Paizo Inc., the publisher of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, announced on October 30th, 2015 that contestant Nick Wasko is the winner of Season 9 of the RPG Superstar game design competition.
“Many congratulations to Nick Wasko, who has won Season 9 of RPG Superstar! The path to victory for Nick has been long and difficult. Through three months, five rounds, and more than a quarter of a million votes, he has continued to employ skill and creativity to overcome writing challenges that demanded originality, clarity, and strong game design,” says Owen KC Stephens, RPG Superstar’s MC. “I hope everyone has enjoyed the competition, and I look forward to starting the whole process over again… next year!”
Wasko, a 24-year-old graduate student, rose above the pack of hundreds of contestants worldwide to survive five rounds of category design challenges, critique from professionals in the game industry, and voting from the Paizo.com community. For the final round, Wasko’s adventure proposal, Beneath the Storm-Veiled Spires, weaved a story of hags, thunderbirds, shipwrecks, and drowned cities, all set in the Sodden Lands of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. This adventure proposal was voted the best of the final four, and will now be made into a Pathfinder Module, a full-color, 64-page, high-quality softcover book, compatible with the Pathfinder RPG.
Nick Wasko’s previous Pathfinder RPG work has been published by Outland Entertainment, Raging Swan Games, Rogue Genius Games, and Paizo Fans United. In 2014, he won the “Here Be Monsters”, staged by Mikko Kallio on his “A Sword for Hire” blog. In addition, Nick is a member of the Freelance Forge, a group of Pathfinder RPG freelancers.
