Overall this is a good solid offering, the biggest disappointment for me was in the value department. Much of this book seriously overlaps what is in the Gazetteer and almost all of the mechanical 'crunchy' bits do overlap. I expected a little bit more here.

I do recommend this product but suggest people choose whether they want the abridged version or the full version and buy either this or the Gazetteer.

This book is fantastic. Buy it. Now. If you regret it, well, sure, feeding your kids was more important, but aside from that, there's NO WAY you can regret this purchase. This is a true masterpiece, akin to Ed Greenwood's Old Grey Box Forgotten Realms set, and you will cherish this purchase for the years to come.

Now, when can we have Pathfinder novels by Ed Greenwood or Elaine Cunningham? Paizo high ups? are you paying attention here? :)

This book is fantastic. Buy it. Now. If you regret it, well, sure, feeding your kids was more important, but aside from that, there's NO WAY you can regret this purchase. This is a true masterpiece, akin to Ed Greenwood's Old Grey Box Forgotten Realms set, and you will cherish this purchase for the years to come.

Now, when can we have Pathfinder novels by Ed Greenwood or Elaine Cunningham? Paizo high ups? are you paying attention here? :)

Great lay-flat binding. Beautiful book on the outside. Iconics for classes are stunning. A couple of the ethnic portraits were below what I expect from Paizo.

I thought this book was a very sincere effort to honor the best of what has come before. It included tributes to what came first.

Next, the heart of many long-running games is in the heart and soul that the DMs have put into their own settings. This was also a worthy inclusion, although it understandably made a couple of regions seemed sort of Ravenloft pockets.

Also, I thought the product was well-timed. I am a new arrival and do not have the products mentioned by another reviewer.

Finally, as far as the accusation about being thin on material, I can't help but remember the paper stapled booklets from Lake Geneva -- just like those brown books that my mom thought were a rip-off price, this is a good start even at the premium price.

The world of Golarion is a jigsaw of different genres, co-existing, and influencing each other. It has a delicious variety of settings on offer, which allow almost any type of campaign. The talent that was tapped for this product are a who's who of most of the best designers to ever work on D&D. The book gives you tools to make Golarion come alive. Almost every paragraph sparks the imagination. I could scarcely read a page without daydreaming about what I had read, and planning campaigns about it. It is a testament to the quality of the product, that I cannot think of a favourite region. Every two page spread had enough hooks and ideas for a year or two of gaming.

This is by far the best concieved fantasy world I have read yet. It is more dynamic than any other IP I can think of. I think it is richer than Star Wars, More colourful than the Forgotten Realms, More fun than Eberron, Gritter and wilder than Greyhawk, and the extraplanar cosmology opens things up more than the old Great Wheel did, making the relationships between different planes seem much more dynamic. the rethinking of the elemental planes, and the Onion Cosmology, is like a shot in the arm. It is as well wrought as the AD&D manual of the planes, and the third edition MoP too.

The layout is perfect. Chapters are well placed. Each region has a two, or four, page spread, which makes it very easy to find exactly what one is looking for, in a session.

My only complaint is, however, a serious one. Paizo stretched its staff too far on the editing front. It was a prodigous effort for them to get this printed on time, and a lot of spelling errors got in. The poster map itself, was labelled: "The Inner Sea Reigon"

I believe that there will be a reprint of this book next year, with Pathfinder RPG crunch in place of the 3.5 crunch. Charles Evans 25 has done a fantastic job of collating the errors in this book, for correction in the next printing. I will happily buy it again.

This is excellent stuff right here, folks.

This book embodies the thing I love most about Paizo products; the readability. I've had this book for a month and I've referred to it numerous times and read it through twice, so it's one of very few setting books available that are as good for entertainment as they are for reference (indeed it's the only substantial setting book I've come across that I've read from cover to cover without skimming or skipping anything). Everywhere feels familiar, with places covering virtually every genre trope you can think of, plus plenty of obvious real-life and historical influences, but the details and plot-hooks showcase some incredibly fresh and imaginative work. For a book with so many contributors it also reads very consistently which speaks to the quality of the editing.

Every section has enough information to give you a solid feel for the subject, but the information is also drawn in quite broad brush-strokes and leaves a lot of questions unanswered. This is ideal for me as I find this really sparks the imagination gives lots of room to put in your own ideas, and means you don't get bogged down in the minutiae that can really kill how enjoyable an article is to read. Obviously though, this also means that if you're looking for a setting with the depth of Faerun, with every major NPC, event and small town described in detail, this book isn't really going to do it for you. Best to look again in a few years when the setting has really started to fill out.

It is pricey, but the amount of information packed in is far more than the page count implies (impressive as there's no compromise in layout, art or font legibility). If the price tag is too much, then I'd recommend the Gazetteer, as the information in both books is fairly similar.

My only real complain is the number of minor errors and typos, probably inevitable due to the Gen Con rush sadly. They don't detract too much though, and they're certainly not bad enough to justify dropping a star.

I've been looking forward to this for a long time. I've been a fan and consumer of Paizo products for years, and have been delighted at all the Pathfinder products thus far.

But for the first time, I feel like I've wasted my money.

When the Gazetteer came out, I bought it. Compared to other campaign setting books, I thought it was rather interesting but also underdeveloped, both in terms of the pantheon and the actual nations. However, I assumed that the actual full Campaign Setting book would fill in the spaces and weak spots.

It didn't.

There is hardly anything of real value besides the Cosmology section that is in the CS hardcover that isn't in the Gazetteer. One costs 14, and the other cost me 50+ dollars. Take a guess which was which.

If I hadn't bought the Gazetteer, I guess I wouldn't seem so cheated. Or maybe if I hadn't been holding Golarion to the same standard as Faerun, I wouldn't be so disappointed.

I was hoping for greater development of the nations -honestly, an average of 2-3 settlements or sites is not enough for each nation.

Moreover, the size of some of the lesser nations' settlements are very small. With many of the lesser nations having their largest settlements only have 5-10K populations, the cieling is being set pretty low, and doesn't leave much room for growth later -growth that is definitely needed.

The concepts behind the nations are good and interesting, but the development of the cities and locations within them are lacking. While this is certainly understanding to a point, the lack of development is beyond that.

Very sad... especially when I was hoping for so much more.

I hate to say it, but the smarter buy is the Gazeteer and then wait for the Great Beyond product to come out. You'll spend less and get more and not miss anything of signifance (including art!).

Sorry Paizo -I'm a big fan and devoted supporter, but you failed me on this one.

When you ask people to pay 50

The Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting is in the region of 250 pages long, has chapters headed ‘Characters’, ‘The Inner sea’, ‘Religion’, ‘Organizations’, and ‘The World’- plus a brief forward, appendices, and an index besides. It features a colour map of a sizeable portion of one continent, colour illustrations on many of the pages (some illustrations such as the human racial subtypes ‘iconics’ are recognisable as being shared with its partner product, the Gazetteer), and is printed on high quality paper. Whilst being easy on the eye it contains a good deal of general information, leaving specifics (and dozens of ideas which invite development) for DMs to fill in to suit their own purposes/campaigns. True, the (first) edition available at the time of this review (August 2008) features occasional typing errors and some rather humorous 'map lines moved' mistakes, but the overall standard of the work is otherwise very high.
The price is steep, but the quality of the work is good; this is a luxury item for DMs, with a price-tag to match…
Five stars.

More detail than most players will ask you for and then some. The Nations of the inner sea and the races sections have so much information to set your head spinning. Good background on religion, organizations, and I was blown away when I saw the forty something pages on the world. A must have for anyone gaming in the world of Golarion.