The Age of Lost Omens is a significant period in the history of Pathfinder, a role-playing game that has been updated for the 2nd Edition. This 136-page guidebook provides an in-depth understanding of the gods and non-deific faiths of the Age of Lost Omens, as well as their clergy and lay worshippers. It also explores the machinations of a god, including how a new god rises, why a god takes worshippers, and what happens when a god dies.
The Lost Omens World Guide is a vital resource for ambitious and creative game designers (GMs) to bring their campaign settings to life. The book is divided into ten 12-page sections, including Absalom and Starstone Isle, which are the heart of the world. The Lost Omens World Guide is designed to provide a comprehensive overview of Golarion, Pathfinder’s official setting, and offers suggestions for character backgrounds and archetypes to deeply root your character in their surroundings.
The book opens with a general overview of Golarion, its continents, solar system, and planes, along with a broad timeline of major events. The Lost Omens Character Guide offers small treats for GMs, mostly in the form of pregenerated monster and NPC stat blocks. The book is divided into ten 12-page sections, each focusing on a different aspect of the Age of Lost Omens.
In conclusion, the Lost Omens World Guide is an essential resource for those looking to immerse themselves in the world of Pathfinder and its various regions. It offers a comprehensive overview of the Age of Lost Omens, providing a wealth of information for both players and GMs alike.
📹 Does Pathfinder’s “Lost Omens World Guide” Help a PF2 Newbie Learn About Golarion?
In this episode, I review the Pathfinder campaign setting book, “Lost Omens World Guide!” And also, we talk a lot about the …
What is the difference between Lost Omens world Guide and Travel Guide?
The Lost Omens: Travel Guide is a comprehensive guide to the Inner Sea region, focusing on the finer details of the area’s culture. It provides detailed information on local customs, calendars, and foods found at local watering holes, highlighting the importance of these aspects. The book covers various aspects such as time and the calendar, festivals and holidays, everyday life, trade, cuisine, fashion, art and architecture, pastimes, crime and law, magic, folklore and mythology, religion, nature and animals, weather and climate, rare events, and the stars. The book is designed to provide a comprehensive understanding of the region’s rich cultural heritage.
What are the races in the lost omens?
The Lost Omens Character Guide explores six core ancestries in the game: humans, dwarves, elves, gnomes, goblins, and halflings. Each ancestry has two primary aspects: one “fluff” and one “crunch”. The first aspect surveys the different ethnicities of each species, covering a wide array of cultures. The Tian and Mwangi continents of Golarion have a spread of ethnicities, similar to the European-inspired continent of Avistan. Nonhuman species also present ethnically diverse elves.
Mechanically, each core ancestry gains at least one new heritage and an array of ancestry feats, often tied to ethnicities or nations in Golarion. For example, the human heritage that provides cold resistance is most common in Irrisen, while only ethnic Varisians or New Thassilon nationals can take the Arcane Tattoos ancestry feat. Humans in particular get a pile of 1st level ancestry feats to provide wide coverage.
There are also several “chains” in the heritage/ancestry options, such as taking Arcane Tattoos open up Ornate Tattoo at level 5 and then Virtue-Forged Tattoos at level 9. Players’ favorites will depend on the flavor as much as the mechanics. Some of the options liked for flavorful or mechanical reasons include Arcane Tattoos, Dragon Spit, Gloomseer, Wavetouched Paragon, Oathkeeper Dwarf, Ancient Elves, Wandering Hearts, Gnome Polyglot, Bouncy Goblin, and Easily Dismissed.
These ancestry feats allow characters to adapt to new environments, change their heritage after sufficient exposure, and gain access to more hijinx later on. The book emphasizes the importance of understanding the diverse ethnicities and cultures within each ancestry to ensure a comprehensive and engaging experience for players.
What are the demon races?
The text provides an overview of various demon races, including those designated as “great old ones,” “demon bamfs,” “mindless ones,” and “succubi.”
What is omens weakness?
