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DISCLAIMER: This review is based on a free PDF provided by the author and the publisher, which in no way had an influence on the final score.
So, another Akashic book by the master of the Akashic system Michael Sayre, after the two previous mind-blowing ones… can he maintain the quality? Read on!
What’s inside? Not taking into account the covers, credits, and legal stuff, we are left with 39 pages of content for 8 bucks, which include:
-4 planes, which includes enough information to run a campaign there. There are planar traits (with a new akashic essence planar feature), locations, inhabitants and even ties with the City of Seven Seraphs campaign setting! Apart from that, each section includes new PC game material, from a new aasimar variant, Planar Conduit feat options, 3 new Nexus convergences, a new akashic style feat chain, to a whole 12 sign cosmology based on the Chinese Zodiac! The planes are Valhalla (a chaotic good plane), The Kingdom of the Five Emperors (a true neutral plane with 1 realm for each alignment component), the Dark Shogunate (a kind of “Hell” for the Kingdom of the Five Emperors, opposing balance), and the least developed of all, the Cloud Stairway (kind of a new transitive plane).
-15 new veils: Divided in one set of 10, the Asgardian Saga, and one of 5, the O-Yoroi of the Obsidian Ronin, these veils get away from the middle East flavor of the original Akashic Mysteries book, and embrace a Nordic and a Japanese flavor. Not only that, the Asgardian Saga veils represent iconic items or features of the Asgardian pantheon, which lets you build a kind of akashic priest in concept! The Asgardian saga is fully accessible to the Nexus class, and the O-Yoroi is fully accessible only to the Eclipse, which is an interesting departure from the norm established in Akashic Trinity.
-18 Feats: This section include 15 feats, not counting the Mistmask style feat chain found under the Cloud Stairway. Here we have the reprint of 3 conduit feats, which allow you to become a living conduit for a specific plane’s energies (conceptually great for a Nexus). We also get the Amateur Astrologist and Noble Astrologist reprints from the Zodiac book, which are great if you don’t have said book. Why? Because having one or both of these feats gives you access to a constellation’s power without being a Zodiac. Speaking of which, if you wanted to have access to a constellation outside of your cosmology (say, if you wanted a water weapon for your Greek cosmology Zodiac wink wink), you could access one extra sign with the Expanded Cosmology feat.
There is an unseen problem with this feat, since you can access it via Zodiac class features OR the Amateur Astrologist. Where is the problem? You see, the Amateur Astrologist gives you access to all manifestations of a sign, except for the champion, but the Expanded Cosmology doesn’t. This makes the Noble Astrologist feat almost completely obsolete, since if you wanted to dabble in signs, you could chose a sign without a champion form and then get access to other signs complete array of manifestations via Expanded Cosmology.
Finally, we have the new Convergence feat type especially tailored to the Nexus class. For each veil shaped after the first from the same group, you get a nifty bonus, and an extra one if you get all veils from a set. You are not a Nexus? Don’t worry, you can access Convergences through the new Lattice-Born feat. There is one weird glitch here, since the Dark Shogunate full set of five veils are only available to the Eclipse class, and only two to the Nexus. This makes it a suboptimal choice for the Nexus, and even for the Eclipse since they don’t get the planar detonation ability to get full use of the feat. Anyway, the planar detonation class feature gets expanded with the Versatile Detonation feat, which lets you deal the other two types of physical damage, slashing and bludgeoning, plus the ability to invest in the feat to augment the damage and features of your detonation. Great addition!
-Creature Appendix, which include all creatures relevant to the book, be them Zodiac sign champions, veil-created allies, or planar denizens. This is a very handy feature!
-12 Chinese Zodiac signs, divided in the classic 4 elements with 3 in each. Unlike it’s Greek counterpart, ALL signs have a champion form, and each element nicely has access to 2 armors, equipment and weapons. This translates into 36 abilities, 8 more than the standard Greek cosmology, but then again it is so balanced that I won’t complain and instead fill in the blanks for the Greek one so both cosmologies each have 36 abilities.
Of Note: The idea of having new planes that are not demi-planes just because, is groundbreaking and I applaud the departure from tradition. The Convergence feats reward Nexus for their loyalty, and the Chinese Zodiac cosmology is a great addition to an already great class.
Anything wrong?: Is not a secret that I’m a fan of all things akashic, and I really, really enjoyed this book. HOWEVER, as a reviewer, I have to comment on the problems of the book. There are a couple of writing mistakes here and there, which is understandable, and under the aasimar variant there is a “species” bonus, which I THINK is either from Starfinder or PF2. Also, there are some design oversight that I already mentioned. Noble Astrologist is almost useless now, the new cosmology is a better choice with its greater number of options, the Dark Shogunate veils and Convergence feat don’t work that well together, and the Asgardian Saga veil incudes two weapons, which makes the Convergence feat capstone kind of weird. I mean, you can shape all 10 veils, but you can’t wield two wepon-like veils like that. And god, the legal sections is HUGE!
