Reviews and Comments

The Shining Kingdoms supplement for the Pathfinder setting of Golarion details the southeastern reaches of the continent of Avistan.

First, let's get the bad news out of the way: This book has a writeup of Andoran. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the setting, Andoran is basically a fantasy counterpart of "The United States of America, as portrayed in propaganda about the War of Independence and World War II" - as opposed to how the USA actually were at the time. Complete with Eagle Knights spreading "FREEDOM AND DEMOCRACY(TM)" around the world. This was a bad concept when the setting was first published, and while the authors did their best, there is only so much you can do to improve such a premise. I suppose this makes for a fine setting for those who can look beyond the premise (especially with the conflict of Cheliax heating up), but I am not among their number.

In contrast, my unexpected favorite was Druma. I knew little of this region going in, other than that it was some kind of merchant oligarchy, and did not have high expectations. But the philosophy/religion of the "Prophets of Kalistrade", their behavioral codex, their aesthetics, and their personalized afterlives make them rather fantastic than real world oligarchies. Don't get me wrong - the folks calling the shots here are still pretty selfish and evil people, but I appreciate their difference for the sake of fantasy escapism. And I could imagine an awesome campaign set in Druma where the PCs try to fight the rising influence of the Whispering Tyrant - and the Prophets are worse than useless, as they are either in denial about the threat, or have to face an enemy for the first time whom they cannot bribe.

The first of the two non-human realms in this book is the Five Kings Mountains, the heart of dwarven culture on Golarion. The realm is very dwarfish, with all that implies, but it also has enough fodder for a long-term campaign - with the return of an ancient dragon and his assorted minions, cultists of Droskar plotting in the shadows, and the usual dangers of the Darklands emerging from the depth, there is enough for adventurers to do even without venturing into the regional politics of the larger area. I haven't read the associated Highhelm sourcebook and the Sky King's Tomb Adventure Paths yet, but I am looking forward to what I find. I also like the inclusion of a gazeteer to Larrad, a dwarven city that functions as a pilgrimage site - dwarven spirituality is an interesting subject, and this site gives us some fascinating glimpses into it.

Galt has moved on from its eternal repeated "French Revolutions", and in my opinion this makes for a better setting. If everything you have done to build a better nation is simply swept away by the next revolution, then that's the point? Now the actions of the player characters actually have a chance to make the region better - but at the same time, this chapter emphasizes how fragile the new "post-revolutionary" order is. Adventuring parties active in this country will have plenty to do thanks to the numerous dirty secrets hidden away by the chaos of the past. At the same time, they need to hone their diplomatic skills so that their actions and revelations don't cause a return to the Bad Old Days.

Kyonin is the second non-human realm - the heart of elven culture on Golarion. It is just as elvish as the Five Kinds Mountains are dwarvish. But although the writeup emphasizes that the realm is opening up and is more welcoming to non-elven visitors, I judge it to be not as viable for a long-term campaign as the dwarven realm. The main threat within Kyonin are the demonic remnants in Tanglebriar, now that Treerazer is gone, and although this works well for a series of adventure, in my view that's not enough for an entire campaign. There are some intrigues among the elves, but these aren't likely to become violent unless something goes deeply wrong. This chapter is still useful, but I see this realm as more of a home base for elven adventurers or an interlude from adventures in other parts of the Shining Kingdoms than the whole setting for a game. Though if you need to have the equivalent of Elrond's Council against the Dark Lord (i.e. the Whispering Tyrant), this is the place for it.

Finally, Taldor is the local equivalent of Earth's Byzantine Empire - if it had survived its collapse as a much smaller and less influential nation. Overall, I found its portrayal to be a somewhat mixed bag. According to the timeline, Taldor is more than 6,000 years old, exceeding that of any realm on Earth, yet that massive age isn't as present in its geographic description as I would have preferred. You feel the weight of history in the capital Oppara, yet the regions don't feel substatially different from other fantasy nations a tenth their age. Much of the country should be littered with monuments of its past glories, when its armies and fleets plundered vast swathes of Avistan and beyond.

But despite my misgivings about some aspects of this book, it is still a worthy addition to my library of books about Golarion - and the Shining Kingdoms are worth a visit for your adventurers, too.

