Suikoden (5e Campaign Setting)
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Suikoden
Suikoden is a JRPG that started on the PS1 and continued on through several iterations into the PS2, as well as several spin-off games. Each game is set in the same world and usually centers around some political war between factions, in which you take the lead of one of the sides or a rebel faction. This leads into two features of the games, the HQ and the recruit-able characters that you can find through-out the world. Each character recruited opens parts of the HQ (be it a castle, ship or what-ever) and most end up being members of your party or army.
This setting will detail alternative rules to allow a 5e game to be run in a setting based upon this wonderful set of video games. As such, we will be detailing rules that give everyone access to spell slots (Rune Slots), spells (Runes and their spells), Armies, HQs and upgrades as well as how to deal with weapons in a similar fashion as the games.
Cosmology
Each game is set in a specific country, or set of islands in one case, that gets fleshed out in that game. An accurate map is available on the fandom wiki if a DM requires it, detailing the extent of the world that has been explored and fleshed out through the various games.
Entities
Suikoden never really goes too far into the gods or deities of this world. The largest of which is the "Story of Creation" which hints at what might be the creation of the world the games exist in. Though, it is more of an origin of the Runes, that the powers of the world use to try to conquer or save it respectfully. The Darkness existed alone, and from a tear of loneliness came the first two runes, the Sword and Shield runes. From these two came the other True Runes, totaling to 27 True Runes, which then created the other runes you find throughout the games.
There are religions within the games, but they are more set pieces than anything. Some of which are St. Loa, the Goddess Sadie, Zexen, the worshipers of the Sun Rune, Twilight Rune and Dawn Rune. There is also the theocratic country Nagerea, which never really gets explored upon.
Geography
The name of the world Suikoden takes place in is never really stated, so as a placeholder I'll just call it Suiko. There are several nations of Suiko, each one that is the setting of each game, as previously stated. The world has never been stated as 'whole', so we don't really know how large or how many other continents exist within the world of Suikoden.
History
The history is detailed on several wikis. I will not rehash it here, as the setting does not have to exist in the world, let alone follow the story. Also, it would be difficult to detail without linking to wikis or pulling resources from other sites.
Weapons
Characters in Suikoden usually only have a single weapon that they utilize through-out the game. However, each weapon can be upgraded to different levels (increasing damage or stats) depending on the blacksmith visited or the type of hammer the blacksmith uses. In addition, upon reaching certain levels the weapon attains new names, sometimes resulting in significant boosts to damage or stats.
Weapons in Suikoden also had a range stat of: Short, Medium, or Long. A Short ranged weapon could only be used from and target the front row. Medium ranged weapons could be used from the front or back row, but could only target the front row of enemies. Finally, Long ranged weapons could be use from or target any row. In this setting, range will simply be a category of weapon. Short being melee weapons, Medium being weapons that have a range of up to 80-ft, and Long range being any weapon beyond that. Or essentially (the idea anyways), short is melee, medium is thrown, and long is projectile...
Runes
Runes are the source of magic in Suikoden. Every character has a magic stat that is used to determine how many Rune slots they have available to them as well as how powerful their spells are. In addition, each character has efficiencies to each type of rune that exists which helps determine how powerful their spells from that type of rune are, as well as which runes are available to the character.
The earlier games had limitations to the amount of runes a character could equip at a time, though later games opened this up a bit more. Runes can only be set by a Runemaster and can be set to the Left Hand, Right Hand, and Head. However, only magician types gain access to all three slots.
Headquarters
Each game has a headquarters in it that the player gains at some point, allowing the player to set up his/her army. Over the course of the game, you can upgrade parts of the HQ as you gather the 108 Stars of Destiny. In the first three games and the fifth, this was a castle. In the fourth it was a ship and in Suikoden Tierkreis, it was a fortress. The DM and the players should decide on what and where their Headquarters will be. But it should be defensive in some way, and have a gargantuan potential in growth.
Army
Each game has a different way of depicting war between the players Army and the enemy Army. The first game had a paper-rock-scissors type system with abilities that came from the different recruits you picked up. Other games went more towards a tactics set-up with units lead by recruits, whether the units were squads of people or a ship crewed by your recruits.
The DM may decide to leave this part out of their game, but I will try to detail a way of setting up units for a tactics set-up for Army vs Army play.
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