Lost Omens Mwangi Expanse: coming June 2021!

Really curious to see what the Goloma, Shisk, and Conrasu look like.

Instant purchase for me, I've been waiting for these big lore books for a while.

This does raise the question, since Absalom was planned, and is stated to be out around early 2021 hopefully, and the Mwangi Expanse coming in June, can we expect other books of this caliber detailing other parts of the world?

Like Lost Omens: The Broken Lands, or Lost Omens: Old Cheliax?

Cause I hope so.

This will depend on how this book sells and the overall reception. Absalom is a little bit different, as it's "only" one city, but yeah.

I don't know if six ancestries is worth buying this. Probably gonna skip it. Nothing else useful in here.

I'm aware. What I'm saying though is that I would like for them to be a little more specific when it comes to Ethnicity, Culture, and similar things, where it is appropriate. For a book like this, which dives specifically into the lore of a region, it seems fine to actually make a Heritage specific to the Maulijae and Zenj tribes.

Maybe this would be catered too a little better through Backgrounds, considering the complexity we've gotten with some of those in the APG and the fact that we do already have region, settlement, and similarly specific Backgrounds. Either way, I would like to mechanically benefit from being a militant Ekujae or a sailing and fishing Bonuwat. Pathfinder remains a setting specific game, imo. I'd like some of that setting to shine a bit more in the mechanics.

I think the best place for that sort of stuff would be ancestral feats. That way, it moves from the "this is what all Ekujae are like" to "this is a cool thing that's common among Ekujae" which IMO is a much more positive statement.

!!! SPIDER FRIENDS !!!

Fair enough on the race front.

I don't know if six ancestries is worth buying this. Probably gonna skip it. Nothing else useful in here.

Lucky for you, it seems that there will be a lot more than just "six ancestries". Class options, equipment, deities, feats, and much more seems to be clearly outlined here; if the "rules options to play characters from the Mwangi Expanse" is anything to go by. Not to mention some GM options such as monsters. The one thing I don't expect is Archetypes. Otherwise, in a 300+ page book, I am sure there will be a lot more than just ancestries. It may be a regional gazetteer of sorts, but it is one that seems very clear on providing gameplay options. This is the future of many of the books we will see, providing lore, character options, gm options, and the like it a single themed book, rather than numerous books covering each separately.

As several people have stated, we try to avoid situations where there is only one "correct" way to build a member of a specific culture, since the expression of your character's culture is a personal thing that you should have freedom with. As an example, there's a "wintertouched human" heritage in Lost Omens Character Guide that grants cold resistance, which it notes is most common among the Jadwiga and Erutaki cultural groups. But, you don't need to take wintertouched to play a Jadwiga, and you don't need to be a Jadwiga to take wintertouched. If the heritage was simply "Jadwiga human", it'd mean that:

• If you wanted to play a Jadwiga character who had a different heritage (maybe you're not super into winter stuff, maybe you have the skilled heritage instead!) you'd be "doing it wrong" (not great)
• If you wanted to gain those cold resistance mechanics but with a totally unrelated character concept (maybe I'm playing a character who.... idk is from the tropics but then was raised by an ice dragon and now has cold resistance due to idk playing with their ice dragon siblings throughout their childhood, something like that), the only way to do so would be "take Jadwiga human but I'm not a Jadwiga I just need the mechanics." (also not great)

Feats are things you opt into and aren't limited to 1 on, so they have less of this issue, but it remains a subjective call. (which is not to comment on anything that may or may not be in Lost Omens Mwangi Expanse, I'm not working on this book).

In any event, this is a pretty big and interesting topic, so if people are interested in further discussing how to respectfully create and represent cultural aspects in-game, a dedicated thread might be a better place for that, just to avoid cluttering this announcement space (＾＾)b

I am hyped for this book AND I love the cover art. Why is June so far?