Due to their low poise, omens are susceptible to slash damage and can be swiftly disoriented by heavy attacks or jump attacks. The Barricade Shield skill has the effect of causing the opponent to recoil, thereby allowing for a free riposte. The Shadow Bait maneuver can serve to distract the target for a free backstab, thereby making them a suitable target for attackers.
What is the age of lost omens Pathfinder?
Golarion is currently in the Age of Lost Omens, which began in 4606 AR with the death of the god Aroden. Aroden had prophesied a thousand years ago that he would return on the cusp of mankind’s greatest triumph. However, on the prophesied date, all contact to the god was lost, and the world was devastated by storms and other calamities. Since then, no major prophecy has come true. The Age of Lost Omens is part of the Age Before Ages, Age of Darkness, Age of Anguish, Age of Destiny, Age of Enthronement, and Age of Lost Omens.
What is the purpose of omens?
An omen, or portent, is a phenomenon believed to predict the future, often signifying the advent of change. It was believed in ancient times that omens brought divine messages from the gods. These omens include natural phenomena like eclipses, abnormal animal births, and sacrificial lamb behavior. Divorce specialists interpret these omens using artificial methods, such as clay models of sheep livers, to communicate with their gods during crises. They expect a binary answer, either positive or negative, to predict future events and take action to avoid disaster.
Although the term omen is usually devoid of reference to the change’s nature, it is more often used in a foreboding sense, similar to the word ominous. The word comes from its Latin equivalent, omen, of uncertain origin.
What is the oldest travel guide?
In 1483, German politician Bernhard von Breydenbach embarked on a religious pilgrimage to the Holy Land, visiting destinations like Venice, Corfu, Modon, and Rhodes. Two years later, he created an illustrated guide, Peregrinatio in Terram Sanctam, or A Pilgrimage to the Holy Land, detailing his journey. The book, published between 1486 and 1505, became a sensation and was published in eleven editions in six languages.
Now, one of the few surviving first editions of Breydenbach’s 15th-century bestseller is set to be featured in the British Museum’s “Inspired by the East: How the Islamic World Influenced Western Art” exhibition.
What is lost omens?
Lost Omens World Guide is a comprehensive guide to the world of Golarion, Pathfinder’s official setting in the Inner Sea region. It offers a wide range of tropes and environments that can be tailored to the theme and style of your campaign. For example, Numeria, a spaceship crash-era setting, can be a science fantasy setting. The Wild West, with its firearms and firearms, can be a Wild West fantasy setting. Galt, a French Revolution-era setting, can be a post-Wars of the Roses Britain setting.
Taldor, the Ice Age, can be an Ice Age setting. Ancient Egypt, with its Osirion, can be an Ancient Egypt setting. The book also mentions previous Pathfinder Adventure Paths, highlighting the impact of these on the world’s history and countries. This gives the world a “lived-in” feel and highlights the lasting consequences of official adventures. Players who played through these first-edition campaigns will feel like they have truly changed the world.
What are the creatures in good omens?
Milk for Good Omens created several creature effects, including a kraken, wings for the main characters, maggots, snakes, and even bunnies. The studio completed 650 shots for the series, working closely with author Neil Gaiman and director Douglas McKinnon to deliver it on a fast TV schedule. Visual Effects Producer Jenna Powell describes the tight turnaround of work after turnovers, as all departments worked simultaneously to keep the pace going and ensure efficient artists. The studio aimed to condense similar types of work together to make the most of the team’s resources.
Who is the oldest god in Pathfinder?
Erastil is an ancient god in Avistan, worshipped by small farming communities and hunter-gatherers for bountiful harvests and successful hunts. He is a god of hunting and farming, leading his followers by example and good deeds. Erastil’s worship dates back to the time when mankind first harnessed the wilderness and mastered nature. Legends claim that Old Deadeye crafted the first bow and gifted it to humans to help them overcome challenges. Despite the accomplishments of civilization, Erastil continues to represent simpler pleasures.
