“Fantasci20” is a fantasy campaign model with science fiction elements added much like the Final Fantasy video game series. This campaign model is designed for use with the Modern20 system. There are three releases in this line of products: Characters, Creature Creator and Gazetteer. All three products are written by Charles Rice.
Fantasci20: Characters is the longest supplement weighing it at 32 page plus licensing and covers. There is no table of content in this supplement, but it is well bookmarked. The entirety of this supplement is dedicated to providing players with the options needed to make characters for the Fantasci20 setting. Topics covered include new races, occupations, skills, feats and equipment.
The world of Aurianis is the home to all Fantasci20 stories. It a whole touched by both magic and science and this has led to the development of many intelligent races beyond humans. There are three non-human races detailed in this book and four human subraces. The first non-human race presented is the Baubles, who are small, capricious elemental characters with magical affinity. The second is the Ferals, a race of jungle cat humanoids who live in harmony with nature. The third non-human race is the Horde, they are the default villains of the setting and alien conquerors. The human races include the desert dwelling Merkosa, the giant-blooded Nyr, the minature Proud Folk (part says they are Tiny, part says Diminuitive so I’m not sure how small they are) and the winged Sky Folk.
There are thirteen new occupations for the Fantasci setting. They are additions to the occupations avaiable in the core Modern20 book (though I expect that when I set-up character creation rules for my players I may want to limit some from the Modern20 book that don't feel right like paramedic or reporter). The occupations added in this book are artificier, bard, black magician, bladecaster, bonder, gunslasher, gunner, mage gunner, monster trainer, necromancer, swordsman, theif and white magician. The white magician is more of what I would consider divine magic while the black magician is more arcane.
The next chapter called Skills and Feats adds two skills and a host of general and magic based feats to the game. Art is a skill that first appeared in the core book but in this tome it has a perk that allows you to generate a bardic music like effect. Magic is the other skill which provides you with arcane lore, monster lore or further access to magical feats. The general feats available allow you to train creatures, mix with the undead, craft magic items, recruit humanoid monsters or enhance magical powers. There are twelve feats associated with Bardsongs of the Star class type such as soothing song. There are eleven feats associated with Necromancy and the Star class such as disrupt undead. The black magic section has fourteen feats that involve elemental forces such as the brainiac's elemental strike. The red magic section has thirteen spells for empaths that weaken or strengthen opponents. The spirit binding magic section has six shaman oriented feats such as spirit transformation for empath characters. Even though there is a section on red magic, there is no red magician occupation in the previous section.
The last section of the book clocks in at about six pages and deals with equipment. Here the setting adds costs for alcohol, airships, gunblades, alien weapons and magical equipment. The magical equipment takes up the most of this section and provides you magical armour to protect you from elemental damage, potions of healing, staffs of poison, and consecrated weapons. Among many, many others. There are no "wondrous items" that are typical to the genre in this section.
Overall I'm sort of mixed on this supplement in the Fantasci20 series. There are some logistical errors in this product (Bauble size, lack of Red Magicians) that is not typical in RpgObjects releases. I get the impression that Fantasci is a setting with roots in the Final Fantasy RPG series where magic and gunfire coexist, but something about Fantasci's character book just doesn't hook me the way the FFRPG did.