I hope this book sells like crazy so that it will pave the way for similar books about previously underexplored areas of Golarion (Arcadia, Tan Xia, Crown of the World and so many others).

This is really cool!

I assume the previously (long ago) announced Ekujae branch of Elves was detailed in another book? (Sorry, working ~50 hour weeks in the coronavirus testing lab means that I am at high risk for missing stuff.)

This is really cool!

I assume the previously (long ago) announced Ekujae branch of Elves was detailed in another book? (Sorry, working ~50 hour weeks in the coronavirus testing lab means that I am at high risk for missing stuff.)

We've had the Ekujae in Golarion almost from the start. The first time we started doing things with them in print was the 3rd Adventure Path, Second Darkness, although it took us a bit to dial in the right look for them.

Their most recent "starring role" in a product would have been the second Age of Ashes adventure.

This is really cool!

I assume the previously (long ago) announced Ekujae branch of Elves was detailed in another book? (Sorry, working ~50 hour weeks in the coronavirus testing lab means that I am at high risk for missing stuff.)

I mean, we've gotten some stuff, yeah, but I wouldn't assume we won't get more in this book. They're not mechanically distinct from other Elves in the Ancestry or Heritage sense, just culturally, so they don't fit in with the specific mechanics stuff talked about above.

The Ekujae thus fall under the 'Alijae to Zenj' cultural groups talked about above...which I'm betting are the first and last alphabetically. Meaning no other cultural groups are mentioned because those two, listed in an alphabetical way, are inclusive. I think, sure as an 'A to Z' list has E in it, the Ekujae will show up and be described in this book.

I don't know if six ancestries is worth buying this. Probably gonna skip it. Nothing else useful in here.

What would you consider useful in a book like this, other than ancestries?

I'm presuming that like Legends and the LOWG there will be some crunchy bits, like archetypes and items and new feats and spells as appropriate.

Is the organization of the book by sub-region, or by like "people of the Mwangi Expanse", "Places of the Mwangi Expanse","Things of the Mwangi Expanse"?

So, will there be anything (at least hints) of areas further to the south in Garund such as Droon and Holomog?

This is so awesome! I've wanted to do more in the Mwangi Expanse for a long time.

I also hope this is the format for regional books for this edition. I'd like to see Casmaron, Tian Xia and then Arcadia next!

I have no interest in 2E mechanics, but I'll certainly consider buying this book just for the lore.

Hoping to see plenty of history, notable NPCs and factions, descriptions and maps of major cities, etc.

Can't wait for this to come out.

VerBeeker wrote:

Really curious to see what the Goloma, Shisk, and Conrasu look like.

Instant purchase for me, I've been waiting for these big lore books for a while.

This does raise the question, since Absalom was planned, and is stated to be out around early 2021 hopefully, and the Mwangi Expanse coming in June, can we expect other books of this caliber detailing other parts of the world?

Like Lost Omens: The Broken Lands, or Lost Omens: Old Cheliax?

Cause I hope so.

This will depend on how this book sells and the overall reception. Absalom is a little bit different, as it's "only" one city, but yeah.

As Elf said, I imagine it is dependent upon how it is recieved by the community, and urge that you review the content you enjoy if you want to see more like it in the future!

Thrilled for more on the Mwangi area, especially with Strength of Thousands coming out! This will be great for an exploration game and building the world/culture of Golarion. AND I love me some Grandmother Spider!

So, will there be anything (at least hints) of areas further to the south in Garund such as Droon and Holomog?

Not much. They'll be mentioned maybe, but remember... this is a book about the Mwangi Expanse, NOT about all of Garund.

Really curious to see what the Goloma, Shisk, and Conrasu look like.

Instant purchase for me, I've been waiting for these big lore books for a while.

This does raise the question, since Absalom was planned, and is stated to be out around early 2021 hopefully, and the Mwangi Expanse coming in June, can we expect other books of this caliber detailing other parts of the world?

