Fulminata reviewed The Inner Sea by James Jacobs
Review of 'The Inner Sea' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Overall, I liked this book more than I initially expected to.
The world of Golarion, as described in this book, is what I refer to as a "kitchen sink" setting. It contains a little bit of just about everything you'd expect to show up in a fantasy setting. This is typical of most core settings for "generic" fantasy RPGs. The Forgotten Realms is the easiest to compare given that it is one of the most famous kitchen sink settings, and was the core setting of D&D 3.5 which Pathfinder essentially replaces.
Unlike Forgotten Realms, Golarion appears to have benefited from tighter editorial control. While some regions of the world are more original than others, there seems to be a greater consistency overall, with a feeling that the various lands could actually exist side by side and interact with each other in the ways described.
Chances are you'll be able to …
Overall, I liked this book more than I initially expected to.
The world of Golarion, as described in this book, is what I refer to as a "kitchen sink" setting. It contains a little bit of just about everything you'd expect to show up in a fantasy setting. This is typical of most core settings for "generic" fantasy RPGs. The Forgotten Realms is the easiest to compare given that it is one of the most famous kitchen sink settings, and was the core setting of D&D 3.5 which Pathfinder essentially replaces.
Unlike Forgotten Realms, Golarion appears to have benefited from tighter editorial control. While some regions of the world are more original than others, there seems to be a greater consistency overall, with a feeling that the various lands could actually exist side by side and interact with each other in the ways described.
Chances are you'll be able to find a region that caters to your preferences. There are traditional regions of both high and low fantasy. Regions with a slight steampunk flavor. Regions with a horror flavor. Regions with a frontier flavor. Regions with a cosmopolitan flavor.
There are fantasy analogs for Vikings, Asians, Indians, Revolutionary France, Post-Revolutionary America, Romany, Egyptians, Arabs, and more. Even when these cultures are obvious copies of real world cultures, they are often mixed in such a way that is different from history. For example, Golarion's northern pole is covered by a landmass, which has led to polar trade routes between the Inner Sea Region (the area focused on by this book), and the Asian-analog Tian Xia. This means that there are a great deal of Tians mixed in amongst the Viking-analogs and other northern barbarians in Golarion.
Incidentally, trade routes and the overall economy seem to have at least been given a passing thought, which results in something that at least allows me to suspend disbelief on such issues.
The game mechanics presented in this book are minimal, but interesting. A couple of prestige classes and the rules on firearms were particularly interesting to me, as were a couple of the new feats presented. While a bit pricey at $50 (I suppose it's as much as the twice as large core rules because of the full color poster map included), it's still a strongly recommended purchase for anyone using Golarion in their game.
