"Fair use" is "fair dealing" in the UK, and no, fair dealing doesn't include making digital copies even for personal use. Notice that making whole copies is explicitly mentioned as generally not being acceptable.
It was made an exception for a few years ago, but then the industry lobbied against it and the exception was removed. I'd need permission from WotC to legally implement the solution, and I don't have it - and I'd be shocked if I ever did, for a host of reasons.
Anyway, this is going way off topic. The "simple" solution is against TOS as written, and that's about as far as relevant to the topic goes, really.
Even aside from the legal question, WOTC is simply not going to go after someone for printing/PDFing pages from DDB for personal use. It's not worth their time, and it's especially not worth the blowback they'd get from the community, which would make the 'Pinkerton' meme look quaint
If you go page-by-page, maybe. But given the amount of content available on DDB, you'd be at it for days by this method. The most efficient way of doing this would be to web scrape, which will certainly get you banned. WotC won't even have to "go after" you at that point, it's simple enough for them to just have an algorithm scan your web traffic and ban you.
Yes, if you use a scraper to PDF the entire website, you deserve what you get. But that's not remotely what anyone is talking about here
Well yeah it's exactly what I'm talking about. I have a large library of books I purchased on DDB. Why should I not be allowed to scrape pages that I can already access?
"Fair use" is "fair dealing" in the UK, and no, fair dealing doesn't include making digital copies even for personal use. Notice that making whole copies is explicitly mentioned as generally not being acceptable.
It was made an exception for a few years ago, but then the industry lobbied against it and the exception was removed. I'd need permission from WotC to legally implement the solution, and I don't have it - and I'd be shocked if I ever did, for a host of reasons.
Anyway, this is going way off topic. The "simple" solution is against TOS as written, and that's about as far as relevant to the topic goes, really.
Even aside from the legal question, WOTC is simply not going to go after someone for printing/PDFing pages from DDB for personal use. It's not worth their time, and it's especially not worth the blowback they'd get from the community, which would make the 'Pinkerton' meme look quaint
If you go page-by-page, maybe. But given the amount of content available on DDB, you'd be at it for days by this method. The most efficient way of doing this would be to web scrape, which will certainly get you banned. WotC won't even have to "go after" you at that point, it's simple enough for them to just have an algorithm scan your web traffic and ban you.
Yes, if you use a scraper to PDF the entire website, you deserve what you get. But that's not remotely what anyone is talking about here
Well yeah it's exactly what I'm talking about. I have a large library of books I purchased on DDB. Why should I not be allowed to scrape pages that I can already access?
Because it's very easy to very widely disseminate electronic media like that over the internet, as the music industry discovered.
Well yeah it's exactly what I'm talking about. I have a large library of books I purchased on DDB. Why should I not be allowed to scrape pages that I can already access?
The short answer is 'because the TOS say so'. The slightly longer answer is that there's no real way to distinguish between someone screen scraping for an archival copy (which they don't actually care about) and someone screen scraping to distribute on the internet.
"Fair use" is "fair dealing" in the UK, and no, fair dealing doesn't include making digital copies even for personal use. Notice that making whole copies is explicitly mentioned as generally not being acceptable.
It was made an exception for a few years ago, but then the industry lobbied against it and the exception was removed. I'd need permission from WotC to legally implement the solution, and I don't have it - and I'd be shocked if I ever did, for a host of reasons.
Anyway, this is going way off topic. The "simple" solution is against TOS as written, and that's about as far as relevant to the topic goes, really.
Even aside from the legal question, WOTC is simply not going to go after someone for printing/PDFing pages from DDB for personal use. It's not worth their time, and it's especially not worth the blowback they'd get from the community, which would make the 'Pinkerton' meme look quaint
If you go page-by-page, maybe. But given the amount of content available on DDB, you'd be at it for days by this method. The most efficient way of doing this would be to web scrape, which will certainly get you banned. WotC won't even have to "go after" you at that point, it's simple enough for them to just have an algorithm scan your web traffic and ban you.
