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So all of the locations in this book are great. Its great to have a city info for Heaven and Hell since it makes it easier to grasp what it is like to adventure there. I got great use out of Heaven's Shore and Dis in my Crimson Throne post campaign! Basrakal is also great thing to be detailed since its interesting and useful to learn what happens to some of the outsiders with unusual alignments.

Shadow Absalom is also a location that really needed to be detailed better and finally we have dem good details :D Maybe we get more Shadow Absalom content in PFS eventually.

On other hand, I love Blood of books for giving more material for non core races, on other hand I love they are including more content related to ancient cultures...

It is also kinda sad how this book high lights that only humans seem to have lot of different cultures.

But yeah, I think I overally still like the book, plus it did include paladin codes for Osiris and Wadjet so that is great :D

...Well, all books with new deities or more details on older ones are my favourite books really :p But this one is especially great since it features lot of deiteis outside the Inner Sea region.

There is some wonky art on this one (Chaldira's article for example, her art feels uncanny in same way as Charon's art from Book of the Damned does for me. Those gnolls have really weird faces as well, they look almost monkey like instead of hyena like). In case of Grandmother Spider I'm confused if they accidentally got the worshipper and deity picture wrong way around since if they are in correct order, there is cute spider worshipper of her and then she appears in human like form. I'd have thought the human with multiple arms was the worshipper and cute spider picture was her.

But yeah, Grandmother Spider and Hei Feng are my favourite articles in this book :D Though they are all great yeah.

Seriously, tons of cool stuff in this, alternate(or new in case of wizard and cleric) capstones are cool, legacy items are cool, two new prestige classes, lots of class specific abilities(even ninjas :D), magic tricks and item set bonuses are cool too. And there aren't even archetypes in this, but still so much cool stuff on both mechanical and flavor wise!

Its kinda making me feel sad since it really kinda feels like ending for 1e considering amount of cool stuff put into this and how inside cover page tells of some of past PFS events :'D

So I've always wanted to have all Good/Neutral/Evil axis demigods fleshed outs and I've finally gotten that. Sure there are still some left that are still only mentioned only in bestiaries, but with this books, Primal Inevitables, Protean Lords, Psychopomp Ushers and the Monad finally have backstory info and other stuff :D

There are no class or feat options besides monitor obedience and proctor class in this nor is there items(artifact for Concordance of Rivals being absent is kinda weird, but it makes me hopeful it might appear in future AP or something), but that just means more room for flavor :D

I'm actually kinda surprised, but Primal Inevitables are now my favourite type of monitor lords. Machine gods have always been appealing to me, but reason I got into them was how as demigods of absolute law and order their areas of concerns are really mundane and structured. Like for example, one of missing ones was demigod of calendars.

My current ranking of monitor demigods is primal inevitabls > monad = psychopomp ushers > protean lords. Issue I have with proteans in general that as random shapeshifitng chaos beasts, they are ALL snakes with two legs, though third of the new introduced bestiary proteans finally strikes my fancy as while they still have serpentine shape, they are way more chaotic and weird looking than majority of other proteans.

In general, all of new bestiary monsters are great, flavorful and weird :D Only two of the proteans, while cool that they fill lower cr roles, seem kinda standard to me, rest of them are wonderfully weird to me.

I think thats good way to summarize this book, its wonderfully weird. All of monitor demigods are some of the most interesting neutral aligned deities in the whole game.

(plus Pharasma backstory is cool. Plus I'm now formulating conspiracy theory of there being two or three different Asmodeus and the one in hell just stole other ones' name as he is prince of lies)

Cool new races, cool Pathfinder monsters returning, new creatures for several outsider categories and cool new creatures.

It also helps that things introduced in this are type of variety that is really helpful when running homebrew games, like having several "templates" for different alien animal types is great. It also has good balance of fantasy, scifi and both mixed in.

