For nearly 5,000 years, the great city of Absalom has stood at the center of the Inner Sea region's culture, commerce, and prophecy. Now, after the death of its founder-god Aroden, the disappearance of its lord mayor, and new attacks from some of its greatest foes, Absalom stands at the crossroads of a new and uncertain destiny!
This lore-packed 400-page guide presents a fascinating locale suitable for years of Pathfinder adventures! A huge poster map of the city, more than 250 locations, and more than 400 interconnected NPCs set the scene in unprecedented detail, beckoning your characters to walk upon streets paved with centuries of history. Follow in the footsteps of generations of questing heroes to chart a new path for the City at the Center of the World!
Written by:
Allie Bustion, John Compton, Jeremy Corff, Katina Davis, Vanessa Hoskins, James Jacobs, Virginia Jordan, Erik Mona, Matt Morris, Liane Merciel, Dave Nelson, Samantha Phelan, Jessica Redekop, Mikhail Rekun, Brian Richmond, David N. Ross, Simone D. Sallé, Shahreena Shahrani, Abigail Slater, Chris Spivey, Diego Valdez, and Skylar-James Wall
Content Warning: While Absalom, City of Lost Omens contains a great deal of content suitable for everyone, it also presents themes of slavery, ableism, body horror, and human experimentation. Before you use this material in a campaign, understand that player consent (including that of the Game Master) is vital to a safe and fun play experience for everyone. Talk with your players before using these themes at the table and modify descriptions or scenarios as appropriate.
ISBN: 978-1-64078-235-8
Other Resources: This product is also available on the following platforms:
This book is a mouthful, that's for sure. And I'd say it's for two kinds of people: Hardcore fans and theatre kids who never leave Absalom.
It honestly reminds me of Shadowrun's Seattle sourcebooks - an excellent deconstruction, neighborhood by neighborhood, with all the important locations. However whereas Seattle/New Seattle were tailored towards locations that might be of interest to a certain type of person (shadowrunners) this is just a blanket treatment of the city - almost like more of an atlas/tourists guide to Absalom than anything else.
Unfortunately it reads like a phone book - and that's great, if that's what you're angling for. I think I prefer Owen K C Stephens style over this personally. But if you do anything in Absalom, it's certainly worth picking up.
I would have liked to have seen more than four pages about the outskirts -- Absalom the City is very well charted and travelled, especially with the six part AP Agents of Edgewatch. But Absalom the country remains regrettably poorly plotted. Not even Otari gets a shout-out, and that's been the location of at least three adventures, one of which is the most popular PF2 adventure so far. When your supposed atlas to a country says "See the beginner box for info about this town!" that's a cash-grab.
Initially, I wasn't sure what to expect from this massive, nearly 400-page book. It consolidates and repurposes information about Absalom found elsewhere in the Pathfinder modules and PFS adventures -- a long overdue task that has thankfully materialized.
For seasoned GMs and Players, this tome brings most things you know about Absalom together under one proverbial roof with a poster map of the city and enumerated inset maps with gazetteer-like descriptors of places of interest. NPCs you have come to know through adventures and modules can be found here, along with a few updates for 2nd Edition.
For the newcomer to Pathfinder, this will give you a handy (if initially expensive) reference to Absalom that you can use as you might an encyclopedia. If you keep that in mind, this tome may be worth the investment when adventuring (or GMing).
Unfortunately, the sheer magnitude of consolidated and repurposed information here is only the tip of Absalom's proverbial iceberg. Depth of coverage about the city's history, lore, politics, geography and intriguing aspects (on the whole) will be adequate for most purposes. GMs with a bit of creativity will find ways to build new hooks and adventures from this material without too much difficulty, especially if using some of the rumors, points of interest, and NPCs included in the book. GMs designing "sequels" to PFS scenarios from 1st Edition or 1st Edition adventure modules may find this book to be an adequate assistant to that end. But GMs who want a comprehensive guide to the city (is there ever such a thing in any speculative RPG?) will get close -- but will have to either wait for future adventures and supplements to flesh out the missing bits or create their own lore in the meantime.
As a GM and Player, I truly appreciate the hard work this book represents in putting the bulk of Absalom in a one-stop reference. As such, it justifies its place on my bookshelf.
After over two long years of waiting, I finally got this book in my grubby dwarven hands a month ago. I lovingly put it on the shelf to wait for a couple of weeks, so that I could savor it in peace. When I eventually had a whole evening to spend on reading it carefully through, I felt confused. I had had really high expectations for this book, so why didn’t I feel excited and inspired by its contents?
