For one single source? That's probably your best bet, although its outdated.
Cheliax, obviously, has a write up in Inner Sea World guide which is a very good book. Cheliax also has a city, town and castle written up in respective Inner Sea books that could help with flavor and mood.
Or wait for 6 months; there will likely be a few related books with Hell's Rebels.
Council of Thieves
any tips?
I've played through CoT and it was a lot of fun, though I have seen suggestions that Book 4 Infernal Syndrome would be better played after Book 6 and I'd have to agree.
I don't have CEoD, so my opinion isn't the best.
If you're looking for info on Cheliax alone then ISWG probably isn't the best. It 'only' has a 4 page write up on each country.
But if you want/need more info on all of Golarion, then its a great book.
Has anybody out there who has actually run Council of Thieves found a single sourcebook that was most useful?
I've run it and you don't really need anything else. Honest. Except for a very short jaunt, the entire AP takes place in one city, which is documented within the adventure path.
All you really need background-wise, is in the AP. For this purpose, simply know that worship of Asmodeus is the official, state-endorsed religion. Lawfulness is - by far - more important than Evil. So imagine an officious, bureaucratic organization and you've got what you need. People there who want things done (say... inconveniencing a competing market/vendor) will bribe officials to get arbitrary laws passed that inconvenience only that competitor. That's about it as far as a summary for feel.
Otherwise it's all in the AP.
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My question is not "do you need a sourcebook to run the CoT AP?"
It's "Which sourcebook is the best for background knowledge on Westcrown?"
Also "Is Cheliax Empire of Devils worth purchasing?" (ignoring the 3.5 mechanics)
I'm most interested not in speculation but in people who have actually done this (used a sourcebook). Thanks.
My question is not "do you need a sourcebook to run the CoT AP?"
It's "Which sourcebook is the best for background knowledge on Westcrown?"
Also "Is Cheliax Empire of Devils worth purchasing?" (ignoring the 3.5 mechanics)
I'm most interested not in speculation but in people who have actually done this (used a sourcebook). Thanks.
I can see that you and I are somehow just destined to not get along. Shame. 'Cuz I'm honestly trying hard.
How's this... while I don't own C:EoD, I do own the Inner Sea World Guide. I used it while running CoT, by leaving it on the shelf because it really wasn't necessary since the AP is self-contained. Not because I haven't read ISWG, but because I DID read the AP.
What I'm telling you is that this particular AP, more than most, is very, very self-contained. There isn't a lot of room for additional Cheliax/setting lore to come into play without distracting from the story (which, in case nobody has mentioned to you, is only obliquely and temporarily about the CoT itself in any way).
C:EoD might be useful if your players want to a} go off the rails and basically abandon the AP's plot, and/or b} continue after the AP is over. It ends fairly low-level, and it's not absurd for players who have perhaps liberated Westcrown to want to continue up the food-chain and march on Egorian. But... within the AP itself... really, honest, I'm telling you there isn't really call for outside material. I've got a long history of throwing money at Paizo to buy stuff that supports my game, so it's not that I skipped dipping into other books because I couldn't.
It could help a bit to cultivate the atmosphere the empire has inside it's borders i suppose. Fluff, in other words. Little details can add a lot however. I believe the Knightly Orders book also covers Hellknights as another possible useful resource for you.
Another resource would be to mine through the community stuff put into the CoT forum. There are usually some good nuggets found in them for every AP.
Cheliax, Empire of Devils: is great for understanding Cheliax, has some neat traits, magic items, feats and such also a great player friendly map and description of Westcrown
warning: does not actually have a map of Cheliax
Book of the Damned 1: the Devils one (exact name escapes me right now) a great resource for devils, asmodeous and such, also has the Diabolist prestige class
Inner Sea World Guide: has a map of Cheliax also a great introduction to golarion in general, is really cheap as a PDF (9.99 i think) and has info about hell knights and such.
Blood of Fiends and Blood of Angels, about Tieflings and Aasimar respectively both help if you have either in your campaign, both outstanding in their own right.
Chronicles of the Righteous, has nothing to do with Cheliax per se, its just nice for PCs to have more divine options beyond the core 20 deities.
now the entire AP is set in west crown so it is true all thats needed is the AP however these books will help flesh out your campaign
also Cities of Golarion has info on Coryntyn, Castles of Golarion has a hell knight castle, etc. you'll find all sorts of fun Cheliax stuff seeded thru different Golarion campaign setting books:)
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now granted that I haven't fully read all six CoT books yet, and despite knowing that most of the AP itself is confined to in and around Westcrown, I know that the metropolis itself was not-too-long-ago the capitol of Cheliax, and so, in order to wrap my mind around it more completely, I suspect it might be useful to get a cultural context for the country as well as the city.
Rathender has the right of it "little details can add a lot" and the "little details" are one of my weak points as a DM, so, the assistance of a really good dead-tree sourcebook might help me get into the immersion a little more, sported as an extra-curricular reading.
captain yesterday, traits/feats/items aside, do you think Empire of Devils is worth it's weight in background material? or Inner Sea? (I got enough money to purchase one of these books now but likely not the other any time soon - trying to game on the cheap you know).
yes, both are great (Inner Sea World Guide, if only for the map of cheliax) but yes the cheliax player book has tons of information on the country, from laws to entertainment to how different Core Rulebook Classes are perceived to revisionist history, a map of Egorian the capitol so on and so forth.
its actually a great great book even if you aren't running in cheliax per se.
i'm not really sure which i'd get first, both have their merits, maybe cheliax first...
edit: we're raising a family on 1 income so i know about gaming on a budget, PDFs are cheap if you have a device for them:)
Um, thank you Asmodeus?!?...
Heh. I'm sure he'd say "you're welcome".
Carrion Crown is the single best AP published, for the first one and a half books.
In fact CC is rather polarizing. Some love it some hate it.
I think book 1 is a solid stand alone module but further on it totally sucks.