I don't want to get too much into spoilers, but let's just say it this way: Remember Sandpoint and Sandpoint Hinterlands Gazetteers from RotR and Jade Regent? Well imagine that every single entry and NPC mentioned in them were fully fleshed out in one product.

Seriously, amount of content this book has is staggering and its good content too! It has enough material to have straight up level 1-13 campaign in Sandpoint and enough seeds to continue campaign to level 20 with locations of several really high level threats being made known. It also answers and fleshes out lot of plot hooks and mysteries created by previous Gazetteers while setting up few new ones to be explored in future.

Like, only reason anyone would have to not get this book is that they on principle don't like Sandpoint, but I can't really imagine anyone claiming this book isn't great for what it does. Its really more unique one among campaign setting book line since one location rarely gets this much attention and love put into it.

Normally I would like to go into more detail, but as this is Intrigue focused AP I would like to avoid spoiling juicy stuff as much as possible. So I just say that while I was little afraid that final book would be more combat heavy than other books, I was glad to find it still has investigation and intrigue element to it. Where first book was socializing, second book was subterfuge, third book was just investigation in general, fourth book was infiltration, fifth book was detective work and politics, this book is part murder investigation part subterfuge, in specific to clear the path to your target. And even then, you can actually avoid final boss fight altogether with alternate way of solving the situation.

Basically, this book is packed with so much cool stuff in every part that I'm now little bit sad this AP is over :'D But yeah, great finish. Hopefully we have similar AP in 2e, I really loved how this AP focused on giving alternate ways to solve major conflicts than just plain combat

I always wanted more info on planes and mysteries of Pathfinder's cosmology and this book gives new answers and questions so I got exactly what I wanted. I realized reading this book that its one I've wanted for really really long time

I really love starfinder flip-mats so far and I would like to see more starship flip-mats in future even if their use is pretty situational.

Its good scenario for newbies and easy to run and backstory is also pretty tragic. I think it actually works best if players don't know name of scenario, zombie thing coming as surprise is really fun :D

This book broke my "Never review any adventure I haven't run first" rule :'D This book has too many things I like. Good foreshadowing, good intrigue, non lethal options, good relevant choices to pick from, potential to appease my guilty pleasure for sappy romances, mixture of horror and comedy(true love's kiss yo and the picture for "picnic") and management/building elements.

Majority of this book is players building up loyalty and resources until they can take over the manor, but if players do REALLY good job at it, they can do so without blood being shed at all :D You have no idea how I love it when book's main opponent can be taken down by convincing they were wrong and they should surrender.

Anyhoo, get this book if you:
1) Love good intrigue
2) Love interesting monsters and situations
3) Love good foreshadowing and mysteries
4) Wanted to see good moral choices
5) Love books that encourage creative solutions
6) Like to see Law vs Chaos dynamic being shown
7) Have guilty pleasure for romances and are glad when writer leaves option open for them
8) Love it when work shows multiple different styles of tone.
9) Have ever been wanted NPC give you "Okay, here is three doses of memory erasing poison if you f$*@ things up roleplaying wise" style get out of jail card when you put foot into your mouth :D

If you want purely action and less roleplaying, I guess this isn't really for you?

So like, this ain't a perfect book, but I don't mind reprints as much as everyone else seems to do. I do like having everything in one book, its much easier to check than juggling through multiple pdfs. Though I do mind that it seems some of reprints have been updated while others haven't, I kinda would prefer that all of them would be somewhat updated especially since some of old options has some problems people here on forums have complained enough that one of my players who reads complains complains about same things to me :P

Anyhoo, I like all of articles on organizations and I do like articles on what become of organizations after APs. They could have bigger spoiler warning like what Xin-Shalast page in Lost Cities had, but yeah.

