Sample file Disclaimer Credit Where Credit’s Due Suzerain is a fictional depiction of our universe. Any Original Concept: Miles M. Kantir. resemblance between any proper noun we come up with Words: Zach Welhouse. and any real person/place/whatever is purely coincidental. By the same token, the book you are reading is a game Additional Words: Alan Bundock, Clyde Clark, based on a fictional depiction of our universe. It’s not Richard Mendenhall, Aaron Rosenberg, Loki aka George reality. The GM sets a scene in a fictional realm and the Williams. players play characters in it. Repeat after me, “I am not my Lead Pathfinder Designer: Loki aka George Williams. character. I can’t do the things that my character can do because he is a fictional character in a fictional universe.” Rules: Pastor Allan Hoffman, Matt Medeiros (Project Don’t try to fly just because your character can fly. Don’t Lead), Richard Moore. kill anyone just because your character is a master of the Edits: Miles M Kantir, Richard Moore. Scottish claymore. Roleplaying is meant to be fun, but comes with serious responsibilities. Additional Edits: Genevra ‘Goddess Of Uber- Awesomeness’ Harker, Gayle Reick, Alida Saxon, Loki aka We would also like to explain that Suzerain is our George Williams. take on reality with mythological and magical elements. It depicts religions and mythologies with a twist – that is Art Direction: Aaron Acevedo. to say, differently than a true believer might see them. We Art: Aaron Acevedo, Alec Acevedo, James Denton, mean no disrespect if you are such a believer but ask you Jason Engle, Alida Saxon, Gorislav Solovov, Carly Sorge. to respect our right to our own interpretation. Additional Art: Robert Friis, Damon Wilson Hart, Thank You Chris Malidore. Thank you, Gary Gygax! You said it best in Master of Layout and Design: Aaron Acevedo, Alida Saxon. the Game: Let us know where adventuring through the “... a quick shift of gaming milieu would enable play Continuum takes your heroes, we love epic tales! Check to move to another adventure better suited to the player us out at [email protected] and say hello. mood. The Old West, a brush with some World War II events, an expedition into New York City, an inadvertent transportation to a Starship, or a similar trip to some setting This document is copyright Savage Mojo Ltd 2015. All rights reserved. It’s conceived by an author such as Edgar Rice BurroughsSample or for personalfile use only, and may be printed for personal use. It may not be modified, Jack Vance—anything was possible.” distributed or sold without written permission. This product is compliant with the Open Game License (OGL). Product Those words sum up why we love working on Identity for this product is identified as artwork, characters, dialogue, locations, Suzerain! May the Dice Gods smile upon you! -- Loki plots, proper names (characters, deities, etc.), storylines, trade dress, and trademarks. Open Content for this product is identified as the game mechanics, except for material designated as Product Identity, as defined in the Open Loki’s Dedication: To those I have lost over the past Gaming License version 1.0a. No portion of this work other than material year: Simon Greydon Barrows, Veronica Russell, Joe designated as Open Game Content may be reproduced in any form without prior LeBlanc, and so many more. Thinking of all of you as we written permission. explore the realms beyond. And, as always, to my wonderful Compatibility with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game requires the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game from Paizo Publishing, LLC. See http://paizo.com/ wife Alexis Stahl for putting up with my constant geekery. pathfinderRPG for more information on the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Matt Medeiros’ Dedication: Paizo Publishing, LLC does not guarantee I wanted to say a heart-felt “thank-you” compatibility, and does not endorse this product. to my wife. If it wasn’t for her pushing Pathfinder is a registered trademark of Paizo Publishing, LLC, and the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game me to pursue game design I wouldn’t and the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Compatibility be here, and I also wanted to thank her Logo are trademarks of Paizo Publishing, LLC, for putting up with all the times she and are used under the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Compatibility License. See http://paizo.com/ had to put up with me sticking my nose pathfinderRPG/compatibility for more information on into the computer for hours on end to the compatibility license. match another deadline. Without her I We Bring Worlds To Life Savage Mojo, Suzerain,, and associated marks and wouldn’t be where I am! www.savagemojo.com logos are trademarks of Savage Mojo. Version: 1.savage150913 1 Contents For Players 3 Character Creation 11 What’s New In Suzerain? 