Cerulean Seas Campaign Setting (PFRPG) PDF

This massive full-color campaign is 290 pages long, 1 page front cover, 2 pages of editorial, 1 page ToC, 4 pages of index, 1 page inside back cover and 1 page back cover, leaving a staggering 279 pages of content for this campaign setting, but what exactly are in for?

What if the world saw an age of peace above the waves, an era of enlightenment overseen by a powerful nation? What if said force of goodness and equilibrium suddenly vanished and the surface-dwellers, in their despair and ignorance initiated a cataclysm that sees most of the world flooded, leaving only sparse patches of land unsubmerged? What if the surface-dwellers went extinct and yet, the world would continue spinning? The action and eternal war between good and evil would continue, but beneath the waves. These are the Cerulean Seas, a world flooded and in the grip of tidal waves, where new races have claimed dominance after vanquishing the dreaded sahuagin and this book follows an ambitious goal - Not only do the people from Alluria Publishing try to offer you an original setting, but also provide all the necessary rules for all instances of underwater adventuring.

Let's see whether they've succeeded in that endeavor, shall we? There's a lot to consider, believe me. Seeing I converted the monstrous arcana Sahuagin-trilogy from the 2nd edition days of old to 3.5 and ran the campaign, I do know that even if you prepare a LOT of magical items/spells etc., there are a LOT of additional concerns to address and this book is wasting no space and jumps in to introduce us to some of the peculiarities of underwater adventuring:

From an introduction to the different light zones, to mechanics to determine tides and even very extensive terrain information, we get a lot of cool new rules, favorite of which for me would be buoyancy -natural air bladders from races to items: The rules presented for buoyancy should be standard - they are elegant and easy to implement: Essentially buoyancy comes in positive and negative values, either dragging you down or pushing you upwards - including acceleration and drag. Str determines what you can carry until you fight against buoyancy. Combine that with water pressure and currents (which also get their easy and yet extensive rules) and we get a wholly unique experience: Seeing that until I read this, underwater combat felt mostly like flying underwater, this is just awesome - 3d exploration and combat that opens a whole array of new tactics and combat options. Combat will never be the same under the waves and even if you're only planning on having 1 or 2 adventures under the waves, this chapter (especially when combined with OD's Sunken Empires), is absolutely the best resource you can imagine. It also includes extensive information on underwater hazards ranging from poisons, whirlpools etc. A new condition replaces prone (disoriented) and thrown weapons are replaced with plunge weapons - be aware, though, that not a simple name-substitution has been made: E.g. the splash weapons work in some key-aspects different from their dryland-counterparts.
After this chapter on terrain and the basics, we are introduced to the new playable races, all of which come with their own natural buoyancy, information on their depth tolerance as well as the information on attributes. I'd usually sum up the racial modifiers etc., but in the interest of finishing this review this century, I'll just go on to give you a general overview. Generally, the races of the Cerulean Sea can be divided into three general categories: Anthromorphs (4 races), which include cool races like the crab-like Karkanaks and the crocodile-humanoid Sebek-Ka, the Feykith (4 races), which contain Sea-elves, Selkies and Viridian Naiads, the latter being plant-like in life-cycle and mentality. The final category is the Merfolk, which includes the mysterious and alien, deep-dwelling Nommo, the poison-spined Cindarians and the proud, mount-like Kai-Lios. 11 merfolk-halfbreeds are also provided along tables for age, height/length, buoyancy and depth-tolerance. I expected to get lame aquatic variants of regular races and instead found a plethora of well-written, balanced, cool races that ooze unique flavor and thus lend themselves to truly ingenious plots.

Chapter 3 deals with classes and how they work under water and some interesting components and rationalizations/modifications have been made to them: Alchemists for example have invented aqua gravis, a substance to make bombs and potions with and its discovery, manufacture and usage lends a whole new dimension/other was the items work to the whole class. Wait, Alchemist? Yep, Cerulean Seas comes with full-blown APG-support. While all classes get their respective treatment, the two new domains for the cleric (Flora and Steam, replacing Plant and Fire) as well as an one-page domains/deities-list deserve special mention, as do the 18 aquatic animal companions and the new eidolon evolutions. Conversion notes for e.g. Infernal bloodlines etc. are provided as well.
The chapter does not stop there, though: We get the new Kahuna-base-class, a druid-like ally of the spirits of the sea with neat spirit aspect powers of 8 different totems - mechanically one of the most interesting spirit shaman-like classes I've seen. Speaking of interesting - the 20-lvl Mariner base-class, focusing on supreme 3d-movement and agility makes for an interesting melee-choice and the substitute for the bard, the siren-class, also makes for a neat design, though the latter could have used more options to choose from with regards to her songs. The base-PrCs are also covered along 3 new PrCs - The Beach Comber, a ranger-like elite, the Glimmerkeeper, legendary rogues and possibly mutants fighting for the downtrodden and the Sea Witch, who is a rather evil and dark PrC for the siren - think Ursula from Ariel in mature and you'll get these nice fellows.

The next chapter deals with skills and feats - jumping from the waves, diving perception beneath the waves and coverage of existing feats help adapting them to the world beneath the waves. The chapter does not stop there, though: 45 new feats expand upon racial qualities (enhancing Cindarian spines and Karanak-claws for example) as well as dealing with the new environment, improving e.g. Air Bladder class. Surprisingly, I did not find a single feat that felt overpowered or useless - quite a feat! (Pardon the pun!)

The next chapter deals with underwater currency: Seeing that copper and silver tend to rust, the currency of the seas is based on shell, gold and pearls. Tarde and new goods like the aforementioned aqua gravis as well as alloys for weapons are covered. The new weapons cover both weaponized harnesses for awakened animals and a vast array of thrusting weapons - the tables alone cover 2 whole pages, ensuring that you don't have to arm all your characters/NPCs with piercing weapons. The aquatic armors are also interesting, including for example jellyfish armors as well as clamshell plates. 11 new ships are introduced for traveling on the waves (which seems to be a bit more secure than under the waves) and a huge array of conversions are provided for all the regular items and obsolete ones are mentioned as well. Kelp ropes e.g. replacing regular ones. Extensive lists including buoyancy information for these items have been provided for your convenience as well, as have buoyancy-control items that help you combat updraft. Have I mentioned the phosphorescent jelly-fish lanterns? This chapter, with all the small details and miniscule meticulously pieced together components makes underwater adventuring and societies that much more believable - excellent!

Part II of my review in the product discussion, post 70.

Well what can I say about a book that is so well written and complete. This is THE book I have been waiting for for a long time and it was definitely worth the price of admission. I have no problem paying $30 for a book of this quality and since I buy all my books in PDF format. I can defintely say it is one of the best buys even at this price range I have made.

The Book is easily the best purchase i have made this year in RPG products.. wait make that during the last year as it is the new Year.

I was hesitant to purchase due to the price of the Product, but was simply astounded by the detail of this product. This will be my manual to the lands beneath the tides within my campaign world. I now have an entire new area for my players to visit and maybe even live.

Time for a Transformation Portal to the depths of the Sea.

Thanks again been waiting Ages for this Book

Cerulean Seas by Alluria Publishing

This product is 290 pages long. It starts with a cover, credits, and ToC. (4 pages)

Chapter 1 – Undersea Basics (22 pages)
It starts with a IC introduction explaining what has happened and why 99% of the world is covered in water now. It moves onto a OOC explaining how and why the book was made, followed with advice on using it and common terms in the book. Next it gets into the environments of the sea. The different zones in the ocean, close to land, far from it. How deep one is from the surface, including how much light there is, the effects of the tides etc It gets very in depth and covers everything very well.

Next they get into buoyancy, it goes into great deal of the effects this has on characters and creatures under the sea. It also gets into drag effects of pulling a object or person along underwater. Followed by the effects of pressure has on living things. Next is current's riptides, and undertow, swimming speeds, terrain above water and at the bottom of the ocean. I don't know how realistic all of it is, but it is well written and seems like it would work very well and makes sense.

Next it gets into perils like poisons, diseases, blood in the water drawing sharks, water conditions like murk or whirlpools etc. It ends with a short section on undersea combat, with some differences. Like it being a 3D environment.

Chapter 2 – Undersea Races (20 pages)
This chapter details the undersea races one can play in a undersea campaign. They are all done in enough depth and detail to easily pick one up and start playing with them, giving you everything you need just like the main races in Pathfinder core rule book. The are broken up be species type and then by individual race. It finishes with a whole host of half bread combinations. Since many of them are egg laying races it is far easy to get cross breeding as any male can fertilize the eggs.
Anthromorphs
-Karkanaks
-Mogogols
-Pisceans
-Sebek-kas
Feykith
-Elves, Sea
-Naiads, Viridian
-Nixies, Deepwater
-Selkies, Lochgelly
Merfolk
-Cindarians
-Kai-lios
-Nommos
-Seafolk

Chapter 3 – Undersea Classes (34 pages)
At first it talks about how you can adapt the existing Pathfinder classes to use in the game, including the APG classes. Some are pretty minor changes some are a bit more complex. It also introduces two more domains, undersea Flora and Steam domains. It also has a table of 27 deities, domains weapons etc, more details in chapter 7. The druid has 18 new animal companion options. There is several new Eidolon evolutions to choose from. Plus 12 more familiars for the witch and wizard.

