I picked up a copy of Studio M—'s
Akashic Staples (affiliate link) the other day.
I'll admit to largely missing the boat when it comes to "akashic" content for PF1. I think that was because it took me quite a few years to pick up WotC's
Magic of Incarnum, which is what the akashic system was. Not officially, mind you, since Dreamscarred Press's
Akashic Mysteries was technically its own product, but it was very obviously Incarnum with the proverbial serial numbers filed off (much in the same way that their
Path of War product was WotC's
Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords reiterated for Pathfinder 1E). But while it wasn't necessary to own the WotC book to get into the PF1 iteration of those ideas, I just preferred to start at the beginning; it's just how my head works.
The end result is that I've been a late adopter on akashic content, and so don't quite grok it as well as I do other d20 sub-systems. Which is the reason I picked up
Akashic Staples, since it's sort of an overview of the akashic system...except it's not.
Now, maybe it's me. Maybe I just didn't read the product description closely enough, but I'm not entirely sure if I understand this product's
raison d'etre. It's not an introductory book for using akashic magic; you still need to pick up Dreamscarred Press's
Akashic Mysteries (or just
look it up on d20PFSRD.com). Rather, this seems like some sort of collection of materials that have (as the name says) become staple aspects of the system, but which weren't laid out in the original book.
I suppose it's somewhat like PF1's archetypes and
traits in that regard, as both are considered to be fairly important parts of building a character, but neither were in the Core Rulebook, having been invented after it was published. This seems to be the same thing, with minor veils (veils being to akashic magic what spells are to Vancian magic) and "updated" (don't ask me how) prestige classes and traits specific to akasha-using characters. So in that regard, I suppose it's a useful tool for keeping up with advances that have been made to the system...even if I feel like I don't appreciate it all as much as I would if I'd gotten in on metaphorical ground floor of this particular sub-system.