Character Guide

The personnel of RSCUE are very diverse, coming from all different races, professions and classes. However, they are also extraordinarily selective. Consider the kind of candidate that they would be interested in employing for their task. Some things to consider might be:

• The need for secrecy. Your character doesn't have to be a genius, but they should be capable of some discretion. Rember that a skill of 8 means you are roughly at the level of an average person, and an average person can keep secrets.
• The stated mission. RSCUE is dedicated to protecting both people and the ancient beings and objects of power. They can be greedy, narcissistic, callous, etc., however at the end of the day they should still believe in the core mission of RSCUE.
• The recruitment process. RSCUE is a highly selective organization, and so your character would have had to have done something to gain their notice and their trust.
• The society. The Empire is much more connected and centralized than most D&D campaigns. Non-lethality and stealth are going to be extremely useful skills, as are problem solving. Brute force certainly has a place in a party, but widespread murder and destruction will have consequences.

Races

With the pogroms of the early empire and the sealing of the world from other realms, non-human races have been reduced to a shadow of their former selves. Humans are by far the most common race left in the world, and non-humans are often treated with suspicion or outright contempt. For the purposes of character generation, keep these things in mind:

• The long lives of many races were due to connections to other realms (such as elves and the fae realms). With The Sealing, no mortals live beyond 250 years.
• Non-humans are treated as second-class citizens, and so if you aren't human you likely grew up in an isolated community or enclave within a city. You would not have had access to education and wealth to the degree of human characters.
• Non-humans and half-humans who are Specialists of the Society recieve a Specialist's Mask which affords them a single human persona so that they can move freely within the Empire.

Classes

*Testing Version Guidance*

This guide is written with the SRD content in mind, however that is pretty limited vs. 5e content as a whole. If abilities, feats, or other features only target melee weapons then bring it up with the GM, combat is much more focused on ranged in this setting and so some of those (but not all) may need to be reworked. I'll make note of it and try to find ways to incorporate the changes without violating the SRD license.

Gear

There are no restrictions on classes, however with the advance of technology many of the old weapons and armor are no longer useful, use the new Weapons Table and Armor Table. In order to use these tables, the following changes to class gear apply:

• If your class does not get proficiency in any types of armor, you get a Heavy Cloak.
• The gear you may select from is determined by your proficiencies. You may adapt your proficiencies in this way:
• If a class normally only has access to melee weapons or has no proficiencies, they may take proficiency in a simple ranged weapon. You gain proficiency in any specific weapon taken this way. For example, you may take proficiency in the Karas Revolver, not all simple ranged weapons.
• If you have proficiency in a specific piece of gear in base 5e that does not exist in this setting (ie. shortswords), you may instead take proficiency in another weapon of the same type (simple/martial and melee/ranged)
• Here are guidelines for substituting gear for base 5e classes, work with your DM if you or they feel that some of the rules present an unfair advantage or disadvantage:
• For Weapons:
• Weapons with the thrown property must be substituted with other thrown weapons.
• You may not take multiple of a weapon unless it has the Thrown or Light property.
• Simple weapons can only be substituted with other simple weapons, Martial weapons may be substituted with either type.
• If you are substituting a specific weapon, you may only do so for weapons that do the same damage or below. When a weapon has multiple types of attack, use the higher damage for the calculation. If the base 5e weapon does 1d12 or 2d6 damage, you may substitute it for any weapon. This does not apply if you are able to choose from a category such as "any martial melee weapon".
• For Armor:
• You may substitute base 5e armor for armor with the same AC or lower
• All adventurers with light armor proficiency get another piece of Light Armor which must not have higher AC than their substituted armor.

Magic

The Sealing has cut off the world from the other realms, however shadows of them persist, empty and twisted versions of the originals. They have since evolved in their own ways and did not stay empty for long. What has arisen within them, however, is as twisted as they are. Teleportation and other magic that interacts with the other realms still exists, however those other realms are much, much more hostile places.

Religion

The entire Empire is united under the Church which in turn enforces a unified doctrine of belief. Many classes tie you to spirits/other gods, however the Church does not take heresy lightly. Keep in mind while roleplaying that your faith would need to be secret.

Relationships

Living a double life is difficult, especially when that double life puts you in the way of powers that you have never faced and may not be able to comprehend. In order to thrive in that environment, you're going to need to build relationships. These relationships can benefit you in 2 main ways: as skilled contacts, and as emotional support. Track these for your character, and include their name, location, contact type, relationship strength, and a brief description. Contact type could be anything from army informant to arcane researcher to as simple as a friend. Relationship strength is a resource that can be built up and expended through downtime actions, and affects the chance of them being able to help you.

Sample Relationship: Jaxla Bey | Soteria City | Antiquities Specialist | 4 Strength | A specialist in valuable artifacts and their trade with connections in the industry.

When you create a character, also create a single contact to serve as emotional support. Their contact type should reflect a personal relationship; younger brother, childhood friend, penpal, drinking buddy, etc. Give them a Relationship strength of 3, and some notes about them.

When you are attempting to get something from your contacts, such as calling upon their expertise, researching information for a task, or anything else you can think of that fits, you will roll a d20 and add their relationship strength. Getting a 12 or above gives you a fortunate result, less than 12 an unfortunate result. Depending on the difficulty of the task, fortunate may not mean absolute success, the interpretation is up to the GM. With how extensive the telegraph system is, you will be able to contact them anytime you are in a town for this purpose.