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Pathfinder Chronicles: Heart of the Jungle (PFRPG)

4.50/5 (based on 6 ratings)
Pathfinder Chronicles: Heart of the Jungle (PFRPG)
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The Jungle Awaits

From tropical coasts, where greedy colonial powers pillage the land, to remote jungles and rolling savannas of mystics and lion-riders, the Mwangi Expanse is a region of boundless opportunity. Underneath the steaming jungle canopy, the lost ruins of ancient giants shelter isolated tribes, bloodthirsty predators, and screaming hordes of demon-worshiping apes. Sites of ancient magic lie almost forgotten to the outside world, and a steady stream of bold explorers ventures into the trackless wilderness after legendary fountains of youth and cities of gold, never to return. For the jungle is a living, breathing entity, and it’s always hungry... Heart of the Jungle is the perfect supplement for any jungle campaign.

    Inside this 64-page book, you’ll find:
  • New rules for adventuring in the jungle, including hazards like diseases, fungi, poisonous plants, insect swarms, quicksand, and more.
  • Nine new jungle cities, from the colonial trade town of Bloodcove to the cyclopean astrologer-fortress of Jaha, complete with full statistics and maps.
  • Information on the many cultures of the Mwangi Expanse, encompassing both the major human tribes and the jungle’s more alien and monstrous denizens.
  • A detailed gazetteer of some of the Expanse’s most legendary adventure sites, from the crashed flying city of Kho to the City of Hungry Spires.
  • More than a dozen new maps of cities and jungles, each one highly detailed for GM reference or artistically rendered for player handouts.
  • Five new monsters, including the flesh-eating botfly, the ancient jungle treant, and the terrifying ape-men known as angazhani.
  • Massive random encounter tables for multiple jungle adventure terrain types.

by Tim Hitchcock, Jason Nelson, Amber Scott, Chris Self, and Todd Stewart

This book is intended for use with the Pathfinder Chronicles campaign setting and the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, but it can be easily used in any game setting.

ISBN-13: 978-1-60125-247-0

Other Resources: This product is also available on the following platforms:

Hero Lab Online
Fantasy Grounds Virtual Tabletop
Archives of Nethys

Note: This product is part of the Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscription.

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Excellent PCS book

5/5 —

Having owned a few of the Pathfinder Chronicle/campaign setting books now this one stands out as easily in the top 3 books of it's type ever done by Paizo. Even without all the hard game rules of the core line this book deserves 5 stars and is as close to a non-rule based "must have" book as one can get just for how it can strike the imagination.

While it does tie in with it's semi-companion book Sargava The Lost Colony, and the pirate islands book which the name escapes me at the moment but whose region is adjacent to the Mwangi Expanse, it can entirely stand on it's own. Even going beyond just the PF game I would say this is one of if not the top jungle setting I've seen done for any game system (and on that note, it wouldn't be all that hard to narratively convert either). That independence from the rest of the world also makes it such a great campaign setting... it truly is a more wild and free place than all the rest of Golarion. Even more so than the Linnorn Kingdoms (although side note, that was another great book). It is flat out rife for old school adventuring.

It's really just an honestly fun read. Sit down with a drink and even if you didn't plan on using the setting, although as a GM if you didn't then trust me that by the time you're done with it you will, you'll enjoy reading about it. I had the extra advantage of reading it on a back porch on a hot muggy summer day last year so it added to the ambiance. ;) It's a great, mostly unexplored chunk of the Golarion setting that is presented in a function and enjoyably readable way.

Lots of detail providing a solid sandbox setting

4/5 —

I was worried that this gazetteer would be a rehash of bad stereotypes about Africa, but was pleasantly surprised to see that Paizo drew upon all the complexity of that continent, providing a robust sourcebook. Not having read the Serpant’s Skull Adventure Path to which this ties, I got this book without that campaign to see if the setting would appeal to me. I found within the pages of this sourcebook an excellent balance of fluff and crunch; from the descriptions of lost kingdoms, to stats for diseases and quicksand – plus a nice selection of jungle monsters.

The book also includes random encounter tables divided by terrain (with monsters and events, such as flash floods) in the appendix. Even if you are not a DM that rolls encounters during the game, the random generator for each terrain provides a robust pool of ideas for building an outdoor adventure. One critique I have is that some of the illustrations for the cities and lost kingdoms were neither Paizo’s quality maps nor a drawing showing the location. Instead there are eight rough sketches of locations, covering nearly ¼ to ½ a page each, which did not add any extra detail to the description of these places.

