Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Lost Cities of Golarion (PFRPG)

Lost Cities of Golarion is a little bit like the brilliant combination of Cities of Golarion and Lost Kingdoms of Golarion, two other books in the Campaign Setting line. Whereas Cities of Golarion presented six (mostly) safe cities for PCs to use as their home base, and Lost Kingdoms of Golarion detailed the rise and fall of the civilisations that gave birth to the crumbling monuments that now dot the landscape, Lost Cities of Golarion offers six ruined cities full of danger and intrigue that incorporate detailed setting lore while providing an exciting campaign’s worth of plot for PCs in the “modern” era. That’s a really long-winded way of saying that each of the six cities detailed in this book are intended for exploration and adventure. As you’ll see below, some of these sites can serve as the basis for a full campaign, while others may be better suited to a shorter story-arc. Anyway, the takeaway from this review is that GMs will find a lot of great adventure ideas in this book, and it’s well-worth the purchase.

The six cities covered are Ilvarandin (a city in the Underdark), Kho (one of the ancient Shory flying cities, now crashed), Storasta (the last city to fall before the Worldwound), the Sun Temple Colony (an ancient Azlanti city across the ocean), Tumen (a city of ancient Osirion), and Xin-Shalast (golden capital of one part of ancient Thassilon). Each entry, which is about ten pages long, includes a full-page map, descriptions of various locations within the city, random encounter tables (thankfully broken up into low level, medium level, and high level, addressing one of the critiques I often make of tables like this), the full stat-block of a major new NPC or monster, and, perhaps most valuable, a section detailing adventure hooks and plot ideas for low, medium, and high-level campaigns in the city.

First up is Ilvarandin, a city deep in the Darklands (Golarion’s version of the Underdark). Ilvarandin is a vast city, hundreds of miles wide, but seemingly deserted. As one spends time exploring, however, small enclaves of inhabitants can be found—refugees from other parts of the Darklands, like mongrelfolk, exiled drow, morlocks, and more. But the secret of Ilvarandin is in its core: it’s a city of intellect devourers, terrible creatures capable of taking over the bodies and minds of others! The devourers have been in a centuries-long war with another Darklands race, the neothelids. Why would anyone come here? Because the intellect devourers have carefully used the bodies of explorers and others to seed legends that Ilvarandin is some kind of utopia, so that travellers from elsewhere in the Darklands (and even the surface) arrive, presenting fresh prey. The entry includes two useful maps (one of the various sections of the city, one of the city’s core), a stat block for one of the most powerful rulers of the city (a CR 15 Intelllect devourer sorcerer), and a detailed description of a new drug called Midnight Milk—which allows intellect devourers to exercise their body thief abilities on addicts even at tremendous distances. The hooks to an entire campaign involving Ilvarandin are natural and intriguing—the PCs can start on the surface investigating the devastating spread of this new drug in one city, eventually start to trace it back to the Darklands, and, at higher levels, visit Ilvarandin itself and get caught up in the politics and war of a strange, exotic place. It’s a cool, well-realised location with several good plot hooks.

Second, we have Kho. I was intrigued by Kho ever since I read about it in Pathfinder Tales novel City of Sky. Kho was one of the ancient flying cities of the Shory Empire that filled the sky several millennia in Golarion’s past. Whereas the fate of most are unknown, Kho fell from the sky and smashed into the ground in what is now the Barrier Wall mountains northeast of the Mwangi Expanse (or in southwest Osirion, depending on how you look at it). In campaign terms, Kho serves as much more a site for open-ended exploration than Ilvarandin does. There are some inhabitants for the PCs to engage (probably violently) with, including marids (genies from the plane of water), derhii (gorillas with wings!), and leukodemons (disease demons). Overall though, I found this entry (and Kho) much blander than I had hoped. There’s something called the Well of Axuma, a place of great magical power, but not much backstory is presented. The hooks to get PCs to Kho (like investigating a disease spread by the leukodemons) are a little bit akin to that of Ilvarandin, but aren’t integrated organically well-enough to service an entire campaign. And although the entry gives us stats for the derhii, they’re really the sort of creature that demands a picture.

