The first big world expansion to the revised second edition of Pathfinder is out, and it’s the Lost Omens: Tian Xia World Guide! Time to look at this 304 page beast of a book!
Disclaimer: an electronic copy of this book was provided to me by Paizo for review purposes at my request. Additionally, I need to state that I do not have deep knowledge of the Asian inspirational sources for this book and may miss problematic cues/aspects.
Background
Tian Xia made its first appearance in 2008’s Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting book, and was further detailed in 2011’s Inner Sea World Guide and Dragon Empires Gazeteer. The latter of which was its first truly detailed examination. From there, it enjoyed fairly regular support through the first edition and was touched on briefly in some of the second edition books prior to the revision. Breaking slightly from its Earth analogue design, Tian Xia is a completely separate continent on Golarion, and requires fairly extraordinary effort to reach or travel from. However, it and the European coded Avistan are by far the most detailed regions of Golarion.
Within the revised second edition, the Lost Omens: Tian Xia World Guide (LOTX:WG) represents a potentially new format for Paizo, where regional books are split into two components. There is the 304 page world guide (covered here), and an upcoming 136 page character guide. If this is the way forward that Paizo is taking with these world expansions, I’m all for it. That said, to me that also means that the Mwangi Expanse (and Impossible Lands for that matter) needs to be revisited to give it similar page space for that region to grow. Otherwise it’s an unfair operation.
The Good
Per Paizo’s standard, the art in this book is absolutely outstanding. And more to the point, it’s distinctive. Regionally distinctive. Like, my semi-trained eye can pick up on the in world regional styles of clothing based on their real world influences and inspirations. This is not a conventional Tang Dynasty inspiration for the China coded bits and Sengoku Period for the Japanese ones operation. This book takes inspiration from a much larger swath of Asia and it makes the continent come alive and feel like a place to be from and adventure in, not just a place to visit.
So. Much. Asia. Tagging into the last point about the art, this book hits up almost all the cardinal directions of Asia for inspiration. And past that, it also makes those connections with South and Southwest Asia that often get left out of the equation. So this book has done an amazing job at breaking away from the conventional “Chinese and Japanese, what other Asians are there?” trap that so many Asian inspired settings tend to fall into. I was really happy to see Southeast Asia influences in the nations and art, as the region seldom gets love in fantasy settings.
Monster Kingdoms! This is a huge pet peeve of mine when it comes to world building and mapping. In fantasy games it tends to be hugely human-centric, only showing human dominant nations on maps and maybe, maybe some elf or dwarf ones. LOTX:WG does away with that nonsense. There are nations on Tian Xia that are human minority or human virtually non-existent, and they get equal space and development. The underwater nation? There, with all its beautiful and colourful fishfolk and merfolk. So the map of Tian Xia actually represents all the powers on the continent, not just the human ones. I love it! This may not seem like a big deal, but what it’s showing is that Paizo’s world building is improving. Golarion is very much a “everything and the kitchen sink” fantasy setting, and giving non-humans equal space shows that they’re willing to support that.
The Shory! I was concerned about this. Why? Because the Shory have had some uneven and problematic depictions in the past, and the floating city of Yjae’s escape to the east was underdeveloped at best. To me, they were at least a visually East African coded people, to some at Paizo in the past, they were “ethnically ambiguous non-whites, like the rest of the Garundi”. So I had concerns about how they would be treated as an African themed group in a book focused on Asian coded content. My concerns were groundless. Instead of being yet another unchanging bastion of the past, they’re a dynamic and adaptive people who had actual cultural shifts and changes that have allowed them to adapt to their new surroundings. Mostly. So this was a big relief.
Interconnectivity. There’s been issues in the past with atomistic world building, even within a region. This book makes the effort to interconnect its various nations and peoples in natural ways, including cultural influences. It’s refreshing to see, and I hope the practice expands further, because it went a long way to making Tian Xia feel like a place where people exist and interact, as opposed to a bunch of functional “islands” masquerading as nations on a shared continent.
Amanandar is gone. Linvarre now stands in its place and it’s less racist and colonialist than it was previously. This is a big step on par with Vidrian’s successful revolt against Cheliax in the Mwangi Expanse. The nation’s changes are detailed effectively and the art communicates that they are a changing place.
The Bad
Ratfolk. There were done dirty. In the new Monster Core book, we saw the Gnolls lose their old nomenclature and Kholo be normalized. The Lizardfolk and Catfolk are part way through the normalization of Iruxi and Amurrun. But Ratfolk got no love in this book in terms of their own name, Ysoki. This is a weird bit of incongruous effort that I hope comes to an end. Likewise, the Ysoki need to be more prominent in the setting period. There’s some weird baggage around them that I think stems from other ratfolk depictions in other games and the Skaven from Warhammer that’s preventing the writers from taking them to where they should be in the setting.
Linvarre is still problematic, and that’s why they’re in the Good and Bad sections. One of the issues here is democracy. Democracy isn’t a natural leap for a former de facto military dictatorship to make, even if the new dictator is “radical”. I get that Americans love the idea of “democracy” as the ultimate political format, but there’s a lot of other forms of government that would be more natural steps and match the cultural influences at work that would still be “radical” and a source of political intrigue and plot in the setting. The place is still giving strong colonial Hong Kong/Macau/Apartheid South Africa vibes as well, which isn’t a great feel either.
The Ugly
Once again, the pdf is not indexed with internal links. You have to either scroll to the part you want or punch in a page number. It’s just disappointing at this point. It’s a simple accessibility feature that makes electronic documents with high page counts more practical at the table, and for some reason Paizo is just refusing to do this in the second edition.
Final Thoughts
This is an excellent book. I’m certain that it will get a more in depth cultural examination by people with the knowledge and background for it that will pick up on stuff I missed, but from my perspective, it’s a solid launching point. Tian Xia feels more alive than any of the other world guides they’ve released in second edition, and I think it’s because the creators had more space. The new two book format is going to be a game changer for Paizo if they stick to it, and if they do, I’m hoping for some revised edition revisits to places we’ve already seen! Back on topic though, the book looks good. The art is good, things are diverse in multiple ways, and more importantly, it feels like a well developed sub-setting. It feels like a place to have all your adventures in. It feels like a place you want to go to and stay in. This is a solid Rank S book, and I hope Paizo keeps it up.
To find out more, you can go to the official Paizo online shop, Lost Omens: Tian Xia World Guide is available at the time of this review in physical and electronic formats.