Additionally, using Senghor as the name of a city was a big misfire. To those familiar with Africa, it is the equivalent of naming an NPC Paris (it jars the suspension of disbelief). Despite these last two critiques, the Heart of the Jungle provides an amazing amount of detail, and rich ideas for a sandbox-style campaign set off the beaten path. Although I highly recommend this guidebook for the wealth of fluff and crunch, I have rated it 4 stars for the approximately 2-3 pages that should have been used for more useful material, rather than being taken up by the rough sketches of locations.

It's a Start, but it Needed More

3/5 —

Heart of the Jungle is a solid book, I just feel it could have taken things to the next level.

PROS:
*Great details on the hazards of jungle travel, with some really nasty surprises.
*Wide variety of settlements and wilderness types (Senghor, Bloodcove and Usaro are some of my favorites)
*Awesome monsters in the back (though only 4!). Botfly's are nasty.

CONS:
*Not enough art and too many maps. Now I love maps, I'm a map junkie, but I would have given up half those maps for art of the denizens of the Expanse. The 4(or 5) Mwangi people could have really befitted from art of them next to each other. (and hell the info on they and they other races is just lacking).
*Speaking of maps, as neat as the idea of the hand drawn maps are as a GM I would rather have detail maps. Even with my limited drawing skills I could still draw "tribal" maps like the ones that take up too much space in this book.
*This book could really use stat blocks for NPCs
*They talk about shamanism and animism but with out any real mechanics behind it. At least with the Dragon Empires we have Kami stated and talking about it but in the Mwangi Expanse it almost seems like a joke, like it's people are stupid for adhering to their taboos. That is very disappointing.
*It does an adequate job of setting a mood of the Expanse but other books do it better. Serpent's Skull(in particular the "Plague of Light" shot story) and River into Darkness does a better job of this.

In closing I'd say that I would have given his book 4 stars if I had bought and reviewed it when it came out. But now, it's lacking as a book in comparison to later Pathfinder Campaign books like the Lands of the Linnorm Kings, Rule of Fear or Isle of Shackles. I wish this book would be redone in the current style, though I know that won't happen. I hope they make further books in the Mwangi Expanse so we get better representations. That said, it's still a good books if you love the Mwangi Expanse, but don't just stop with this book.

It's a Jungle, Running a Jungle. This makes it easier

5/5 —

Jungle Campaigns are different, and if you aren't prepared, your campaign can hit the quicksand of player apathy. This suppliment takes you through the pitfalls and really helps make a campaign memoriable. Check out my full review: Heart of the Jungle

Excellent!

5/5 —

I previously bought Osirion, Land of Pharaohs from Paizo and was rather disappointed--and thus almost made the mistake of not buying this top-notch work. My group just started playing the Shackled City adventure path, which is set in a jungle. Luckily for me, this book came out just after we started and it's perfect for really any jungle campaign. The wealth of detail on the many cities and key adventure sites is just right, plenty to explain what each is about but leaving room for the GM's imagination. There are also a lot of maps in different cool styles. The monsters at the back, unlike a lot of the new monsters I come across, are actually believable and useful and will definitely find a home in my campaign. The section on natural hazards is very well done and easy to use. The only bit I was left wanting more on was the info on various cultures of the area. However, the very wide coverage (with maps!) of the cities and sites more than made up for it.

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I'm looking forward to this one as well. Mwangi calls!
Paizo Employee Director of Game Development

I've been waiting for Mwangi love since the campaign setting. Yay!
Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy
Adam Daigle wrote:
I've been waiting for Mwangi love since the campaign setting. Yay!

Yeah, well I've been waiting since the Gazetteer!

Actually, I had a dream when I was a young child that...nah, never mind.

*grin*
Scarab Sages

Now we just need a Tarzan-like character....
King of the Crosstrade wrote:
*grin*

Never thought you were a jungle fan, Shemmy.

ButI hope we get some good old-fashioned Haggard/Burroughs/Charles Saunders-style goodness with this! What am I saying 'hope' for, this is Paizo, of course it'll rock.
Contributor
Eric Hinkle wrote:
King of the Crosstrade wrote:
*grin*
Never thought you were a jungle fan, Shemmy.

My favorite campaign plot arc took place within the Scarlet Jungle of Cathrys in Carceri. Not a typical jungle mind you, but a jungle nonetheless.

But Mwangi is not your typical jungle either I suppose. :)

It is not easy to get a decent night's sleep in the screaming jungle - let me tell ya!
Dark Archive
Mairkurion {tm} wrote:
Actually, I had a dream when I was a young child that...nah, never mind.