Like Lost Omens: The Broken Lands, or Lost Omens: Old Cheliax?

Cause I hope so.

I'll second that, and add that I'd be particularly interested in Broken Lands, Dragon Empires, Impossible Lands, and Saga Lands books

VerBeeker wrote:

Really curious to see what the Goloma, Shisk, and Conrasu look like.

Instant purchase for me, I've been waiting for these big lore books for a while.

This does raise the question, since Absalom was planned, and is stated to be out around early 2021 hopefully, and the Mwangi Expanse coming in June, can we expect other books of this caliber detailing other parts of the world?

Like Lost Omens: The Broken Lands, or Lost Omens: Old Cheliax?

Cause I hope so.

I'll second that, and add that I'd be particularly interested in Broken Lands, Dragon Empires, Impossible Lands, and Saga Lands books

I've gotta say, while Mwangi is something I'm glad is up first, the chance to really explore Jalmeray and Alkenstar in one book might just match it. Geb and Nex can tag along if they behave. :P

I'd also be plasma-hyped to get more Numeria in a Broken Lands book, though it'd be difficult talking about such a book under the avalanche of "Does this mean Kingmaker!?" speculation. Which I'd also be participating in.

After those books, I could play my canny Alkenstar industrialist who's finally heard of this newfangled technology stuff and intends to apply some good ol' Alkenstar engineering to its spread. There's nothing around that can't be understood with enough destructive testing, after all, even if the Technic League insists on causing a fuss...

But, still, mostly I'm just excited for More Golarion.

HenshinFanatic wrote:

VerBeeker wrote:

Really curious to see what the Goloma, Shisk, and Conrasu look like.

Instant purchase for me, I've been waiting for these big lore books for a while.

This does raise the question, since Absalom was planned, and is stated to be out around early 2021 hopefully, and the Mwangi Expanse coming in June, can we expect other books of this caliber detailing other parts of the world?

Like Lost Omens: The Broken Lands, or Lost Omens: Old Cheliax?

Cause I hope so.

I'll second that, and add that I'd be particularly interested in Broken Lands, Dragon Empires, Impossible Lands, and Saga Lands books

I've gotta say, while Mwangi is something I'm glad is up first, the chance to really explore Jalmeray and Alkenstar in one book might just match it. Geb and Nex can tag along if they behave. :P

I'd also be plasma-hyped to get more Numeria in a Broken Lands book, though it'd be difficult talking about such a book under the avalanche of "Does this mean Kingmaker!?" speculation. Which I'd also be participating in.

After those books, I could play my canny Alkenstar industrialist who's finally heard of this newfangled technology stuff and intends to apply some good ol' Alkenstar engineering to its spread. There's nothing around that can't be understood with enough destructive testing, after all, even if the Technic League insists on causing a fuss...

But, still, mostly I'm just excited for More Golarion.

This post make me think you're not aware they are actually making an "anniversary book" for Kingmaker for PF2, including some of the extra content that was added in the video game (adapted for Table Top play, of course), and pushing the story up to lvl 20.

Random thought I had today: I really hope this takes a decent dive into both Shamanism and the Juju Pantheon. Always find myself drawn to the various religions and philosophies of Pathfinder, and would love to see these expanded on quite a bit.

I am hyped for this book AND I love the cover art. Why is June so far?

Talking about this ( I have no knowledge at all for what concerns what I am going to ask ), how long does it take, more or less, to work on a book like this ( I know it's for June, but have no idea when they started )? And what about an adventure chapter?

Finally, looking how many people are working on this one ( the more the merrier I say! ), how many projects might Paizo do at the same time?

Just curious.

The Raven Black wrote:

I am hyped for this book AND I love the cover art. Why is June so far?

Talking about this ( I have no knowledge at all for what concerns what I am going to ask ), how long does it take, more or less, to work on a book like this ( I know it's for June, but have no idea when they started )? And what about an adventure chapter?

