Product-Pathfinder Campaign Setting- Numeria, Land of the Fallen Stars

Producer– Paizo

Price– ~$20 here http://paizo.com/products/btpy978l?Pathfinder-Campaign-Setting-Numeria-Land-of-Fallen-Stars

System– Pathfinder

TL;DR-Swords and Circuits! 95%

 

Basics– Time for some Sword and Circuits!  Numeria, Land of the Fallen Stars tells the story of Numeria in Pathfinder’s default setting.  Numeria is a land defined by barbarians and a star ship that crashed into Golarion millennia ago.  The book is roughly divided into a section describing the basic geography and story of each place.  Then the next section discusses the different groups in the region.  The final section of the book is the monsters that live in the region.

 

Mechanics or Crunch-This book isn’t crunch heavy, but it doesn’t have to be, as the book is part of a twin set discussing Numeria.  Therefore, I can forgive the book being somewhat crunch-lite.  This book focuses on the story of the region more than the execution of the region.  Even with that said, this book goes into good mechanical depth by discussing diseases, different damage types like radiation, and an item from the wastes called Numerian Fluids.  These fluids are the cast-offs of starships and robots, and have side effects ranging from instant death to gaining a level.  The book also adds a small bestiary as well as random encounter tables for each area in the region.  However, I didn’t see how often I should roll a random encounter.  I like what I see here, but I also know that most of the mechanics will come in the companion book that will come out later. 4.5/5

 

Story or Fluff-This book is FULL of stories to start a Numeria campaign.  This regions presents some novel stories (pun intended) for the Golarion setting.  I love the Sword and Circuits idea, and this book will provide you with all the standard fantasy fare of rampaging barbarians to the standard sci-fi tropes of a HoloDeck on the fritz.  Beyond this are crazy sadist cultists, paladins hiding crazy technology, and an underground railroad for robots. This book and the setting have all the stories I wanted from fantasy/sci-fi as well as enough new to make me ready to start playing! 5/5

 

Execution-This book is pretty well done.  The story and mechanics make this one a page-turner even though it’s over 60 pages of fantasy encyclopedia.  The layout, text, and pictures are great and draw the reader through the story.  I do think Paizo is running into a bit of a problem with the number of rules books they are putting out.  If you are reading this and want to run this as a physical product, you’re going to need LOTS of other books to run a game in this part of the world.  Paizo has an impressive pace for books, but this is leading to more books which will need OTHER rulebooks to use them at all.  It is a small problem, but an increasingly prevalent one. 4.75/5

 

Summary-I loved reading this product.  I was looking forward to running the Iron Gods adventure path before, but this book psyched me up even more.  I love the fusion of sci-fi and fantasy.  Some have complained that the two won’t work well together, but based on what I’ve read, these two will fit together just fine.  There are some problems though–the major one is the number of books that Paizo products are beginning to require you to have in order to play the new book.  This goes so far as this book will require a SECOND campaign book to incorporate all the technology needed for this part of the world.  But, based on this book, I’m buying that book as soon as it comes out!-95%