Faces of the Tarnished Souk: Elspeth Black, Executive Officer of Blackblade (PFRPG) by Matt Banach and Justin Sluder is a role playing game supplement published by Rite Publishing for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. As such, it is covered by the Open Game License and some parts are considered to be Open Game Content as a result. This is a single NPC at three different CRs.
The supplement is available as a 13-page PDF from DriveThruRPG for $2.95 but was purchased at a reduced price as part of a special bundle. One page is the front cover, one the front matter, one the Open Game License and two are ads.
Elspeth Black, Executive Officer of Blackblade gives some details on the NPC, who works for a mercenary military organisation known collectively as Blackblade. Elspeth handles recruiting in the Coliseum Morpheum setting, as the gladiators who fight in it can make good mercenaries. How Elspeth is affected by Dreamburning follows, along with the recruiting kiosks in the Tarnished Souk and lore on Elspeth. A sidebar on how to use her briefly includes some details on Blackblade, who go by a number of names and whose main principle when it comes to finding jobs is if the client can pay. Consequently, Blackblade works for some less-than-ideal people.
The three CR versions of the NPC follow. They use some of the material from Dreamscarred Press‘s Psionics Unleashed. Lady Elspeth, Agent of Blackblade, is the CR 4 version, an elan psychic warrior 4. The psionic abilities are the most noteworthy parts here.
Elspeth Black, Operative of Blackblade Section X is the CR 7 version, an elan psychic warrior 5/metamind 1/war mind 1; more dangerous with more powers but not a huge increase.
Elspeth Black, Executive Officer of Blackblade is the CR 15 version, an elan psychic warrior 5/metamind 5/war mind 5. This one definitely takes things up several notches, and can have a significant threat in terms of her followers, never mind herself (only the CR 7 version has anything). Elspeth also has a psicrystal, a fragment of her personality where she stores her wild side, and that also comes at all three CRs. Which occasionally needs letting out. There are also three new feats and details on other magic items.
Faces of the Tarnished Souk: Elspeth Black, Executive Officer of Blackblade (PFRPG) in Review
The PDF is bookmarked with the major and minor sections linked. Navigation is decent. The text maintains a two-column black and white format and a few minor errors were noticed. There are a couple of illustrations, along with the one from the cover. Presentation is decent.
This is definitely an interesting NPC, and it makes use of psionic rules, something that was never added to the official Pathfinder rules. It may be necessary to at least have access to Psionics Unleashed to properly understand them, though. It would have been nice to have more details on Blackblade and the NPC is in Rite Publishing’s usual stat-heavy description. Faces of the Tarnished Souk: Elspeth Black, Executive Officer of Blackblade (PFRPG) can be found by clicking here.
Leave a Reply