So umm, what else... Oh yeah, on the whole "campaign neutral or setting material on rpg line!" conversation, I do prefer having material that can be used in Golarion(Villain codex is hard to use on golarion if you want to use stuff besides the statblocks as it creates a setting generic setting(for example, there is kingdom, western part of kingdom has cruel musketeers, south & north of the kingdom used to be different kingdoms until rulers married each other. While that is really vague, it does create a "generic" setting) so unless you want to add new Kingdom to golarion, its kinda hard to use flavor ext sometimes. But on the other hand, I did love how Villain Codex created that setting generic setting, I found it fun way to practice creating my own world building by filling those unmentioned vague hles and I'm using it as basis for campaign I'm going to start running sometimes during june(I'm already running two APs, so having one of my own material is nice practice)

Soo um yeah. I like the book, it ain't perfect book. Not much else to say. Besides that I still want NPC Codex 2 or at least something like "Mythic Codex" or "Occult Codex". "Advanced Codex" for Advanced classes?*shrugs*

So since I had already forgotten stuff when I wrote this article first time, I'll have to do shorter version now that I have to write it again due to it disappearing to "No back ups :D" space.

Abendago Gulf: I felt like this info might as well have been in Sodden Lands Campaign Setting Book and that article's space should have been reserved for something like Shory mentioned earlier. Lirgen's culture was interesting sure and helps me flavor stuff in Seers of the Drowned City, but its not really interesting for adventuring purposes because 1) Lirgen's lost culture is still known and remembered unlike actual ancient empires' cultures 2) fortune telling doesn't work anymore nowadays 3) article doesn't really present any interesting threats of bbegs, most of foes mentioned are just bandits or monstrous humanoid tribes 4) most interesting thing about sodden lands is eye of abendago and that isn't really mentioned at all since its not directly related to the culture 5) Yamasa is basically mentioned as after thought as "Its swamp land, was about rice fields and nowadays inhabited by cults". If I went by article alone, I'd guess Abendago Gulf is if I want to make underwater city exploration adventure. Sure I know from other sources that its one of primary places to find Night Heralds in, but this article doesn't really do good job of presenting it as interesting location for campaign.

Dim Gate part of article was the best part about it though, lich being instructed by mysterious entity to build a gate sure is intriguing.

Ancient Osirion: I spent paragraph wondering about cover mummy's comic book cover pose spine, apparently use of enlarge person and questioned what is up with fantasy artists and mummies having mammaries.

Besides that, I liked that article managed to present Ancient Osirion background as mysterious(with Nethys and stuff) without mentioned ancient astronauts stuff at all, I noted that Ancient Osirion is already easy to like due to Ancient Egypt irl giving images to what adventuring there is like and that I liked present day stuff info too and mummia drug was interesting.

Ghol-Gan: Wondered how Amiri fighting raptor is related to ancient cyclops empire, noted that I found empires' fall kinda lazy(serpentfolk's brutal culture just happened to spread through cyclops' mighty empire so fast their relationship with Azlant just eroded to hostilities? Why would cyclops adopt their culture? Because giants are just inherently more evil than humans? Seriously, I don't get the reasoning), and noted that Ghol-Gan makes much more interesting underwater ruin exploration adventures than Lirgen's ruins. Also its cool to get details about ancient non human civilization in otherwise human dominated world.

Jistka Imperium: I liked setting enough to almost wish for spinoff setting featuring past of Golarion. Also sad it isn't mentioned more often, I got image from PFS that they were fiend worshippers, but article made it more clear they were just pragmatic and used fiends to power up their golems near end of their empire's existence. Pity that Osirion destroyed most of their ruins, but I'm sure there are enough of Jistka ruins that Paizo could feature them in one module at least pretty please? :D

Sarkoris: Noted that it shares same "not ancient empire, just kingdom lost hundred years ago" thing with Lirgen, but that I found it much more interesting locale than Lirgen. Whats with druidic main faith and lots of small pantheons. I basically wish I could have adventures in pre worldwound Sarkoris.