...this has something to do with Tarzan, doesn't it? Or, considering your... er... nature, growing up as a tree in the jungle? ;P

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber

Sigh... this is great... but I so could use this now. (Or at least very soon.) My regular Monday night game group (The Monday-Knights) :-)
Started off with Crucible of Chaos. They finished that some time ago, and I was having some random encounters for them as they decided to try and find the Ruins of Kho... with the idea that perhaps they could "cannibalize" any pieces/parts from Kho and use with the reconstruction of Ulduvai. Heh heh... well then I snuck in and laid a "clever" GM trap... as they were the right level... and I didn't know what I was going to do yet with Kho... I got them involved in the second half of Legacy of Fire (they encountered a party of gnoll raiders, one of whom was a female fiendish gnoll cleric (of Rovagug) and she had the map of Kakishon on her person.) Player curiousity got the better of them, and WHOOSH into Kakishon they went. Now they are dealing with efreeti and other such fire-themed threats (say that five times fast) as they completed "Edge of Eternity" and are now into "The Impossible Eye".

Anyway... sorry for the near thread-jack... it's just that this book would be so awesome to have sooner than May 2010. But... who knows... they haven't completed Legacy of Fire yet... maybe something bad will happen to them along the way... y'know with Xotani the Firebleeder.

So many great products, so few days available to run Pathfinder games.

TMW

If artwork of a blond haired amazon in a leopard skin bikini being sacrificed on a sacrificial altar to a giant gorilla is not present I shall RAGE LIKE A MOTHER F'er!

can I assume there will be some jungle critters in here or is that just the AP?
]Can I assume there will be some jungle critters in here or is that just the AP?[/QUOTE wrote:

Well, I e-mailed James a revised Tyrant Ape (Megaprimatus) a few days ago. Maybe it will make the cut?

I can't wait for this one... So much possibility...

Should be fun..hmm I just got the entire set of Weismuller Tarzan movies...I must settle down and watch them soon
The Exchange

So anxious for this puppy to drop!
Scarab Sages

May cannot come soon enough!!!!! I think this is the book I look forward to most this year!

Me too. Heck, extend the page count to get in more stuff if you have it, I'll happily pay more for this one. Mwangi is a locale I think many people will get a lot of recurring value out of.
Scarab Sages
Ernest Mueller wrote:
Me too. Heck, extend the page count to get in more stuff if you have it, I'll happily pay more for this one. Mwangi is a locale I think many people will get a lot of recurring value out of.

I would totally pay double if there were even a small web enhancement on this locale. I have been waiting for a jungle themed book since the first environment series books came out for 3.x from WotC

Paizo Employee Creative Director
Ernest Mueller wrote:
Me too. Heck, extend the page count to get in more stuff if you have it, I'll happily pay more for this one. Mwangi is a locale I think many people will get a lot of recurring value out of.

While I appreciate folks being excited and eager for books... we can't easily expand wordcounts. Mostly because we already run pretty much at capacity (or maybe even a little beyond capacity) as to how many pages per month we can actually produce!

THAT SAID! The good news is that, in the case of the Mwangi Expanse, folks are going to get a LOT more than one single 64 page book. You'll also get the Sargava Companion, which while technically not about the Mwangi is close enough. But we'll also be doing the Serpent's Skull Adventure Path starting in August, and that'll give out 6 volumes of jungle fun, including some detailed looks at treasures and monsters and creatures and legends and locations in the Mwangi. And then, later in the year, we'll also be doing "Lost Cities of Golarion" which will include more info about the Mwangi Expanse... we couldn't do a book called "Lost Cities of Golarion" without doing one from the Mwangi Expanse, yeah?

So while expanding "Heart of the Jungle" out to more pages is a no-go... there'll certainly be no shortage of Jungle Mayhem this year!

[channel Johnny Wiesmuller] Tarzan think this good thing..Tarzan wonder if city will be like Opar[/channel Johnny Wiesmuller]
Scarab Sages

I was originally considering just purchasing the pdf of this, but with all the kick ass stuff I've seen about it, I may just have to preorder the hardcopy.

Very cool :)

[quote=]While I appreciate folks being excited and eager for books... we can't easily expand wordcounts. Mostly because we already run pretty much at capacity (or maybe even a little beyond capacity) as to how many pages per month we can actually produce!

THAT SAID! The good news is that, in the case of the Mwangi Expanse, folks are going to get a LOT more than one single 64 page book. You'll also get the Sargava Companion, which while technically not about the Mwangi is close enough. But we'll also be doing the Serpent's Skull Adventure Path starting in August, and that'll give out 6 volumes of jungle fun, including some detailed looks at treasures and monsters and creatures and legends and locations in the Mwangi. And then, later in the year, we'll also be doing "Lost Cities of Golarion" which will include more info about the Mwangi Expanse... we couldn't do a book called "Lost Cities of Golarion" without doing one from the Mwangi Expanse, yeah?

So while expanding "Heart of the Jungle" out to more pages is a no-go... there'll certainly be no shortage of Jungle Mayhem this year!

