Hecke's page

I just lost a titanic negative review, so allow me to truncate my thoughts into a few bullet points.

-It has nice art and is well-presented
-If you're new to the setting and Pathfinder, you'll likely find it an interesting, diverse, and versatile setting.
-If you're a Pathfinder veteran and run a lot of Adventure Paths (APs), then you'll find this book utterly insulting.

There's probably a way to make a cohesive narrative in your world that also includes lots of world-shaking AP's, but this isn't it. Paizo has decided how their AP's have ended (with countless mentions of "a band of heroes swept in at the nick of time!"), and some of those are so definitive that they're unable to coincide with their opposites. Here's two examples:

-Ironfang Invasion: The ending where you talk Azaersi down and work with her to form her own peaceful nation (utterly ignoring her war crimes or what she personally did to your hometown) is assumed canon now, so if you have a setting where she's dead then too bad; she has a whole nation and demiplane to her people now.
-Tyrant's Grasp: Perhaps the most egregious, this AP has you be utterly consigned to oblivion to stop the Whispering Tyrant, and this world guide politely informs you that he was gone for a little bit before returning in full force and is now plotting and scheming. So the entire Tyrant's Grasp AP amounted to nothing - your characters meant nothing, all so Paizo could have their favorite villain back again later.

I wish my previous review hadn't mysteriously wiped, but I assure you this is book is an awful idea; it is a slap in the face to anyone who truly cares about their setting, of which I can't possibly be the only one.

If you want to play 2E, great! If you're totally new to the setting and want to check it out, fantastic! But if you're a 1E veteran who has anything resembling a timeline or you care whatsoever about Golarion, don't buy this. Just save your money.

I have a tough time summarizing my complaints with this book, but I want to be as clear as I can, so let me put some things into context. Also there's some spoilers in here, but if you're GMing this they're well worth knowing before you buy this.

You will be returning to Avistan with what essentially amounts to a narrative "doomsday clock" over your head. No, not a hard one like in Wrath of the Righteous, but certainly the fact that the Whispering Tyrant is basically going to win tomorrow is pretty huge. So, with that in mind, let's look at some of the things Paizo wastes pages on while you are (presumably) rushing to save the world:
-An encounter with a wild hunt you're strong enough to fight wanting to "play hunt" with you, along with 5 pages of rules for how to do it.
-gambling with a rawhead
-dining with a Daughter of Urgathoa
-playing undead politics

To say nothing of the utterly baffling pacing of this, it also seems so unbelievably rushed in the places that matter. The whole plot is a mess; literally 2/3rds of the game exist to allow you to do a dungeon, since Tar-Baphon "made his generals retake their vows to him" and then for no particular reason only moved 1/2 his army to Absalom seemingly allow the PC's to enter his spooky dungeon and have something to fight. But in the end, you're expected to fight him alongside your newest friends, who are so important you meet them about 2 hours prior and they don't even have unique stat blocks.

You do not reach level 20, and in the end you die. But not just die; no, you sacrifice your SOULS to stop Tar-Baphon, consigning yourself to oblivion. Now, that's the stuff of legends right there IF IT'S HANDLED WELL, but having just read 2E's world guide, do you know what happens to Tar-Baphon?

He just comes back in a bit and is now scheming away on the Isle of Terror. The Lost Omens guide literally invalidates the actions of this whole AP. The book ends with a throwaway line about "the Whispering Tyrant still being out there woooooooo" before immediately rushing to show off some special creations of the writers on staff, and then it's OFF TO 2E!

This book was an underwhelming mess, poorly paced, badly bloated, and yet somehow unbelievably rushed. I honestly can't believe they allowed one of their most notorious villains to be portrayed like this, and now that he's back it means the entire AP was worth far less than the amount of money I paid for it. If you can, either rewrite this book yourself for your group, or just skip this AP. It's completely meaningless anyways.