The book begins with a nice history section, and then describes all the major players, guilds, houses and factions in the city, including the participants in the War of Strings. I also like the parts about architecture and culture, and the glimpses at what a typical day and a year will be like for average residents of Absalom. All of this is great material for GMs, although honestly, I thought something similar to the ”Entwined Destinies” section at the end of Lost Omens : Legends would have been super helpful, perhaps even mandatory part for a book about Absalom. And in my humble opinion, that is where the good stuff more or less ends, on page 77, unless you count those chapter-opening art pieces of each district, which are great.
I had expected something like Worldwound, City of Strangers or Rule of Fear, with loads of inspiring locations, story hooks and NPCs. In secret I had even hoped this book would be just like the excellent Sandpoint : Light of the Lost Coast, which includes quests and adventure seeds for every location and NPC mentioned in the book. Well, I should have realized that it’s probably not going to happen in a book that describes over 250 locations and 400 NPCs.
And that is kind of my point; this book was (obviously) a very ambitious and time-consuming project. It is also a prime example why sometimes less is more, and why deadlines are deadlines. The number of NPCs and locations in this book is just overwhelming, and sadly, I think most of them are not very inspiring and some may even be completely irrelevant in many campaigns. In my opinion the writing feels very ”forced”, and thus many locations feel like boring landmarks, and almost all of the NPCs lack interesting goals or ways to hook them up with PCs.
And that brings me to another major failure in this book: the lack of any real adventuring content. There are many sidebars containing brief story quests and encounters, but IMO most of these are tired old clichés or outright jokes. Even the better ones are not very imaginative, either; there are living mushroom threatening a fungi farmer, and a kobold tribe harassing sewer workers, and… that’s pretty much it.
Where are the Key-lock Killers, Choppers and other local boogeymen and legends of Absalom? Where are the local haunted alleys plagued by shadows, ghosts or ”mystery slayers” such as Walcofinde or Living Graffiti? Where are overall the mysteries, enigmas and secrets of this metropolis for the PCs to discover? I even felt a bit cheated to see those ”ready-built Undercity locale” maps, all of which were first published in Last Watch. I have a hard time believing there are no unpublished dungeon maps lying around in the Paizo office, but for some reason they recycled maps from a previous Adventure Path.
To be honest, there are a couple of decent campaign seeds mentioned in the book, but both are no more than just short ideas revolving around a single NPC, who suffer from the same lack of details and methods for their plans than the rest of the NPCs do. And what of Starstone? I was really hopeful to get additional information on the Test and the Cathedral, but instead there’s a nasty surprise in the book for GMs and players who might have dreams of deityhood as the endgame of their campaign. And I think there’s also other crucial stuff missing, such as a proper description and map of Shadow Absalom, or descriptions (and maybe even some maps) of new siege castles.
The book describes a very Utopian city with almost a Disney-like feel to it, and the goal was likely to evoke a sense of wonder in players. In this city residents brush shoulders with marble-hewn and gem-studded gargoyles, and tourists ride prehistoric giant birds or elephants to sunset. Here monstrous crime lords weep at the thought of visiting fancy restaurants and the opera, while moustache-twirling villains snarl helplessly at PCs engaging in witty philosphical debates and games of chance on flying carpets with visiting efreeti noble ambassadors. There’s even a list of NPC ”Kite Enthusiasts” and another of ”Children”, but not one for high priests or wizards. And that sentence alone describes to me what is kind of wrong about this book, at least from this veteran GM’s perspective.
I see this book as a big pile of wasted potential. I think this could have been a LOT better, but maybe I’m not just part of its target demographics? Maybe it’s meant to be a family-friendly book without too many darker or offensive elements, and primarily targeted at (younger) newbie players?
What's the actual title of this book? This product page has Pathfinder Lost Omens: Absalom, City of Lost Omens, the cover has Absalom City of Lost Omens, and the copyright inside the book has Pathfinder Lost Omens Absalom, City of Lost Omens.
The editing team removed the extra Lost Omens from the title on the cover as being too redundant. I'd say that is final. But we won't quibble. I know the colon is internal habit, and actually, incorrect. It is one of those little details we hope to correct going forward.
Is the info on the gillmen just a reprint from the Ancestry Guide?
No, the ancestry guide was the extra stuff that assumed we already had the absalom book, the free pdf they released of the base ancestry is whts reprinted here :)
Has anyone gotten anywhere with the secret that Erik was teasing on Know Direction and Paizo LIVE? I know which NPC he's talking about, but that's as far as I've gotten with it. (Hopefully it'll be easier once the physical book is in my hands.)
Has anyone gotten anywhere with the secret that Erik was teasing on Know Direction and Paizo LIVE? I know which NPC he's talking about, but that's as far as I've gotten with it. (Hopefully it'll be easier once the physical book is in my hands.)