Cool! Did the Tyrant Ape make the cut for this book...and will the book feature an adventuress in sacrificial ape altar danger? Do tell. ^^

Liberty's Edge Contributor
Mark Moreland wrote:
Adam Daigle wrote:
I've been waiting for Mwangi love since the campaign setting. Yay!
Yeah, well I've been waiting since the Gazetteer!

I've been waiting since... nah, never mind, I'm keeping out of this. You to fight it out.

Once you go Mwangi, you'll never go...

Maybe I'll leave that alone.
Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

I've updated the cover image and product description to match the finished product.

+1

waiting for this book sucks I need it now... any word on a book for Nex?

Vic, authors?!

Spoiler:
I'm really late on this one. I blame the volcanic dust.

Any chance that we'll see the Angazhani with racial stats as well as monster stats?
Sketchpad wrote:
Any chance that we'll see the Angazhani with racial stats as well as monster stats?

Monster stats are racial stats, and vice versa. If you have one, you have the other.

Silver Crusade
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Definitely a product I look forward to.
Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer
yoda8myhead wrote:

Vic, authors?!

** spoiler omitted **

Tim Hitchcock, Jason Nelson, Amber Scott, Chris Self, and Todd Stewart.

Paizo Employee Director of Game Development

Chris Self? I thought he was a clerk. ;)

I think "secretary" is the word you're looking for, Daigle.
Paizo Employee Director of Game Development
yoda8myhead wrote:
I think "secretary" is the word you're looking for, Daigle.

Thank you, yoda.

With my post, I feared I would be met with late contracts and such, but, with your addition, I know the ire will be firmly laid upon you. :)
Thanks for taking that bullet.

Chris knows whose side I'm on. I'm not worried.

I am so looking forward to this product!!!!

Cannnot wait to get my hairy, demon-worshipping mitts on this.Ook!

Yes, finally a bit of attention to the deep, dark, dinosaur infested south. I've been running a Sargava/Mwangi expanse treasure hunting game for about four months now--the area was too good not to explore. It has however proven very dangerous when you throw in a lot of survival elements and make it low magic (Sargava has no Chelaxian-esque wizardly class, and the Aroden clergy is out of juice).

What I have liked is adding my own touches, populating it with my own take on the monsters that dwell there (a lot from dark sun, abberations, evil cultists, yes even giant gorillas, poisons and so many hostile plants). Currently I have two new monsters I've made personally and the players have encountered one type.

* Savannah spirits that appear as attractive and alluring Mwangi women, men, or even animals on heat; but seek to charm, grapple, pull their targets in, wrap around them (malleable bodies) and burn away their souls and bodies in a wave of internal heat and negative energy d6s. They worked quite well.

* Agile, man-like plants. Spelunky influences abound here. Make a template for a medium sized quick plant type and add all sorts of nifty special abilities (web, spewing caltrops, regurgitating with vigour a poison dart area of effect, higher intelligence and the use of tools). This will be ready soon.

The Mwangi expanse borrows a lot of tropes (Indiana Jones), but it can also give so much freedom and a chance to surprise players, and even cause a reconsideration of the benefits of classes (wizards and rogues have problems in non-temperate environments). I will get this book in time.

Skimming through this, I'm very impressed w/ this product, and looking forward to the next AP even more now. Nice homage to Heart of Darkness on p.20.

This will be a useful product even if you don't play in Golarion. For example, if you play in GH, the Amedio Jungle & Hepmonaland areas could incorporate lots of good stuff from this book.
Dark Archive

Does this also feature any new weapons or armor utilized by people there? I'm afraid I don't know if there are even indigenous people of Mwangi but certainly there must be things that those who explore the place might use?
Dark Archive

Nope, no new equipment.
Silver Crusade
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Who drew the illustration of Seoni on p. 8 ? I like it veeery much, use the artist more ! :)
Dark Archive

Please don't. :-P
Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer
Gorbacz wrote:
Who drew the illustration of Seoni on p. 8 ? I like it veeery much, use the artist more ! :)

The artist is Alejandro Aguirre.

After picking this up at Paizocon over the weekend and spending Fathers Day on the couch giving this a good read through, I think this is the best Chronicle put out to date. This book is a must buy.

Hey, um...
when are the
chimp men, bat men, and harvestmen gonna get statted up?
Paizo Employee Creative Director
Spanky the Leprechaun wrote:

Hey, um...

when are the
chimp men, bat men, and harvestmen gonna get statted up?

Charau ka will be statted up in the revised Campaign Setting Hardcover due out this fall.

The harvestmen and the bat men are going to be statted up in Pathfinder Adventure Path bestiaries during Serpent's Skull sometime around this winter.
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