Pathfinder Chronicles: Gazetteer (OGL)

4.60/5 (based on 17 ratings)
Pathfinder Chronicles: Gazetteer (OGL)
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From the frozen wastes of the witch-queen to the scorching deserts of Osirion, explore the world of Pathfinder and the GameMastery Modules like never before. This 64-page full-color gazetteer contains information about all of the major kingdoms and cities of the Pathfinder Chronicles world, including Absalom, Cheliax, Varisia, and much more. A poster map of the world details never-before-revealed locations, and allows readers to put Pathfinder Adventure Paths and GameMastery Modules into a single exciting context. The guide also includes information on deities, races, classes, and monsters unique to the setting. The Pathfinder Chronicles Gazetteer is compatible with the world’s most popular roleplaying game, but adapts easily to other game systems.

Written by Erik Mona and Jason Bulmahn.
Cover Art by Steve Prescott.

ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-077-3

Other Resources: This product is also available on the following platforms:

Fantasy Grounds Virtual Tabletop

Note: This product is part of the Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscription.

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A Journey of a Thousand Miles . . .

4/5

The Pathfinder Gazetteer was the first attempt by Paizo to provide an overview of the official campaign setting of Golarion. Published in 2008, very little had previously been published about Golarion besides information on Varisia in a couple of the early adventure paths and some scattered descriptions of other lands in early modules and. Because it was early days, it makes sense that the first overview of the setting would be comparatively short: just 64 pages. But there's a lot packed in here!

The red dragon on the cover is amazing, and I think I just realized that Valeros and Seoni are fighting atop the Cyphergate in Riddleport! The inside front cover shows holy symbols for the "Core 20" deities plus Aroden, while the inside back cover is the front cover art sans text. The book comes with a pull-out four-panel map of the Inner Sea; this is doubtless the first published map of the setting, and it's gorgeous. It's surprisingly detailed, and although a few locations have been altered over the years, it's still fun to just sit and imagine all of the adventures to be had in these places, most of which were just names at the time but are now fully-fleshed out thanks to years of supplements. The full-color interior artwork is serviceable but certainly looks primitive compared to modern Paizo products.

The book starts with a two-page introduction. It describes the (in-setting) Pathfinder Society, and implies that most adventuring parties will belong to it. There's also an introduction to Aroden and the premise of the Age of Lost Omens--when even prophecies can no longer be trusted, the future is solely in the hands of the PCs!

Chapter 1 is "Characters" (14 pages). This section describes how all of the standard core races fit into Golarion (with sidebars for the different human ethnicities). It holds up well in terms of accuracy with current conceptions of those races in the game. Although mostly crunch-free (this was written during the D&D 3.5 era), it also discusses the role of the core classes and provides an alternate class feature for each one--some are pretty neat, like allowing Fighters to drop a bonus feat and instead get extra skill points and class skills. The section concludes with a description of uniquely-Golarion languages.

Chapter 2 is "Timeline" (4 pages). Starting with -5293 and the Age of Darkness and progressing all the way to 4708 and the Age of Lost Omens, this timeline fixes important historical events. It also discusses the Golarion calendar. The timeline makes for surprisingly interesting reading (many events have been built on in subsequent products, but not all).

Chapter 3 is "Nations" (36 pages) and is the real meat of the book. The section starts with a brief description of the different continents of Golarion before homing in on the various nations of the Inner Sea region. Each country gets a page or so of description alongside some details like alignment, capital, notable settlements, ruler, government, languages, and religion. I loved the shout-outs to Darkmoon Vale and Scarwall (locations familiar to those who played or ran some early Paizo adventures). There are some occasional sidebars with rules elements, such as on sailing the Eye of Abendego or purchasing the Sun Orchid Elixir. There's obviously no value in my going through each of the countries included, so I'll just say as a package I was pleasantly surprised by how rich of a history the setting has and how well the disparate countries fit together. My very first impression of Golarion years ago was that it was just a "random kitchen sink" of different countries--and although it certainly was designed as a setting where almost any type of D&D could be played, there was in fact a lot of thought given to making it a cohesive whole.

