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Pathfinder Campaign Setting
Campaign Setting
The exciting world of the Pathfinder Adventure Paths comes alive in this massive full-color hardcover tome primed up and ready to go for your new d20 campaign! Detailed sections on more than 40 nations - from the barbaric frontiers of Varisia to the devil-tainted cities of Cheliax to the frigid Hold of the Mammoth Lords - provide a full picture of the world of Golarion, with new rules, new magic and spells, detailed descriptions of more than 30 gods and their religions, and a gorgeous poster map detailing the entire campaign setting.
256 pages, Hardcover
Published August 1, 2008
3 people are currently reading
69 people want to read
About the author
Mike McArtor
22 books10 followersI started playing D&D in the summer I was 9 years old... which would be 1984. Before the end of that summer, unable to acquire actual D&D books, I started writing my own bizarre, 9-year-old's version of D&D. I didn't really stop making up games until high school. After a 4-5 year full-stop break from anything nerdy at all, I rejoined on AOL's TSR page circa 1996. There I met Sean K Reynolds, who later got me my first freelance d20 gig in 2001.
After writing a bunch of not-great work for a few d20 publishers and working as an editor for the local college's literary journal, I got my big break as an assistant editor for Dragon magazine. I honed my own game-design craft by helping other writers improve theirs, and as a result Wizards of the Coast invited me to co-write Complete Scoundrel with my fellow assistant editor, F. Wesley Schneider. That was pretty much a dream come true, and it was followed up with several smaller gigs with WotC and Paizo up until the end of 3.5D&D.
When Dragon ended and Paizo embarked on its own successful destiny, I also had the chance to write several full books for the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting, including my first (and so far only) full-length adventure.
After writing a bunch of not-great work for a few d20 publishers and working as an editor for the local college's literary journal, I got my big break as an assistant editor for Dragon magazine. I honed my own game-design craft by helping other writers improve theirs, and as a result Wizards of the Coast invited me to co-write Complete Scoundrel with my fellow assistant editor, F. Wesley Schneider. That was pretty much a dream come true, and it was followed up with several smaller gigs with WotC and Paizo up until the end of 3.5D&D.
When Dragon ended and Paizo embarked on its own successful destiny, I also had the chance to write several full books for the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting, including my first (and so far only) full-length adventure.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 25, 2019
Basic Premise: A guidebook to Golarion, the world of the Pathfinder setting.
I haven't actually finished reading this book cover to cover, but I forgive myself for lying. I have read a lot of it. It works best as a general reference for those interested in the world created for Pathfinder. It's incredibly detailed, and while a DM really ought to read the whole thing, it'll be nigh impossible to remember everything you'll want to after just one reading. One of the best story-based gaming sourcebooks out there, on par with materials for Call of Cthulhu.
I haven't actually finished reading this book cover to cover, but I forgive myself for lying. I have read a lot of it. It works best as a general reference for those interested in the world created for Pathfinder. It's incredibly detailed, and while a DM really ought to read the whole thing, it'll be nigh impossible to remember everything you'll want to after just one reading. One of the best story-based gaming sourcebooks out there, on par with materials for Call of Cthulhu.
October 16, 2009
It's a world made up of your favorite gaming author's homebrew campaigns, what's not to like? True, some gamers might not like the way that unfamiliar lands juxtapose against on another, but I think it makes for a much more interesting world. There's a curious sort of culture artifact effect going on here too, where you can tell when DM's were creating the campaigns that would make up the various kingdoms (if that super-science barbarian land wasn't a direct result of the 80's, I'll eat my hat).
Outside of a handful of typos, I've got two gripes:
-The rules are 3.5, and not the Pathfinder revision. This is hardly a problem, and the only thing that needs changing are a few of the prestige classes, but you'd think they'd put their own rule system first.
-The book comes with a large fold-out map, which is very nice. However, that map is nowhere to be seen in the book itself! It's kind of a pain to unfold (or unroll, as I've already laminated it) every time I want to get a feel for the geography. Feels like a major oversight to me, since the book contains maps for current ongoing Adventure Paths and no-longer-existent ancient kingdoms.
Visually, the book is high quality, colorful, and well organized. It's full of new ideas but familiar enough to drop a party in without everyone having memorized the book beforehand. If I start a campaign anytime soon, it'll be here.
Outside of a handful of typos, I've got two gripes:
-The rules are 3.5, and not the Pathfinder revision. This is hardly a problem, and the only thing that needs changing are a few of the prestige classes, but you'd think they'd put their own rule system first.
-The book comes with a large fold-out map, which is very nice. However, that map is nowhere to be seen in the book itself! It's kind of a pain to unfold (or unroll, as I've already laminated it) every time I want to get a feel for the geography. Feels like a major oversight to me, since the book contains maps for current ongoing Adventure Paths and no-longer-existent ancient kingdoms.
Visually, the book is high quality, colorful, and well organized. It's full of new ideas but familiar enough to drop a party in without everyone having memorized the book beforehand. If I start a campaign anytime soon, it'll be here.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews