This is a great book for players looking for background info on Golarion. My full review is here: http://wp.me/p1WZ0v-77

No matter what style fantasy RPG you like, you will find a country that matches in this book. I love this book with a passion and I normally create my own worlds. Two big thumbs up :)

As far as setting overview books go, this is the best one yet for anywhere, in my opinion.

Most of all, the diverse amount of countries (and their own in a way crashing flavors) is bound together in a very organic way. I might not really enjoy having the Mana Wastes, Cheliax and Numeria show up in the same world - but here it works.

Art is amazing, every country section is inspiring in it's own way, it's well written and it's pretty much a must have if you play in Golarion. I've tried to find a fault with it, but I really can't...

im still on the fence for this setting it seems kind of all over the place and very high fantasy if you liked Forgotten Realms you will probably like this.

personal opinions aside i still run my games in the inner sea beacuse of the wealth of information and the availability of maps

The Inner Sea World Guide gives such an expanse of information that I had no clue what to do at first. I began reading the entire book, falling in love with different nations for different reasons. While I'm a big fan of GMing good aligned parties, I found so much fun in having the 'leader' of the group be from the devil empire of Cheliax. In fact, Cheliax became a major force in about every game we play now, along with Hellknights and other groups, such as the pathfinder society. Of course, after reading through the book three or four times, you wish you had expanded information on larger, more varied nations, such as Varisia, or the River Kingdoms. Perhaps my favorite part of this book is the history tab for each nation, which really adds to depth. The amount of information in this book has added a lot of fun to my games, and its become essential in all of the adventure modules I use from Paizo. No longer is my friend playing an elvish ranger, but a forlorn elvish ranger, who once met Aroden, a now dead god. This book opens up so many possibilities in character development, which I always see as the key to a great game. This is completely worth getting either the paper or digital copy.

The Inner Sea World Guide is one of my favorite game books and my absolute top favorite Golarion book for overall content, new content, design, and flat out beauty.

The book is masterpiece of content as each race, region, religion, and detail of the world is covered in decent enough detail that this book is the only truly essential book needed to run a campaign in Golarion. This book does not only give a starting place to place a game in this world, it gives a truly solid foundation.

New content includes fantastic artwork, new detail in maps, new, updated information in regions including previously unseen adventure hooks, a lot more detail on Gods, and updated pathfinder stats for firearms, prestige classes, feats, equipment, spells, and magic items. The book even had room for a bestiary!.
As far as the art, I was afraid this new world guide would just use previously used artwork; I was wrong as their is tons of artwork peppering the book including awesome images giving a glimpse at the feel of each region. Just being able to see the fashions of a certain region is worth the cost of the book.
To sum it up the Inner Sea world guide isn't just an update to the pathfinder system, it is an upgrade from an existing high quality book to one that puts every other campaign book I have ever read to complete shame. Paizo has raised the bar with the inner sea world guide; a bar that I know that their awesome team will be able to lift higher and higher. The sky is the limit!

So, while I do not own the 3.5 Pathfinder Campaign Setting, I've had chance to read through it. I purchased this new version from Amazon, and I must say the new book is far superior. The setup of pages is nicer, the material is more in depth, and I really didn't notice anything "missing" that I felt was mandatory from the original. The updates to the prestige classes kept the flavor but also made them more in tune with the Pathfinder rules changes. Also, I very much like that the Harrowing spell is detailed alongside the Harrower prestige class for those that don't have the Harrow Deck (which I do, but still)

Overall, I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone who likes the Golarion setting, even if I did own the 3.5 book myself, I would not feel bad to have purchased this new version.

About the only complaint I have though is that the Hermean Blood feat doesn't tell you anything about Hermea or where to find info on the region, nor does the index. I had to fully read nearly all of the regional description sections (Something I would have done eventually, just not in the sitting I Was looking at feats and was like "What is Hermea?") before I found it. A reference to the page # Hermea is on might be nice in an update for future printings.

Wow. Just finished reading cover to cover. There is so much information in this volume. It's truly an entire world in print. This may turn out to be one of my most referenced books for Pathfinder. From GMing to character creation there's more background, nations, factions and personalities that I'll never be without inspiration again.

