Same excellent print quality as all the pawn collections. I was a little surprised that the set came with no bases at all. Also, as noted in the product discussion forum, pawn 76 and 78 have their names transposed. This is especially disappointing because one of these two NPCs (Lady Martella Lotheed) is, in all likelihood, the very first NPC the PCs will encounter in this campaign. Bizarrely, these two shortcomings worked out for me in that the third party bases I purchased so I would have some way to stand these figures up, were cheaper per unit than the Paizo bases, and mostly cover up the names at the bottom anyway.
I'm not against character progression. In fact, I prefer it, as most readers do. What I am against is radically altering characters to the point that they are barely recognizable. Gross does a great job of portraying the exotic locale of Tian Xia, and this book is a must read for any player/GM looking to venture there. But I felt like two of my favorite characters were rather abruptly railroaded into completely new personas. This wasn't the case in Prince of Wolves, where those characters visited another foreign land, Ustalav, but still retained their essential personalities. Also, pretty early on, a third non-humanoid character suddenly gains almost-human sentience, without so much as a knowing wink.
So I guess this novel surprised me in a lot of ways. Not all of them bad. My advice would be: Read it. Enjoy it. And, above all, go with the flow. You're in for a wild, unpredictable ride.