He teaches his followers to embrace traditional and simpler ways of life, free from the constraints of modern civilization, which often leads to disagreements with more progressive deities like Abadar, leading to increasing conflict between their respective clergies.
How old are the dhampir in Pathfinder?
The game allows players to choose or randomly generate a character’s age, which must be at least the minimum age for their race and class. The character’s physical ability scores decrease with age, while their mental ability scores increase. The effects of each aging step are cumulative, but none can be reduced below 1. When a character reaches venerable age, they secretly roll their maximum age on the Aging Effects table and record the result, which the player does not know. A character who reaches their maximum age dies of old age during the following year.
📹 Flip Through 95: Lost Omens World Guide Pathfinder 2e
Join Matt as he takes a look at the Lost Omens World Guide for Pathfinder 2e. This book gives you a massive insight to all major …
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I love your points here and in the Forgotten Realms article and it’s shocking how many people missed the point. There is a difference between a setting being a good story or an optional setting and being a good default setting. And there is a difference between there having been any potential for something having been a good default setting and the actual execution of what happened. How many movies have you seen where there were some good ideas but they just weren’t executed well or didn’t come together in an interesting way? When that happens you can just say “Oh it wasn’t a bad movie, it had good ideas it just wasn’t fun to watch.” yeah man, being entertaining in some way to watch is the function of a movie. If it’s not good to watch it’s not a good movie even if there was potential it could have been. (I’m simplifying obviously since there are different ways to be good to watch like fun or interesting or makes you think) In the same way, you can’t say “oh it’s not a bad default setting, it’s just hard to parse the information and it’s scattered in an obtuse way that requires 3rd party intervention to get to the good stuff.” That’s the point of a default setting; to be an easy starting point. It’s the default, it’s where you start your ‘new save file’. If a article game dropped you in a high-level area with no level or gear and you can’t live long enough to get any, it doesn’t matter if there is cool stuff in there most people aren’t going to play long enough to see it!
I’ve been a Golarion and Pathfinder fan for over a decade, and I’ve literally never pieced together that the Eye of Dread is almost reverse Mordor. I mean, it’s a pretty recent development–Golarion as a world moves with the various adventures–but still. Thanks for giving me that and making me love that bit of the world all over again.
I think one of the advantages Pathfinder Second Edition has when it comes to its lore, is that it is just a continuation of the 12 years of lore First Edition had. Golarion was the core default setting for 1e, and it’s just been continued here. Compare that to D&D, which I’m pretty sure has changed what the default setting is every edition (please correct me if I’m wrong about that). That also helps keep people who played 1e interested in the setting going into 2e. Did you play the Carrion Crown Adventure in 1e? Well here is what has changed in Ustalav since the events of that adventure. Played Jade Regent? Here is what has changed in Tian Xia since then. The fact that they just had to continue lore instead of write it from scratch probably helped make the setting feel fleshed out. While I still prefer the system of Pathfinder 1e over 2e, I do love that the lore that has existed since 1e is still being continued forward.
Absolute agreement on the need for better setting information in D&D. The writers assume new players will just get everything through cultural osmosis . . . but from where? I’ve been involved with D&D since 1981, and a few days ago I finally figured out how the School of Illusion works. It’s “illusions,” right? So, Minor Illusion and Disguise Self . . . but also Shadow Blade, which makes a sword out of Shadowfell energy . . . and Phantom Steed, which summons an animal with a saddle which you can ride until it vanishes. How is Shadowfell darkness and a summoned animal in any way “illusion?” So I went digging on a fan wiki, the Forgotten Realms Wiki. If you understand that the gods/archfiends/etc. in the Outer Planes shape the Material Plane, and that the Feywild and the Shadowfell are Echoes of the Material Plane, and really internalize all of it, then it becomes clear: the School of Illusion is actually the school of using leftover deity-level “possibility magic” in the Weave of the world to make deity-level changes, but only temporarily. (Which means Invisibility doesn’t make anything invisible; it raises the likelihood of someone not being visually noticed to 100% — but anything they change in the world is still noticed.) I had to do all that research to figure out because I needed to know why See Invisible both nullifies Invisibility (you see them as normal because your probability of seeing them is back to normal) and lets you see ghostly images of otherwise-unseen ethereal creatures (because they’re close by in the Ethereal Plane, which is just a fuzzy boundary away from the Material Plane).
