For me the most enticing thing about the Fading Suns rulebook is the jumpweb map, in gorgeous but dark and mysterious colours, showing the jumpgate connections between the Known Worlds. Well, I like exploring a new setting. In the rulebook each of these planets gets only a short paragraph, sometimes enough to spark interest but not enough to do anything useful with. And that’s why Holistic are selling us these short books of worlds, the Imperial Surveys, covering the worlds held by each of the major noble houses. This is the first one I’ve read.
The premise is that each is a report to the Emperor by a Questing Knight belonging to that house. Being al-Malik, this narrator makes frequent use of flowery language, with section end passages in the impenetrable Graceful Tongue. The booklet is 34 pages long (it uses the inside covers), layout is adequate, and there are four pieces of artwork which aren’t particularly noteworthy. Proofing is a bit off - quite a lot of typos got through, e.g. several cases of “lead” instead of “led”, names of places have variable spelling - but it’s not a glaring obstacle.
Each of the major worlds follows the same format: about 3 pages of history; a listing of the planets in the system, with a bare sentence or two about each; a box-out with the world’s main stats, like population and exports; a small map showing the world’s land and water areas, main settlements and other major features; and 4-6 pages of ‘people and places’ listing the main regions with mention of the main cities, usually a couple of beasties with stats for one of them, and other items of interest; and a couple of tips for travellers from the narrator. Here are the worlds.
- Criticorum is the most populous of these worlds, a major crossroads in the jumpweb and home to many factions and their plots. There’s a general air of decay, either urban - in the capital the towers of the rich loom above the polluted canyon-streets of the poor (echoes of Blade Runner) - or baroque, as old cities crumble while the wealthy amuse themselves (echoes of Dying Earth). Public executions and annual gladiatorial contests between prisoners are entertainment events. There are genetically modified animal-people in some areas. For some reason Criticorum didn’t grab
me on first reading, but after re-skimming it for this review I think it would reward another look.
- Shaprut is the temperate homeworld of the horse-like Shantor, humanity’s first alien contact, now found mainly in reservations outside the cultured and scholarly al-Malik cities, or working at mining or other menial tasks. There are several high science/supernatural phenomena lurking in the wilderness, and raids by Symbiots. (Want stats for the Shantor? Presumably they’re in the Player’s Guide - certainly not here or in the rulebook.)
- On Aylon native life-forms have both plant and animal characteristics, and are often dangerous. The rugged environment leads to an unusually equitable society, with an overall frontier feel. There’s a large Ukari population, and the authorities are working to improve relations.
- Istakhr is a desert world and the capital of the al-Malik. The history section conveys the effect of the endless sands by sounding like a fever dream. Istakhr Market is “the most famous bazaar in the Known World”, but there’s no detail here (it’s covered in the ‘Weird Places’ book). There’s a desert city of monsters and a nasty sand-swimming beastie. It’s the most Arabian world of this Arabian-based house.
The booklet ends with a short section of other holdings, al-Malik fiefs on worlds they don’t control. These are Kordeth, the Ur-Ukar homeworld, where the main holding is an exotic domed city (with underbelly for serfs and aliens, of course); a chain of small islands on Madoc, a League-owned waterworld (one island's taken over by slaves and pirates, and the amphibian Oro’ym are nearby); and a city on Leagueheim. None of these gives the GM much to go on, but would be interesting additions to other information about these worlds (from the website it looks like Leagueheim is covered in the Merchants sourcebook; Kordeth may be in ‘Children of the Gods’).
This certainly gives the GM more to work with. The general approach is to hint rapidly and move on, rather than stopping to give facts and details. It’s a matter of preference, but I would have liked more concrete information. What are the Leviathans that lurk in Criticorum’s seas? What’s the story behind the two minor planets thought to originate from outside their solar systems? Where can we find out what the crystalline life-forms are like? Of course, this would have required much more space. It might have been nice to have a quick overview paragraph for each world. The history sections are generally interesting, and there’s some fun in flipping between them to make the connections, but it’s a lot of information to get your
head round and is less useful in game terms than the other material - maybe the balance could have been shifted.
As a previous Fiefs reviewer has noted, these modules give a lot of insight into how to play/run Fading Suns. Criticorum is the no.2 Known World in terms of number of jumproutes, and I expected it to be bustling and cosmopolitan. I was struck instead by how empty it seemed: total population under 3 billion and large areas of dangerous wilderness. That’s still 5-10 times the populations of the other three. This really brings home the declining fortunes of the Known Worlds. I was glad to see the sci-fi staples of bases and beasties (hey, it’s a game title!) appearing on other worlds in the solar systems, as the rulebook gave the impression of dead space between the main worlds and their jumpgates. It sort of gives permission for spacefaring activity, telling me that technology is not as limited as I thought. On the other hand, given the lack
of detail characters are more likely to hear stories than to see for themselves. Hopefully the bestiary being prepared by Holistic will help with one aspect of this.
Did I really write this much about a 34-page book? Down, Muse! Time to sum up. The al-Malik worlds are reasonably varied, and the cultures feel open enough to allow players some freedom. There are hooks for urban encounters and weird adventures off the beaten track. A GM prepared to put the work in could build something memorable on any of these worlds.