Yes, if you use a scraper to PDF the entire website, you deserve what you get. But that's not remotely what anyone is talking about here
Well yeah it's exactly what I'm talking about. I have a large library of books I purchased on DDB. Why should I not be allowed to scrape pages that I can already access?
Because it's very easy to very widely disseminate electronic media like that over the internet, as the music industry discovered.
And yet I can still buy music in mp3 format on Amazon.
There are solutions including watermarked pdfs or DRM ebooks for TTRPG products that other companies already widely use. I'm confused as to why people seem to entirely discount concerns that WotC will alter or erase products that we've paid for when they've done it before. And digital theft doesn't explain the lack of a physical option for these smaller projects.
In addition, WotC clearly wants to sell digital and physical copies, hence all of the bundles offering exactly that.
WotC wants to make money and plenty of people have expressed interest in being able to get both for less than the cost of getting them each individually.
There are solutions including watermarked pdfs or DRM ebooks for TTRPG products that other companies already widely use. I'm confused as to why people seem to entirely discount concerns that WotC will alter or erase products that we've paid for when they've done it before. And digital theft doesn't explain the lack of a physical option for these smaller projects.
Um... DRM e-books should not be thought of as permanent, they become inaccessible if the DRM system shuts down. PDF watermarks are pretty much the same as 'no security at all'. This is not to say that there isn't a better solution than what WotC did, but it's their decision and I never had any illusions that they were selling me anything other than what they are.
Lack of a physical option is probably because it would cost more to produce than they would make from selling it.
Um... DRM e-books should not be thought of as permanent, they become inaccessible if the DRM system shuts down. PDF watermarks are pretty much the same as 'no security at all'. This is not to say that there isn't a better solution than what WotC did, but it's their decision and I never had any illusions that they were selling me anything other than what they are.
Lack of a physical option is probably because it would cost more to produce than they would make from selling it.
100% agree on DRM. But it would be a start, at least. They could, for instance, allow DRM to be read by common e-reader services to maximize the odds of the material being accessible in the future, even if WotC were to vanish overnight.
I'm not saying anything about whether WotC can or cannot do this, or even about whether it makes business sense. I'm just saying that it is unfriendly to the consumer by choice--especially to those of us who prefer to have hard copies of things. I'm not under any illusions; they've been telegraphing this course for a long time. But this is an internet forum, and therefore a natural place to whinge about things.
I also don't agree on the cost point. Several TTRPG companies publish smaller materials in the form of zines. They don't need to be hardback books. They could bring back Dragon+ in physical form.
& I've already addressed how durable magazine paper is long-term in the past(it's only slightly better these days), thus the kinetic satisfaction is only temporary unless you know how to non-electronically preserve magazines to a degree where that kinetic satisfaction is maintained to your lacking.
Likewise, 4e's HEAVY piracy scene turned off investor firms from PDFs. Hasbro lost their money in their eyes. It's not Beyond's fault in this case, or even WotC's:It's Blackrock, The Vanguard Group, & other boomer money blobs ordering Hasbro to increase RoI to make up for what they see as loaned money lost to piracy.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
& I've already addressed how durable magazine paper is long-term in the past(it's only slightly better these days), thus the kinetic satisfaction is only temporary unless you know how to non-electronically preserve magazines to a degree where that kinetic satisfaction is maintained to your lacking.
Likewise, 4e's HEAVY piracy scene turned off investor firms from PDFs. Hasbro lost their money in their eyes. It's not Beyond's fault in this case, or even WotC's:It's Blackrock, The Vanguard Group, & other boomer money blobs ordering Hasbro to increase RoI to make up for what they see as loaned money lost to piracy.
It's not even a matter of "what they see", it's a matter of fiduciary duty. Piracy objectively represents lost revenue. Publicly held companies are legally obligated to avoid making decisions that will obviously lose revenue and devalue stock, all other things being equal. Ergo, when they've objectively had one major incident/loss pursuing a particular model, it'd pretty much have to be a breach of fiduciary duty to pursue that same model again down the line when the reason for the loss has been identified and remains a relevant concern.
