Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Occult Mysteries (PFRPG)

Occult Mysteries has been great as a PFS GM understanding a bit more of the ongoing mysteries / controversies in Golarian's history. Does it answer the mysteries? No. And as a GM I'm glad. The mysteries of the setting are meant to be that. What it does is provide GMs with the tools and details to build upon these mysteries and intrigue your players into investigating them.

As far as I'm concerned, this book has exactly one usable piece of player crunch: the lucky number spell. On the other hand, it's a great spell that can be gotten in a wand and be used by most casters in PFS.

As a PFS GM (and a frequent player of Dark Archives characters), this book has provided material for me make several recent scenarios come alive for my players. It talks about the death of Aroden, the Harbinger of Fate cult and the Book of 1000 Whispers. It discusses the mysterious disappearance of the Number 5 issue of the Pathfinder Chronicles. It even has a chapter that compiles the theories of why gnomes left the first world -- a place perfect for creatures of caprice and chaos -- to come to the material plane with its order and mortality.

If you're looking for crunch, look elsewhere. If you're looking for real answers, look elsewhere. But... If you're seeking more information on the great questions of the Golarian setting, this is the book for you.

Wonderful book devoted to secret societies & mysterious cults. This offers lots of adventure hooks and ideas that will feed PC paranoia. The astrology segment was welcome, offering a new set of traits based on constellations. The elaboration on the Night Heralds and Veiled Masters is a particular treat. There are a few new spells and haunts that appears useful, and the detailed description of several arcane tomes is incredible -- I only wish that reading them drove the reader a bit insane, a la Call of Cthulhu. (I house rule in insanity, no save, usually in the form of a simple phobia that is as fun to role-play as it is frustrating). If you enjoy Call of Cthulhu, you'll like this.

This book contains a great deal of ideas to build upon. one could easily see a custom game centring around many of these mysteries. and makes for a good read in general

the problem comes from the crunch. every character option detailed in here is simply too complicated to be feasible in an in game setting. we are talking about taking on an extra 5 minutes for someone to take their turn just to calculate for a metamagic feat. it's not that the feat effect is bad. It's just that the actual steps to actualy use it are aggravating at best. the feats provided for numerology feel like they should have been part of the description of what numerologists do rather than something the player himself has to do. take the sacred geomery feat for example. it requires you to roll a number of d6 equal to your knowledge engineering skill, and do any combination of math with those dice such that they equal a number on a table. who in there right mind would take 10 minutes doing mid level algebra just to take your turn? why not just make it something like "roll a number of d6 equal to your knowledge engineering. If the total is above the number on the table the feat succeeds"?

the worst part is that I was looking forward to "science magic" for a while. This single book kills any chance of anyone ever playing with it unless Paizo fixes this at a later date.

Read my full review on Of Dice and Pen.

Occult Mysteries offers incredible insight into the beliefs of the people of Golarion, and into their thought processes. The book looks at a number of “mysteries” from across the world—the strange things that people haven’t quite been able to explain, but have many hypotheses about. These include creation stories, the exodus of the gnomes, and the missing Volume 5 of the Pathfinder Chronicles. The book also looks at traditions like astrology and numerology, secret societies, and infamous texts of great power.

So, I should definitely begin by saying that this publication is specifically helpful for Game Masters who use the Pathfinder Campaign Setting (Golarion, and its related mythos); other gamers might find it fun to muse on if they are unfamiliar, but not all that helpful as a player-option resource. This is definitely a storyteller-oriented publication, and not something you will want to encourage your players to keep on hand, unless they are involved in some of the books organizations and secret societies. This book presents more questions than answers, and I believe it may be impossible to verify/debunk every theory of every mystery presented here, in the scope of a single campaign. If you are hoping that this book will make you stop feeling the urge to find out the answers to questions you have from other related products, you are almost guaranteed to be disappointed. This product works really well if you have the Inner Sea World Guide, and is also helpful for those who use the materials for the Dragon Empires, Tian Xia; but for those who have none, you have the Pathfinder Wiki.