Chapter 4 is "Religion" (6 pages) and provides just a couple of paragraphs on each of the setting's core deities (along with stuff like domains, favored weapons, etc.). It's really only the barest introduction to each faith, but does the job of allowing new players for a cleric to skim over something quickly and pick a faith for their character.

As the product dates from 2008, there have certainly been much more detailed descriptions of the Inner Sea region published subsequently. Hardcover books like the Inner Sea World Guide and Inner Sea Faiths devote multiple pages to topics that the Gazetteer can only touch on, and real lore-junkies can find 64-page books in the Campaign Setting Line on nations that receive only a page of description here. For players in need of a quick overview, the Inner Sea Primer is even more compact. All of that probably means the Gazetteer doesn't really have a modern niche, but it is really interesting to look back to the beginning years of what would become one of the most sprawling fantasy settings in gaming history.


Portuguese - Br

4/5

Mesmo hoje em dia ele já estando obsoleto devido a suas versões mais completas, ele ainda é o menor e mais barato livro que dá um panorama geral do cenário para quem apenas quer conhecer (embora uma versão menor para jogadores tenha sido lançada, estamos falando de conhecimento para mestres). Muitas das sua informações continuam valendo, tendo seu conteúdo apenas ampliado e mais detalhado, e tambem possui informações para quem joga com as regras do 3.5E. Seu lado ruim é que faltou uma certa maturidade que só foi alcançada mais tarde e portanto algumas informações não estão bem organizadas ou não possuem espaço suficiente dando uma impressão de que foi feito as pressas (não existe nenhum mapa dentro do livro) . Golarion pode ser um cenário feito apenas para juntar os locais onde se passam as adventures paths, mas é um bom cenário que ainda pode crescer em popularidade embora não possua nenhuma característica única exclusiva (e até cópia vários elementos de outros cenários), mas é bem feito e bem detalhado e dá uma visão mais adulta e madura sobre os velhos chavões da fantasia (sem falar da enorme quantidade de fan-service).


Lots of body, little head.

5/5

Sorry this is not a beer review. The only issue I have with this book is the image of the Andoran man on the back cover and at the Andoran nation entry. I just don't get it. Other than the man's tiny head the art in the book is top-shelf.

I find myself going back to this book again and again. It is an excellent introduction to the Inner Sea. I now have the comprehensive Inner Sea World Guide (another great tome), but lugging that book around to game days and conventions is a pain (literally). With the Pathfinder Chronicles: Gazetteer it fits nicely in my book bag and has everything I need to show players what they need to know about the Inner Sea. Class and race descriptions (including the human sub-races), languages, deities, a world map, descriptions of each nation, a time-line of the past 10,000 years. It even has info on the days of the week and months.

This book will certainly tide you over until you can save up for the Inner Sea World Guide. And once you have that massive tome, this book will still serve you well as a traveling companion.




was good, could be better

4/5

This campaign guide could easily have filled a book three times this size. There is just no way that a setting as complex as Osirion can be covered in 32 pages. What is in these 32 pages will definitely make you want to adventure in the desert. Expanding this setting with the book "Sandstorm" will give your campaign legs.


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Paizo Employee Chief Creative Officer, Publisher

They get it from Diamond too.


Might want to check on them as well. One of my buddies has had a preorder in for a while and it's not even listed on the website as having an expected date now. He's a little annoyed but it is what it is when you order online.

Former VP of Finance

Joe Kushner wrote:
Might want to check on them as well. One of my buddies has had a preorder in for a while and it's not even listed on the website as having an expected date now. He's a little annoyed but it is what it is when you order online.

Diamond lists Amazon's copies as "Invoice Pending". That should mean that they went out of the Diamond warehouse recently, and are on their way to Amazon now. So they should be getting them fairly soon.


He'll be happy to hear that. Weird how Amazon's stuff goes from an expected date to only being sold by other sellers though.


And how many have you sold?


Will any of the Gazetter's Info be reprinted in the Campaign Setting Hardcover?

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Razzill wrote:
Will any of the Gazetter's Info be reprinted in the Campaign Setting Hardcover?

Yes, in the same sense that a 256-page tourist's guide to Europe and a 64-page tourist's guide to Europe would contain some of the same information.