Third in line is Storasta, the last city in ancient Sarkoris to fall to the demonic hordes that now occupy what’s called the Worldwound. Unlike the other “lost cities” in the book, Storasta isn’t that old in an historical sense—it fell less than a century ago. It has an interesting backstory and theme, as a place where the last surviving druids, shamans, and fey of Sarkoris assembled and unleashed their most primal magics to hold back the demon armies, thus creating a blighted, twisted place that no one, not even demons, find hospitable. Not much now lives in Storasta beyond dark fey, mad treants, and particularly persistent demons, all fighting against each other for control of what little remains of the city. Storasta is one of those places that’s suicidal for low-level PCs to enter, but good be a good adventure site for higher-level groups in a Worldwound-themed campaign. And if you need a big boss, the CR 20 stat block for Carrock (a fiendish treant druid) would make a suitable challenge. The best part about Storasta is it allows for some adventures in the Worldwound that aren’t solely focussed on fighting demons.

Fourth is the Sun Temple Colony, probably my favourite entry in the book. This island location, far across the Arcadian Ocean, was once an Azlanti city. Now its jungle surface is home to the crumbling ruins of that civilization, but looming above everything is the imposing Sun Temple, home to a mysterious device capable of harnessing the sun’s energies to wreak destruction. The entire place has a fantastic, mysterious feel, and the backstory is equally intriguing: a lost colony, a trapped godling, and more! You could certainly build a mid-length campaign around the PCs’ quest to reach the island, their interactions with the locals (figuring who among them can be trusted and who’s an evil cultist), and their penetration into the secrets of the Sun Temple. One of the things that appeals to me the most as a GM is that it takes the PCs (and players) outside of their comfort zones: there are no magic stores, tavern common rooms, 2 gp/night inns to rest in safely, or other tempting places to teleport to. It’d be a bit more like the t.v. show Lost, and I can see the appeal of that.

Fifth is Tumen, a monument showing the amazing hubris of the Four Pharaohs of Ascension in ancient Osirion. Tumen is really four interconnected cities built in the middle of a vast, trackless desert on the top of a vertical cliff. Apparently, a hundred thousand slaves died to construct it, and the Four Pharaohs didn’t care a whit! Each of the four cities (or districts of Tumen, depending on how you think of it) holds something interesting for explorers, but I found it hard to envision what this place was like in a conceptual sense. I think better artwork and description would have helped, as everything’s a bit opaque. Interestingly, there are links to the storyline of the countdown clocks and the Dark Tapestry that was finished off in the Doomsday Dawn Playtest adventure, though I’m not convinced the information here matches up with what’s there. Anyway, there’s plenty of ancient Osirion ruins and pyramids available in Pathfinder, and I don’t think Tumen is a necessary addition.

Sixth is Xin-Shalast, a city from ancient Thassilon that first appears in the Rise of the Runelords adventure path. The entry here is written on the assumption that the events in that AP have concluded, though I think there’s some bits and pieces that would be useful for GMs who plan to run it. The theme here is “classic gold rush”. Expeditions from Riddleport, Magnimar, and Janderhoff are present, as are some factions of the locals, and everyone is clashing and vying to take advantage of an opportunity for untold wealth in the gold-paved streets of the city. Environmental factors alone (like the cold and altitude) make this a lethal place for low-level PCs, but I guess it could be interesting at higher-levels to see what factions the PCs ally themselves with and what further dangers they encounter in and around Xin-Shalast (like a CR 19 Rune Giant!). Still, I think this entry’s main value would be for groups that finish Rise of the Runelords and either want to keep playing the same characters or role up new characters to see what happens in the aftermath.

All in all, Lost Cities of Golarion is an excellent buy for GMs who want detailed, flavourful, and world-lore consistent locations to centre a homebrew campaign around. It has the maps, random encounter tables, adventure hooks, and more that can serve as the skeleton for a campaign, while not being nearly as prescriptive as an AP in terms of plots and encounters. As I said in my review of Lost Kingdoms of Golarion, one of the surprising strengths of the setting is its deep integration of history, and this book further showcases that aspect. If you’re looking to build a campaign, I’d strongly suggest starting with one of the entries in this book.

I bought this book because I am running a Dark Tapestry/Osirion campaign and thought I would get enough useful out of the Tumen section to make it worth it. I did not. I got almost nothing usable from that, and most of what was usable is available freely online, in the d20PFSRD or on Archives Of Nethys.

I also read through the other four cities described, and I wouldn’t say they’re any more useful. Some are much worse; Ilvarandin includes two near-epic factions gearing up for a war, where the defender builds a wall along their south side and leaves the north open protected by a river. Rivers, notably, do not block things that can fly or levitate, which, at the power level they’re operating at, is basically everything. They also do not block line of effect for spellcasting, which, again, most of their foes are capable of.