#ttrpg #Pathfinder #Golarion

I really do appreciate that the authors were trying to explore settings with a different perspective than the pseudo-European/North American cultural base used for most #DnD settings.

But since this 224 page book is split up between 13 adventures and 15 cultures, the glimpses we get of each culture is so frustratingly brief. As someone who wants their settings to come with lots of details, this would make it difficult for me to bring the cultures in question truly come alive. In lieu of further detail, it might have helped if they had spelled out which culture each setting is based on - in some cases it was fairly easy for me to guess, but in others I was unsure.

I also have to admit, I prefer running campaigns where the PCs largely stay in one particular region rather than traveling around - and when they do travel around, there should be a good reason for why they are doing all this traveling. The 13 adventures in this book do not really have any real connection to each other than their presupposed home base (the Radiant Citadel) - the PCs just show up in some place for whatever reason the GM come up with, and solve some local problem.

Still, the brief glimpses I get of all these worlds are intriguing. And I am curious if any of the original authors have developed their miniature settings further on the Dungeon Master's Guild - I would certainly take a closer look! #ttrpg

It was probably a bit ambitious to read "Aztec Philosophy" as my very first book on philosophy, and thus it took me a long time to finish it. But it was very much worth it, since it allowed me to examine my own Eurocentric perceptions and assumptions on philosophy, metaphysics, cosmology, and so forth. And thus I recommend this book to anyone else who wants to gain a wider perspective on these matters.

Consciously or not (and mostly the latter), most people with an Eurocentric background (including those descended from European settlers) have internalized narratives about the world that are heavily based on both Greek philosophy and Christian theology - and this remains true even for those who have decided to reject Christianity. Aztecs - and other indigenous American people - have long lived in isolation from Europe, and have thus built up their own philosophies and metaphysics which has shaped their understanding of the world in an entirely different way.

Central to Aztec metaphysics is the concept of "teotl" - a divine force (and not energy) that constantly recreates itself in new forms. Everything that was, is, and will be - from rocks and animals, humans, and to the very gods themselves - are merely temporary manifestations of teotl which will eventually decay and dissolve, and then their teotl will manifest in new forms. The goal for humans is then to maintain a good, stable, moderate life on this Earth for long as it will last - for nothing will last forever.

This is the merest gist of the complexities involved, but it is already a huge contrast to the Christian notions of an "eternal, unchanging divine" and the "temporary base matter" of earthly existence - to the Aztecs, there is no fundamental difference between the teotl within a mortal and the teotl within the gods. And while Christian cosmology has a clear beginning and end to Creation, Aztec philosophy does not - existence will always go on, although its form is constantly changing.

Even if you are not a student of philosophy, I recommend this book to #ttrpg players and GMs. For instance, I found that the concept of teotl as described in this work could work surprisingly well for the philosophical underpinnings of "The Force" in #StarWars - it would add some real nuance to the conflicts between the "Dark Side" and the "Light Side". And the concepts within this book could add a lot of nuance and ideas to other settings with complex metaphysics!

You can find a shorter overview article about the concepts explained in this book here:

iep.utm.edu/aztec-philosophy/

I love detailed #ttrpg city books, and at 220 pages in length, Altdorf: Crown of the Empire for #WFRP certainly qualifies. As the capital city of the Empire, Altdorf is full of factions, power groups, NPCs with secrets, and lots of tiny neighborhoods - each with their own character, yet all feel plausible and believable for the setting of the Old World (well, maybe with a few exceptions - the "Popular League Against Nobility and Taxation (PLANT)" revolutionary group reads too much like something from the 20th century rather than the "German Renaissance" atmosphere the setting generally goes for).

So, why didn't I give this book full marks? It isn't for the bad puns in the German-sounding names - as a German WFRP player, I've learned to tolerate these. No, my problem is that this book doesn't really do enough to make its individual parts interconnected.

The setting of Ptolus, as usual, shows how to do this right: Each time a character, a place, an organization or something else has a connection to something done elsewhere, there's a page reference to where you fan find more. As a result, you get the feeling that the city - despite its fantastic nature - is an interconnected, organic whole. In contrast, while Altdorf has a long list of fascinating, atmospheric neighborhoods, they all too often feel as if they exist on their own, with connections to the rest of the city only being hinted at.