Any chance of getting the map at the end of the PDF split off into a separate file? Because of my tired old eyes, I always make width all PDFs, after closing the bookmarks, but because the map is wider than all the other pages, it presents centering problems.

-- david
Papa.DRB


I´m just reading this, and like it very much so far.
I noticed a minor glitch in the timeline, however:
p. 20, left column. The years run 2217, 2361, 2498, 2253, 2479, 2555. I guess that these dates got mixed up while editing. What should they be?

Stefan


Vic Wertz wrote:
Razzill wrote:
Will any of the Gazetter's Info be reprinted in the Campaign Setting Hardcover?
Yes, in the same sense that a 256-page tourist's guide to Europe and a 64-page tourist's guide to Europe would contain some of the same information.

Ok, so basically if I buy the campaign setting, it should have most of the Gazeteer info in it. Cool, I'll just wait for the big one then.

Grand Lodge

Im trying to understand timing fo the Runelords.
I m lookin at the time line in the gazetteer.

When did the runelords rule the world in this timeline>
My heroes are doing somehting with timetravel device

Thanks
Jamie

Liberty's Edge

JavertCMH wrote:

Im trying to understand timing fo the Runelords.

I m lookin at the time line in the gazetteer.

When did the runelords rule the world in this timeline>
My heroes are doing somehting with timetravel device

Thanks
Jamie

The timeline starts with the fall of Thassilon. So they're not really on it.


This product is... Legendary. Akin to the old Greyhawk Atlas for 3.0, albeit thinner. Galt really appealled to me!

Can't wait for the CS to come out.

Dark Archive

I just wanted to link an excellent review which appeared a couple of days ago. It's highly praiseful, full of eye-openers, and adds a critical note on the following lines (excerpted here):

Reviewer wrote:

Four pages are devoted to time-keeping and the planar cosmology of the setting. Of these four pages, nearly three are devoted to a timeline that stretches back some 10,000 years and includes far too many points of detail. From such timelines is canon born and the obsession with such minutiae has been the death knell of many a game setting. Given the nature of the Age of Lost Omens, there was little need or purpose in detailing more than a century or two into the past. The rest is an indulgence that binds the hands of the referee and all but guarantees that future Pathfinder Chronicles will inevitably delve into such matters.

...

In short, I like Golarion and I like this product... I have no doubt, though, that Paizo will develop and detail every nook and cranny of Golarion, turning it into a setting as obsessed with minutiae as any other published today. That's a great shame, as I think Golarion would make for a fine sandbox-style setting and I'm sorely tempted to try and use it as such, ignoring almost everything else that will be published for it and using the Gazetteer as my starting point.

Spot on! And for completeness' sake, the same reflection all over in the blog's comments section:

Reviewer wrote:
It's a very good product overall and I really do like the vibe of Golarion. My main beef with it is that (art aside, which is mostly a matter of taste) I am sure Paizo's publishing model will pretty much require that they flesh out every last inch of the setting over time, slowing adding tons of canonical minutiae that will simultaneously hamper referee creativity and make the setting inaccessible to newcomers. I could live with the art much better if I knew the setting itself were better insulated from the vicissitudes of modern gaming business plans.


I don't own this product and I am trying to find out if the map(s) included in the Pathfinder Gazetteer are bigger/more detailed than the map in the Pathfinder Campaign Guide. Can anyone assist? I am trying to begin a project of epic proportions!

Paizo Employee Director of Game Development

The map in the Campaign Setting book is an 8-panel map, while the Gazetteer has a four-panel one.


Daigle wrote:
The map in the Campaign Setting book is an 8-panel map, while the Gazetteer has a four-panel one.

So the Gazetteer map is smaller? I am assuming when you mean panels, you are referring to the folds, which appear to be roughly A4 / foolscap size.

Liberty's Edge

Hi everybody!
I just got the Campaign setting. Would this be a worthwhile purchase or would I just be buying a watered down version of what I have?


Basically you would be getting a condensed version of the Campaign Setting. The primary advantage to me is that is takes up less room if you have to transport your books to the game. There is not a lot of fluff but some of everything the CS covers. The map covers 4 squares and gives a good sense of the world of Golarion. I hope this helps.