As someone recently getting into Pathfinder as a system, and through some adventures set in the world of Golarion, I’ve really taken a shine to it. Hearing even more details about it through this is amazing, and hugely inspires me as both a player and GM (also, because of that level of inspiration I finally got my World Anvil sub, so thanks for that). Also as someone recently getting into Pathfinder as a system, really interested for that alluded-to future article of looking at P2E as a system. I’ve fallen fairly hard for it, but I look forward to your level-headed take on it. Great stuff as usual!
I think one of the reasons why, even if people don’t always play the Adventure Paths, many people tend to use the Golarion setting for their homebrew games because it’s already interesting and full of tidbits that you can run with. As a previous PF1E player, pretty much most of my games used at least the pantheon of Golarion, if not full stolen concepts.
Honestly, VERY well said about the similarities and differences between Golarion and the Forgotten Realms; I had a lot of the same issues w/Faerun, completely agree with your takes. I had little to no interest in the world as it was presented in 5e, then Baldur’s Gate 3 rolled around and really showed what people who know the setting can do with it. Re Golarion, I’ve loved the setting for a long time, I’ve been playing in it for over 15 years, from 3.5 D&D to when it became Pathfinder and on into PF2; hell we even ran 5e games in Golarion for a time! The more they add just fleshes out and opens up more avenues of exploration, not just into the nations or regions themselves, but on the ancestries and histories, on magic and how it’s presented in world, and it warms my heart that they aren’t afraid to change things (but not by moving the world forward 1 to 2 hundred years or something silly like Faerun). This year, even, they’re killing a major god from the pantheon in a long-running event players will be involved in. TL:DR I really like the setting, it’s rich and representative, as well as fun to play in. I hope you have a great time with it!
I’ve been running a game with the module Abomination Vaults, since it uses the same fishing/logging village of Otari as the Beginner Box and a couple other adventures. I haven’t read a lot of the lore, but sure enough, the Big Bad is someone who wants to attack Absolom. I have a core group of three players, currently down in the fourth level of the AV dungeon, but I wanted to leave the game a little open. I’ve got enough material to host open-to-all level 1 one-shots in the area, possibly to recruit a fourth or fifth player. The pregens in the Beginner Box help a lot with that. Also thanks for the article highlighting Pathfinder. I was worried your website might be too focused on a game system I don’t play and a show I don’t watch, but so far there’s been a lot of game-neutral content and advice I can apply to ttrpgs in general.
One thing I love is that this book comes after a decade of first edition adventures having their own plots and stories, but it doesn’t feel like a world of “solved” adventures. Like, that AI God you mentioned. She’s a consequence of the Iron Gods AP but she still has open story concepts to use, there’s more to her. Personal favorite detail: The current ruler of Irrisen and how she got to be there. Look it up, it’s amazing
I love how even the 1e lore books are still incredibly valid for reading and getting ideas and hooks from. Paizo does answer some of their mystery hooks they posit, and some areas have drastocally changed in universe over time (looking at you beautiful Varisia/poor Lastwall) but even the stuff piblished a decade ago has great ideas that can be tweaked or borrowed for your campaign and fit into the world
I feel like pathfinder 1e’s version of the inner sea had more “powder kegs” and adventure prompts than 2e, especially since Paizo has advanced the time line of Golarion and assumed that several preexisting conflicts have resolved, such as the closure of The Worldwound in the far north. I also feel like the setting book itself doesn’t do a lot to make linking monsters into the settings and adventures easier for a gm: the setting books are highly focused on mortal conflicts and politics. I would appreciate more “powder kegs” or adventure hooks that explicitly include monsters in Golarion
The Lost Omens line are some of the best fantasy setting material in TTRPGs right now. They are consistently phenomenal products. I’d recommend the Mwangi Expanse or Tian Xia books if you want to see Golarion’s take on West African and East Asian inspired fantasy respectively, both with hearty contributions from people of those cultural groups. For something a little less grounded, the City of Absalom book is a massive gazetteer for the most significant city in the setting and the Impossible Lands book gives you a look into an area of the world defined and devastated by the eternal war between two wizards.