Finally, looking how many people are working on this one ( the more the merrier I say! ), how many projects might Paizo do at the same time?

Just curious.

We typically start working on a book like this about 18 months before it comes out and finalize our development/editing/layout and such about 4 months before its street date to account for printing, shipping, customs, and distribution through the various wholesale channels to get to games stores and whatnot on time.

Given that fact, consider that we're already working on books that will come out in late 2021 that haven't been announced yet. We knew this one was going to be a thing and cemented it on the schedule about this time last year. We are currently in the initial planning phase for books coming out throughout 2022.

A book this size, in this line, has two full-time developers working on it, as well as the entire art and editing staff (about a dozen folks), and others who touch it briefly as it moves through the pipeline, like members of the design team, the creative director, the publisher, and so forth. And that doesn't include people who don't work on the book directly, but whose jobs are vital in it getting produced on time and into as many hands as possible, like the project management team, the marketing and sales teams, the web team, and the customer service and warehouse crew. Basically every product we produce is an all-hands-on-deck process.

If you're really interested in the process of how a book goes from idea to a physical thing you can hold in your hands and read, I recommend checking out our YouTube channel and looking for past Gen Con and PaizoCon panels on Behind the Scenes topics.

In addition to the folks Mark listed above, there's the freelancers who write the book. That can range from a single writer for a project up to a dozen or two, depending on the product in question. And the artists, which can also often be a few dozen more folks.

Love the idea of this, sounds like lots of great stuff. Just hope nothing here out classes lizardfolk for size . Keep all them soft skins shmol.

Thank you both guys ( gonna watch the GenCon/PaizoCon videos).

I! AM! SO! EXCITED! FOR! THIS!

I've been wanting to play / run in Mwangi for years now. I felt there was so much to be explored and so many stories to be told, especially about the Mgaambya. My current game has my Pathfinder Agent returning a Mgaambyan shield found in Osirion to Nantambu, and we're sort of doing it in parallel with Serpent's Skull. Most of the reason I convinced my GM to do this campaign was so I, playing as an ethnographer pathfinder, could explore those stories and hear about the people's lives as they tell it to me. I cannot overstate how happy I am that I'll get to finish Serpent's Skull and then swing back around to do Strength of Thousands!

This sounds so promising! I'm very curious about the new ancestries, I hope at least a few will be common.
And gosh, I hope we get a write up for Holomog and the Ganzi!

This sounds so promising! I'm very curious about the new ancestries, I hope at least a few will be common.

And gosh, I hope we get a write up for Holomog and the Ganzi!

I'd love to see more on Holomog, personally. I never got the time to build up the nation much more than a few basic ideas in my homebrew, and what Crystal and others have done with it to expand it once it was transplanted to Golarion was really great...

... But Holomog isn't in the Mwangi Expanse, and as such isn't really part of this book.

I am kinda really hyped for what ever the heck a Conrasu is! or the other heritages I have no clue of!

Nitro~Nina wrote:

HenshinFanatic wrote:

VerBeeker wrote:

Really curious to see what the Goloma, Shisk, and Conrasu look like.

Instant purchase for me, I've been waiting for these big lore books for a while.

This does raise the question, since Absalom was planned, and is stated to be out around early 2021 hopefully, and the Mwangi Expanse coming in June, can we expect other books of this caliber detailing other parts of the world?

Like Lost Omens: The Broken Lands, or Lost Omens: Old Cheliax?

Cause I hope so.

I'll second that, and add that I'd be particularly interested in Broken Lands, Dragon Empires, Impossible Lands, and Saga Lands books

I've gotta say, while Mwangi is something I'm glad is up first, the chance to really explore Jalmeray and Alkenstar in one book might just match it. Geb and Nex can tag along if they behave. :P

I'd also be plasma-hyped to get more Numeria in a Broken Lands book, though it'd be difficult talking about such a book under the avalanche of "Does this mean Kingmaker!?" speculation. Which I'd also be participating in.