Next it introduces three new classes. They replace the niche of some of the existing classes in new and interesting ways. There is nothing stopping you from using both classes in the same game though.
Kahuna – replaces the Druid
Mariner – replaces the ranger
Siren – replaces the Bard

Next it gets into PrC's and which ones fit and what you need to change if anything and the ones that don't. It also includes three new PrC's as well.
Beach Comber – They go up on some of the little land left and spend time there.
Glimmerkeepers – Honestly to hard to explain but very cool.
SeaWitch – a PrC for the new Siren class.

Chapter 4 – Aquatic Skills and Feats (14 pages)
It starts off talking about all the skills that are different and how they are different. Next it moves onto existing feats that need to be tweaked and what they do now to fit. Next it introduces 45 new undersea flavored feats that all fit very well.

Chapter 5 – Money and Equipment (20 pages)
First it gets into the new money system, since most metals tarnish or rust underwater it makes sense. They use small shells, gold, pearls and such. Now on the shells they really should have made it clear they had to have stamps to make them valuable or people could just go kill the creatures and take their shells for money.

It follows this with a section on weapons, armor and undersea gears. There is simply way to much to list or even high light. They did a good job with the gear for the most part. Other than a few minor issues like Spiked Chain which honestly just would not work underwater. It even has a section on sailing ships. There is several new weapons, armor and a couple of dozen new gear items, not to mention many of the old stuff tweaked to fit the setting.

Chapter 6 – Magic of the Sea (34 pages)
It starts off talking about how spells will work differently underwater. It is followed by a table of aquatic material components in place of the existing ones. I thought that was very cool as some stuff just wouldn't exist underwater. Next it has a chart of spells and their new names, while not needed it was very cool and makes sense. I mean no one would call a fireball and fireball underwater, instead it is mageboil as it makes the water boil instead.

Next it details all the new spells and spells that have changed such as fireball to mageboil. I tried counting but I lost count. There is around a 120-130 spells, I am honestly unsure how many are new and how many are altered. At a glance I would say close to 50/50. It ends with 9 new magic items and a few new magic item properties.

Chapter 7 – The Cerulean Seas (25 pages)
This section gets into the campaign setting, it has the gods, cities, etc, it is a campaign gazetteer for the default setting of the book.

Chapter 8 – Mastering the Sea (10 pages)
This is the game master section of the book on how to run games underwater. It gets into greater detail of some of the previous stuff like buoyancy etc. About how to find depth tolerances for creatures, by what they are. The most interesting section is on 3D combat and how to make your own 3d combat mat to use with mini's if you like. It ends with a section on how the planes interact with the sea.

Chapter 9 – Cerulean Sea Bestiary (72 pages)
This chapter is just a monster bestiary for the setting but also a great one for anyone that ever wants to run a undersea adventure. There is 95 new monsters including new sound based dragons which all looked different and where really interesting. Many had more than one stat block like the dragons. There was also 5 new templates.

Appendices (6 pages)
There is a few Appendix in this section, monsters listed by CR, pronunciation guide, index of tables and index of art.

It ends with a OGL, 2 page character sheet, 4 cardboard mini's, hex sheets to make the 3D battle map with, a full page map, indepth index and back cover. (17 pages)

Closing thoughts. This is a very well written, very pretty book about undersea campaigns. The art work is mostly color and very good high quality art. The editing, layout and production values was top notch. Simply put if you ever wanted a book to help you run a undersea campaign THIS is the book to get. Even if you don't want to, this would be a great tool if you ever wanted to just run some adventures underwater.

Now the book is not perfect, there is a few minor issues where and there with it, like the spiked chain or the shells I mentioned. But most of them are pretty minor issues. My only real critic is honestly the price. I understand Alluria publishing is a small company and art is very expensive, after seeing the art in this book I am sure they spent a bundle on the art budget. But it is a bit high priced at 29.99 for a PDF. If that was the print price I would say fair price, for a PDF though? I felt a tad high. So whats my rating? Well just on the book it is easily a 5 star product, with the price I would say a 4.5 star. I know the price is a little high but I don't think you will be disappointed picking this up, if you find undersea adventures interesting at all.