A hot-blooded realm of riches, slavery, and blood feuds, the desert nation of Qadira looks down upon foreigners, for all other lands are glass when compared with Qadira’s diamonds. Ogre mercenaries and soldiers on flying carpets keep caravans safe from bandits and strange beasts. Bound genies build majestic palaces or guard pompous wizards, while tribes of jann roam the deserts hoping to free all geniekind. Militant factions of Sarenrae’s faith rattle their sabers and train dervishes, while mages and scholars from across the world line up to attend Qadira’s prestigious academies. And through it all, the war-mongering satrap turns his ambitious eye toward Taldor and the lands to the west, ready to break the centuries-long peace if only the padishah emperor would give him permission.
This Pathfinder Companion describes the country of Qadira and its capital of Katheer, the city of a million caravans. Study the secrets of the daivrat, humans honored with the trust of wise and deadly genies! Learn how to tell a half-genie from a thin-blooded suli-jann! Unlock Qadiran secrets with new feats and traits! Everything you need to know to play a Qadiran character—or defend yourself against one—is right here!
Written by Brian Cortijo
Each bimonthly 32-page Pathfinder Companion contains several player-focused articles exploring the volume’s theme as well as short articles with innovative new rules for social, magic, religious, and combat-focused characters, as well as a persona section detailing helpful NPCs and traits to better anchor the player to the campaign.
ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-180-0
Other Resources: This product is also available on the following platforms:
Qadira, Gateway to the East is a 32-page source book about what could be called the "Arabian Nights" area of Golarion. Retroactively listed as part of the Pathfinder "Player's Companion" line of books, this is probably as much or more for the GM rather than players. It's an impressive and well-written overview of the land, and there's definitely a lot of bang for the buck here. The book includes a full-color map of Qadira (sparsely annotated, to be fair) on the inside front-cover and is then separated into seven sections:
* A ten-page introduction to Qadira. This section discusses the history of the area, its political situation in terms of leadership and relationship to nearby lands, what goods are traded, and how the people are divided into four groups: nobles, citizens, slaves, and foreigners. It also includes descriptions of major cities and landmarks in Qadira. A sidebar introduces one new feat, one new combat trait, and two new regional traits.
* A four-page section labelled "Society." This is a quite useful overview of how the core races and classes are perceived in Qadira, and has a useful (if brief) discussion of cultural quirks. This section would be quite useful for players interested in creating a Qadiran PC. A new social trait appears here.
* A four-page overview of Katheer, an important city in Qadira. This section includes a half-page map, discussion of some major areas of the city, and four individual NPCs (description only, no stat blocks) that could come into contact with adventurers. Two new regional traits and an item are introduced here. This section is mostly for the GM.
* A two-page section titled "Combat" that consists solely of a prestige class called a Daivrat (a spellcaster who befriends genies). I've never played or seen one of these in a session, but the mechanical abilities don't seem to really do enough to draw out the flavour of the concept.
* Two pages titled "Faith." This section includes very brief discussions of the role of Irori, Sarenrae, Rovagug, Abadar, and Gorum in Qadira before introducing a pretty powerful new item ("War Kilt of Sarenrae") and a new feat ("Dervish Dance").
* "Magic," a short section that mentions some different traditions of magic in Qadira (like Veil Magic, Warding Magic, and Gen Magic) but unhelpfully doesn't cover in any detail whether these traditions have any real differences compared to the common schools of magic. Five new regional traits and the alchemical substance silversheen are introduced here.
* A six-page bestiary with stat-blocks for the half-janni, suli, and zhyen.
As best I can tell, much of this book was written before Paizo had clearly differentiated between its Player's Companion line and its Campaign Setting line. Qadira, Gateway to the East has much more in it of interest to GMs (a bestiary, an overview of a major city, etc.) than it does to players, while still introducing enough traits, feats, and even a prestige class to hold some value to players. It's a bit of a confusing mix, but, as I mentioned, it's a well-written product overall. More recent comers to Pathfinder might be warned that the artwork, although fine, is not up to the later Paizo standard.
As this review is being written, a new book about Qadira is on the horizon, titled (rather too similarly) "Qadira, Jewel of the East."
This was the best organized and most coherent Companion yet. I haven't really appreciated most of this series so far as the Companions often feel like a random collection of odds and ends of limited usefulness. Qadira gave a thorough overview of the history, geography, society, and even culture of magic. Enough background to give me a solid feel for the nation. I might have wanted to see a Dervish PrC, but I found the Daivrat to be very original and a good read. In fact all the Djinnfo was well presented.