After those books, I could play my canny Alkenstar industrialist who's finally heard of this newfangled technology stuff and intends to apply some good ol' Alkenstar engineering to its spread. There's nothing around that can't be understood with enough destructive testing, after all, even if the Technic League insists on causing a fuss...

But, still, mostly I'm just excited for More Golarion.

This post make me think you're not aware they are actually making an "anniversary book" for Kingmaker for PF2, including some of the extra content that was added in the video game (adapted for Table Top play, of course), and pushing the story up to lvl 20.

So here. No speculation needed. :P

I juuust got back into the worlds of Pathfinder, so very definitely I was not aware. Thank you very much!

William Ronald wrote:

So, will there be anything (at least hints) of areas further to the south in Garund such as Droon and Holomog?

Not much. They'll be mentioned maybe, but remember... this is a book about the Mwangi Expanse, NOT about all of Garund.

I keep making that mistake! But I also forget about how big the Mwangi expanse is.

How many avistani nations can you fit into the Mwangi expanse?

Is this going to be for PF or PF2?

Is this going to be for PF or PF2?

Whatever crunchy bits there are (I've heard this is lore heavy so there might not be much) will be for PF2. The lore stuff is universal, though PF2 updated the region slightly with Vidrian replacing Sargava.

Is this going to be for PF or PF2?

Why would they release a 1e book two years into 2e?

Is this going to be for PF or PF2?

As Cabbage noted, the lore is very usable for either version. That said, it is about 10 years later, so there's probably some changes here and there.

But yeah, anything mechanical (Ancestries, Archetypes, Backgrounds, Feats, etc) will be 2e.

I mean, if your 1e game followed the same progression of time as has been suggested by the adventure paths (at one point in PF1 Ravounel was not independent of Cheliax, and then later it was) then it won't be hard to implement whatever sociopolitical changes happened in the Mwangi expanse following the Inner Sea World Guide.

Just like how if you didn't play Hell's Rebels, you can just say "well, there was a revolution in Ravounel and now they're independent, how specifically this happened doesn't matter much to you" you can do the same with whatever else changed when the PCs weren't around.

It's way weirder if the setting never changes unless there's a player character around to observe it changing than if it just sometimes changes based on nothing a player character did.

That said it shouldn't be too hard to backport the new ancestries. PF2 ancestries occupy more space than PF1 races, since they have things like alternate racial traits and race feats built in.

FROGGIES!!! :)

MellowDramatic wrote:

I don't know if six ancestries is worth buying this. Probably gonna skip it. Nothing else useful in here.

What would you consider useful in a book like this, other than ancestries?

I would like to think, with their username, they were just being 'MellowDramatic' and not really serious with that statement... :)

I'm just kerfluffled because I was this close to walking away, not being into 2nd edition, and then there's this, which I *have* to have. You had me at Mwangi, but also Gnolls and Anadi? Yeesh.

I do not even care about these three new ancestries. They'll probably be awesome, but, whatever. Gnolls and Anadi! (And yeah, I know other people like Grippli, so yay for them!)

Sigh. I need more bookshelf now. I was gonna put it off, because I was winding down, but here comes more stuff (& a Mwangi AP!) I gotta own...

It's a good problem to have. :)

UnArcaneElection wrote:

This is really cool!

I assume the previously (long ago) announced Ekujae branch of Elves was detailed in another book? (Sorry, working ~50 hour weeks in the coronavirus testing lab means that I am at high risk for missing stuff.)

We've had the Ekujae in Golarion almost from the start. The first time we started doing things with them in print was the 3rd Adventure Path, Second Darkness, although it took us a bit to dial in the right look for them.

Their most recent "starring role" in a product would have been the second Age of Ashes adventure.

I knew of Ekujae before (since this pandemic has only been going on for less than a year), but the mention of 2nd Edition details on another branch of southern Garundi Elves made me think I had missed a 2nd Edition release of information about them.

