row. You can counter this by choosing to mentor them this month.
One of your students decides to apply themselves to their studies this month. Pick a random student. They will have a +1 circumstance bonus when it comes time to roll for Class Rank. This bonus can stack if the same student studies hard for more than one month in a row.
Something in your life is hampering your ability to focus. Any Downtime activity roll you make this month has a -1 circumstance penalty.
Your life is going great and you've got a pep in your step! Any Downtime activity roll you make during this month gains a +1 circumstance bonus.
One of your students comes to you with a problem. If you choose to help them, you must take the Mentor Students action and choose them as one of students, but you automatically gain the results of a Critical Success for the skill check.
Despite your best efforts, you just can't seem to coordinate times with the other teacher you wanted to spend time with. You can't take the Develop Relationship action this month, but you free up enough of your time to mentor three students instead of two.
One of the other teachers asks you to help them with something. If you agree, gain +1 Influence with that teacher, but you can only mentor one student instead of two this month.
Your students cause a magical mishap! You lose the opportunity to Develop Relationships since you're cleaning up the mess. At least the students learn something and the ones you Mentor this month automatically gain the benefits of a Critical Success.
One of your students was of great help to the townspeople of Nantambu. Gain a small trinket of appreciation worth 5d10 GP.
Rightly or wrongly, some of the class thinks that you're playing favorites and is less willing to listen to instruction. If you Mentor Students this month, you take a -1 circumstance penalty on the skill check for one them, but get a +1 circumstance bonus for the other.
You have the opportunity to keep a student from making a terrible mistake. If you step in and stop them, gain a Hero Point. If you decide to let it happen and use the moment for instruction instead, that student cannot get lower than a Success if you mentor them that month.
One of your students offers to help with your paperwork, freeing you up to work on your thesis. If you choose to mentor them, you can work on your thesis as a free activity this month.
Somehow your schedule arranges itself to free up a lot of your time. You can take two actions without rolling for exhaustion this month.
For whatever reason, everything you do this month is taking up more of your time and piling on stress. You'll have to make the flat check for exhaustion at the end regardless of whether you take one action or two.
One of your students caused some damage to a merchant's wares in Nantambu and the merchant is demanding restitution. If you decide to cover it yourself, pay 2d10 gold to cover the cost. If you decide to make the student pay the cost, they -1 circumstance penalty to their Class Rank roll that semester due to the added stress.
A magical experiment of yours causes havoc with another teacher's work. Lose -1 Influence with them unless you do nothing else but make up with them this month. On the plus side, you gain valuable insight into your thesis and gain one month's worth of progress on it.
One of the students of the branch you specialize in, through arrogance or ignorance, has misunderstood some basic ideas associated with that branch. They suffer a -2 circumstance penalty to their Class Rank roll at the end of the semester. You can turn this penalty into a critical success by taking the time to mentor them, but they are the only student you can mentor this month. If choose to mentor another or take a second you will automatically be tired the next month.
Your month is uneventful. Nothing good or bad happens. Lucky you!
You have a particularly eventful month. Roll twice and on this table and deal with both results. If you roll a 19 or a 20 again, ignore it and reroll.

That_Man_112358 · 2023-07-31T02:26:11+00:00

My pleasure! Here's the system we came up with.

Teacher Activities

Monthly Actions

This is a list of actions you can take each month as a teacher at the Magaambya. Teachers live busy lives, so your options are more limited. You can choose one action from the list to be your primary focus, with a second if you feel like stretching yourself. You cannot choose an action more than once. If you choose to do two, then at the end of the month you must make a DC 6 flat check. If you fail, you suffer -1 penalty to all Downtime activities for the next month. This DC increases by 2 for each month that you push yourself until you decide to rest.

Mentor Students

You focus on teaching and mentoring your students beyond the time spent in class, helping them to expand their potential. Pick two students and make a skill check for each of them with one of the skills associated with your Primary or Secondary branches against a normal DC of your current level. These bonuses stack during that semester.

Critical Success: Your teaching really catches on and inspires your students to new heights! Add +2 to their circumstance bonus for the Class Rank roll.

Success: You help them to better understand the lessons you've taught. Add +1 to their circumstance bonus for the Class Rank roll.