Just my 2 cp.

Liberty's Edge

silverhair2008 wrote:

Basically you would be getting a condensed version of the Campaign Setting. The primary advantage to me is that is takes up less room if you have to transport your books to the game. There is not a lot of fluff but some of everything the CS covers. The map covers 4 squares and gives a good sense of the world of Golarion. I hope this helps.

Just my 2 cp.

Actually, it did help. Thank you!

Dark Archive

So, i'm reading the different nations, and i come across Geb. I read from beginning to end about

Spoiler:
mindless undead being treated like property,
and couldn't help feeling like it was familiar in some way. Then i remembered the Planescape: Torment game, and how they
Spoiler:
used undead to do all the dirty work.
I very much like this, and hope eventually a future AP takes place in Geb.


Is this useful as a sort of "player's guide" to Golarion or does it reveal too much?

I'd like to have something to hand to my players other than the large campaign setting book. Is this it or is there some other product? (and yes, I know each Adventure Path has it's own player's guide).


jaaronfarr wrote:

Is this useful as a sort of "player's guide" to Golarion or does it reveal too much?

I'd like to have something to hand to my players other than the large campaign setting book. Is this it or is there some other product? (and yes, I know each Adventure Path has it's own player's guide).

It's completely appropriate for the use you're describing.

This is my opinion of course, but no- it doesn't reveal too much. It's a very general overview.


In what way does this material differ from the "Inner Sea" section of the Campaign Setting book? That section has 80+ pages describing major cities and regions; this book has 64 pages describing major cities and regions.

I assume it's not just reprinted material, but to what extend does it cover the same information?

Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy

Damon Griffin wrote:

In what way does this material differ from the "Inner Sea" section of the Campaign Setting book? That section has 80+ pages describing major cities and regions; this book has 64 pages describing major cities and regions.

I assume it's not just reprinted material, but to what extend does it cover the same information?

The Gazetteer is geared more for players, while the CS contains more details on things for a GM. Every nation has about 1/2 to 3/4 page in the Gazetteer as opposed to 2-4 in the CS.


New, updated, and Pathfinder RPGized edition forthcoming?

Sczarni

Uninvited Ghost wrote:
New, updated, and Pathfinder RPGized edition forthcoming?

why, the 3.5 one is 100% compatable?

Paizo Employee Chief Creative Officer, Publisher

Yeah, we don't plan to release a new version of this book, because there are almost no rules in it and thus little reason to "update" it to the new rules.

I do expect, eventually, to do some kind of updated Campaign Setting book, but since we still have thousands of the first printing and it is selling well, we'll most likely wait until we are nearing a sellout before we launch these plans in earnest.


How is this different from the $50 campaign setting book?

I own the campaign setting; does this cover different information?

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

The Gazetteer is a short, abridged, player-friendly version of the Campaign Setting.


Gorbacz wrote:
The Gazetteer is a short, abridged, player-friendly version of the Campaign Setting.

Cool, thanks!


Will this product ever become available again as a PDF? I can understand not offering it in print anymore, because it’s been replaced by the Campaign Setting, the Inner Sea World Guide, and the Inner Sea Primer…but, I’m curious about why you pulled the PDF. I thought part of the charm of PDF versions was you could still get them long after the original print runs sold out and no longer got printed.

It seems really strange to me that I can't get this PDF version, but could still get the Print Edition here.

I do realize that much of the information has changed, and is possibly outdated now, but I would still very much like to own this piece of Pathfinder history. Is there any way I could buy this PDF?

Webstore Gninja Minion

Unsure what happened, but you should be able to get both the Print and PDF editions of this now.


Who did the cover art for this book?


I shouldn't have posted that question so late on a Sunday night. I loaned out my copy so I can't look at the credits. Does anyone know who the artist is who did the cover on this book? My web searches aren't coming up with anything.


I looks like Steve Prescott. I don't have the book and can't check the credits to confirm it, though.

Webstore Gninja Minion

Olwen wrote:
I looks like Steve Prescott. I don't have the book and can't check the credits to confirm it, though.

It is indeed Steve Prescott.


Thank you! I thought it looked like his style, but I didn't see it on his website. I've always liked that painting.

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