Resvier: A P6 Setting

[Mechalich]

NOTE: the following is very long. Anyone interested in this setting can PM me for a copy of the full draft document which has better formatting and navigation. It is intended to compile this into a PDF when editing is complete. Constructive criticism is encouraged.

Intro
Resvier is designed as a setting for P6 – utilizing the E6 rule set for Pathfinder. I decided to create this setting because I felt utilizing E6 restrictions allowed me to pull in all of the cool stuff I like from D&D, and to take advantage of its familiarity and archetypes, without dealing with the absurdities and verisimilitude breaking pretty much inherent in high-level D&D.

I chose to utilize Pathfinder simply because the Pathfinder OGC pool is broader and it includes a variety of cool concepts I find useful, so that I can make fewer compromises during setting design and still get the setting I like – which the straight-up d20 SRD simply can’t provide. However this setting should be backwards compatible to use 3.5 with little difficulty.

Resvier is intended to be a fairly generic setting. This was done to allow for the utilization of as much content as possible and to thereby maximize player choice and storytelling options. I did not want to cut out any classes or races during the design phase and instead structured assumptions to integrate them. This does mean that a lot of standard D&D tropes get included, but I have tried to at least slightly subvert them at points to produce surprises. This is a P6 setting, but it should feel like D&D in as many ways as possible.

I have not chosen to attempt to model a whole world, or even an especially large geographic area. Resvier is a single area the size of a large nation-state that will be presented in some detail. I wanted to produce many minor sovereign states below the kingdom level within a fairly united cultural context because I felt that more accurately represented what the cultural and political situation of the Middle Ages represented across large areas.

Much of the material presented here will not, however, be specific to Resvier. The design assumptions should be useful for anyone wishing to put together their own E6/P6 setting. There are even a number of pan-global items (the divine Pantheon for example) that could be used in developing another part of the world if one wanted.

One of the things I tried to build into this setting, both in the mechanical design assumptions and the fluff, is that adventurers matter. Level 6 can be achieved quite rapidly, and at that point the party is a group of major players who can have significant influence over a city or even a small state, and if they make allies and leverage their abilities properly, can even can the overall course of history in the whole region. This is partly expressed through the unification debate – Resvier is presented as a splintered nation with competing viewpoints that stress either the unification of all the states into a single one, or each sub-region developing on their own and becoming more unique. This debate is designed to not map cleanly on the alignment compass at all, with solid arguments for and against found for good/evil and law/chaos viewpoints. However, it will be something an adventuring party, especially as they quickly level up, will find difficult to ignore.

This document is modeled as a full-fledged campaign-setting book. Resvier is intended to be immediately playable off this document and the Pathfinder Core Rules with P6 structures in place. It offers a nation at a key point of national transition, one filled with myriad races, vibrant characters, cunning magic, and weird monsters. It is my hope that it will be a source of real inspiration and utility for DM and Players of E6/P6 games.