The Great Toy Heist is a free Pathfinder adventure for a party of four second-level characters, and puts “a band of poppet heroes on a dangerous mission to prove themselves and save” the magical toy shop that brought them to life. First released on June 22 as a booklet at stores participating in the Free RPG Day promotion, it’s now available as a free PDF on the Paizo webstore.
The adventure takes place in Egorian, capital city of the devil-worshipping nation Cheliax. All four poppets came to life in a toy store known as The Terrific Toybox, which was built (unwittingly) on top of a font of occult power. The deed to the shop has been acquired by a greedy banker, covetous of its magic – little does he expect that the gang of poppets are planning to steal the deed back.
You can download this – and several other Pathfinder free RPG day adventures – from the Paizo website.
The four pregenerated characters included in the adventure are all drawn from one of the rarer Pathfinder races, the ‘poppet’ ancestry. Poppets are sentient, magically animated toys, with a variety of different heritages, like clockwork-powered metal poppets and fall-damage-immune stuffed poppets. The party includes:
- Cutie Killstuff, a Barbarian in the form of a fluffy pink rabbit.
- Hellpup, a Witch in the form of an adorable hellhound made from leather.
- Marcella, a marionette with the soul of a dead rogue.
- The Tin Wizard, a wind up toy deemed too dangerous to sell.
It’s a classic lineup of Pathfinder classes, only much cuter than usual. Well, most of them are cuter: Marcella has the Harmless Doll feat, and can masquerade as an inanimate toy until she’s ready to strike. That has Chucky vibes.
Pathfinder maker Paizo briefly courted controversy in July, when it announced unpopular changes to its licences for fan content using its IP: it has since reversed the changes.