as far as places to fill in yourself i think the continent is named Sarusan, there is nothing actually written about it from pf1 or 2, it is an area that is hard to reach or people who go there if they do come back come back with thier memory of the location wiped. you could totally make it your own setting while still using all the golarion lore. you could have a character from the inner sea, or Tian Xia who ended up shipwrecked there so you could still use all the location specific background or archetypes if you wanted.
I’m always happy to see more pathfinder love out there. I would offer to run some Pathfinder games for you and your friends over Foundry, but I’m sure you already heard that a few times already! My advice would be to give more of the Lost Omens books a try. The gods book is great! Also, it wouldn’t hurt to read some of the Pathfinder adventures, and see how they compare side by side to the WOTC books.
I’ve been playing in Pathfinder for years now, we’re on our 4th campain in the world with my group of friends (we alternate as GM and Player). I personally only play as a PC and i’ve not read much of the lore of the world, because it’s easy to spoil yourself if you get lost in the sauce. Archive of Nethys is such a great ressource for all thing pathfinder, everything you list on the paizo website is available for free on there. We are currently playing the Agent of Absalom campahin (we’re in the middle of book 2) and have been running a Age of Ashes campaign in parallele and both game couln’t be more different in term of feel and ambiance. Anyway, I hope you enjoy your foray into Golarion !!! The Rule Lawyer has some pretty good article comparing both DD5 and PF2 systems if you are curious or want another view on them !
I’ve enjoyed delving into pockets of the Golarian setting and like the variety (Varisia, Numeria, Nirmathas, Thuvia, and Cheliax in particular). I’ve had the benefit of playing through the adventure path featuring that A.I. god, beginning to end in PF1e. Started as a psionic gunslinger (Ultimate Psionics shoutout) who retired after his story arc; continued as an elemental, support focused sorceress who was a devotee of The Black Butterfly (Sirocco and Particulate Form were my top spells, honourable mention to Web 🤭). Characters from that campaign have become legacy characters that have come up in future games too! *Spoilers* This is the Iron Gods AP. The factions present were interesting, leading to some PCs choosing built-in history/ties, which was fun. We had two different NPC allies at points (Isuma and Casandalee), and I even ran the second NPC for our DM when our party built an android body for her to inhabit – very durable with some support abilities, but bad at combat. My sorceress developed a meaningful friendship with Longdreamer, and our party treated Torch as our homebase. My favorite combat was a fight on and around a high-speed train in transit during the final dungeon (sorceress was able to fly alongside and keep up with the occasional double move, and could grant resistance to laser fire). Our DM treated tech as a burgeoning presence in the rest of the world, though common to Numerians. The Conan-esque barbarians variously clashing or adopting tech was fun to play with.
Golarion has something for everybody. I’m running a homebrew Absalom campaign at the moment and it’s a blast to play in city that has A LOT of information! Important places, cool buildings, interesting NPCs. And to add onto the Plot hooks; They give a lot of space and room, with enough info for you to get a sense of an idea but with enough mystery where you can make that plot hook entirely your own. Absalom book even has plot hooks for starting quests on sidebars. It’s my first time running in an official setting, and so far I love it. Looking forward to future campaigns too! Impossible lands is my favorite so far! Fun Fact: Paizo’s favorite lore curveball is “X disappeared mysteriously one night” and it makes me chuckle. I count at least 3 times it happens in lore.
I have only read the Alkenstar book for the outlaws of Alkenstar campaign and it really helped me make my characters backstory and i didn’t even read the whole book and im trying to convince myself to convince myself to starting to read the book mostly because i find the world and everything very interesting.