In addition, WotC clearly wants to sell digital and physical copies, hence all of the bundles offering exactly that.
WotC wants to make money and plenty of people have expressed interest in being able to get both for less than the cost of getting them each individually.
Sorry, I was responding to another post, but that was essentially my point. Clearly there is a large enough market of people who are willing to pay for physical copies that they also offer physical only copies in the store here as well.
That's very, very debatable, but Wall Street at least has convinced itself it does
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Active characters:
Edoumiaond Willegume "Eddie" Podslee, Vegetanian scholar (College of Spirits bard) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator (Assassin rogue) Peter "the Pied Piper" Hausler, human con artist/remover of vermin (Circle of the Shepherd druid) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
& I've already addressed how durable magazine paper is long-term in the past(it's only slightly better these days), thus the kinetic satisfaction is only temporary unless you know how to non-electronically preserve magazines to a degree where that kinetic satisfaction is maintained to your lacking.
Likewise, 4e's HEAVY piracy scene turned off investor firms from PDFs. Hasbro lost their money in their eyes. It's not Beyond's fault in this case, or even WotC's:It's Blackrock, The Vanguard Group, & other boomer money blobs ordering Hasbro to increase RoI to make up for what they see as loaned money lost to piracy.
It's not even a matter of "what they see", it's a matter of fiduciary duty. Piracy objectively represents lost revenue. Publicly held companies are legally obligated to avoid making decisions that will obviously lose revenue and devalue stock, all other things being equal. Ergo, when they've objectively had one major incident/loss pursuing a particular model, it'd pretty much have to be a breach of fiduciary duty to pursue that same model again down the line when the reason for the loss has been identified and remains a relevant concern.
I don't think it is, really. It's that they have adopted a different business model, and it seems to be working, so why mess with it? Selling PDFs does not encourage DDB subscriptions, and it's not going to bring in so many extra sales as to make up for that. (Indeed, it may well cannibalize book sales, and so ultimately be a wash, even if piracy is irrelevant.)
"Piracy is lost sales" is the easy argument that gets used in PR and legal battles over DRM, but the actual results are more complicated, and probably industry-dependent. And if they thought that distributing PDFs would make them more money, they'd do it. It's not like there aren't D&D books out there in piracy land (I assume), and they seem to be doing just fine.
But for most people, DDB is better than a PDF. It's a value-add. People will buy DDB versions of books they already have. That's likely much less true for PDFs.
Most publishers do PDFs instead of something like DDB because they don't have a choice. There's demand for digital versions of their books, and they don't have the infrastructure to do anything more than a PDF.
That's very, very debatable, but Wall Street at least has convinced itself it does
Unless literally every person who uses a pirated copy would refuse to buy the product legally, yes, it does represent lost revenue.
To the extent anyone might be making money using pirated material, thus doing an end run around licensing permissions, that would also be lost revenue.
& I've already addressed how durable magazine paper is long-term in the past(it's only slightly better these days), thus the kinetic satisfaction is only temporary unless you know how to non-electronically preserve magazines to a degree where that kinetic satisfaction is maintained to your lacking.
Likewise, 4e's HEAVY piracy scene turned off investor firms from PDFs. Hasbro lost their money in their eyes. It's not Beyond's fault in this case, or even WotC's:It's Blackrock, The Vanguard Group, & other boomer money blobs ordering Hasbro to increase RoI to make up for what they see as loaned money lost to piracy.
It's not even a matter of "what they see", it's a matter of fiduciary duty. Piracy objectively represents lost revenue. Publicly held companies are legally obligated to avoid making decisions that will obviously lose revenue and devalue stock, all other things being equal. Ergo, when they've objectively had one major incident/loss pursuing a particular model, it'd pretty much have to be a breach of fiduciary duty to pursue that same model again down the line when the reason for the loss has been identified and remains a relevant concern.
