What are the best books for getting into Lost Omens right now?

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

So after the Lost Omens setting book itself, what are the best books for getting into world lore?

What confuses me is having books like the Character Guide and Ancestry Guide: how much world lore do those books contain?

Also, how much does Gods & Magic contain besides gods? (Gods not being a terribly interesting part of most settings to me.)

[KaiBlob1]

If you want stuff specifically about geography you're probably going to either want to wait for Mwangi Expanse (June) and the Absalom book (probably November) or check out some of the 1e campaign setting books, whose lore is all still valid for the most part. Character Guide has lore about the core ancestries and about some factions, and Ancestry Guide has a bunch of lore about uncommon and rare ancestries, and Gods and Magic is pretty much just god lore as far as fluff is concerned, but if you specifically want geographical Golarion lore there just isn't that much of it out for 2e yet.

[CrystalSeas]

SilvercatMoonpaw wrote:

So after the Lost Omens setting book itself, what are the best books for getting into world lore?

For geographical and cultural information, my suggestion is to start with the historical information available in the PF1 setting books.

The PF2 timeline has only advanced 10 years beyond what has already been written in those books, and any changes (new ruler, break-away provinces) are covered in the LO World Guide.

As KaiBlob1 said, the new geographical/cultural books are the Absalom Guide and the Mwangi guide. But Paizo was publishing guides (Sandpoint, Druma) that are just as useful now as they were when they first came out.

Pick an area you want to know more about. Check the wiki to see what their sources of information are for that area. Purchase those materials so you can dig deeper into the culture.

Pathfinder Wiki

Remember that Adventure Path volumes often have a gazetteer section about specific cities and small regions. Depending on what you need the information for (character background, adventure writing) those may be better places to look.

And if you just want an easy read, check out all of the Pathfinder novels that have been published over the years.

[Perpdepog]

I'd also recommend Character/Ancestry Guide, too. They don't have a ton of lore about geography, but they go pretty deep into the cultural backgrounds of various ancestries, and IIRC some ancestries actually get more lore in those books than in the previous ones where they've appeared.

It helps that Character/Ancestry Guide aren't system-agnostic anymore, like books such as Advanced Race Guide were for PF1E. Each one comes with its hooks into Golarion built in now.

[Evan Tarlton]

For general world lore, Legends is the book. It touches on every meta region, and it discusses how these people relate to each other and the world.

[TwilightKnight]

I think it depends on your general position in the game. If you are generally a player, you might want the Character and/or Ancestry Guides since they have quite a bit of crunch to use. OTOH if you are primarily a GM, I would suggest the World Guide as your first purchase since it is invaluable to support your world-building. If you are primarily an org play participant, you might want to get the Pathfinder Society Guide first as it contains quite a bit of crunch and lore specific to the campaign. Course if you are someone who plays primarily clerics, you might want Gods and Magic. It has an excellent combination of crunch and lore. IMHO, the least important book is Legends as it contains the most nitch material, but YMMV

At the end of the day, no matter which book you get first it'll be an excellent start and you will eventually want all of them. Remember that PathfinderWiki contains virtually all the lore you'll ever need and Archives of Nethys has all the rules crunch. If you are looking for something specific, you might want to check those first and use that to help you decide which book to get.

Good luck!

[Jeremy Heyer]

This is an awesome thread! Thanks all!

[Cori Marie]

Legends and Knights of Lastwall are my favorite two books. But the latter is because I have very specific tastes in my favorite fantasy tropes and it fits them all. Other than those, the meta region specific books are great, but only if you really want to get invested in a campaign in that area of the world.

[keftiu]

This thread is a little older now, but the recent Travel Guide is a breezy, fun read. Gives you a lot of great everyday touches and 'mundane' detail; the trade route info alone justifies the purchase price.