The best thing about this suppliment, is it doesn't deal in knowledge the players should not know, so they can read it with the same dedication as the DM. It brings the world alive for them, and that is priceless. Check out my full review:The Inner Sea World Guide

3 years ago Paizo released the first edition of Pathfinder Campaign Setting. With the original book out of print, a new ruleset (PFRPG) and several ideas on how to refine the setting, the team lead by James Jacobs and Erik Mona set out to refine their tome of Golarion lore.

===PRESENTATION===

A solid sewn hardcover book with over 320 pages in full color. As usual, the artwork and layout is above and beyond. Paizo books have their unique art style, and it shows. There are several navigational aids, including a comprehensive index. The book is a pleasure to look at and use. Of special note is the cartography. Both the new global poster map and the individual country/are maps are great, crisp and clear. Rob Lazzaretti went above and beyond here. Bonus points with me: regional maps highlight the area described and "gray out" the surroundings, much like the Eberron maps.

===CONTENT===

The new Campaign Setting books offers a comprehensive look at the Inner Sea region of world called Golarion. Paizo's setting can be described as a nostalgia-infused "kitchen-sink" of historical, mythological and fantasy archetypes, mixed with several unique creations and sprinkled with some techno-fantasy and Lovecraftian bits. Despite the "one size fits all" mentality of designers who tried to fit as many classic genre tropes in one world - from Ravenloft-ish horror to Arabian Nights and everything in between - the world feels coherent, seamlessly joining elements which seem odd at the first glance, yet make perfect sense once you read about them. It's a setting for everyone, unique yet universal enough to encompass virtually every style of fantasy and reflecting all the classic historical periods.

Any reader well-versed in D&D settings will instantly notice Greyhawk vibes flowing from the book, as well as a dash of Planescape and few nods to other classic themes of the game. It's a setting of modern nostalgia, looking back to the history of D&D far enough to reach and take the best elements yet close enough to the modern day as to keep things fresh and interesting for a reader unfamiliar with the "old times".

The book opens with a chapter on races. What strikes here is the anthropocentrism - humans dominate the setting, and several human ethnicities are described. Demihuman races get their share, too - each "core" D&D race is described shortly. There's also mention on how the fan-favorite humanoid races, such as tieflings or drow, fit into the setting.

The next chapter is The Big One - Inner Sea, with 4-page description of each country/region. It opens up with a detailed timeline, and follows with a gazetteer on over 40 areas, each provided with a map and information on history, government and important locations. The chapter ends with a short glance on other continents of the setting (eg. the equivalents of Asia and Americas), followed by a quick description of forgotten/lost empires and areas.

Coming up next is the deities chapter. The 20 core gods of the setting are presented with short descriptions, along with quick write-ups on the minor deities. This chapter also describes the cosmology of the setting, a Great Wheel planar arrangement that borrows heavily from the rich history of D&D and the Planescape setting.

A chapter of the book which I particularly enjoyed is the next one, entitled Life. It contains information on time, climate, languages, society, trade, fauna, flora and technology of the setting. One very important part of it is the Society section, it lays down basic foundations on how prevalent magic is in the world, and how do the “power levels” of NPCs factor in. Those are very important design decisions, and I’m glad that they are described directly.

Coming up next is the Factions chapter, describing the most important organizations and groups such as Pathfinder Society or Hellknights. Nothing revolutionary here, just a solid read.

The Adventuring chapter contains the “crunch” for players and GM’s alike: prestige classes, feats, spells, equipment and magic items. Again, a standard fare for a campaign book, although I really love the Low Templar prestige class, both for the lore and crunch.

The final chapter, Monsters, presents a couple of setting-specific creatures. I must say that the choice is somewhat puzzling, I wouldn’t exactly call Aluum or Calikang iconic monsters of Golarion. I guess it’s because several such monsters already made their way into Bestiary 1 and Bestiary 2, and overlap wouldn’t be a good thing.

The book concludes with a handy index and a poster map. The map is a scaled-down version of the massive Inner Sea Map Folio, and does the job very well. Slightly too colorful for my tastes – I prefer the more subdued look, but then again colorful maps do a better job of showing where’s sand and where’s a swamp.

===CONCLUSION===

The team at Paizo took their old campaign settings and polished it, smoothed the rough edges, updated everything to the new rule set and packed it all in a truly gorgeous layout. For somebody who doesn’t have the first edition, I would recommend to buy this book now. Those who already have the old campaign setting should consider purchasing the hardcover or at least the very affordable PDF. It’s good enough to warrant replacing the first one, but your mileage may vary.