I don't think it is, really. It's that they have adopted a different business model, and it seems to be working, so why mess with it? Selling PDFs does not encourage DDB subscriptions, and it's not going to bring in so many extra sales as to make up for that. (Indeed, it may well cannibalize book sales, and so ultimately be a wash, even if piracy is irrelevant.)
"Piracy is lost sales" is the easy argument that gets used in PR and legal battles over DRM, but the actual results are more complicated, and probably industry-dependent. And if they thought that distributing PDFs would make them more money, they'd do it. It's not like there aren't D&D books out there in piracy land (I assume), and they seem to be doing just fine.
But for most people, DDB is better than a PDF. It's a value-add. People will buy DDB versions of books they already have. That's likely much less true for PDFs.
Most publishers do PDFs instead of something like DDB because they don't have a choice. There's demand for digital versions of their books, and they don't have the infrastructure to do anything more than a PDF.
This isn't exactly a good arguement for the type of product this thread is talking about. The three exclusives are no different from previous products that WotC provided as PDF's in recent years other than that they are exclusive to DDB. If they had used the same model as their DM's Guild PDF's, I would have purchased them, but as a DDB exclusive, they hold no value at all. I think it is easy for people on these forums to think that the majority of players use this site, but that has not been my personal experience.
That's very, very debatable, but Wall Street at least has convinced itself it does
People wanted the product, and found a way to get it for free instead of paying for it. Let’s not pretend the only people who do this are people who can’t afford the books.
This isn't exactly a good arguement for the type of product this thread is talking about. The three exclusives are no different from previous products that WotC provided as PDF's in recent years other than that they are exclusive to DDB. If they had used the same model as their DM's Guild PDF's, I would have purchased them, but as a DDB exclusive, they hold no value at all. I think it is easy for people on these forums to think that the majority of players use this site, but that has not been my personal experience.
It seems a reasonable conclusion that someone here, on the forums of this site, is likely to use this site. Moreover, them complaining about this specific product offered by this site being available as it is, rather than as PDF's also seems very... specific.
That's very, very debatable, but Wall Street at least has convinced itself it does
People wanted the product, and found a way to get it for free instead of paying for it. Let’s not pretend the only people who do this are people who can’t afford the books.
Which leaves out any revenue added from people who sampled something, then made actual purchases later -- either in a different format, or by the same artist/company/whatever after they'd become a fan
It also leaves out stuff like the music industry using the piracy boogeyman to cover their asses for being very, very late to the party on digital -- and those bad decisions cost them way more "lost revenue" than Napster ever did
Also, the amount/percentage of revenue piracy represents, lost or otherwise, varies wildly by industry. Lost revenue from book piracy is a rounding error at best compared to video game piracy, for instance
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Active characters:
Edoumiaond Willegume "Eddie" Podslee, Vegetanian scholar (College of Spirits bard) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator (Assassin rogue) Peter "the Pied Piper" Hausler, human con artist/remover of vermin (Circle of the Shepherd druid) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
This isn't exactly a good arguement for the type of product this thread is talking about. The three exclusives are no different from previous products that WotC provided as PDF's in recent years other than that they are exclusive to DDB. If they had used the same model as their DM's Guild PDF's, I would have purchased them, but as a DDB exclusive, they hold no value at all. I think it is easy for people on these forums to think that the majority of players use this site, but that has not been my personal experience.
It seems a reasonable conclusion that someone here, on the forums of this site, is likely to use this site. Moreover, them complaining about this specific product offered by this site being available as it is, rather than as PDF's also seems very... specific.
You mean the specific player options that are specifically limited to DDB only? You don't think people that don't use DDB might have a desire for those specific items, but not want to use DDB to do so?
That's very, very debatable, but Wall Street at least has convinced itself it does
People wanted the product, and found a way to get it for free instead of paying for it. Let’s not pretend the only people who do this are people who can’t afford the books.
