Pathfinder's _The_Great_Beyond_ Review

This is a review of Pathfinder's recent release of The Great Beyond, the planar cosmology for its Golarion setting. I focus on its utility for Planescape-style gaming, especially with an eye toward using 2e material and comparing to 4e current standards.

Summary: This book significantly expands the planar material found in Pathfinder's basic campaign setting book. In terms of the 2e Planescape material, it is equivalent in usefulness to the "Player's Guide" versions of the Outer Planes handbooks and those parts of the Inner Planes sourcebooks. More planar material is said to be in Paizo's Pathfinder pipeline, but for right now this book is indispensible if one wishes to run a planar Pathfinder campaign, and sufficient if one uses SRD monsters, especially if the campaign focuses on the Inner Planes, or on Axis and its natives. The price ($13.99 for the pdf I bought) is reasonable. From the point of view of a Planescape 2e fan, I find Pathfinder's cosmology more conducive to Planescape-style plots and adventures than D&D4e's.

Outline

A very brief overview of Golarion's planar cosmology is given in the basic Pathfinder setting book; perhaps the level of detail on the planes that would be found in the 2e "Planewalker's Handbook." This 68-page book expands on that information; there are few shockingly new structural features or historical data, but rather much detail and color filled in. The amount of detail is, as described above, about at the level of 2e's "Player's Guides"; nothing here would qualify as "DM's Dark" to spoil a game. Individual personalities, politics, and places on the Outer Planes are, at present, still up to the GM, though there is more material for the kingdoms and rulers of the Elemental Planes.

Golarion's planar cosmology is arranged differently from Planescape's. On the mortal "level" are the Material and Shadow planes, bound by the Ethereal; one of the new elements in this book is another region here, the First World, similar to D&D4e's Feywild, here home of the fey as well as the gnomes, who have since left. The heart of the world is the Positive and Negative Energy Planes, surrounded by those listed previously. There is, as far as Golarion knows, only the one Material Plane, though Golarion's solar system contains several inhabitable planets not described here. Above these worlds are the elemental planes, in linear order: as one ascends from the Material, one passes through spherical shells of air, water, earth, and fire.

The Outer Sphere is likewise different from Planescape's Great Wheel. To begin with, there are only 9 major regions above the Astral, one for each alignment; there are no mildly-aligned planes like Bytopia or Carceri. Some DMs seem to prefer such a parsimonious setup; there is somewhat more variety within planes this way. There are no Outlands on which a Great Ring could be arranged; the common region is actually the shifting chaos realm, the Maelstrom, which borders all the rest. Nor is symmetry enforced, either physically or thematically. The realm of Law is a single city, Axis, near the neutral realm, Pharasma's Boneyard. Heaven (LG) and Hell (LE) are symmetrically opposed, inasmuch as they can be across the Maelstrom, complete with a mountain facing off the descending pits, but everyone hates the daemons (NE), who consume souls kidnapped willy-nilly in transit to their afterlives rather than taking their alignment's share and employing them in nefarious purposes. You can find archons and devils working together against the astradaemons near the River of Souls in the Astral.

There is a short section on miscellaneous planar sites, such as demiplanes, the First World, and the Immortal Ambulatory. There is a short bestiary, though for many of the creatures mentioned in the book we will likely have to wait for September's release of the Pathfinder Bestiary supplement.

Praise and Complaints

There were several points I found notably good or bad.

The Inner Sphere's ordering was one of my favorite innovations here. It is based on medieval cosmological theories: that, looking up, one saw through the air to a world of water separated by a firmament from the world above, the Primum Mobile in some systems, which would be a world of fire (the stars being light shining through holes in the firmament!). Built in to the form of Golarion's planes are a number of references to medieval religion and cosmology, and not just Christian. For instance, another favorite moment of mine was coming across reference to Melek Taus as a missing Archangel of the Heptad in Heaven. Look up his real-world worship to see why.... The Nine Hells, of course, are derived from Dante's Inferno; Dante makes other appearances as well. It was enjoyable to see several of these tidbits worked in to the book; they make excellent ways to tie mythology and real-world cultures in to the setting.

The production values of the pdf are good; the text is searchable, the pdf renders swiftly even on an old machine, and the artwork is excellent.

One difficulty this book presents for planar gaming is that there is no equivalent of Sigil, an Infinite Staircase, or any other commonly-known point of planar transit. Planehopping spells and magical items are briefly described, but planewalkers are generally on their own getting around and establishing a safe haven. The biggest city is Axis, but there is no suggestion that it harbors significant mortal population. "Planars" are not a common character type here; adventurers on the planes, it seems, are either outsiders, or mortals temporarily visiting the realms of spirit. (Aasimar and tieflings are part of Golarion's base setting, where they have a small place on the Material.) Shadow Absalom is a possibility for a planewalker base, with an interesting single but multi-destination portal.

The book does not contain "recent events" adventure hooks, or an adventure outline, so GMs will need to set their own plots in the cosmology. There are a number of planar mysteries to be investigated, but most of these are of long standing. Likewise for tensions between planes; Axis and the Maelstrom are constantly struggling for territory, the predations of the daemons are always to be fought, but little recent is mentioned. An interesting exception is about a half page on the personalities and politics contesting control of Aroden's domain near Axis. If a GM would like a Sigil-surrogate and a handy adventure series with ready NPCs, he could do worse than to choose the city of Axis.

The history of the planes is basically "unknown due to too much revisionism, and the earliest entities not talking." While this occasions one of my gripes with the book -- a large number of personalities, races, and objects come from "elsewhere," and seem to know but remain silent as to where exactly, an authorial shield used a bit too often -- it does permit something I was very glad to see, namely, meta-game flexibility and in-game uncertainty on the nature and origin of gods. Some gods may be dependent on human belief; the Axiomite Godmind is a temporary construction at need (oh yeah -- and it's wicked cool). However, quite a few, and quite a few planar powers on the level of gods, seem to predate mortals and envision a possible existence after them. Their conflicts appear to be purposeful, rather than self-aggrandizing. This I like very much.

One particular manifestation of the stance on gods, though, one thoroughly Dantesque allusion, made me so mad I want 21 cents back, because it's too bad I had to buy Page 33 with the other 67 fine pages. Shemeska, you frequent these boards; I'd like to ask you directly, why? What's the definition of "atheist" you use for someone from Golarion, which makes them so foul that regardless of their alignment the best fate the judge of the dead can envision for them is quarantine in sorrow-haunted crypts, known as the "self-damned" and the "poisoned" souls, to be trapped without hope of rebirth and occasionally fed to the God of the End Times, with the strong suggestion that when the apocalypse comes the remainder will be his to feast on? What corruption in atheism is so pernicious that it would survive a dunk in the Styx and an amnesiac reincarnation? Why, man?

While I very much would like an answer to that question, I don't want to end on that note. As a GM, I will retcon it out, as I did with Planescape's Guide to Hell. Overall, I liked the book. My gaming plate is currently full, but I intend to keep it around for idea mining, and recommend its purchase to others in the hope that perhaps I will find myself in a Pathfinder planes game some day. The purchase has inspired my to rework my Otz Chaim idea for a planar transport highway in a means that better fits Golarion's cosmology, and inspiring writing projects always a plus for a book, in my opinion.