What I want: I would have loved to get more info about the planes, which are the star of the book. I would also have liked at least one humanoid champion, like the Archer from the Greek cosmology for the Chinese one. I STILL want more convergences, and veil sets tailored for other classes like Radiants and Gurus. And that Vol. 1 in the title makes me salivate.
What cool things did this inspire?: By now, there are a lot of weapon-like veils, and if you add the weapon form of constellations, it could make for a nifty archetype that focuses on them, maybe inspired by Archer Gilgamesh from the Fate/Stay Night anime… I would play that!
Do I recommend it?: YES! It is one of the more inspired akashic books since the original, and deals with many untouched themes and design spaces. Normally, I would take one star off from the score because of the many problems this book have, but the great things greatly overwhelms the bad, so 5 Asgardian stars from this reviewer.
Organized Play Developer
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Thank you for the review!
I thought I might address a couple things you mentioned, just so you know what was going on in our heads.
1) Christen established "species" in place of "race" in Co7S, I believe. So it's used intentionally, though since this is the first expansion to Co7S we probably could have called it out a bit more.
2) It was also intentional that the 5 Emperors cosmology didn't get anything like the Archer from its champions. After some discussion, Christen and decided that balancing the different cosmologies asymmetrically was the most interesting design space going forward. So the original cosmology stayed how it is, with some more unique champions like the Archer and Twin, but the 5 Emperors cosmology is "perfectly" symmetrically balanced, with all animal companion champions (technically the Dragon is not an animal companion, but there was no way I wasn't putting a sovereign dragon champion in that space) and the exact same distribution of option types across all elements. Wait until you see the next zodiac cosmology in Volume 2!
3) Dark Shogunate Wanderer was intentionally aimed at multiclass eclipse/nexus characters. I do some of these more niche mechanics from time to time to see if there's a space people are interested in having explored more. I did something similar with the Metabolist's Scarf in Akashic Mysteries.
4) In the Asgardian Saga, Gungnir can be wielded in one hand while you're mounted (such as on Sleipnir or even Geri and Freki, depending on your size), and Gungnir grants a shield bonus that scales with essence, so the general idea was that you would basically be using Mjolnir as your primary weapon, but with the ability to guard yourself with Gungnir thanks to its greater reach and shield bonus. I think it works pretty neatly when you've got the various pieces of the set up and running, but YMMV.
5) Your wish for more radiant and guru veils should be answered in upcoming volumes!
Anyways, just thought I'd explain some of the design decisions :)
Thanks so much for letting us know what you thought!
Oh, I get it now. It makes sense for the Chinese cosmology to be like that, and I was wondering how you were going to deal with the 5 elements, but Pathfinder is not a Chinese horoscope so just reasigning the signs 4 elements was a simple but elegant solution. Also, The Dark Shogunate veil makes sense now, though I will have to re-read how akashic multiclassing works again.
I had the vague idea on how the Adgardian saga worked together, but wasn't that sure. The idea of using Odin's ravens as a veil and not one that manifested companions is pure gold. Now, if we could get a Greek plane and get some Greek mythoi veils...
Finally, I don't want more Radiant and Guru veils only... I want SETS LOL!
Since you anounced Vol. 1 in April, and you just unofficially anounced Vol. 2,
Will we get it for Christmas?
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Finally, I don't want more Radiant and Guru veils only... I want SETS LOL!
With a few very specific exceptions, my go-forward plan is only to release new veils as part of sets. The original AM veils were largely designed as part of sets anyway and I've always regretted not formalizing that structure up front, so going forward I really want every veil to have a home as part of a set (that's also why I've been "adopting" "orphan" veils from AM into new sets as appropriate).
Since you anounced Vol. 1 in April, and you just unofficially anounced Vol. 2,
Will we get it for Christmas?
I can't really speak to the schedule on this, but I know Christen was hopeful that once he'd finished creating the layout template for AR volume 1 the subsequent releases would start moving a bit more quickly.
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Veil sets is the way to go. There are so many untapped ideas for sets... sets based to emulate critters apart deom outsiders, sets based on mythological artifacts, sets to emulate virtues etc.
Any timeline on when we might see Akashic Realms Volume 1 available for sale on paizo's site, Mr. Sayre?
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Any timeline on when we might see Akashic Realms Volume 1 available for sale on paizo's site, Mr. Sayre?
Really, really soon! Possibly now.
I want to delete (or lock it, but don't know how to) this thread since I posted my review here, thinking that this product wouldn't appear at Paizo's. Also, I updated some things I wrote after discussing with the author.