It's time to leave familiar climes and tour the wider world! While most Pathfinder characters hail from the Inner Sea region, there are many other continents and societies out there just waiting to be explored. Within this book, you'll find detailed discussions of six major trade cities found on the distant corners of Golarion, complete with full-page maps and information on the resident cultures and traditions, adventure sites, new gods, magic and fighting styles, and more, plus rules to help you add local flavor and abilities to your characters. Face your destiny with a cyclopean myth-speaking, study the mysteries of the Iridian Fold, or hone your magic at the House of Green Mothers—there's a whole world at your fingertips!
Cities detailed in this book include:
Aelyosos, City of Tides and westernmost port in the archipelago of Iblydos, whose half-flooded streets are guarded by cyclops prophets and mighty hero-gods.
Anuli, City of New Beginnings and ancient gateway between the Inner Sea and southern Garund, where divine matriarchs rule with the mandate of Heaven.
Dhucharg, City of Conquest, whose militant hobgoblin generals won't be satisfied until their armies overrun all Tian Xia.
Radripal, City of Arches in the Impossible Kingdoms of Vudra, where priests travel the holy Matra River and rakshasas rule through fear and silver.
Segada, the fabled City of Keys in isolated Arcadia, whose mountaintop walls keep foreign colonists on the Grinding Coast from expanding into the continent's mysterious interior.
Ular Kel, Caravan City and Jewel of the Steppe, where Water Lords and nomadic horse tribes rule over massive trade routes that cut through the Grass Sea of central Casmaron.
Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Distant Shores is intended for use with the Pathfinder campaign setting, but can be easily adapted to any fantasy world.
ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-787-1
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I'm a simple woman; I'm methodically going through Paizo's back catalog and snapping up everything that takes us beyond the Inner Sea region, especially Arcadia. Diverse fantasy is a joy, and Pathfinder is quite good at it - more, please!
Weird way to start a five star review, but there you have it. The reason why I say so is because this book has six great, wonderful, inspiring cities that I desperately want to adventure in, but nothing about their surroundings. So there are a few ways you can use this material: A DM that loves to worldbuild and has the time to do so, can flesh out the nation around the city, thus allowing a campaign to take place there. You could teleport-travel to the cities from afar, from areas better detailed, and then teleport back. You could run the campaign entirely inside the city -- perhaps something like transplanting Hell's Rebels to a revolution in the hobgoblin city of Dhucharg. You could have characters conventionally travel to these cities from nearby areas, but handwave/vague/skim the actual journeys. These are some ideas for how you could use these cities. But it is really important to be aware of this when considering buying this book: they are wonderfully fleshed out cities in the middle of a lot of blank white map. Personally, I don't take off a star because of that, but you might, so that's why I want to be really clear about that aspect of the product.
Having gotten that out of the way, let's move on to the content itself. Now, this is six cities, ten pages each. Each has a one-page top-down map for layout, and each has an amazingly evocative two-page wide panoramic shot for atmosphere. Additional graphics include 2-3 full-body NPC shots per city to show important personages or typical inhabitants. Each city has a settlement block (of course), and some new crunch/mechanics. The pseudo-Greek city (Aelyosos) has three new weapons, three new mythic path abilities and two new deities. The pseudo-African city (Anuli) has a new player race (Ganzi, which is to Chaotic as Aasimar is to Good or Tiefling is to Evil), seven new traits and one deity. And so on. The rest of the page count is rounded out by gazetteers of important locations, NPCs, customs and other such flavor material.
The six cities detailed are: Aelyosos (pseudo-Greek, with Mythic Adventures flavor), Anuli (pseudo-African, matriarchal), Dhucharg (pseudo-Japanese, hobgoblin-dominated military-flavored), Radripal (pseudo-Indian, with rakshasa intrigue), Segada (pseudo-Amerind, trade hub and entrance into Arcadia) and Ular Kel (pseudo-Mongol steppe city).
I'm biased because I'm a huge, huge, massive fan of all settings and environments that break away from the traditional Western European fantasy fare, so this product is tailor made for me. It's like getting to travel the world for twenty bucks. This is easily within my top five Pathfinder supplements, and if you're similarly interested in "off the beaten path" cultures and settings, I couldn't recommend Distant Shores more.
Having said that, if your campaign doesn't travel a lot, you're not likely to see a lot of use for this book. Some of the crunch can be brought abroad (like the ganzi player race, for instance) and maybe you want to make a character that has backstory in one of these cities. But this book is very situational. You'll want to think about whether you will have a use for it.
