Important lore for players to know

[willfromamerica]

I'm beginning an Age of Ashes campaign in a few months, and I wanted to put together a lore document for my players who aren't as well-versed in their knowledge of Golarion. I obviously want to touch on the history of the town of Breachill itself, but since the AP involves a lot of traveling around, I want the players to have a vague idea of the areas around them, recent history their characters would know, etc. Does anyone have any suggestions for what all should be covered in a lore primer like this?

Note: As part of this, I'll probably be sharing the entire "What People Know" section from the Lost Omens Travel Guide, although I'll only include the Old Cheliax and Shining Kingdoms regional sections.

Spoiler:

Definitely leaving out the part about Mengkare!

[Fumarole]

Other than some info about Breachill in the beginning, I didn't present lore info to my players up front like this. Instead it was revealed in game as they spoke with NPCs or made knowledge/lore checks when presented with relevant situations.

For instance one of my PCs was from Garund, so when the party went there in book two she was easily able to know much about various things going on in the game (which I will omit here for spoiler reasons).

Speaking of spoilers, you should definitely put part of your post behind spoiler tags, as the thread title suggests this is a good place for players to come and read.

[willfromamerica]

That is a good point - @Mods: could the thread title be changed to "What's some important lore for players to know?"

[xcmt]

If I were to run Age of Ashes again from the beginning, with a fresh batch of players who don't know anything about Golarion lore, I still wouldn't give them much at the outset. I might loosely explain what exactly is "The Age of Lost Omens" and what Earthfall was, show them a labeled map, and *maybe* explain Isger's relationship to modern Cheliax, but that's about it.

I think it makes sense for players to learn setting-relevant information organically as they ask NPCs and derive it from AP developments and exposure to new areas. It strikes me as fitting for new level 1 PCs to just be some local nobodies who don't have a ton of scholarly world lore outside of their small corner of the world, and grow into the AP's scope.

[willfromamerica]

That’s great advice, thank you! I think ultimately, I’ll just end up giving them info on Breachill itself as well as the generalized history of Golarion described in the “What People Know” chapter of the travel guide. Also probably just small primers on Isger, Cheliax, and Hellknights.

[Quentin Coldwater]

As for background lore and Breechill specifically, don't tell them anything. If people are from Breechill or specifically interested in its history (especially if they have the Truth Seeker background), they might know the "sanitised" version of the town's past (it might be taught in their history classes, for instance). I think that as soon as you tell them more than that, bells will start ringing that things aren't what they seem. Out-of-towners shouldn't know anything about Breechill, IMHO (again, unless they have that specific background).