Nethertheless, a GM interested in running adventures or even entire campaigns in Altdorf will find plenty of useful material in this book. But they should put in some added effort to make this city feel alive.

As a student of German folk tales, I am always trying to broaden my understanding of German culture and society in past centuries. "The German Underworld - Deviants and Outcasts in German History" was thus a good opportunity for further research

The book is a collection of essays discussing "criminality" in various forms in German history, starting with the late Middle Ages and ending in the immediate post-WWII era. Some of the highlights were:

• Details on the "Mordbrenner" ("Murder Arsonist") panics of the 16th century, where both Protestant and Catholic rulers and their subjects believed that "the other side" was hiring vagrants to set their cities ablaze. I had heard of the term as such, but I did not know its history.

• Infanticide trials in 18th century Germany, which included discussion on the differences how various regions in Germany treated unwed mothers.

• Poaching in Bavaria in the wake of the 1848 revolution, where the rural population believed they had finally attained the right to hunt, while the authorities were trying to suppress it.

• How the Third Reich dealt with vagrants during its reign. This is highly relevant due to the increasingly harsh anti-homeless measures (and panics) in various countries - I fear that history may repeat itself.

• The social disintegration of Germany and German law in the immediate aftermath of WWII. Well worth studying for anyone who is interested in how social cohesion breaks down after wars!

To sum it up, this book is highly recommended to anyone who is either interested in German history or how society deals with its outcasts in general.

I remember the first Bestiary for the first edition of Pathfinder, which largely covered the same monsters as the D&D 3.5 Monster Manual. The first Bestiary for the second edition, however, boldly declares its independence from its Dungeons & Dragons roots. The mechanics are completely different, of course - but so is the monster lineup, which delves into the lore of Pathfinder's Inner Sea setting (including some small sidebars expanding the lore further).

From the various alghollthu species (kin of the aboleth) to the aeons, the cosmic enforcers of Order; from psychopomps to sinspawn - most of these will be familiar to veteran Pathfinder players, but not to those who are only familiar with the various incarnations of D&D. Nevertheless, old and familiar faces are present aplenty, whether the many-hued types of dragons, classical types of demons, devils, and giants, and so forth (although you can expect some changes among these as well).

On the mechanics side, the creatures make good use of Pathfinder 2E's three action economy, and most have plenty of interesting and flavorful combat options. That even includes "ordinary" animals, which will now feel much more distinct than in previous options. There are also quite a few useful suggestions on how to transform ordinary people and creatures into supernatural creatures (whether zombies or werewolves), although they should be seen as guidelines rather than fixed "suggestions".

I have only two real quibbles with this book, one minor and one major. First, a lot of stat blocks featuring variants of the same creature type refer to earlier stat blocks. For example, the "Azure Worm" stat block has the following:

"Thrash [two-actions] As purple worm."

I prefer stat blocks to be complete in themselves, without having to refer to other pages during play.

Which brings me to my second problem: Creatures that are able to cast spells. Here, too, you only get the name of the spell, but to understand what the spell actually does, you have to look it up in an entirely different book.

Apart from these, this book does what it sets out to do, and does it well - and thus it is an invaluable addition for any Pathfinder 2E game master.

Drawing and painting is one of those things I'd like to get better at, if only I could find the time for it next to my other hobby projects.

Nevertheless, I enjoy good how-to books on art, and this is one of the most inspiring. It is written from the perspective of people who have to develop concept art for architecture, and in that field, it is not only important to draw well, but to draw fast. Hence, "Drawing Shortcuts" - and the book delivers.

The book describes all sorts of speedy ways of painting architecture and how to enliven them with scenery. While the focus is on real world architecture designs, many of these approaches should also work for fantastic and science fiction buildings. From using photos as reference images to draw over up to using simple 3D models, these suggestions make it fairly easy to get architecture and perspective right.

The technology discussed in this book is often rather outdated (which is not surprising, given that the last edition was published in 2010), but anyone with a basic understanding of modern graphics software should find the techniques easy to adapt.

Highly recommended!