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Rather than thinking of Suzerain as a single product, I’m going to instead describe the four aspects that Suzerain seems to focus on: the new “Demigod” rank for highly experienced characters along with new rules, the nature of the Maelstrom meta-setting, the Relic fantasy setting, and the various pre-made adventures. There’s a lot of overlap between the four aspects of this book, but I also think separating them out a bit will help me to better explain the book’s strengths and weaknesses.
In Savage Worlds, when characters reach 80 experience points they are considered “Legendary” ranked characters. They can continue to grow in power if players are interested in playing them, but there’s a sense that the characters have “maxed out” and some groups feel there can be problems offering Legendary characters additional challenges under the existing system. Suzerain works towards fixing this a bit by offering a “Demigod” rank for characters with 120 or more experience points. Upon achieving Demigod, several new Edges are offered. Many are simply advances of “lesser” Edges, reducing the Edge’s cost of Pulse (Suzerain’s term for Power Points) for more effect. That said, the Edge Trait Perfection: Demigod stands out as it allows Demigods to essentially purchase a desired level of success with a single Trait as long as they can afford the (relatively cheap) Pulse cost involved. If all Suzerain offered its Demigod characters were a handful of new Edges I’d be disappointed. But it also tweaks the base Savage Worlds rules a bit, increasing default Pulse amounts characters have, giving Demigods a d8 Wild Die, improved Soak rolls and bonuses to overcoming Shaken results, increasing their starting Karma (a.k.a. Bennies in Savage Worlds), and letting them even create small short-term distortions in time and reality itself. Even Heroic level characters (and up) get some of these perks, with some new Edges, Karma bonuses, limited ability to alter time, and so on. Plus, at Heroic level characters get a magical piece of jewelry called a Telesma which is a sentient artifact crafted by the gods, giving the character access to a private pocket universe (think the Fortress of Solitude or a TARDIS that is shared with the other PCs and accessible to the gods) along with extra powers that increase as the character raises in rank. On top of all that, Suzerain also plays with the base rules of Savage Worlds a bit, by expanding Fatigue to three boxes and adding a “Debilitated” condition after “Exhausted”; this is important, since spiritual and mental combat both target Fatigue levels and are common-ish in the setting it seems.
Arcane Backgrounds in Suzerain (here called Pulse Paths) consist of Empowered (characters who are watched over by a god or gods, whether the character wants the attention or not), Enabled (characters who have modified their bodies or other items with magical symbols), Gifted (“traditional wizards”), and Sighted (Shamans who work with the spirits and the spirit world) along with new mechanics for each to help distinguish them from one another mechanically. Traditional Arcane Backgrounds like Weird Science, Super Powers, or Psionics, aren’t mentioned, something I’ll get back to later. All in all, Suzerain offers a lot of new mechanics and ideas for GMs to digest, and not just in terms of the Demigod rank.
Suzerain also provides an overview of the Maelstrom, a sampling of Immortal Realms (god-ruled dimensions hidden within the Maelstrom), rules for a spirit world connected to most (all?) realms, time travel, alternate timelines, and suggestions for what to do with it all. And the main suggestion seems to be: don’t use it all. Characters seem to be expected to reach Heroic rank before they even learn about dimensional travel, and it’s strongly encouraged they reach Demigod rank before they go mucking about with changing time in any meaningful “Hitler-killing, WW2 averting” manner (characters can alter time earlier than that, but it’s supposed to be exceptionally hard to the point of resorting to GM fiat). And I’m not convinced these are bad guidelines if the assumed Suzerain campaign is one built after the end of an already existing campaign, where everybody has already reached Heroic or Legendary rank anyway. Those wanting to make Novice ranked dimension cops can do so with no effort, but they’ll have to ignore a good chunk of the book’s advice. On the flipside, there’s some interesting Immortal Realms that include the some new twists on the classic Greek and Norse gods, but also add new locales like the Red Realm (a universe based on the symbolic nature of Red, only things have gone bad) and the Realm of the Pure Mages (a universe where geniuses can achieve divine-like status through logic and reason).
Scattered throughout the book are various Edges and spells and information for the Relic fantasy setting. And honestly, there are more developed fantasy settings out there for Savage Worlds. From what I gather, it’s essentially a world that once possessed a high degree of magi-tech civilization, but lost most if not all of it in a great war, and has just recently started recovering from the aftermath of that war. Multiple races exist, including the shapeshifting Fury (think werewolves), the stony earth-manipulating Dwarves, and the light manipulating Aurora. Characters who are one of these races can take additional Edges at Heroic and Demigod ranks to improve how effectively they use their inherent racial powers (an idea that reminded me of monster racial levels in D&D3.x, and I found pretty neat in Savage Worlds). Edges for Patron Gods are an option as well, and an Edge system based on astrological signs is mentioned somewhat in passing (one sign, the Arrow, is detailed as a means for low Strength characters to spend Pulse and increase the damage they do in combat). There’s also a Plot Point campaign based around Relic that can be inserted in various parts of the characters’ careers. I won’t say much, except that it starts off fairly simple, and scales nicely such that by the time the characters return as Demigods things are pretty gonzo and wild. But despite the Edges and the spells and the hints here and there, Relic just feels like a fairly generic fantasy setting. No maps are provided, no timeline, instead there’s just some vague hints and clues that maybe there’s a bit more going on here.
Finishing up the book are 24 short Savage Tales. All the material elsewhere in the book is finally brought into play, and the book takes off. We have more generic fantasy adventures in Relic (not a bad thing if you want some fantasy Savage Tales to play with), along with more outlandish adventures in other dimensions. Mimetic plagues, interstellar Greek empires (shades of the Hellas RPG perhaps?), feudal Japanese warfare, Viking contests, wars between Heavens, and more. And honestly, here Relic’s lack of definition is actually helpful as many of the adventures set in Relic could easily be reworked to any other fantasy setting.