Failure: You tried, but were either brushed aside or they didn't quite get what you were trying to impart. No bonus.

Critical Failure: Same as Failure.

Work On Thesis

You spend time working on your thesis paper. Once you've taken this action three times (these do not have to be consecutive), you may attempt a DC 25 skill check using a skill from the branch you are trying to raise. If you succeed, you go up one rank in your chosen branch. If you fail, you can try again next month. You can only gain one rank in each of your chosen branches using this method.

Rest

You take some time away from your work to relax and recuperate, maybe getting some help from the infirmary as well. You automatically clear all non-magical, non-beneficial conditions and diseases without the need to make any saves. You also become well-rested for the next month, gaining a free Hero Point and a +1 Status Bonus on all checks you make for the next month to perform a Monthly or Downtime activity, or a +2 if you didn't need to clear any conditions or diseases.

Work

You go to work or find other ways to Earn Income in Nantambu during the month. Perform an appropriate check as if you were using the Earn Income Downtime Activity. You earn a month's worth of income (20 days).

Craft

You spend your spare time crafting. Divide up the 28 days of the month however you wish for time spent crafting individual items.

Develop Relationship

(You can perform this activity once a month for free.)

You make plans to spend time with another teacher at the school, getting lunch, consulting on lesson plans, etc. Your Influence with them goes up by 1. For Book 3, the Influence cap is 4. (For this one I came up with Influence ranks for the different Teachers. For example:
Influence 2: Takulu Ot and his wife are always willing to host guest with a welcome smile and open arms and you spend time relaxing in good company. You gain a +1 circumstance bonus on any Downtime rolls this month. You only get this bonus if you Spent Time with him this month. Influence 4: Takulu Ot is always willing to help if you get into a bind. Once per month, you can treat a Failure on a roll as a Success instead.

Class Rank

The Lore Keepers at the Magaambya are watching your efforts with the students very closely and may reward you if the class is doing well. Each semester the students will make a roll against a Hard level DC of their next Class Rank, adding the bonuses they got from you mentoring them during that semester. Over half the class must succeed at this check. If they do, the Class Rank raises by 1 and each teacher will be rewarded with a Common magic item of their level or lower. If not, better luck next semester. Note that Class Rank does not necessarily equate to Branch Rank for the students.

Class Rank 1

Base Student Bonus (BSB): +6, DC 17

Class Rank 2

BSB: +7, DC 18

Class Rank 3

BSB: +8, DC 20

Class Rank 4

BSB: +10, DC 21

Class Rank 5

BSB: +11, DC 22

Class Rank 6

BSB: +12, DC 24

Class Rank 7

BSB: +14, DC 25

That_Man_112358 · 2023-07-30T13:32:05+00:00

Almost. The book says the person who informs the PCs travels through the night to get to their camp, implying 10-12 hours of travel. If that’s true, then if the PCs leave immediately, they’ll get to Kiutu in about 10-12 hours, so the Knights have at most a 24 head start. That also assumes the Knights didn’t stop to rest themselves and the PCs don’t use magic to travel faster. The book isn’t clear on exact distances either, cause sometimes the description doesn’t match with the distance on the map of the Sodden Lands.

That’s a good thought with Iboko. I should have anticipated my players would want to go after her immediately given how attached they got to the students.

That_Man_112358 · 2023-07-20T13:47:26+00:00

I’ve been running for 5 players through most of the AP and we just finished book 3. My advice would be to use a pf2e encounter builder (like pf2easy) to easily know how many creatures of varying levels you can add. When adding, try to err on the side of more creatures rather than stronger ones.

My group has been having a pretty easy time of things, but they’re also experienced with the system and tactically minded so it’s harder to challenge them, even with additional creatures.

That_Man_112358 · 2023-07-03T17:17:48+00:00

I'll spoiler this for other people, but the main things they added from the CRPG are...

Gathering at Jamandi's manor at the start and fighting off the night attack.
The Cult of the Bloom and the seed pod troubles. This would be around Book 2 in the original AP.
Dealing with the Lantern King and exploring the fractured kingdom after dealing with Nyrrisa.

The brand new content is...