The inside front cover features an illustrated diagram of the Cosmic Caravan, Golarion's central zodiac; the back cover repeats the outside front cover illustration. One page of credits and table of contents.

Two pages are a 'Collection Memorandum' (Introduction), written in-character by Djavin Vhrest, an Absalom scholar, including fourteen listed texts and their descriptions the reader may find of alluring interest. This scholar also includes an introduction and postscript by the fictional author. Page 3 includes a sidebar listing the "Mysterious Occultists" who participated in the publication's writing, and the sections upon which they worked.

Chapter 1 is 'Mysteries of Golarion', and begins with an excellent image of two cosmic dragons fighting in a starry, nebulous space. All of the artwork in this publication is great. The greatest mysteries of Golarion are explored here, and the page 5 explanation of them includes 'The Ultimate Mystery,' referring to the death/disappearance of Aroden, and its effects on the campaign setting lands. Each topic in this chapter is summarized, and the 'Facts' and 'Theories' are presented for each of them, allowing GMs to tailor the plot hooks, adventure materials, and their own ideas to the players at the table, and the campaign at hand.

Chapter 1 mysteries include the Aucturn Enigma, Creation Myths & Origin Stories, the Exodus of the Gnomes from the First World, the aboleth Veiled Masters and ancient Azlant, and the infamous lost Volume 5 of the Pathfinder Chronicles.

Chapter 2 is 'Secret Societies', and features a wicked illustration of a few worshiping cultists, encircling some sort of tentacle creature emerging from a pool in a massive cyclopean architectural space - it's beautiful and freaky, all at once. A full page (p. 17) is dedicated to the idea of joining or leaving a secret society, and benefits of membership.

Chapter 2 secret societies include the Anaphexia, Conference Z, the Church of Razmir, the Esoteric Order of the Palatine Eye, the Harbingers of Fate, the Knights of the Ioun Star, the Night Heralds, and the Way of the Kirin. Each of these are detailed, and certain benefits of membership are presented, as well as how GMs can use these organizations in their own campaigns. Great illustrations, all the way around; Paizo does a lovely job with this.

Chapter 3 is 'Esoteric Traditions', which begins with an illustration of Seltyiel (the iconic magus) performing self-mortification to gain arcane power - very creepy, no doubt about it, but still very cool. A page is dedicated to summarizing these traditions.

Chapter 3 esoteric traditions include Astrology (with two full-page tables for astrological elements), the Harrow (including three pages of descriptions of the deck cards), Mortification and the Pain Taster prestige class, Numerology, and Spiritualism. Each section is given a 4-page spread, wonderful illustrations, and a lot of options such as new feats and spells. The Numerology section could easily become complicated and could be a time-consuming mechanical aspect, and some people may feel a little over-informed about the Harrow because of other Paizo products; but for those who want it all in one place, this is a perfect solution.

Chapter 4 is 'Occult Writings', the final chapter of the publication, and features an illustration of Ezren, the iconic wizard, with his eyes getting zapped by arcane energies from reading a massive tome. Oh, did I mention the really nice artwork? A page is dedicated to describing occult writings, along with sixteen of those texts not detailed in this section.

Chapter 4 occult writings include the Aleh Almaktoum (includes the spell, spectral saluqi), the Book of 1,000 Whispers, The Inward-Facing Circle, the Lost Gospels of Tabris, the Secrets of the Dreaming Dark, and Uniting the Flesh. I don't even know how to summarize how much awesome is in this section, and each of the one-page detailed sections includes an illustration of the tome/text.

An advertisement accompanies the Open Gaming License, with a standard outside back cover design about the publication. 64 lovely pages of wonderful excellence, and it is definitely possible to have an overdose of awesome on this product; proceed with caution, readers.