News Roundup: Pathfinder Fan Site Loses Contract With Paizo

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This week has a lot of news, to put it bluntly. The team behind Pathfinder ended a contract with a major volunteer-powered project, which led to significant pushback online. Godzilla and a new fantasy series of novels are getting adapted to TTPRGs. And a lot of other local news.

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In light of that, I might have a few additional stories coming up in 1-2 weeks to help catch up on a backlog of reporting I’ve had for a while prior to the biggest tabletop gaming con in the US. So we might appear in your mailbox a little more than twice a week for a bit.

Pathfinder Resource Site Archive of Nethys Loses Contract with Paizo

A major resource for sharing Pathfinder resources online had its licensing agreement ended by the publisher Paizo.

Archives of Nethys, for those unfamiliar, is a website that provides free online access to a number of the key tools used within Pathfinder 2e and Starfinder 2e. Not only can you find character creators but feat lists, item lists, resources and a variety of other tools for players to use in their Pathfinder game. The website is considered by many to be a useful resource since it makes the majority of content available to prospective players for free.

The website announced on July 14 that its licensing partnership with Paizo will end starting on July 24. The end is due to the website failing to generate royalties, according to the AoN team. The team explained their relationship as such:

“Paizo would send us early access book PDFs well ahead of release and provided us with their art assets to use on the site. In exchange, our team of volunteers would make sure that the rules and content of the game made it onto the website in a timely and accurate manner. Lastly, if we generated enough profit, we would pay Paizo a royalty on that money, as licensed partners typically do. Unfortunately, as of the time of receiving this email, we had not made enough profit in a given month to generate any royalties for Paizo as per this arrangement.”

The change has forced the website to change its licensing approach. In short, the website will operate under Paizo’s Community Use Policy instead of the original partnership license. This means that a lot of the character art on the website will be removed, and new classes and features will have a delayed release.

Why did Paizo do this? CEO Jim Butler praised the website, noting that it was still supportive of the website but that it had to update its policies for a number of reasons.

“Ending this exception allows us to simplify our policies and protect the clarity of our IP, while giving Archives of Nethys the freedom to continue operating under the Community Use Policy,” Butler emphasized in a blog post. “There are a number of very successful projects that continue to thrive supporting Pathfinder and Starfinder using the ORC license and the Community Use Policy, and we’re confident that Archives of Nethys can continue under that umbrella for many years to come.” It will also save Paizo resources; particularly when they are facing enormous economic burdens and making massive cutoffs due to the massive losses caused by the Diamond Comics bankruptcy.

The team behind AoN later elaborated on many of the specifics of the change in a followup explainer, noting that they still want to support Paizo but were sad to lose the support.

The announcement received a significant amount of pushback online, with a lot of folks calling the end to the licensing agreement bad for the company. Many users explained that the accessibility of Pathfinder came through websites like AoN, and the end to its license would limit their ability to play or DM.

The expected changes will begin in the following weeks.

Kaiju vs. Avengers: Godzilla to Enter Marvel Multiverse TTRPG in Fall Expansion

The Marvel Multiverse TTRPG is going cross-IP with the upcoming Godzilla sourcebook.

MMTTRPG writer Matt Forbeck announced the book on Friday. The book is the first cross-IP book for the TTRPG, although crossover adventures are a common part of superhero comics.

“If D&D had balls”: Professor DM’s Controversial Deathbringer Passed $1 Million Mark in Crowdfunding

A controversial TTRPG that claims to be “If D&D had balls” raised $1 million dollars in crowdfunding in the first 48 hours.

Dan DeFazio, aka Professor DM on YouTube, partnered with D&D supplement publisher Roll for Combat to launch the crowdfunding campaign for Deathbringer earlier this week. It reached the $1 million mark early on Friday.

The book, which describes itself as “dark fantasy stripped to the bone,” is a D20 system that claims to be extremely lethal and focuses on combat rather than on activities like shopping or magical healing. DeFazio describes it as adjacent to a lot of the old-school renaissance (OSR for short) gameplay styles.

The game earned the “Most Anticipated TTRPG of 2026” from EN World earlier this year, a key point it has leaned into in its promotional work¹ .

DeFazio has spent a significant part of his career as a ‘DungeonTuber,’ criticizing modern 5th edition D&D while upholding OSR alternatives like Shadowdark as preferred options. DeFazio’s content has leaned more toward an older-school approach to D&D, most notably in that certain characters and species are irredeemably evil and deserve to be killed in the story. It’s an idea that critics claim is based on biological determinism.

The game’s hardcore storytelling and support from the creators of games like Pirate Borg, Shadowdark and Zweihander have earned Deathbringer significant support in select TTRPG communities on platforms like X.

At the same time, the very ‘edgy OSR’ vibe has also attracted a significant amount of pushback on platforms like Bluesky. Some writers have slammed the game’s portrayal of women and its claims to be edgier than games like Mork Borg.

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Mesoamerican fantasy novel series Between Earth and Skies Converted into TTRPG by Cypher team

Monte Cook Games, the minds behind the Cipher systems as well as Old Gods of Appalachia and Magnus Archives, announced that it is adapting Rebecca Roanhorse’s Between Earth and Sky series of novels into a TTRPG series.

It’s a series of three novels (Black Sun, Fevered Star, Mirrored Heavens) that have won multiple awards. It tells the story of a Mesoamerican-inspired fantasy world in which players inherit godlike powers and navigate the era's politics.

The game will be designed by MCG’s Shanna Germain as well as Coyote and Crow creator Kenna Alexander.

The book will crowdfund in September 2026 and is expected to be released in 2027. The Backerkit campaign is available now.

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1  The value of this label is subjective, as it’s based on an online voter base, and DeFazio has 156k YouTube followers. When he urged his followers to vote for Deathbringer, he basically swayed the poll in his favor. Yay parasocial influencer tactics.