Thassilon: I like Thassilon already so not much to say there. I noted though that I thought History of Thassilon part contradicted other source materials a little bit and would have liked that part more if it was presented through in universe lens that might include element of it being incomplete and such. Also Inverted Giant is my favourite monster in the book.

So I primarily bought this for my RotR campaign for extra info on Xin-Shalast, but I'd thought I'd read whole thing before reviewing it. So thats why I only now review this despite owning this for while. Wanted to get one of these "show developers my opinions" things done even though I'm not sure if this is too old product for that...

So uh, anyway, I'll go through my opinions on each of lost cities instead of overall feeling on the book. Because, well, locations are rather radically different and I don't have much of unified opinion on book on the whole besides "It was pretty alright for most parts" Overall, I do like templates and statblocks provided by the book.

Ilvarandin: So... This place is cool and stuff, though I'm bothered by little details. Like why are humans most common out of host bodies(drow and elves in total number more, but... Yeah)? I mean, even if they have azlanti bodies from ages ago, that still feels weird in darklands. Also, article seems to omit Midnight Dawn and Magnimar subplot completely, including alternate take no Tiluatchek(who is here sorcerer instead of wizard) who is mostly in Ilvarandin rather than Magnimar.. I also get weird impression that apparently its hidden truth that city is controlled by intellect devourers since there are non intellect devourer populations in small numbers in outskirts? Basically, cool ideas, but I feel little confused by small details and feel like execution could have been better. I don't think I got very good idea of what it is like living in city populated by Intellect Devourers. Maybe I missed something or its better explained in other campaign setting books, either way, lack of mention of Midnight Dawn and inconsistencies related to it are bit annoying.

Kho: So uh, just to note, cover image for this article is pretty generic. I mean, they seem to be fighting bat creatures with background having a lot of crystals and stuff.

So I have to note that I have never heard of Shory before this and opening chapter of Lost Kingdoms' "other lost kingdoms" part. I guess it isn't commonly used because its floating kingdom that has fallen to ground and people would rather visit floating cities before they crash down. Anyway, so what does this ruin of aeromancers(I assume it refers to users of air magic instead of fortune tellers who use air to tell future :p yeah I know necromancy is used wrong too, but I still find it bit annoying these days) have? Uh, marids, crystal xorns, morlocks, leukodaemons spreading disease through objects oh and connection to shadow plane. So basically everything but connection to air. I guess Shory were more planar travelers after all? I don't know much about them so I don't know if this ruin would be "typical" for them, but for first time hearing of them, I feel like this ruin doesn't really feel like floating city that crashed down. Like, how to say it... I think Kho lacks unified theme. If I wanted to sell campaign based on Kho to players, how would I do it? "Hey guys, want to play campaign in Mwangi that has lots of connection to other planes on crashed down ruins of floating city?" I'm pretty sure everyone would assume connection to plane of air rather than water, shadow, earth. Only thin in Kho that feels like Mwangi or "air" is those winged ape people. So uh, I feel like Kho is mess of different themes that don't really ever come together, suggested campaign outline is basically "find source of plagueborn objects, get rid of daemons, suddenly shadowplane or crystal dragon problems". Basically this is my least favourite article out of these cities.

Storasta: So this "lost" city is less legendary lost archeological site and more literally lost to corrupted plants and demons. Not sure why demons don't just burn the whole place down, they seem pretty good at that. Anyway, I actually liked Storasta best before next part, mainly because I find corrupted treant bbeg cool and idea of corrupted overgrown city is pretty cool even though its not really an ancient city.