4 Starting At The Top 11 Terminology 5 New Feats 12 Advancement and Suzerain Ranks 5 Saving The Universe 22 The Touch Of Greatness 5 Your Pocket Realm 22 Pulse 7 A Character’s Telesma 23 Followers And Companions 7 The Mechanics Of Telesmae 26 The Ethereal Plane 8 Telesma Growth 28 Heroes And Demigods 8 Relic, Yr208 29 Hero Points 8 The Past And Present 30 Recovery 8 Characters In Relic 31 Life And Death 8 OGL 38 Flexing A Nexus 9 Sample file 2 Sample file 3 Right out of the gate, adventuring in a Suzerain The Suzerain Continuum realm is more or less what you’d expect. There are a few differences, but they’re more along the lines of Suzerain isn’t a setting, it’s all settings. refinements than pulling the rug out from under you. You’ve heard that one before, right? It starts out Then your characters hit 10th level, or Folk Hero rank with fun and high promise, but by the end you’re as we call it in Suzerain, and the walls around their a necromantic sharkman with six-shooters for world begin to become more malleable, buckling hands and acid for blood and no idea what under the forces of ascension. Before they know it, happened to your original character. We’re not your young gods-in-training will begin influencing like that; we’ve got standards. Your character events beyond their immediate environs. It’s at this will begin in one setting – a particular realm in stage most characters will first encounter other times a particular time – and will grow in capabilities, and campaign worlds. achieve mighty deeds, and become a big fish in How big is the difference from Fated to Folk Hero? a small pond. From there, he will attract the Fated will survive the alien invasion and help rebuild greater attention of the universe – or at least society. Heroes sail beyond the sunset and take the the universe’s housekeepers, who will send fight to their foes’ inverted pyramids of crystallized your hero hurtling through the Maelstrom of ichor, battling through to the heart of the alien planet time and space to places where only legends where the laws of physics are, well, inverted. dare tread. This rulebook keys you in to our greater cosmology, some of its notable realms, Once you make it to Folk Hero, the stakes get and the domain of the spirits, which connects raised a notch and you’ll find your characters in it all. All you need to start exploring are your ever more demanding situations. At the start of Folk Pathfinder Roleplaying Game rulebooks... and Hero, a character might well be the guardian of a this book. nation or the best con man in the star system. That’s small fry compared to what’s coming: our reactive protector leads his nation through a world-spanning renaissance, while our con man becomes The Con What’s New In Suzerain? Man, an idea given flesh. It’s time to take him out to new places, and new times. Sample fileThe Suzerain experience is one that values grand, Come ascension to Demigodhood at 15th level, heroic scope. No longer are heroes constrained to those will be the cakewalk and salad days. Because being merely legendary. Instead, they are able to once you are tightly tied to the universe as a Demigod, access a wider stage where their very words will shake you begin to work not through time but also across the heavens. In comic book terms, this is cosmic-level alternate realities. Each could easily have the length, stuff. The fantasists would have you believe that it’s depth, and impact of one ‘normal’ plot campaign, and ‘epic’, while classicists would prefer the term ‘mythic.’ you will do them all, with one character, across who Either way, your characters won’t be spending a lot of knows how many realms, through time and across time fighting rats and bugs in the sewers. reality. Welcome to Suzerain. Please drive carefully. This is represented mechanically with a wealth Most importantly, Suzerain is about having fun of new options, both for building characters and with awesome characters in amazing settings and interacting with their surroundings. Everybody a chance to create high octane stories with your who’s anybody has access to minor special powers, friends. This book lets you do that seamlessly, in a which are fueled by natural wellsprings of bioelectric single overarching continuum. energy – Pulse. This invigorating life-force is the stuff Imagine the ever-changing experiences of of spirits: the human soul, specters without a physical characters in Doctor Who and Sliders, the potential form, and gods alike. These spirit forms aren’t a for genres intermixing from Rifts, and the enormous natural part of any of the Suzerain realms, but they epic storytelling promise of the transformative Torg.