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Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Taldor, the First Empire (PFRPG)

3.40/5 (based on 5 ratings)
Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Taldor, the First Empire (PFRPG)
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Taldor Endures!

The first—and at one point, largest—empire in Avistan after devastation of Earthfall, Taldor has stood for millennia, and though its neighboring nations snicker at its lavish parties and out-of-touch nobility, none dare challenge the mother empire's might! With 6 millennia of history spanning the breadth of a continent, Taldor is a land of long-buried secrets and ruins, partnered with modern cutthroat dramas and political action. Secrets and treasure abound across Taldor—many forgotten, but far more deliberately buried. Will you fight to preserve the glorious traditions of the past, or will you pave the way for a reformed Taldor to attain new heights?

Taldor is the dynamic setting for the War for the Crown Adventure Path, making this comprehensive guide to the nation's geography, politics, and history a perfect resource for that campaign, as well as for many Pathfinder Module adventures! Inside this book you'll find:

  • A thorough gazetteer of Taldor's major prefectures and provinces, including details on the reigning nobles of each and over 70 points of interest across the nation, from Antios's Crown and its endless royal necropolis to the militarized city of Zimar.
  • An overview of Taldor's government, foreign relationships, and society.
  • Nearly a dozen adventure sites tied to Taldor's past glories and modern decay, from ruined cities to lost valleys of the dead.
  • Nine new monsters perfectly adapted to life in Taldor, including the corrupting giniver, perfectly suited to hiding in plain sight, and testaments to noble excess such as the titanboar and the blood-bathing baetriov.

Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Taldor, The First Empire is intended for use with the Pathfinder campaign setting, but it can be easily adapted to any fantasy world.

ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-999-8

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

Hero Lab Online
Archives of Nethys

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

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Taldar Land of Intrigue

4/5 —

Not one of my first choices(or second, third, etc.) but still a good read none the less.

Gives Taldor enough Detail to be Playable

4/5 —

I wrote a lengthy review that the website ate and I don't have the energy to redo it.

The short version is that previously published Taldor material was thin to the point that to set a game in Taldor you would have to basically create the nation from scratch. This book fixes that problem. If you want to run a game in Taldor it is essential, if you want to run a game in the Inner Sea where the PCs can go to Taldor it is very useful.

Glorious!

5/5 —

This book is rich with culture, history and geography! this reads like a novel, and I find every page containing interesting trivia and long awaited answers to my most Taldane of questions!

The Golden Age of Taldor map is brilliant, and we also get a full timeline for Taldor. Interactions with other cultures is discussed, and a section on religion give us hints on who is considered to be the true 'Taldan Pantheon' (with a satisfying nod to Aroden and its 'arcane' clerics... must... build... one... :) )

The map of Taldor and its prefectures will also become an invaluable tool to any GM running a game set there, which only further aggrandizes its sister achievement and masterpiece: a full geographical section on each prefecture of Taldor, as well as supplementaty information on the provinces (apparently in Taldor, both Bill and Hillary bow to the elephant cavalry!). This section is, for the lack of a better word, a veritable tour-de-force!

Then we have a section on various sites within the Empire, and the coolest harpy cleric of Groetus I've ever seen (when she told you she'd give you the moon she wasn't kidding gents!) This section is a great idea generator for GMs wishing to run their own campaigns or supplement published Taldor-based adventures with a spiffy sidequest or two...

At the end we have a small bestiary which will allow druids and rangers to proudly call their next pet 'titanboar' or 'fading fox' or 'emperor stag'. Selective breeding is a thing in Taldor, and not only for their horses, but for their game too! but for the rest of the bestiary I'll stay silent so as not to spoil that most excellent new bathrobe wearing undead. 'New bathrobe'-wearing undead; or new 'bathrobe-wearing undead', as in new undead? hmmm... hmmm.... who can tell? [/goldblum mode]

Taldor deserved a lore-only book like this. Your mechanical queries can be addressed by the dozens of books preceding this one, but the knowledge gained within these pages will turn the most bland barbarian into a hardcore or unchained Ulfen devotee of the Lion Throne!