Every city described is given three “using this in your campaign” chunks: One for low levels (1-7), one for middle levels (8-14), and one for high levels (15+). It’s clear that making this possible was a priority well above making the cities make sense or feel like they had real personalities animating them. This resulted in them being mediocre-to-bad for any level instead of really good for one chunk of levels and mostly useless to the others.

Result: I got more useful adventure seeds out of skimming the free Wayfinder (fan-made, Paizo-distributed) magazine, and the crunch, such as it is, is all available online.

Style: 2/5
Substance: 3/5 (but all available online so effectively 1/5)

So I primarily bought this for my RotR campaign for extra info on Xin-Shalast, but I'd thought I'd read whole thing before reviewing it. So thats why I only now review this despite owning this for while. Wanted to get one of these "show developers my opinions" things done even though I'm not sure if this is too old product for that...

So uh, anyway, I'll go through my opinions on each of lost cities instead of overall feeling on the book. Because, well, locations are rather radically different and I don't have much of unified opinion on book on the whole besides "It was pretty alright for most parts" Overall, I do like templates and statblocks provided by the book.

Ilvarandin: So... This place is cool and stuff, though I'm bothered by little details. Like why are humans most common out of host bodies(drow and elves in total number more, but... Yeah)? I mean, even if they have azlanti bodies from ages ago, that still feels weird in darklands. Also, article seems to omit Midnight Dawn and Magnimar subplot completely, including alternate take no Tiluatchek(who is here sorcerer instead of wizard) who is mostly in Ilvarandin rather than Magnimar.. I also get weird impression that apparently its hidden truth that city is controlled by intellect devourers since there are non intellect devourer populations in small numbers in outskirts? Basically, cool ideas, but I feel little confused by small details and feel like execution could have been better. I don't think I got very good idea of what it is like living in city populated by Intellect Devourers. Maybe I missed something or its better explained in other campaign setting books, either way, lack of mention of Midnight Dawn and inconsistencies related to it are bit annoying.

Kho: So uh, just to note, cover image for this article is pretty generic. I mean, they seem to be fighting bat creatures with background having a lot of crystals and stuff.

So I have to note that I have never heard of Shory before this and opening chapter of Lost Kingdoms' "other lost kingdoms" part. I guess it isn't commonly used because its floating kingdom that has fallen to ground and people would rather visit floating cities before they crash down. Anyway, so what does this ruin of aeromancers(I assume it refers to users of air magic instead of fortune tellers who use air to tell future :p yeah I know necromancy is used wrong too, but I still find it bit annoying these days) have? Uh, marids, crystal xorns, morlocks, leukodaemons spreading disease through objects oh and connection to shadow plane. So basically everything but connection to air. I guess Shory were more planar travelers after all? I don't know much about them so I don't know if this ruin would be "typical" for them, but for first time hearing of them, I feel like this ruin doesn't really feel like floating city that crashed down. Like, how to say it... I think Kho lacks unified theme. If I wanted to sell campaign based on Kho to players, how would I do it? "Hey guys, want to play campaign in Mwangi that has lots of connection to other planes on crashed down ruins of floating city?" I'm pretty sure everyone would assume connection to plane of air rather than water, shadow, earth. Only thin in Kho that feels like Mwangi or "air" is those winged ape people. So uh, I feel like Kho is mess of different themes that don't really ever come together, suggested campaign outline is basically "find source of plagueborn objects, get rid of daemons, suddenly shadowplane or crystal dragon problems". Basically this is my least favourite article out of these cities.

Storasta: So this "lost" city is less legendary lost archeological site and more literally lost to corrupted plants and demons. Not sure why demons don't just burn the whole place down, they seem pretty good at that. Anyway, I actually liked Storasta best before next part, mainly because I find corrupted treant bbeg cool and idea of corrupted overgrown city is pretty cool even though its not really an ancient city.