My rating is based on taking the book for what it is, and having a use for the niche it fills. As long as you have a campaign where travel is welcome, this book is a five star product.
I always love seeing far-off lands of campaign settings described in greater detail. Not only does it give other real-world peoples some much-needed representation, it provides a welcome change of pace from the standard European-based cultures that make up the bulk of so many fantasy worlds. Distant Shores provides a tantalising look at the vast diversity that exists in Golarion. While I know that time and resources make it difficult to fully describe everywhere in the world, I hope that Distant Shores is only the first of several books that will one day explore numerous other regions of Golarion.
A lot of the points have already been hit in previous reviews of this product, so this will be somewhat brief and hopefully to the point.
Each one of these locations feels a little bit 'clunky' at first read, but when reading for content, and weighing the possibilities of each one of these cities as a 'starting point' for a campaign or world setting, the true genius of each of their designs becomes readily apparent.
They work right now really well for home campaigns, even.
I can't wait to see a further expansion of Holomog and the nations around it, or Ducharg and how the hobgoblins keep from completely falling apart beyond the capital, or Arcadia and how this unknown continent has been both years ahead and behind of Avistan.
With the introduction of Iblydos Vudra, and Casmaron as viable settings as well, suddenly the world of Golarion feels both a slight bit smaller and a *lot* larger.
There are a few limitations to such an offering, but they do not detract from the value of this volume, and I would recommend it to anyone seeking to branch out from Tian Xia or the Inner Sea Region!
I really enjoyed this book providing information on never before explored corners of Golarion. It provides enough info to build a campaign arc in each location, and each is unique and interesting in its own way. Highly recommended for GMs wanting to spread out to something new for a bit.
I wouldn't expect that in this product unless Segada is an extremely cosmopolitan city.
Likewise I don't expect every Casmaron ethnicity to be covered, because Ular-Kel is just one city in a remote part of Casmaron.
If we know nothing of the different nations or even geography of Avistan, why start detailing ethnicities?
Heck, we still know practically nothing about most of Tian Xia and it's ethnicities and nations, why add more?
Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
I am not execting a complete list, but if Segada is in such a key location, at least a couple of different Arcadian subgroups should be mentioned. At the very least, there would be a significant cultural difference between the Arcadians who live east of the mountains and deal with the Avistani colonists and the ones who live west of the mountains and are protected from them by Segada -- and those two groups, at least, would meet in Segada.
From the office of expectation management: Arcadian ethnicities are mentioned and name dropped, but there are no mechanics included in the book for Arcadian ethnicities.
From the office of expectation management: Arcadian ethnicities are mentioned and name dropped, but there are no mechanics included in the book for Arcadian ethnicities.
I'm beginning to think that Paizo really has such an office in their corporate HQ.
And I'm picturing it like the Monty Python "Argument Clinic" sketch.
From the office of expectation management: Arcadian ethnicities are mentioned and name dropped, but there are no mechanics included in the book for Arcadian ethnicities.
I'm beginning to think that Paizo really has such an office in their corporate HQ.
And I'm picturing it like the Monty Python "Argument Clinic" sketch.
It's pretty much a developer/designer job duty. :)
It's something that's very important to me, because I see how upset people can be when they get something expecting content that we never said a product would contain, which is why I try to clarify products I'm responsible for without giving too much away.
From the office of expectation management: Arcadian ethnicities are mentioned and name dropped, but there are no mechanics included in the book for Arcadian ethnicities.
Very cool. Does the book mention new ethnicities from Casmaron or Southern Garund too?
It's something that's very important to me, because I see how upset people can be when they get something expecting content that we never said a product would contain, which is why I try to clarify products I'm responsible for without giving too much away.
It has been very very appreciated. I would've been livid about several products if Dept of EM hadn't done an excellent job.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Quandary wrote:
I wouldn't expect that in this product unless Segada is an extremely cosmopolitan city.
Likewise I don't expect every Casmaron ethnicity to be covered, because Ular-Kel is just one city in a remote part of Casmaron.
If we know nothing of the different nations or even geography of Avistan, why start detailing ethnicities?
Heck, we still know practically nothing about most of Tian Xia and it's ethnicities and nations, why add more?
Since there are 3 Casmaron cities in the book, I expect we will at least get the names of the main ethnicities in that area. Of course, we already know 2 (Kelishite and Vudrani) of them.
Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Adam Daigle wrote:
Cthulhudrew wrote:
Adam Daigle wrote:
From the office of expectation management: Arcadian ethnicities are mentioned and name dropped, but there are no mechanics included in the book for Arcadian ethnicities.
I'm beginning to think that Paizo really has such an office in their corporate HQ.
And I'm picturing it like the Monty Python "Argument Clinic" sketch.
It's pretty much a developer/designer job duty. :)
It's something that's very important to me, because I see how upset people can be when they get something expecting content that we never said a product would contain, which is why I try to clarify products I'm responsible for without giving too much away.
The more little tidbits that are revealed, the more excited I get about this product! Congradulations for once again making me drool over something not even out yet.
It's something that's very important to me, because I see how upset people can be when they get something expecting content that we never said a product would contain, which is why I try to clarify products I'm responsible for without giving too much away.
I think the Internet should have such a department.
I actually like the final cover. Not too many products have had rakshasa on them, and the Indian/Kung-Fu mashup is very Golarion. I'm looking forward to this book!
And just like that this book is a must-have for me! Cheers! :D
I really hope the new race is playable in most campaigns mechanics-wise. Occult Bestiary disappointed me in that regard and I will admit, left me a little salty. :P
The last two years for PFS GM boons - we've had Ifrits, Undine, Oreads and Sylphs, and we could voltron them together to get a suli boon.
This year so far we've had an Aasimar. My prediction is that we'll get Tieflings, then a chaotic-based and a lawful-based native outsider, and voltron them together to get an aeon-based native outsider.
Looking forward to people starting to get the book. I'm really proud of our whole operation on this one—I think everybody involved threw in some extra love. :) And the opening art pieces are some of my favorite art of the year!
Looking forward to people starting to get the book. I'm really proud of our whole operation on this one—I think everybody involved threw in some extra love. :) And the opening art pieces are some of my favorite art of the year!
Looking forward to people starting to get the book. I'm really proud of our whole operation on this one—I think everybody involved threw in some extra love. :) And the opening art pieces are some of my favorite art of the year!
I have very strong feels about this book.
It's a very nice book on a whole number of levels. :)
And yeah, I want to play a ganzi character in PFS if it becomes PFS legal. :D
Looking forward to people starting to get the book. I'm really proud of our whole operation on this one—I think everybody involved threw in some extra love. :) And the opening art pieces are some of my favorite art of the year!
OK, let me try to detail a few things, rules-wise.
Aelyosos:
We get two Mythic Hero-gods detailed, including Alignment/Race/Class/Tiers for them, and a few new Mythic path abilities.
Kelksiomedes, NG Human Druid 16/Marshall 5 Hero-god of gardens, orchards, and terraces; Good and Plant domains
Psomeria, LN Human Skald 13/Champion 6, Hero-goddess of seasons and spears; Law, War, and Weather domains, though no more than 8th level spells.
Anuli:
We get the Ganzi race, and the minor goddess Mazludeh, NG goddess of balance, community, negotiation, and twilight. Artifice, Community, Good, and Knowledge domains.
Kaoling:
We get the Order of the Eclipse for Samurai, and the Oni-Kin template to cover half-Hobgoblin, half-Ja Noi Oni.
Radripal':
We get the following (minor, only 4 domains) deities:
Ashukharma, CN goddess of canyons, cliffs, gorges and ravines (Chaos, Earth, Protection, Strength)
Matravash, LN goddess of the Matra river (Community, Law, Travel, Water)
Omrataji, NG god of silver, silverwork, and silver mining (Artifice, Earth, Good, Nobility)
Segada is surprisingly developed and "modern" for what I had expected out of Arcadia.
As for Ular Kel, it's probably a mish-mash. I don't really know enough about central Asian civilizations to really give a good opinion on it.
Just the one, but no two Ganzi look alike. Mostly human with one or two unusual physical qualities, slowly shifting patterns of birthmarks, or odd scales, feathers, or needle-like teeth, or brightly colored hair that slowly shifts between colors over a period of a few weeks, for example.
Now that we have Protean-spawned Ganzi, I bet we'll be getting an Axiomite or Inevitable-derived race soon. Since Proteans are the opposite of Inevitables a lot of people will probably start asking Paizo for it. After all, there must be symmetry. There must be order.
Pathfinder LO Special Edition, Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, PF Special Edition Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber
"Voltron" is not in my dictionary. What does it mean? Whence comes it?