Taldor is Avistan.

Mixed bag.

3/5 —

Lots of flavor. Lots of geography. Not much substance. If you are running a game in Taldor, it's probably a good idea to get this book.

The bestiary in the back feels out of place. IMO use that space to talk about the specifics of Taldor nobility.

There are no mechanics in this book (save the bestiary), which makes it feel out of place IMO. A lot of Campaign Setting books have mechanics in them these days.

Bit of an odd duck. 3 out of 5 stars.

Disappointed

1/5 —

I was really hyped to hear one of my favorite locales on Golarion was getting revisited. After all it had been more than 8 years since Taldor was explored and given the new 68 page format of the country sourcebooks I assumed many details could be explored.

Unfortunately this book did not impress me at all. It was lackluster and pretty bland, no wow, no pizzazz. It did not inspire any additional interest in Taldor.

The book is divided into four parts so Ill briefly talk about each of them without giving too much away.

Life in Taldor – The first section details a history of the people of Taldor and lightly touches on the nobility and titles of Taldor. I was especially disappointed in this. Nobility and titles in Taldor are a cornerstone of this nation, something that make it distinctive in character from other nations, a highlight of that nation and yet the titles section was given a half-page description of generic noble titles, many titles previously describe we not even written about or mentioned.

The history of its Imperial house was non-existent, there was no list of Grand Princes, nothing descriptive of noble houses. I mean at this point I don’t know the name of the imperial house of Taldor because it remained as skeletal in description as what is found in the Inner Sea Guide. There was just nothing.

Gone was any mention of The Bearded as the ruling social class as it was ret-conned and minimized like the banning of Sarenrae. It fails to detail any of the more than 50 Grand Duchies and their locations other than 12 that correspond with the primary prefectures that it states are in the Empire.

The history section is mainly a descriptive rehash of events that have been already covered in other books, there were very few new events detailed within. More could have been included for an empire that is six thousand years old. The description of the Taldan people was literally two paragraphs long and the other two pages spent on the topic were on Chelaxans, Andorans and other surrounding nations and races.

Gazetteer – The Gazetteer generally does a good job at describing the twelve main prefectures of Taldor and it adds some details, new cities and locales and personalities. One of my favorite parts was some details on the ruling nobles of the prefectures. The cities described were mainly just that descriptions – there were no details on population, racial make-up, no flavoring whatsoever.

Adventures in Taldor - This part is a good but brief description of some key locales within Taldor. Each locale is given a one page description, with details and major NPC descriptions which is probably enough to get a GM to build his own adventures around.

Bestiary – This part is really unnecessary and should have been relegated to the upcoming AP. The monsters are lackluster. Taldor is supposed to be an Empire that tamed its heartland so the real monsters should be the humans within. But the book doesn’t do much in that aspect.

There is no mention of the lands directly to the east of the empire. How they may have affected the empire or anything. The updated map was pretty good I did like that they included some locals from the novels and pathfinder scenarios, except that Yanmass still has two locations in previous maps - one next to the river and another away from it. Even the novel Shy Knives have it located near the river. So I am not sure if Yanmass is a port city or a city in the center of the plains.

Overall this book is a huge disappointment for a nation whose ruling class is supposed to be a distinctive feature that is supposed to add to the character of Taldor. Yet it does very little to fill that gap, it leaves Taldor feeling generic and boring.

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Community & Digital Content Director
5 people marked this as a favorite.

Announced for December! Image and description are provisional and subject to change prior to release.
1 person marked this as a favorite.

I have been waiting a long time for this.
1 person marked this as a favorite.

Sweet! I love seeing more of Taldor. The first one was good but I REALLY want to learn more about this place. :)
1 person marked this as a favorite.