Which leaves out any revenue added from people who sampled something, then made actual purchases later -- either in a different format, or by the same artist/company/whatever after they'd become a fan
It also leaves out stuff like the music industry using the piracy boogeyman to cover their asses for being very, very late to the party on digital -- and those bad decisions cost them way more "lost revenue" than Napster ever did
Also, the amount/percentage of revenue piracy represents, lost or otherwise, varies wildly by industry. Lost revenue from book piracy is a rounding error at best compared to video game piracy, for instance
And yet it is still lost revenue, which a publicly traded company is obligated to avoid when it’s a demonstrable “if X then Y” scenario.
And yet it is still lost revenue, which a publicly traded company is obligated to avoid when it’s a demonstrable “if X then Y” scenario.
You're missing the point here completely, which is that publicly traded companies spin all sorts of nonsense as 'fiduciary duty' to justify the things they want to do
Does WOTC lose some effectively meaningless amount of revenue to piracy of D&D books in 2025? Sure, I suppose. Have they taken the best approach to addressing the "issue"? I doubt it
Edoumiaond Willegume "Eddie" Podslee, Vegetanian scholar (College of Spirits bard) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator (Assassin rogue) Peter "the Pied Piper" Hausler, human con artist/remover of vermin (Circle of the Shepherd druid) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Well yeah it's exactly what I'm talking about. I have a large library of books I purchased on DDB. Why should I not be allowed to scrape pages that I can already access?
Because it's very easy to very widely disseminate electronic media like that over the internet, as the music industry discovered.
The short answer is 'because the TOS say so'. The slightly longer answer is that there's no real way to distinguish between someone screen scraping for an archival copy (which they don't actually care about) and someone screen scraping to distribute on the internet.
In addition, WotC clearly wants to sell digital and physical copies, hence all of the bundles offering exactly that.
And yet I can still buy music in mp3 format on Amazon.
There are solutions including watermarked pdfs or DRM ebooks for TTRPG products that other companies already widely use. I'm confused as to why people seem to entirely discount concerns that WotC will alter or erase products that we've paid for when they've done it before. And digital theft doesn't explain the lack of a physical option for these smaller projects.
My point was about the Astarion supplement which is unavailable in physical form.
WotC wants to make money and plenty of people have expressed interest in being able to get both for less than the cost of getting them each individually.
Um... DRM e-books should not be thought of as permanent, they become inaccessible if the DRM system shuts down. PDF watermarks are pretty much the same as 'no security at all'. This is not to say that there isn't a better solution than what WotC did, but it's their decision and I never had any illusions that they were selling me anything other than what they are.
Lack of a physical option is probably because it would cost more to produce than they would make from selling it.
100% agree on DRM. But it would be a start, at least. They could, for instance, allow DRM to be read by common e-reader services to maximize the odds of the material being accessible in the future, even if WotC were to vanish overnight.
I'm not saying anything about whether WotC can or cannot do this, or even about whether it makes business sense. I'm just saying that it is unfriendly to the consumer by choice--especially to those of us who prefer to have hard copies of things. I'm not under any illusions; they've been telegraphing this course for a long time. But this is an internet forum, and therefore a natural place to whinge about things.
I also don't agree on the cost point. Several TTRPG companies publish smaller materials in the form of zines. They don't need to be hardback books. They could bring back Dragon+ in physical form.
& I've already addressed how durable magazine paper is long-term in the past(it's only slightly better these days), thus the kinetic satisfaction is only temporary unless you know how to non-electronically preserve magazines to a degree where that kinetic satisfaction is maintained to your lacking.
Likewise, 4e's HEAVY piracy scene turned off investor firms from PDFs. Hasbro lost their money in their eyes. It's not Beyond's fault in this case, or even WotC's:It's Blackrock, The Vanguard Group, & other boomer money blobs ordering Hasbro to increase RoI to make up for what they see as loaned money lost to piracy.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
It's not even a matter of "what they see", it's a matter of fiduciary duty. Piracy objectively represents lost revenue. Publicly held companies are legally obligated to avoid making decisions that will obviously lose revenue and devalue stock, all other things being equal. Ergo, when they've objectively had one major incident/loss pursuing a particular model, it'd pretty much have to be a breach of fiduciary duty to pursue that same model again down the line when the reason for the loss has been identified and remains a relevant concern.
