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I think the linvarre push for democracy is weird why would taldans who have an antagonistic history with democracy and tiens who as far as I am aware have no native concepts of democracy use the system I would have thought it would be more like the Mongols or Manchu after they conquered china and made use of native institutions and cultural norms

Hello! I wrote the Linvarre section, and that bit was inspired by Taiwan's transition from a military dictatorship to a democracy. It's also important to note that there's basically one main person pushing for this form of government - the current General, Jiayi Vannisar. The idea was to present her as a young leader who'd studied abroad and probably has some ideas that are definitely incongruous with the general population. She has the support of some folks, but there's also a lot of people in the regime who think her plans are wildly off-base for the reasons you suggested, hence the inclusion of her rival, Kestral Zentria.

Generally the goal with Linvarre was to push the fact that it's a heavily changing nation after having only achieved independence four years ago, and there are a lot of ideas being thrown up against the wall to see what sticks. Taldans might have an antagonistic history with democracy, but Linvarre has been divorced from Taldor for a long time and the only major interaction with the "motherland" in recent times was Princess Eutropia Stavian finally deciding to cut Taldor's losses and let Amanandar govern itself. The hope is that players/GMs can mess around with these concepts and see how they want to challenge them or see them through. (There were also some bits about leaders in Mallaru openly rebelling against the government that didn't quite make it into the final book and could be used to subvert/support the democracy question if you so wish.)

Like others have said, Amanandar was established the year that the AP takes place and is still a very young nation, but nevertheless exists. It's entirely concievable that some immigrants may have decided to set up shop in Shenmen. With Goka being such a big trading hub, it's also possible that a Taldane characters have originated from that part of Tian Xia.

I wrote a few things for Howl of the Wild (including one of the very not-combat monsters) and especially want to highlight how rare it is to get a creature-focused book in this hobby that is centered on the magic of the natural world instead of simply presenting you with a laundry list of monsters to roll d20s against. Think Jules Verne/JRPG steampunk air travel vibes meets Prehistoric Planet. There’s a place for this in every campaign, even urban-focused ones!

I lurk on these forums all the time and never write anything, but I wanted to break that habit to say that everyone here is going to be absolutely blown away and very pleased at what’s inside these volumes.

For the record, since it was already revealed in the blog post, I’m allowed to say that I’m the one who rewrote Amanandar/Linvarre :) Glad to see Taltien is already getting a bit of love!