All is not well at Starspine Manor..can’t wait for his next party though!
I've wonder if Ableism is related to Aysepir’s Astounded Abyss. Like when I got to that location I was like "This was in the 3.5 book right? This sounds like expanded version of 3.5 edge". I kinda think that "evil carnies/freakshow" thing overlaps heavily with that even if nothing similar to real life is shown.
(its macabre carnival show run by NG cursed merfolk Fishhead Queen(cursed to be reverse mermaid) whose performers are mostly violent criminals or undead. Examples include skinsaw cult member, a kuthonite, immobile/paralyzed level 20 aasimar mummy cleric of unknown deity and ghoul troll stuck in self consumption loop.)
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Hi Erik,
I don't know if anybody else has pointed this out, but in the print edition the "District Summary" sidebar on page 107 for "The Coins" is actually the description for "The Precipice" on page 191. Just to let you know. Thanks, Great book!
Has anyone gotten anywhere with the secret that Erik was teasing on Know Direction and Paizo LIVE? I know which NPC he's talking about, but that's as far as I've gotten with it. (Hopefully it'll be easier once the physical book is in my hands.)
I think I’ve solved it, partly by comparing a date associated with that NPC to a date mentioned in The Inner Sea World Guide.
It’s mostly lore. There is an Azarketi ancestry, some associated stat blocks, some rules for drugs popular in the city, and a feat associated with a magic school.
Has anyone gotten anywhere with the secret that Erik was teasing on Know Direction and Paizo LIVE? I know which NPC he's talking about, but that's as far as I've gotten with it. (Hopefully it'll be easier once the physical book is in my hands.)
I think I’ve solved it, partly by comparing a date associated with that NPC to a date mentioned in The Inner Sea World Guide.
Oooooh noooo… great job and thanks for the help, but this is going to be big if this pans out..
Hey I was checking the amazon page and it says this book is 296 pages, but on here it says over 400 so is there a typo somewhere? here is the product link as I am in Canada so it may be differenthttps://www.amazon.ca/Pathfinder-Absalom-City-Lost-Omens/dp/164078 2354/ref=sr_1_1?crid=ERWW46LMOG2J&keywords=absalom+city&qid=1640303 801&sprefix=absalom+city%2Caps%2C137&sr=8-1
Paizo Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Society Subscriber
The original plan when the book was announced was for 296 pages, but it got expanded during development. I've got it in my hands right now. The actual book is exactly 400 pages. (Amazon never updated their info from that original announcement.)
Has anyone gotten anywhere with the secret that Erik was teasing on Know Direction and Paizo LIVE? I know which NPC he's talking about, but that's as far as I've gotten with it. (Hopefully it'll be easier once the physical book is in my hands.)
I think I’ve solved it, partly by comparing a date associated with that NPC to a date mentioned in The Inner Sea World Guide.
Oooooh noooo… great job and thanks for the help, but this is going to be big if this pans out..
I hope one day this can be less secret, because it seems awfully interesting but I have zero idea what you all are talking about.
Pathfinder Pawns Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Is this the map size in the book that was initially planned? I wasn't sure if it was going to be like the one that shipped with the new world guide, or like the old giant inner sea map.
Has anyone gotten anywhere with the secret that Erik was teasing on Know Direction and Paizo LIVE? I know which NPC he's talking about, but that's as far as I've gotten with it. (Hopefully it'll be easier once the physical book is in my hands.)
I think I’ve solved it, partly by comparing a date associated with that NPC to a date mentioned in The Inner Sea World Guide.
Oooooh noooo… great job and thanks for the help, but this is going to be big if this pans out..
I hope one day this can be less secret, because it seems awfully interesting but I have zero idea what you all are talking about.
I'll post links to the respective videos in the new year. Unless someone else does it first. :)
Sidenote, kinda sad Undercity doesn't have map of it entirely, but then again we never did get complete maps of Darklands(and it would be insanely huge undertaken for what is essentially "one district" of city) x'D But yeah, I'm kinda curious though about how does piece of bedrock risen to surface connect to Darklands exactly since I'm fairly sure Kortos does have darklands access..
Pathfinder Companion, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Erik Mona wrote:
I call it Absalom, city of Lost Omens, and the cover goes with that because we didn’t want to repeat Lost Omens there. It is, none the less, in the Lost Omens line, so it gets catalogued that way on the website. Call it what you want. :)
I shall hug it and pet it and love it and squeeze it and call it George.
Leafing through a friend’s copy after reading that lovely fiction piece from the blog, and I’m a little disappointed to see that both Jalmeri characters in the book are unrelated martial artists. I hope we can see a little more variety in the future.