Sun Temple Colony: PRAISE THE FRICKING SUN

So basically my mind as I read this went from "Huh, pretty interesting to huh pretty good to HOLY CRAP to" etc it just got better and better as I read it further on. Like I when I got on parasitic oozes I was like "But Intellect Devourers did that couple of articles back with lens thing too" but I got sold by this sentence: "The presence of the parasitic oozes among the cultists means even innocent looking villagers may be capable of obliterating blasphemers with fiery rays." BURN THE HERETICS

Ahem, basically this article has tons of fire. I mean, firey ooze things possessing cultists of sun godling aspect of demonlord(?) who eventually turn possessed into fricking shining children. Thats fricking awesome amount of fiery death included in this chapter. As long players don't just make themselves immune to fire, actually I don't care, inflict fiery death on everyone either way. And fricking ancient Azlanti solar death ray artifact. Basically I'll probably want to do this campaign eventually or see module based on it :D 5/5 stars

Tumen: Eh, evil numerology cult(pity numerology magic system from occult mysteries wasn't created by time this article was made), super weapons, pretty cool evil water artifact. Its pretty cool I guess, but I just read Sun Temple Colony chapter so its hard to impress me after that, this feels pretty standard fare after that.

Xin-Shalast: So now to actual part of the book I bought this pdf for in first place.

So uh... How to say it? I want to like this section more I do, but I find problems with it..

So best part first: Its continuation from RotR and it details factions and npcs of the Xin-Shalast from aftermath of RotR. It also gives more flavorful details on how finding path to Xin-Shalast works and Ebonrunes is npc I might use in RotR. It does inspire me to wanna try sequel campaign to RotR.

Bad parts: The fact text doesn't actually give any more details on city itself than article on RotR does, lots of it is repeat or "this npc from RotR used to be there". Like I hoped this article would give me more details on what Hypogeum(the underground city) is like, but I don't have any better idea of it after reading it than what I had after reading RotR's article. Basically, this article is mainly about the factions rather than city itself and its bit problematic since city details themselves don't give me much of inspiration of what the players could find in the different parts of city. I also find it weird how despite spoiler warning about RotR, the text refuses to mention one certain entity in Mhar Massif by name, just giving it as possible campaign hook that Leng faction might try to wake it up. Factions themselves could be more detailed, I have no clue how Spared from RotR interacts with any of factions if at all for example.

I really love idea of articles on how certain locations change after APs and how it affects the world and this is only example of such article. Pity that this is only such article, the later articles could have improved on format making it more informative and less of repeating information :/

Okay, so my review got annihilated so here is super sort version:

I'm okay with idea of rpg line having golarion content in future due to me exclusively using established settings most of the time BUT

So yay I like to have toolbox that allows me to do non-Golarion setting and fill it with ready made groups, group vs group conflicts, intrigue plot arcs and such because I like having a crutch to work towards building my own setting without doing everything completely on my own on first time. I like the groups and I also like the end chapter that mixes them up several ways(either to create new groups or combine them like The Syndicate)

Stat blocks themselves are interesting too, surprised at amount of non ninja ninjas.

Used example of that I will probably use some of these statblocks in my golarion campaigns, since I'm bad with doing statblocks, so if I ever do that Night Herald campaign, I will probably use these cultists rather than reflavoring non generic cultists as Night Heralds. I believe on principle that Kuthonites/Lamashtans/Norgorber cultists/old god cultists should statblock wise be enough different from each other that you can't just randomly change name of the god and not tell difference.

(my overal plan is to do APs, then campaigns in Golarion with my own stuff, then campaign based on familiar stuff/setting generic npc book materials and then my own setting with my own materials(while probably using npc statblocks for help. I will of course continue using Golarion and APs, but I want to take baby steps to doing more creative stuff with world building and storytelling and such)

So anyway, in short: If rpg line moves to featuring Golarion specific npcs(which is bit problematic for me since thing I like about NPC codex is that they don't make references to areas or anything so I could include those in Golarion or other settings, but Inner Sea NPC codex npcs like anaphexia agent would feel waste of flavor to me to reflavor anaphexia part of them out or feature them somewhere it wouldn't make sense to feature them. If named npc has specific country being heavily featured, I'd feel it'd take most of their flavor to feature them in place where their country has nothing to do with them being there), organizations, etc whatever, I'd like books feature at least small token of advice on how to adapt organizations or npcs to other settings than Golarion. Just to note, with this I'm only talking about npc statblock books, with monsters and such I'd be really happy for their flavor to be Golarion specific since I find monsters to be surprisingly easy to reflavor anyway for some reason. Kinda like how Monster Codes descriptions are pretty much Golarion flavor with references removed anyway?

