Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Dragon Empires Gazetteer (PFRPG)

I loved this book from page one. It is an interesting dip into cultures vastly different from my own and those most commonly found in RPGs. It was simple and fun to read. I especially liked the religions section, because it showed different perspectives on well known Pathfinder gods as well as introducing new ones.

My only problem with the booklet is that it is so short, 64 pages just isn't enough to properly expand on the vast continent that is Tian-Xia. Only a single page for each country and barely a paragraph for each god, it leaves a lot up to the imagination, and though that is also a good thing, I'd really like to know more about Yaezhing, Bachuan, and The Broken Lotus, among others.

Read my full review on my blog.

The Dragon Empires Gazetteer is an introduction to the continent of Tian Xia, a wonderfully flavourful setting. All the time while reading it, I was constantly getting ideas for new adventures and campaigns I could run in each area. (Alas, too many ideas and too little time to use any of them.) This is the biggest mark in the book’s favour. Any setting book that generates so many ideas has done its job admirably. Another thing I like about the setting is that it takes its influences from more than just Japan and China, but also from Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, Tibet, and numerous other Asian countries. All blend together to make a varied and vibrant setting with endless opportunity for adventure.

One of the best RPGs supplements ever. More please from this part of these parts. Only downside was the price.

For starters, I love OA campaigns and was really looking forward to the Dragon Empires material allowing me to run such games in Pathfinder.

So....I made the mistake of paying almost 25 bucks for a print edition of the Dragon Empires Gazeteer (nearly 5 bucks in shipping and handling for this thin little booklet is excessive). Not only is it thinner and (through S&H) more expensive than 2E or 3E softcover supplements were (62 pages of actual content, if I count the inside-cover geographical map, relative to the 127 black-and-white pages of a 2E splatbook or 95 B&W pages of a 3E splatbook), but it contains only the briefest descriptions of each country, a few organizations, some deities, core races, Tian Xia humans, and the five new races.

The timeline (2-1/2 pages) and much of the "Life in the Dragon Empires" chapter are at least reasonably descriptive. But still only a cursory look at the continent of Tian Xia and its history/cultures. For a book whose introduction describes Tian Xia as more than 5 times the size of the Inner Sea region, it suffers rather badly from compressing a continent's worth of info into a few dozen pages of scant overview (roughly a fifth as many pages as the Inner Sea World Guide, and what I've heard about that book leads me to believe it's only slightly better than the DEG in descriptive content).

There's a very basic geographical map of Tian Xia and a geopolitical map that only really shows the capitols and borders. No zoomed-in maps of the individual countries/regions and their features, and no cities or the like beyond capitols. Each country/region of Tian Xia gets a 1-page description or less, with nice but useless illustrations stealing space away from some of those pages. Only a few actually show leaders or locations within the country/region described on the page. Others show monsters that must be detailed in other books like the Bestiaries. They're interesting places but still terribly lacking in detail for an actual campaign in any of these regions.

There are a few pages of scant description for major deities of Tian Xia, such as Daikitsu the Lady of Foxes, including a few Golarion deities like Irori and Shelyn with notes regarding their worship on Tian Xia. Each deity gets hardly a paragraph, with a few useful bits of info beside their holy symbol and domains. The Moon subdomain is given a sidebar, but nowhere is the Moonstruck spell described; you need the Advanced Player's Guide for it. There's 1-1/2 pages describing philosophies and 1-1/2 pages describing some factions in the Dragon Empires. The 5 races get a page each (1/4th illustration, 3/4ths description). For some reason, you need the Dragon Empires Primer (not free) in order to view the kitsune's 3 or 4 measely racial feats (1 for fox form, 2-3 related feats). Core races get a paragraph each regarding their place in Tian Xia (generally as solo wanderers), while human ethnic groups get 2-1/2 pages total.

All in all, I'm not even sure if this is enough to run the Jade Regent AP well, let alone make my own campaigns in the Dragon Empires.

I alsways like my fantasy game worlds to have many different cultures because lets face it every land being like eruope is boring. So thanks to Paizo we get some nice info on an asian style continent and not just Japanes and Chinese ether. This book has interesting places such as a huge mountain range with a portal Leng, a steamy jungle with anciemt ruins build by 15ft tall lizard people, a kingdom run my a dragon, a land ruled Oni, an underdark with undead clockwork creatures and so much more. My only regret is we didn't get a big hardcover book for this (and the other continents) but maybe one day we will.