Not only does Paizo offer a lot of information about Golarion, there are also YT website guides like The Lore Tour, a prior edition with plenty of still-relevant setting info, and novels as well. Oh, and Golarion has a few computer games from which you can learn some lore, so D&D’s Forgotten Realms isn’t unique in that way either. Paizo also supports their organized play system, far more than WotC does with Adventurers’ League. You can reference all the PF1, SF.,& PF2 rules online, for free, on the Paizo-approved Archives of Nethys. PathfinderWiki and StarfinderWiki are great resources too, and Pathfinder Infinite & Starfinder Infinite fill the same role as DMs Guild.
Ooh, I’ve missed your setting reviews. Would love to see more of these if you have time. (Particularly for settings associated with games other than PF2e, D&D5e, and similar games that have their design or at least aesthetic roots in WotC era D&D, but I get that your wheelhouse is that faux-medieval/renaissance heroic fantasy with enough diversity for an anthropomorphic rat, a goblin, a talking bush and a lizardfolk to be adventuring together and not draw too many weird looks when riding into a human majority town so setting reviews for settings associated with that sort of game are going to be more common on your website) And just a heads-up on Starfinder being intended to be integrated, since you kind of undersold that – It’s to the point that the upcoming SF2e is apparently meant to be fully cross-compatible with PF2e (I don’t think that was the case with SF1e) – All classes, ancestries, etc made for SF2e should work with and be balanced against all of the ones in PF2e. There’s also some pretty funny lore regarding the Ysoki (Ratfolk) relating to the cross compatibility of Starfinder and Pathfinder – They’re both found in Galarion, and on the Starfinder setting’s Akiton almost identical to the point of sharing a language, and as far as I can tell from what I’ve seen of the setting (This is something I learnt while making a ratfolk for a Pathfinder campaign so there’s likely more going on here than what’s outlined in the brief paragraph or so about it in the Ratfolk writeup that’s available on Archives of Nethys), no one in-universe has a clue what the hell is going on to make that possible.
When I first started playing D&D (about 6-8 years ago) I got real excited and scoured the Internet for more info. In all of that I, of course, ran across Pathfinder material and always kinda liked their art style over WoTC. With the exception of a couple of books I have (Occult adventures and Intrigue adventures) I never really looked closer into PF’s world. Thanks to this here article I’ll have to fix that.
Golarion is the only d20 setting I’ve used and you pretty much hit the nail on the head when you mention how they like to offer hooks, but also leave enough space for DMs to fill in the blanks. There are few things I absolutely loathe as a DM than a player being like “well actually according the 5th legend of drizzt book, x is caused by y, not z like you said” and it’s why I tend to run homebrew games with people who are absolutely lore fiends; they can’t do something like that and they get the fun of digging into the lore while we play. Golarion has enough space to kind of fill in the blanks with cool stuff while having the benefits of already being fleshed out and giving the players something to bite into, so to speak, when making their characters. I also like that while the rules of 2e are obviously engineered to work in Golarion, the world itself works just fine if you decide to run it in 5e or Savage Worlds or what have you
My biggest issue with Golarion is that it’s also tied to game mechanics. Some feats have an ethnicity requirement, or spells that has its effect change based on which deity you worship. Because of this, making a homebrew setting work for Pathfinder feels like an even more daunting task. Golarion is a fun design, there’s always some funny thing to point out (like a god who was once a mortal who succeeded in a deadly test on a drunken dare, or the fact that a wizard lives on the sun), but if the Fantasy Stew isn’t to your taste you have to work extra hard to create something for yourself. I’m not expecting Fabula Ultima’s no setting plug-and-play system, but having a setting dig into the mechanics feels rather restrictive
Probably hold off on Starfinder until the 2nd edition is released since they are working on it at current, unless you’re just after the setting books like Pact Worlds or Near Space. I’d love to see you doing a setting view on the setting of 7th Sea since it is so strongly tied to our world. Does it feel like a fantasy location or more like the Earth but with monsters of games like Call of Cthulhu and World of Darkness? And does that add to useability and immersion for you or detract?