Another one who is interested in the lore, but not the 2E mechanics.

(I mean, after about nine months of SOLID work (like, I was doing 30-40 hours per week on it 6/7 days after my actual work ended), I was JUST finishing the closing stages of writing approximately half of PF1 into approximately 75% of 3.5 and creating my own functional "full-conversion mod"/homebrew edition of 1000+ pages, right before lockdown hit and completely obliterated any chance of me doing any roleplaying for the foreseeable future - for the first time in THIRTY YEARS (and crippling my wargaming, which is even worse, since CAD modelling for that is my actual day job) and NO, I'M CLEARLY NOT ANGRY ABOUT THAT AT ALL!!!)

Ahem.

But anyway, as I have only been paying, like, half attention - is this the first lore expansion product since the end of PF1, or just the first one I actually made my Perception check on? I got, like, all of the Campaign setting books over time (and honest-to-goodness Golarion is the first campaign world EVER that I bought the books explictly to read for fun (and the fact I ended up running APs there was sort of just a nice bonus) and I've been wondering when we'd get another load.

This sounds very promising, given the size.

What sort of proportion of fluff to mechanics are we likely to be expecting? The same sort of mix as the campaign settings books were previously, something like the Inner Sea World Guide (which was mostly fluff) or with a higher proportion of crunch?

This will be the 7th or 8th campaign setting book released during PF2. The 5th is due out in a few weeks, looking at Pathfinder Society and its works.

The Lost Omens line absorbed the old Campaign setting line.

Okay, next stupid question, then - where are they in the store? Wait, no, found 'em under settings, just non-obvious because they're not in "campaign settings" where I'd have expected (mayeb put 'em in a Lost Omens folder of something, folks...?)

Right, I see, I probably did spot the others, then, but they weren't like, geographical region/nation ones, so I'm not quite as bothered about 'em, which is probably why I didn't look very hard.

If you're in it for the setting lore, I would recommend checking out Lost Omens: Legends. It is primarily a character book, but when many of those characters are heads of state or have the power to move literal mountains, there tends to be a lot of intersection there.

If you're in it for the setting lore, I would recommend checking out Lost Omens: Legends. It is primarily a character book, but when many of those characters are heads of state or have the power to move literal mountains, there tends to be a lot of intersection there.

Thanks, but that's the sort of thing I'm least interested in of all, both from a standard of setting reading entertainment or even from a gameplay perspective, I'm afraid. It's just not something that grabs or inspires my interest - unlike, say, an entire source-book dedicated to pick-any-one of the other planets in the system or the previously unlooked at continents would.

I will say that if it’s reading entertainment you’re looking for Legends is a real good choice for that, too. We got to change it up from the usual encyclopedia format, so there’s short fiction and stuff in there!

They also don't have stat blocks. :o
And this cover a bit more about the society of the places covered by these characters, in a perspective we don't usually see in "geography" books: from the perspective of the people ruling them or fighting against the rulers.

emky wrote:

As someone who still uses Pathfinder 1, do the lore books like this still work for back-porting, or did PF2 do crazy stuff to the world like advancing it 100 years or having a great cataclysm?

The timeline has advanced slightly, in that all the APs have happened and one or two other things have happened during the time that took. In particular, relevant to the Mwangi Expanse, Sargava's government got overthrown creating the nation of Vidrian.

But we're talking a bit over 10 years since the PF1 Inner Sea World Guide, not a huge time jump.

emky wrote:

(Besides the silly total rewrite of goblins.)

Goblins actually haven't been rewritten that much. Most are still unpleasant and dangerous. Some specific tribes, mostly around Isger, have made some changes, and gotten some publicity, but it's not like all goblins are suddenly wonderful and firendly.

Also goblins life span and lack of history means they are probably a lot more malleable than what we would find normal with humans. Enough positive interactions could quickly shift local goblin population behavior.