I don't know if its because I had last one before it become unavailable, but mine had best painting I had seen in miniature so far ._. Good detail, no "oops, I put too much paint there and now it dried up as huge blob", even face seems perfect compared to rather dumb faces figures usually have. Props for whoever is responsible for that xD

Cool lumbering golem figure :D I don't really get point of rating these miniatures though. I mean, painting seems to be sometimes great, sometimes not so great, this time it was but it seems to vary by same individual figure so subjective reactions to miniatures should vary a lot.

Granted, all those three things in title are subjective, but I try to explain them :P

Book is seriously really gorgeous. Granted, I do have only pdf, but I do have drooled after numenera books in store :'( Dem shiny. Even with pdf you get nice art and good layout. Lot of effort has been put to book's shininess I say.

Setting is... Well, I can't sell it good enough. I'd guess I'd recommend checking out upcoming Torment: Tides of Numenera game's teaser? The setting is really really alien and bizarre. Its kinda scary, kinda beautiful and full of wonderful bizarre stuff. Like, the even the world itself is impossible, the game takes place on earth after time during which sun should have died out and supercontinent game takes on place is larger than landmass of earth should allow. And thats not even getting into critters in the world... Its really mysterious setting I'd say.

What I can say is that I love the setting even if I think I can't do it justice. If there is anything bad about it, its that I think for gm it might be really hard to tell story in place were everything is... Weird.

Now on simpleness of the system... Well, reason why I believe it to be simple system is that its been only system I managed to learn through with one reading <_< With all other systems I keep forgetting rules even in the game. It helps that all tasks you do are done with same type of roll and instead of counting bonuses from your skill to your dice, the skills lower goal number you need. So less math that way, if you are specialized in something and you are trying to do difficulty rating 7 task, it becomes difficulty rating 5 task instead.

Even the character creation is easy, you pick class, descriptor and foci and thats it. Okay, granted, you pick a skill and allocate stats as well, but there are only three stats and they don't involve math. And skills can be anything you want as longs its not too broad category, so just pick something you wannabe good at. Much less steps than in other games I have played or read book of...

If there is anything bad about the system... Well, since the game is so simple, I'd think combat could potentially get little bit boring if players are like "I stab the monster/I do this" without flair. The game is rather narrative/story telling suited so if players are more interested in numbers than in rping, I could see it not being for them.

Anyway, I own a lot of different books and Numenera is among my favourites, I'd recommend checking it out, but if you are unsure then get pdf version of it first.

I love this one, its not really accurate to art in bestiary, but I find this one design to be more unique than book's regular green drake.

Got this from my fourth booster pack, I wasn't really impressed by picture on this site, but miniature itself is actually pretty nice. Details on it are pretty nice and it seems to be heavier than troll miniature, which I suppose fits giants.

This gives good advice on different types evil characters under different evil alignments and how to play them with other characters whether they are off same alignment or not. Even if you don't plan to play as evil characters, this seems pretty useful for creating villains as well.

However, I think this could have gone farther than this. Most of examples are just "evil for evil/selfish reasons" types of personalities, while motivations list in beginning had potential for more different types of evil. Would have been interesting to see example of tragic villains, like vengeance driven evil character who is ready to do anything to accomplish his revenge.

There also wasn't any mention of playing good or neutral characters turning to evil, fallen hero would have been interesting character example as well.

So yeah, if you are interested in trying out evil characters, sure go for it, but if you aren't that interested, this won't convince you to play evil character nor probably would convince your GM to let you play as one if they are against it.