I think the issue people are having with the forgotten realms article is that it comes off as a review of the setting itself, not a review of 5e’s products in that setting. For instance I ADORE the Ravenloft setting but I really don’t like its 5e version. I would feel kinda disappointed if only the 5e single book was reviewed and put something I love in a negative light. I don’t think that’s your intention but I can see how it could be read that way.
WOTC themselves are missing the best part of the Forgotten Realms: Acquisitions Incorporated (well, prior to the recent pseudo-reboot in Greyhawk). The Forgotten Realms are an over-the-top fantasy kitchen sink that routinely intersects with about a bajillion other genres (the biggest thing to happen to the Forgotten Realns recently is a article game about an alien invasion, complete with at least one UFO crash for f***’s sake) that just pretends to be a played-straight epic fantasy setting. The Acq Inc DMs are some of the only people who I feel understand the assignment of the Forgotten Realms. Also, I’m still early in the article, not sure if this is gonna be the call to action, but on the off-chance it is: Guildmaster’ s Guide to Ravnica is my favorite 5E setting book. Unique setting, good supply of player options, both in terms of new/reposted mechanical options or advice for how to use older options, a robust selection of factions to interact with, a good supply of setting-specific loot and monsters for DMs, and a modular starter adventure.
I know it sounds almost sacrilege to even try any new system…But it’s freedom from the known to taste the unknown. That to me is the reasons other systems are popping up all over. Then it is also the system one has to get comfortable with to tell the story YOU want to tell…I once played a game based off the Wheel of Time world…that system was quite different the standard DnD system…as for storytelling that don’t change with the system you use…Once the game moves along the story becomes the narrative and the system is just the tool you use.
Setting books can range from the thin World of Greyhawk from 1980 which is mainly an idea prompts or so detail you know who killed who in 1452 in Waterdeep. Campaigns should never require the GM to read multiple stories across multiple books, media, and you tube vids to know the setting. Settings should give you plot hooks and evil GM Ideas and plenty of blank spaces to put your flavor into the campaign.
I can see your point regarding the Realms, but its a great setting if your willing to dig getting into it. I wished WotC broadened the setting outside the SC, but that is their choice. My games are all over, but I’ve been playing realms since the 80’s. I was sad it was chosen for 5th, and is why I am happy to see Oerth/Greyhawk as the new setting. That way its the toilet setting.
An interesting take – I agreed with most of your thoughts on the Forgotten Realms, but for Galerion it’ll have to be “agree to disagree”. I genuinely see it as a fantasy soup and not in a good way. The sheer diversity of fantasy and scifi themes butting up alongside each other stops me from being able to take any of it seriously. Also, I really don’t like the designation of good and evil states, particularly the offensive charicatures of the Good American Revolution in Andoran, and the Evil French Revolution in Galt. I can recognise my own bias though – and if Golarion does it for other people, then good for them! There are fantasy worlds aplenty for all of us.
Pathfinder as a game doesn’t interest me at all. I already don’t like D&D generally, and the Pathfinder system seems to take a lot of the things I don’t like about it and turn them to 11. That said, their setting seems fun. I’ve got a book or two from it that I thought I might mine for other games. If I were going to get into Golarion, I’d probably go with the Savage Worlds version, as Savage Worlds is a system that is MUCH more to my liking.
My issue with Golarion is that it is even more of a kitchen sink fantasy soup than Forgotten Realms. Much of the expanded lore admittedly makes Forgotten Reals complicated now, but the main core of it is a connected world. Places and kingdoms in Golarion feel very, very disconnected. I guess you can have your horror games, epic fantasy, court intrigue, French Revolution, and Mad Max barbarians on the same continent, but that just comes off as way too mixed focus to me. That just never felt like a viable coherent world to me, rather a plot hole galore mixed technology and idea sink I am unable to take seriously if the campaign ventures into more than one overly specifically defined area of the world.