Pathfinder: Lost Omens: Tian Xia World Guide review – Holy smokes this is good

The Tian Xia World Guide is simply amazing, if you’re a fan of Pathfinder lore this is the book to get. This is the book to get even if you’re not a fan of the canon lore because there is so much to use here and all of it is fantastic. 

Book layout and breakdown 

This is a 300-page world book, and inside you’ll find: 

• Introduction 
• History 
• The Imperial Dragons 
• Factions 
• Religion 
• Nations and Regions 
• Bestiary 
• Glossary and Index 

The history and introduction section of this book contains the timeline of the setting: In this review, I cover how to use this but they did a great job of putting this portion of the book together. The timeline provides a fantastic starting point for anyone who wants to use this setting out of the box. I am not going to cover every inch of lore in this review, but I do want to call attention to how well this section of the book is written; it feels like reading a good story.

The Imperial Dragons are simply stunning. This section details lore for various species of dragon, such as the Underworld Dragon that I feature in the picture below. You also get a bit of a backstory per dragon; for example, Zhulong of Chu Ye is described in a fair bit of detail on these pages. You also get some cool information about the factions, something that I use a lot for the setting.

After tackling the dragons, that is when you hit the section about religion. This section details Creation Myths and the Celestial Court. There is some useful information here about how the people of Tian Xia practice religion. At the end you get a section about the deities, and this is where one of my nitpicks with this book comes in: The artwork is hit or miss in a way that the Pathfinder 2e books haven’t been. It’s notable when there is a humanoid on the page. Regardless, the designs for the deities are varied and convey the point so I’m not too angry. 

The next chunk of this book covers the nations, and there is a lot of content here. If you’re using this setting as is, there is enough here for you and your players to sink your teeth into and have a good time with. There are a few things I wanted to call attention to though.

This little box under the nation is so useful it’s not even funny. Having visual representations aided my players a lot but as the game master being able to clearly see the resources opened up new avenues for us in the game. The layout of these pages is fine, the paragraphs are not cut off weirdly and the supporting images work really well. Getting to read about the ancestries present in the nation, the nation's government, and the fun tidbits makes for great reading and roleplaying material. 

Okay, so once you’ve traveled the world, dove into the oceans, and sailed the water you get to my favorite part of this book, the bestiary. Holy Mother of dragons, the artwork towards the end of the book absolutely slaps, and as a bonus, the monsters are balanced and offer some extremely fun gameplay opportunities. Paizo absolutely killed it in the lore department here too.

These guys are called Gau Cho Rong and they’re said to be the ghosts of poachers’ prey who come back to seek their revenge. So yeah their lore involves child flesh and hags BUT, they’re absolutely adorable. Now the bestiary isn’t super long but I think they give you enough to flesh out the setting and 90% of what’s back here is simply adorable…for the most part. 

How my group uses this book 

I wanted to touch on how we use world guides because I have built a homebrew world for us where I can just toss things in, like a fantasy kitchen sink. Because of that, I tend to read a world guide, change some names, and add it to the world. Tian Xia has been the most popular Pathfinder book added to our world thus far, and for good reason. There is a lot of quality and depth here that you won’t always find in other roleplaying game books. 

Final Thoughts 

The Pathfinder Lost Omens: Tian Xia World Guide is a fantastic book that oozes charm, character, and a clear thought process. Yes, there are no player options in here but that’s okay because the content offered is more than enough to get you started with this setting. 

The only misses on my end involved some of the illustrations. The book layout is fine but some of the humanoids look extremely jarring.