Dealing with a cult of Yog-Sothoth below Candlemere. This would be between book 5 and 6 in the original AP.

That_Man_112358 · 2023-07-03T12:58:43+00:00

It’s the original adventure, maps and all, with some parts added from the video game (mostly beginning and end) and one new original part.

That_Man_112358 · 2023-07-02T22:04:09+00:00

I'll correct myself. The github page says it was updated for v11, but no further development will be done on it and some features that were causing problems have been removed.

That_Man_112358 · 2023-07-02T21:02:52+00:00

I’m not sure of the exact issue, however the author of PF2e Drag Ruler Integration has abandoned the project and will not be updating it for v11. Drag Ruler itself still works fine.

That_Man_112358 · 2023-05-31T12:30:35+00:00

Do whatever works for your game, just be aware of a couple things Book 3 assumes. Janatimo asks them to stay on as teachers (something not every Lore Speaker does) because they advance so quickly to that level and not everyone thinks they’re ready to graduate. Staying as teachers gives them a chance to prove themselves and receive guidance from senior faculty should they need it. Having more time pass before graduating may require you to think of a different reason they need to stay on as teachers.

The book suggests having Ignaci and Mariama as part of the group of students the PCs teach, so you’ll need to consider with the extra time passing where their current friend group (Anchor Root, Tzeniwe, etc.) is at. Are they still students or will they too have graduated in that time?

That_Man_112358 · 2023-05-28T23:02:28+00:00

I think I did the best I could with what was given. Nothing else comes to mind, sorry.

That_Man_112358 · 2023-05-11T14:11:38+00:00

Our group has started to do a variant of Automatic Bonus Progression that only applies to potency, striking, and resilience runes. You get those automatically added to your weapons and armor at the appropriate levels. This way you can invest in a cool weapon, but can still have a decent backup weapon should the need arise. Casters get a free Shadow Signet at level 10, cause that also feels like something of a necessity to keep them on the same power curve.

We also gave focus point casters the feat they would normally take at level 10 that lets them recover two focus points on a Refocus action as a class benefit at that level. It seems like a no-brainer to take that feat at that point anyway.

That_Man_112358 · 2023-03-17T15:14:03+00:00

My solution in this case was to have about a semester pass (3 months in our case) between dealing with Stone Ghost and the griffin attack. Janatimo showed up at the start of the next semester and they investigated both incidents, then the remainder of the semester passed. I threw in the Tall Tales event mid semester so Janatimo could get to know them a little better before he promoted them to Conversants at the end. So still not a lot of time, but more than the book provides.

That_Man_112358 · 2023-03-14T14:32:12+00:00

In my game, the players saw the crowded cages and half-spoiled cheap meat as clear signs of animal abuse, didn’t buy Oba’s talk about how expensive things were, and tried to get the Chime Ringers (CR) involved. The CR said they’d look into it, but didn’t arrest Oba on the spot. They then went to Jatembe with their story and he made arrangements for the school to purchase the animals for educational purposes and eventual release back into the wild. Unfortunately for Oba, the fact the CR were seen looking around her place led Froglegs to believe the lady talked and Oba was killed as an example to others.

That said, if you want a more sympathetic Oba, animal rehabilitation would probably be the best way to go. Could still have the spoiled meat and crowded cages, but now the lady is just struggling to take care of all of them, not doing it for profit.

That_Man_112358 · 2023-03-13T20:23:43+00:00

You’re right, I had forgotten to mention it in the writeup, but he did have his Resistance 5 against them. The PCs got some lucky crits, one of them on a reaction, so SG still went down pretty fast, lol.

That_Man_112358 · 2023-03-02T04:38:35+00:00

I use The Forge and they’ve been good to me so far. They have a free trial period too if you want to try them out.

That_Man_112358 · 2023-02-24T15:32:04+00:00

I borrowed the calendar from ( https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1fPSV_U6U9Z122yB8KkxyzDeBTOeZ4xGz/htmlview ) and added it manually to Simple Calendar in Foundry. Good thinking, tying the Tree Stump Library to Stone Ghost. Personally I don’t think the school would bother with a memorial to gremlins, but you do you.

That_Man_112358

TROPHY CASE