So, how does it all pull together? It kinda’ depends on what part of the game you’re looking at. Relic is tied in nicely throughout the book, and between this book and the Savage World core rules I’d be well on my way to running a campaign about characters in a rather standard fantasy world becoming godlings. But remember when I said that Suzerain doesn’t mention other Arcane Backgrounds like Weird Science or Super Powers? I suspect that despite being a game that has “everything you need to create characters in any time and place” it’s not really meant for any genre. Some of the new Edges Suzerain offers are things like Flight of the Ascendant: Improved (your Demigod can spend Pulse to jump further) or Pulse Armor: Improved (your Demigod can spend Pulse to increase his armor rating against one attack). Impressive powers for some campaigns, but utterly underwhelming in a supers game where characters can inherently fly and withstand anti-tank weaponry. Now, I’m not complaining that Suzerain won’t let me make cyborgs or supers or whatever. The amount of rules such would require is really beyond the scope of the game. And I’m not complaining that Suzerain doesn’t cross over with Deadlands or Necessary Evil or Sundered Skies; IP conflicts would put a kibosh on that I imagine. But I am disappointed that it focuses so much on creating a new generic fantasy setting rather than giving more consideration to other genres, genre combining, and perhaps more Edges to make Demigod-ranked characters further stand out. Some more support for genres besides fantasy would have been nice I think.
The information on Demigod rank is pretty interesting, and there are some good ideas for making foes equal to such powerful characters. More ideas for high end metaphysical conflicts, things like killing gods or manipulating symbols on a cosmic scale, would have been nice but a few actually are included in the book as parts of Savage Tales and are one is a major component of the Plot Point Campaign. However, GMs can expect to do some work figuring out just what exactly NPC gods do and how the PCs actually form their own new pantheon; the game stops at Demigod rank, and only teases that PCs could reach true divinity. Still, Suzerain does offer some substantial options and ideas for people who want to take their games past Legendary ranked characters.
I suspect the Savage Tales and the Plot Point campaign are the true stars of the book. Each tale tends to double as a micro-setting, usually with a couple of bestiary entries and a bit of setting information. Not much, admittedly, but I found there to be enough to stimulate my imagination for making more adventures in the various roughly described areas myself. And despite my disappointment with Relic’s limited depth, it does make it very easy to port the presented adventures in Relic to just about any other fantasy setting.
Style: If 3 is average, I’ll give Suzerain a just barely under the edge high 4. The art ranges from adequate to outright gorgeous, and is a better looking book than Deadlands Reloaded in my opinion. Relevance of the art to the text varies, with the weaker pieces typically being more connected to the adjacent text than the more attractive full-page spreads. The main gripe I have with the art is that I’ll see pictures of cyberwarriors or cosmic level superheroes and realize that such things aren’t anywhere in the book. The writing is excellent fun and quite stimulating, with a casual tone that I really enjoyed; I wish more game books felt this enthusiastic. The organization of the book is somewhat weak, scattering things in multiple places, with little to separate one part of the book from another it seems. It’s not terrible, but it feels more cluttered with ideas than overflowing with them. Also, a few editing errors mean that things needing mechanical traits or descriptions are mentioned but never detailed in a way that could make them useful (e.g. “dragon bones” are used by one NPC, but it’s not clear what they do or how well they do it).
Substance: This one’s tricky. Those wanting to have more options for massively experienced characters in Savage Worlds will likely find Suzerain handy, and on that merit I give it a solid 3; you won’t be able to reach the heights of Exalted or Scion, and its usefulness in more high-powered genres is not as great as I’d like, but there’s still a lot worth idea mining. The section on Relic was so sparse as to be uninspiring; there are better, more detailed, fantasy settings for Savage Worlds available. I give Relic a high 1; not because what’s there is so bad, but because there’s so little there to truly distinguish it from a hundred other D&D clones. The section on the Maelstrom and its various locales is interesting, but a bit confusing and outright annoying at places; I can ignore it’s advice and run the games I want, but I shouldn’t have a game telling me not to do something without good reason. I’ll give it a solid 3, there’s some neat stuff there (possibly worth mining for other games) and the parts I don’t like are really easy to ignore. The Savage Tales are excellent, and a Savage Worlds GM should be able to find several scenarios worth using there. A low 5. Overall I give Suzerain a solid 4 for Substance; there’s a lot of stuff I found sparse or outright weak, but there’s also a lot of good things for Savage Worlds GMs to tinker with and use. (And for those who are concerned with my math in reaching this conclusion, I didn’t use any. Call it reviewer’s privilege.)
Who Should Get This: People playing Savage Worlds and wanting to take their characters past Legendary or do some dimensional jumping may be happy. There’s also quite of bit stuff that some may find useful for idea mining in other games, and quite a bit of stuff for Savage Worlds fans.
Who Shouldn’t Get This: This is not Savage Worlds Torg, or SW Exalted, or SW Nexus, or anything but Savage Worlds Suzerain. Those hoping for a game that guides them all the way from mere mortalhood to divine power (in the fashion of the classic “D&D Immortals Boxed Set”) will likely be disappointed; Suzerain intentionally stops before full godhood. Finally, those looking for a new fully fleshed setting need not apply; there’s a lot of neat ideas in Suzerain, but nothing really developed.
Conclusion: Suzerain is full of enthusiasm and excitement, and is quite brilliant in many ways. But it also feels like it’s trying to do too much with too little space, and that the authors didn’t really consider how to use Suzerain’s new Demigod rules outside of more traditional “street-level” games. In the end, I liked Suzerain a lot and intend to use it when I get the chance, but I really think it could have used more focus.