My only suggestion would be that the traits be collected together, but otherwise I really enjoyed this product. AND much appreciation for reconnecting gnolls with their ghoulish heritage!
These companions are not impressive at all. The cover is juvenile, interior art is silly, the maps are lack luster, and what's with the half-janni? On the plus side the bestiary has a couple of nice additions to the writer's tool box, new traits, feats, and material which will help players of Pathfinder Society, backgrounds of local beliefs, types of magic schools, a prestige class, a few pages obout Katheer, how races and classes are viewed, the part on genders is confusing from a role playing angle, and their views of cast in society. I wish they would have had more about things like seasons, a bit more statistics on every city, struggles inside Qudira, details like roads between towns on the maps and products for different regions and cities, and how they would feel about other countries in Pathfinder Society.
I'll admit that I wasn't anticipating this book nearly as much as I was other releases. I tend to GM rather than play and Qadira was never one of the locations in Golarion that grabbed me.
Then I read it. This is a well-written, engaging book that has turned me on to this amazing nation in the setting and given me a caravan's load of new ideas for both sides of the screen. I especially love some of the new crunchy bits, like the suli race (which I think I might play in an upcoming Legacy of Fire campaign) and the zhyen familiar option.
I've been uninspired by past Companions either because of their content or their subject, but this book has made a huge impression on me. Plus, everything in it is 100% compatible with the new rules, so I don't even need to convert grapple to CMB and spot to perception. It's ready to go, right out of the gate.
Quick crunch question, CR 1/2 seems low for a Suli with a class level in Ranger. Is that right in PFRPG or just a typo? with its powers CR 1 would seem more appropriate (still thinking 3.5 though).
Here's my thinking on this.
Compared to a human ranger 1 (CR 1/2), the suli ranger 1 has a net +2 to his ability scores, low-light vision (generally irrelevant to CR), +1d6 energy damage to one attack for one round, and resistance 5 to all energy.
Compared to a human ranger 2 (CR 1), the suli ranger is -1 BAB, -1 d10 Hit Die, -2 in overall saves, -1 combat style feat, and -6 skill points (generally irrelevant to CR).
Clearly the suli is somewhere between the human ranger 1 and the human ranger 2. The bonuses compared to the human ranger 1 don't do a whole lot to make him a more dangerous opponent, whereas the shortfalls compared to the human ranger 2 (in particular, having half as many hit points) make him significantly weaker. So I'd put him on the CR 1/2 side of the board. There are situations where the suli ranger 1 is going to be better than a human ranger 1 (say, an encounter where everyone is taking energy damage every round), but under those circumstances the GM should feel to award the PCs more XP (say, by treating his CR as 1 higher).
You can interpret it that way, yes, though Kelesh itself is really the heart of the empire and Qadira is but its western extreme colony.
Kind of like those little kingdoms real world empires used to keep on their borders as a way of slowing donw any thrusts at the empire proper? I.e., the later Byzantines and the Slavic kingdoms, Persia and the Lakhmid Arabs, etc.
Time for me to take a level in the Thread Necromancer prestige class, to revive the Product Discussion about this book that hasn't been touched in 3 years.
Rise from the dead, departed thread! Rise! RISE!!! RISE!!!!! IT'S ALIVE!!! ALIVE!!! ALIVE!!!!!!!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ahem, sorry about that. I should get on with my reason for posting here.
I ran across the Princess trait on the SRD (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/traits/social-traits/princess-female), which is apparently from this book. I was looking for a way to give intimidate as a class skill to a female character I'm making, and the fluff on this would definitely fit her personality better than the old standard Bully trait from the Advanced Players Guide. And it gives +1 to diplomacy as an added bonus, which doesn't suck.
Since this is for Pathfinder Society, I'll need to own the book to use the trait. Before shelling out the cash to buy it, I just had a couple of questions. First and foremost, does a character have to be Qadiran to take the trait? I know they have to be female, but I just want to be sure on this point, since this PC definitely won't be Qadiran.
Second, how good's the rest of the book? I don't think I have any of the nation-specific books like this yet, so I don't really know what to expect. I do have the Inner Sea World Guide, though, which I swear I'll find time to read some day. Will this just be redundant, or is there interesting material in this one that isn't found in the ISWG?