Yes!
Silver Crusade
1 person marked this as a favorite.

Nice! I wonder if this one will have a single author too?

Awesome! One more place off my wish list! Hopefully I'll get to see everything else before I take a dirt nap.
1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

Finally.

Dot

Ok...

I'm buying this. Don't disappoint me!!!

:P

Awesome. Can't wait to learn more about Taldor.

I'm thinking of having a Taldoran nobleman as a future campaign villain. He's an imperialist/nationalist wants to take over the empire and restore it to it's former glory; principally by conquering Taldor's neighbors like Galt, Andoran, and especially Qadira. How many people in Taldor support his aims, how great is the scope of his organization, and what kind of magic power or strange allies does he have at his disposal?

Those are questions I still need to answer; but hopefully this book should help me understand Taldor a lot better.
Silver Crusade
3 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I'm super curious as to the author(s) and which creative direction Taldor went.

It's good to see that Taldor is finally getting some attention in the campaign setting line. Be interesting to see just what the 'feel' of it is. I always thought it felt like a cross between the Holy Roman Empire and Byzantium.
Dark Archive
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Not surprised. Interesting to see how it turns out.

Interesting. Now all I need is a CS for Absalom and Kyonin and all my favorite lands would be covered in the line.
Dark Archive

Glad to see the Taldor campaign setting book appearing. That covers all of the major Inner Sea nations from my floating list of places I thought most-needed gazetteer books. Looks like I'll have to come up with a new list of places I'd like to see / think need the coverage.

SO looking forward to this! Empires are a totally different adventure zone than a lot of areas we've seen, and long histories get my creative juices going.
Gorbacz wrote:
I'm super curious as to the author(s) and which creative direction Taldor went.

Me too. This is the campaign setting book I've anticipated the most since the early days of Pathfinder. Great Christmas present. :)

Hells, yes! Taldor shall rise again!
Sovereign Court
3 people marked this as a favorite.

It's about time that Taldor gets the recognition that it deserves. Those silly children in Andoran get a book before us? The shame!
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Obviously, I caused this to happen by ordering the old one, thinking "Who knows when they'll get to doing a new one?"

*what's that, these are planned much more in advance than that? Psh*

Vhat?! Vhat is da meaning of dis?! Another Campaign Setting to purchase!

And what a grand book it was, TBC. Hope this one is up to the challenge!

I mostly wonder when they will update the cover art.
Paizo Employee Developer
20 people marked this as a favorite.

For those wondering who's writing this one:

Spoiler:
It's me, Wario!

And while I wanted very much to write the entire book, cover to cover, I didn't quite have the bandwidth in the allotted time, given a smattering of Pathfinder and Starfinder support material that was already on my plate. So the bestiary entries in this will be written by another author, but the bulk of the book is me.

Sorry I didn't have better news to reveal. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Silver Crusade
Mark Moreland wrote:

For those wondering who's writing this one:

** spoiler omitted **

Sorry I didn't have better news to reveal. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

What? That is good news!

I hope you had fun writing it ^w^
Jon Brazer Enterprises

Ohhhh. Shineeeeey.
Mark Moreland wrote:

For those wondering who's writing this one:

** spoiler omitted **

Sorry I didn't have better news to reveal. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Good. I trust you to do it right!

ITS ABOUT TIME!

I thought this was never coming out I had to make my own book.

So glad this is happening.
Dark Archive
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Wonder if we get a taste of the elaborate titles that go about?
Paizo Employee Developer
5 people marked this as a favorite.
DeciusNero wrote:
Wonder if we get a taste of the elaborate titles that go about?

Worry not.

Shadow Lodge
1 person marked this as a favorite.

About f$#&ing time.

