Pathfinder Player Companion: "Faiths of Balance" [RPG]

Faiths of Balance is a thirty-two page introduction to the major "neutral" faiths in the official Pathfinder campaign setting of Golarion.  The eight faiths covered are Abadar, Calistria, Gorum, Gozreh, Irori, Nethys, Pharasma, and (more a philosophy than the deity) the Green Faith.  The introduction explains that this book isn't so much about the gods themselves but about their average worshippers.  I occasionally found a minor bit here or there that expanded on what we already knew about these faiths from major books like Inner Sea Gods, but for the most part this companion book is better thought of as a readable, capsule summary for players than any attempt to introduce "new" lore into the setting.  Still, it's much more reasonable to expect the average player to read a page or two about their new cleric's god in a companion like this than a lengthy treatment in a hardcover book.

The inside front cover depicts the holy symbols of the eight faiths covered in the book along with their alignment, domains, favoured weapons, and centers of worship.  The inside back cover reproduces the covert art, sans logo.  The interior artwork is generally of a high quality, with the depictions of individual priests of each god a highlight.

The first part of the book is on the faiths.  Each of the eight faiths gets a two-page overview that includes a discussion of its goals, identifying symbols and tenets, taboos, how they interact with adventurers and other faiths, how different (core) classes are or are not represented, and two new religion traits for characters who worship that deity to select from.  Unfortunately, most of the traits are rather mundane and unimaginative--very much in the "you get a +1 bonus to a skill, and it's a class skill for you" vein (which can be useful, but doesn't exactly spark creativity and distinctive backgrounds).  I was originally going to go through each of the eight faiths in this review, but it's probably more useful for me to sum things up by saying the entries are generally well-written and informative.  I didn't know, for example, that Nethys rarely pays any attention at all to his worshippers, that Gorum believes that those who surrender on the field of battle should be spared, that Pharasma has some surprising beliefs about abortion, or how well Abadar plays into the old-school D&D idea of advancing civilization and bringing order to the dangerous wilderness.  There's also a two-page summary of minor neutral deities in the setting (like my favourite, Groetus, the God of the End Times)--each of these gets a paragraph or two of description and one new trait.

The remainder of the book is a series of two-page entries on topics including religious organisations, feats, magical items, spells, and holidays.

The religious organisations covered are The Companies of the Red Standard (a knightly order sworn to Gorum), The Reborn House (adventuring spellcasters sworn to Nethys who try to right wrongs caused by magic), The Sacred Order of Archivists (scholars of Irori who try to preserve history from destruction), The Sea Dragons (Abadarians who maintain civilised seaways), The Voices of the Spire (militant Pharasmins totally devoted to the destruction of undead), The Wasp Queens (female thieves who worship Calistria), and The Wind Callers (worshippers of Gozreh who work with ship's captains).  Although there's only a couple of paragraphs of description for each of these organisations, they're really flavourful and interesting--and I could definitely see entire campaigns premised on every PC being a member of one of these groups.  Certainly could be a fun change from the "a bunch of random adventurers meet up" tradition.

The feats section contains a reasonable selection, and (appropriate for a book like this) they're reasonably balanced.  This section also contains new "channel foci" (a concept introduced in an earlier book) which allows clerics of particular faiths to use channel energy on a special holy symbol to create a particular effect.  For example, Abadarian clerics could channel through small gold-plated scales to influence creatures' attitudes (through Diplomacy) as a swift action instead of the normal rule of a minute's interaction.  I like the concept.

The entry on magic items is interesting, as the items can be used by anyone (even non-worshippers), but have an extra effect that only works when used by worshippers of the relevant faith.  The clockwork key, for example, leads constructs to avoid attacking its wielder, but a worshipper of Abadar can use it to try to paralyze a construct entirely.  (I think this particular item is really cool, but overpowered given its price.)  This section also contains a sidebar detailing a code of conduct for  Paladins of Abadar.

The spells section isn't clear on whether they can be cast by anyone or only worshippers of the deity they relate to.  The only spell that jumps out at me as being particularly interesting is one called Early Judgment, which shows the target what their fate will be in the afterlife!

The section on holidays provides just a brief description of different special events within the eight faiths--I don't think there was enough room to do this topic justice here.

Overall, Faiths of Balance is a solid, concise introduction to the eight major neutral faiths in the Pathfinder pantheon.  It's very surface-level material, so don't expect major revelations or deep analyses.  But for what it is, it's good.