Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Tombs of Golarion (PFRPG)

Tombs of Golarion presents six fully-fleshed out adventure sites featuring lost, buried, or otherwise hard to access complexes. Each of the sites gets ten pages of coverage in the book, broken down into sections like "History", "Description", a room-by-room overview, adventure hooks, and then some new gameplay elements like magic items, new monsters or NPC stat blocks, and so forth. The great part is that everything a GM needs to run an adventure is in one place (unlike some earlier books that required GMs to populate maps with monsters and treasure themselves). The book features quality interior artwork and clear (though not beautiful) maps. The inside front and back covers are capsule descriptions of the six tombs covered in the book, and I'll summarise each of them below. But before that, I have to give a shout-out to the two-page preface, written in-character from a member of the Aspis Consortium, that features brief notes of other sites of interest not covered in the book. It's really fun to see something written from the Aspis point of view instead of all that goody-goody Pathfinder Society nonsense!

CAIRN OF ATTAI HORSE-SPEAKER

This is the tomb of a Kellid chieftan named Attai Horse-Speaker who died a good ten thousand years ago! Existing now as a wight, there's a backstory involving a nereid wanting her shawl back and a lot of interesting story detail throughout, though I imagine much of it would be hard to convey to PCs. I'd peg the adventure as around CR 9 or 10, and the chapter includes a lot of good adventure hooks to start things off. New additions include a magic item called the horse-speaker's saddle (allowing communication and even the magical awakening of animals) and a new monster named an equine bone golem. Overall, it's a solid adventure site.

CLOCKWORK VAULT

This is a really cool vault that doesn't have an undead theme. Instead, it's the burial vault of a clockwork genius in Rahadoum who died hoping that someday his descendants would carry on his work--if they proved themselves worthy by solving his tests and riddles. The map is pretty neat (it carries on the clockwork theme), and the setting is original. It's probably around CR 6, and perfect for players who are into problem-solving challenges. Three new/variant monsters are introduced: Golden Defenders, Mechanical Efreeti, and a Toy Golem (awesome pic!). I could definitely see using this tomb in a campaign.

EVERFORGE

This tomb has an awesome backstory. Under a dwarven sky citadel named Kravenkus lies an ancient temple to Magrim, the dwarven god of the underworld. The temple holds an incredible artifact called Soulforge, which allows petitioners in the afterworld speedy judgment by Pharasma and a place in Magrim's afterlife. But now, the temple is infested by duergar seeking to corrupt Soulforge to serve Droskar, the evil dwarven god of mirthless toil. The tomb is, in a sheer geographic sense, *huge*. I don't know how many flip-mats it would take to draw it all, but I'd estimate at least four or five of the bigger-sized ones. I'd suggest it for PCs around Level 12 or 13; there are some nasty traps inside. It's a great dungeon that could become the centrepiece of a mid to high level campaign.

GOLDEN OSSUARY

This is an original concept for a dungeon. The Golden Ossuary is a gold-covered boneyard for wealthy Kalistocrats in Druma. An annual lottery is held, giving adventurers 24 hours to loot as much as possible from the place! It's a fun idea, though it's too small to really take 24 hours for a group to cover exhaustively. I'd say it generally presents challenges around CR 10. A new monster, an animate hoard, is introduced (I would have done it as a swarm instead), and there's a new magic item (an ossuary mask) that's pretty forgettable.

PRISMATIC LANTERN

Another original concept, the Prismatic Lantern was a magical defence tower in Nex that had a cataclysmic explosion that someone connected it to a demiplane. Magic users will have a field day uncovering all the strange phenomenon within, though other PCs may find it a bit less interesting. This is probably for characters around levels 14 or 15. A new magic item is a force casket (designed to protect a corpse for eternity), and there are a couple of new constructs: a gravitic globe and a prismatic orrery (the latter of which is functionally an artifact if the user has the matching control rod).

TOMB OF THE NECROPHAGE

Man, you do not want to get captured by the creepy cultist cannibals (and their undead minions) that reside in the Tomb of the Necrophage! This is perhaps a more traditional adventure site than some of the others, but it's really good and quite gruesome. An interesting feature is that this tomb is in the Sodden Lands, so there are some partially- and wholly- submerged chambers. It's probably for characters around levels 7 or 8. The artwork for the juju zombie brute is nightmare-inducing.

Overall, Tombs of Golarion is a great package. It's easy for a GM in need to drop one of these locations into campaign, altering some backstory and details if necessary. I haven't really used the book yet, but it's something I'll keep in my back pocket for a rainy day when the PCs go off the beaten track and I need a well-crafted adventure site in a hurry.

In the past, the Campaign Setting line has taken a look at six individual sites - be they castles, cities, or mega dungeons - that could inspire whole campaigns. These products have also expanded on the lore of the Pathfinder Campaign Setting. While Tombs of Golarion accomplishes the latter, it fails pretty terribly at the former.

My main complaint is that, although the six tombs were interesting, they felt like set pieces more suited for the Module or Pathfinder Society Scenario line. Of the six selections, only the Prismatic Lantern feels beefy enough to build a greater adventure or even campaign around. The others are too self-contained and stunted to be anything more than throw-away sidequests.

Where Tombs does succeed is fleshing out some thus-far neglected regions of Golarion. The Golden Ossuary offers us a glimpse into the wealth-obsessed Kalistocrats of Druma, the Tomb of the Necrophage is a gruesome microcosm of the cannibalistic Koboto people, and the Prismatic Lantern proves once again that we need more information on the nation of Nex.

In summary, compared to the possibilities offered by Dungeons or Castles of Golarion, Tombs was a huge disappointment. On the other hand, if you're looking for a few story-rich sidequests with some interesting opponents, you could certainly do worse than this.

This book is a really a helper when you need some kind of crypt in hurry with a few maps, enemies, and puzzles thrown in. Not big enough to warrant an adventure module on their own, the tombs can easily fit in a sandbox game or an ongoing campaign. Quite like the mini adventures that used to be added to APs back when thy still were made for 3.5E.

THE GOOD:
The cover and the interior pictures are great.
3 locations in Avistan are shown on the inside front cover and 3 locations in Garund are shown on the inside back cover.
The dungeons are very diverse themed (fey, clockwork creatures, cultists, cannibals, undead).
The "animated hoard" is pretty cool.

THE BAD:
The maps are so simple - i could have drawn them in 5 minutes.
Just a few little square rooms connected by a few short rectangular corridors. In the case of the clockwork vault it´s just one big round room.
The monsters are very unimaginative - most are just "variant" or "advanced" editions of the base creatures from the bestiaries that differ very little from them, others have a few class levels.

THE UGLY:
What is a really cool concept is ruined by dungeons that are so simple that a 13 year old boy i know could have designed better.

Sadly this is the first underwhelming campain setting in years and that in a month when not much else (but the excellent Melee Tactics Toolbox)came out.