Sun Temple Colony: PRAISE THE FRICKING SUN

So basically my mind as I read this went from "Huh, pretty interesting to huh pretty good to HOLY CRAP to" etc it just got better and better as I read it further on. Like I when I got on parasitic oozes I was like "But Intellect Devourers did that couple of articles back with lens thing too" but I got sold by this sentence: "The presence of the parasitic oozes among the cultists means even innocent looking villagers may be capable of obliterating blasphemers with fiery rays." BURN THE HERETICS

Ahem, basically this article has tons of fire. I mean, firey ooze things possessing cultists of sun godling aspect of demonlord(?) who eventually turn possessed into fricking shining children. Thats fricking awesome amount of fiery death included in this chapter. As long players don't just make themselves immune to fire, actually I don't care, inflict fiery death on everyone either way. And fricking ancient Azlanti solar death ray artifact. Basically I'll probably want to do this campaign eventually or see module based on it :D 5/5 stars

Tumen: Eh, evil numerology cult(pity numerology magic system from occult mysteries wasn't created by time this article was made), super weapons, pretty cool evil water artifact. Its pretty cool I guess, but I just read Sun Temple Colony chapter so its hard to impress me after that, this feels pretty standard fare after that.

Xin-Shalast: So now to actual part of the book I bought this pdf for in first place.

So uh... How to say it? I want to like this section more I do, but I find problems with it..

So best part first: Its continuation from RotR and it details factions and npcs of the Xin-Shalast from aftermath of RotR. It also gives more flavorful details on how finding path to Xin-Shalast works and Ebonrunes is npc I might use in RotR. It does inspire me to wanna try sequel campaign to RotR.

Bad parts: The fact text doesn't actually give any more details on city itself than article on RotR does, lots of it is repeat or "this npc from RotR used to be there". Like I hoped this article would give me more details on what Hypogeum(the underground city) is like, but I don't have any better idea of it after reading it than what I had after reading RotR's article. Basically, this article is mainly about the factions rather than city itself and its bit problematic since city details themselves don't give me much of inspiration of what the players could find in the different parts of city. I also find it weird how despite spoiler warning about RotR, the text refuses to mention one certain entity in Mhar Massif by name, just giving it as possible campaign hook that Leng faction might try to wake it up. Factions themselves could be more detailed, I have no clue how Spared from RotR interacts with any of factions if at all for example.

I really love idea of articles on how certain locations change after APs and how it affects the world and this is only example of such article. Pity that this is only such article, the later articles could have improved on format making it more informative and less of repeating information :/

Even after months I still feel a bit overwhelmed after reading it. If I could give this product more than five stars, I would; it's a textbook example of how to write a RPG guide to lost and ruined cities. Great maps by Rob Lazzaretti, well-written songs and poems and vignettes that work brilliantly as hand-outs, evocative language, inspiring adventure hooks and NPCs, very nice monsters, awesome flavour... and practically nothing to criticize. Nothing. Every city feels and looks very different from each other, and even though it's only 10 pages per city, you'll get more than enough juicy lore and game information to run a campaign in any (or all) of them! In fact, Lost Cities provides you with guidelines on how to use each city as an adventure site for all levels (low, medium, hight) of play. It’s just amazing how much useful information they’ve crammed into 60+ pages.

Perhaps it tells something if I say that this book made me feel almost as excited as watching the best torturers in Order of the Rack practise their craft on Taldorian dandies! ;)

I recommend this book for any GM, and I wish I had had something like this when I was a fledgling Dungeon Master so many years ago. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, this is a MUST-HAVE book, and not just for Pathfinder GMs; since there are not a lot of game mechanics in it, Lost Cities can actually be used as a sourcebook for any RPG!

Ilvarandin, nearly everything I liked about the Underdark in one magnificent place. Despite not being a fan of underground adventures I could run this city for decades. Only would change the color of the phosphorescent fungi to blue.

4.5 stars

Kho, expected more from the place, the choice of monsters is not at all to my liking and doesn't suite for a place inspired by African mythology. Needed more unusual magical devices like the wonderful Well of Axuma. If this was an Azlanti city the rating would be higher.

3 stars

Storasta, nicely set up border city, excellent choice of monsters opposing the demons. Poor mechanical effects of the Carrock's How.

4 stars

Sun Temple Colony, lenses again, failed to awe with the Azlanti tech. A bit cliche lovecraftian monster. Light should be pure.

2.5 stars

Tumen, great idea about the city on four ledges and about the source of water. Not enough egyptian flavor. The nerd cult has too few details to be interesting.

3 stars

Xin-Shalast, great megalithic city, monsters, template, Leng. Conquering such a place would be the highest adventurer's prize and triumph.

5 stars