Paizo Charter Superscriber; Pathfinder Companion, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
CorvusMask wrote:
Sidenote, kinda sad Undercity doesn't have map of it entirely, but then again we never did get complete maps of Darklands(and it would be insanely huge undertaken for what is essentially "one district" of city) x'D But yeah, I'm kinda curious though about how does piece of bedrock risen to surface connect to Darklands exactly since I'm fairly sure Kortos does have darklands access..
The undercity map looks quite familiar to anyone who might have adventured below the city of Vigil before (or while) it was destroyed.
Sidenote, kinda sad Undercity doesn't have map of it entirely, but then again we never did get complete maps of Darklands(and it would be insanely huge undertaken for what is essentially "one district" of city) x'D But yeah, I'm kinda curious though about how does piece of bedrock risen to surface connect to Darklands exactly since I'm fairly sure Kortos does have darklands access..
The undercity map looks quite familiar to anyone who might have adventured below the city of Vigil before (or while) it was destroyed.
Ah so that is why it looked like art of my favorite cartographer :'D
Leafing through a friend’s copy after reading that lovely fiction piece from the blog, and I’m a little disappointed to see that both Jalmeri characters in the book are unrelated martial artists. I hope we can see a little more variety in the future.
Fair! One of those NPCs was added very late in the game as a new watch captain, which accounts for at least a bit of parallel development there. Without him, there'd be only one Jalmeri character, though, so I'm not sure that's much better! There are lots of Vudran characters you could pretty easily modify to have Jalmeri connections, however, so with a bit of elbow grease not all is lost. ;)
Only around 60 pages into the book, and I’ve already picked out a lovely bunch of Easter eggs/references to other characters written about in other books.
It seems the Foxgloves have moved up in the world…and if that name rings a bell I think one should find it interesting that they first arrived in 4707 AR.
Also had to chuckle knowing this book was supposed to come out before Agents of Edgewatch and seeing Vancaskerkin and his rag Eyes of Absalom by mentioned to fondly in universe. Bendy and the Ink Machine looking ass.
In that they have inhabited the island since the era of the First Siege, yes. They were brought to the island from Casmaron by the warlord Voradni Voon in the early decades of Absalom's history, and have inhabited portions of the island ever since.
The Centaurs, Minotaurs and Harpies of Kortos all come from Iblydos and other locales in Casmaron thanks to Voradni Voon’s attempt to capture the Starstone.
They’ve been “natives” of the island since then.
I think the only ancestry that can really claim Kortos as their true homeland are the Shoony.
I think this a spoiler from the Tyrant's Grasp AP so I'll put my question in spoilers.
Spoiler:
I saw in "The Current State of Absalom" section that a lich king's siege on Absalom was routed and that he was amassing an undead army on an isle somewhere. Was the lich king defeated at this isle or are they still currently amassing an undead army?
Pathfinder Companion, Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Pawns, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Another nit to pick: No. 148 The Northman’s Woodworks Galleria, is not actually on the map! The number is missing from both the map in the book and the map folio.
A nit to pick: No. 148 The Northman’s Woodworks Galleria, is not actually on the map! The number is missing from both the map in the book and the map folio. Any ideas where the Galleria is located in the Ivy District?
**eye twitch**
Dangit! I coulda sworn I checked those tags like a dozen times.
Northman's Woodworks Galleria should be that large building in the middle of the block just north of Embrey's Armory on the same street right across from that park.
How much information does this book have on the Cairnlands? I've been trying to research them for an adventure I'm writing, and so far the main material I have is the world guides for both editions, dungeons of golarion, and PFS1 6-01 and 6-17.
Pathfinder Companion, Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Pawns, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Matthew Jaluvka wrote:
How much information does this book have on the Cairnlands? I've been trying to research them for an adventure I'm writing, and so far the main material I have is the world guides for both editions, dungeons of golarion, and PFS1 6-01 and 6-17.
Not much more than you already have. Some updates on the activity at the Spire of Nex and the addition of the Tyrant's Grasp, but that's it.
Pathfinder Companion, Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Pawns, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
What blows me away is the detail on the NPCS in each location. There is a lot going on without even a sentence written, like one NPC having (fugitive) after their name, and another in the same location (hunting for fugitive) after theirs!
Question about the Lady Michellia entry. Is this meaning to imply she is a triplet?
Quote:
After her older twin sister, Imrizade, fled Absalom before the twenty-first birthday that would have seen her handed over to the Onyx Alliance Michellia was substituted as the family’s generational sacrifice, beating her twin Eleanir as the eldest by a matter of minutes.