Please don't screw this one up.
1 person marked this as a favorite.
Mark Moreland wrote:

For those wondering who's writing this one:

** spoiler omitted **

Sorry I didn't have better news to reveal. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

All will be forgiven when the Taldor AP is announced for early 2018. :)

Paizo Employee Developer
4 people marked this as a favorite.
Steve Geddes wrote:
Mark Moreland wrote:

For those wondering who's writing this one:

** spoiler omitted **

Sorry I didn't have better news to reveal. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

All will be forgiven when the Taldor AP is announced for early 2018. :)

Well crap

Mark Moreland wrote:
Steve Geddes wrote:
Mark Moreland wrote:

For those wondering who's writing this one:

** spoiler omitted **

Sorry I didn't have better news to reveal. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

All will be forgiven when the Taldor AP is announced for early 2018. :)
Well crap

There are many paths to forgiveness. The book being awesome will do me. (So no worries there, I'm sure). :)

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Hey Mark, where you able to settle the dispute between James and (I forgot the name of the developer here) about the desired path of Taldor between Commoner's taking up revolution or a group of nobles establishing a new movement of restoration? has that been decided or is it still in the air?
Paizo Employee Developer
zergtitan wrote:
Hey Mark, where you able to settle the dispute between James and (I forgot the name of the developer here) about the desired path of Taldor between Commoner's taking up revolution or a group of nobles establishing a new movement of restoration? has that been decided or is it still in the air?

I'm not really sure what you're referring to, but the book is going to detail Taldor's history and present day. What happens in its future is largely up to the actions of PCs.

Dark Archive

about damn time
Dark Archive
3 people marked this as a favorite.

Finally the last of the old 3.5 Players Companions get´s a Campaign Setting book!

We now have 12 out of 24 nations in Avistan (50%):

-Andoran
-Cheliax
-Hold of Belkzen
-Irrisen
-Land of the Linnorm Kings
-Molthune
-Nirmathas
-Numeria
-River Kingdoms
-Taldor
-Ustalav
-The Worldwound

Still missing are another dozen:
-Brevoy
-Druma
-Five King Mountains
-Galt
-Isger
-Kyonin
-Lastwall
-Mendev
-Nidal
-Razmiran
-Realm of the Mammoth Lords
-Varisia
1 person marked this as a favorite.

The Five King Mountains, Kyonin, and Realm of the Mammoth Lords would be interesting.
Dark Archive
1 person marked this as a favorite.

My alltime-favorite is Varisia.

But i agree about elf and dwarve nations being interesting.

Also Brevoy and Nidal need to be done.

I'd love to see books Brevoy, Galt, and Razmiran.

Mammoth Lords! Mammoth Lords! Mammoth Lords!!!

(With obligatory Darklands tie-in!)
1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Hmm, I think Nidal is the only one of those I'd really be interested in a book on, but that's just me personally...
Silver Crusade
2 people marked this as a favorite.

I'd like a Nidal book too :3
2 people marked this as a favorite.

I'd like a Druma book.
I need a list of the 10 richest folk so I know who to rob.
Silver Crusade

Dragons
3 people marked this as a favorite.

Did somebody say "GALT!!!!!!!!"
Paizo Employee Pathfinder Society Lead Developer
7 people marked this as a favorite.

Okay, let's consider migrating the other book topic ideas to this wishlist thread or start a thread dedicated to voicing support for a particular subject. This should really be for Taldor talk. What else would you like to see in this book?
1 person marked this as a favorite.
John Compton wrote:
What else would you like to see in this book?

How about confirmation on how Taldor feels about Sarenrae? There has been conflicting information in the past.

Liberty's Edge
2 people marked this as a favorite.

Probably because the country isn't a hivemind. No doubt some feel like A and others feel like B.

-Brevoy
-Druma

These are my first two choices for the not yet done books.

As for the Taldor book, any idea on the percentage of crunch vs flavour?

Bestiary entries? Prestige classes? Feats?

As for what I would like to see in this book...maybe info on the state of Taldor as a world power and its relationship to other countries? And something unexpected. :)
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