Sorry, I was responding to another post, but that was essentially my point. Clearly there is a large enough market of people who are willing to pay for physical copies that they also offer physical only copies in the store here as well.
That's very, very debatable, but Wall Street at least has convinced itself it does
Active characters:
Edoumiaond Willegume "Eddie" Podslee, Vegetanian scholar (College of Spirits bard)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator (Assassin rogue)
Peter "the Pied Piper" Hausler, human con artist/remover of vermin (Circle of the Shepherd druid)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I don't think it is, really. It's that they have adopted a different business model, and it seems to be working, so why mess with it? Selling PDFs does not encourage DDB subscriptions, and it's not going to bring in so many extra sales as to make up for that. (Indeed, it may well cannibalize book sales, and so ultimately be a wash, even if piracy is irrelevant.)
"Piracy is lost sales" is the easy argument that gets used in PR and legal battles over DRM, but the actual results are more complicated, and probably industry-dependent. And if they thought that distributing PDFs would make them more money, they'd do it. It's not like there aren't D&D books out there in piracy land (I assume), and they seem to be doing just fine.
But for most people, DDB is better than a PDF. It's a value-add. People will buy DDB versions of books they already have. That's likely much less true for PDFs.
Most publishers do PDFs instead of something like DDB because they don't have a choice. There's demand for digital versions of their books, and they don't have the infrastructure to do anything more than a PDF.
Unless literally every person who uses a pirated copy would refuse to buy the product legally, yes, it does represent lost revenue.
To the extent anyone might be making money using pirated material, thus doing an end run around licensing permissions, that would also be lost revenue.
This isn't exactly a good arguement for the type of product this thread is talking about. The three exclusives are no different from previous products that WotC provided as PDF's in recent years other than that they are exclusive to DDB. If they had used the same model as their DM's Guild PDF's, I would have purchased them, but as a DDB exclusive, they hold no value at all. I think it is easy for people on these forums to think that the majority of players use this site, but that has not been my personal experience.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
People wanted the product, and found a way to get it for free instead of paying for it. Let’s not pretend the only people who do this are people who can’t afford the books.
It seems a reasonable conclusion that someone here, on the forums of this site, is likely to use this site. Moreover, them complaining about this specific product offered by this site being available as it is, rather than as PDF's also seems very... specific.
Which leaves out any revenue added from people who sampled something, then made actual purchases later -- either in a different format, or by the same artist/company/whatever after they'd become a fan
It also leaves out stuff like the music industry using the piracy boogeyman to cover their asses for being very, very late to the party on digital -- and those bad decisions cost them way more "lost revenue" than Napster ever did
Also, the amount/percentage of revenue piracy represents, lost or otherwise, varies wildly by industry. Lost revenue from book piracy is a rounding error at best compared to video game piracy, for instance
Active characters:
Edoumiaond Willegume "Eddie" Podslee, Vegetanian scholar (College of Spirits bard)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator (Assassin rogue)
Peter "the Pied Piper" Hausler, human con artist/remover of vermin (Circle of the Shepherd druid)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
You mean the specific player options that are specifically limited to DDB only? You don't think people that don't use DDB might have a desire for those specific items, but not want to use DDB to do so?
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
And yet it is still lost revenue, which a publicly traded company is obligated to avoid when it’s a demonstrable “if X then Y” scenario.
You're missing the point here completely, which is that publicly traded companies spin all sorts of nonsense as 'fiduciary duty' to justify the things they want to do
Does WOTC lose some effectively meaningless amount of revenue to piracy of D&D books in 2025? Sure, I suppose. Have they taken the best approach to addressing the "issue"? I doubt it
Active characters:
Edoumiaond Willegume "Eddie" Podslee, Vegetanian scholar (College of Spirits bard)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator (Assassin rogue)
Peter "the Pied Piper" Hausler, human con artist/remover of vermin (Circle of the Shepherd druid)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)