Third Edition

C oncepts

The following document summarizes the changes and

developments for Fading Suns Third Edition (FS3)
as proposed by the development team at RedBrick
Limited. We outline proposed changes to the rules
system as well as developments of the game setting.
This proposal aims to give you an insight into our
design goals and serves to ensure you agree with
the general direction were taking this game before
we start fleshing out the exact details.
 FA DING SUNS
Our Design Goals
ading Suns Third Edition will be powered by a reasonably fast and consistent

F game system expanded with rules for better narrative play. To that end, well
add more examples to explain how the game works and define the roles of the
players and the gamemaster better. Wed like to keep the old-school feeling
of the mechanics, but will include tested and tried concepts of modern game design.
We do not start from scratch, of course, and Fading Suns Third Edition will indeed
become a revision of the Second Editiona major overhaul, but still a revision. We
intend to include more in-game quotes, comments, and rumors throughout the book to
make the background more accessible. A completely new layout and lots of new artwork
will help optimize the general organization and usability of the book.

Opposed to previous editions, and due to the fact that a lot of the old publications
are out of print, we will design FS3 to be self-containing; assuming that the reader
has no knowlegdge of previous books. While the old books are rules-light and
therefore remain useable for those who are interested in them, we intend to revise
all previously published material and compile it into several large supplements for
the Third Edition linealongside new material, of course.

The First Edition of the game focused on the aftermath of the Emperor Wars, and the
early years of Alexius reign. The Second Edition expanded the games horizon beyond
the Known Worlds borders with Star Crusade and War in the Heavens, highlighting the
deeds of the Questing Knights. For Fading Suns Third Edition, wed like to focus on
the political struggles of the Known Worlds. While we wont ignore the extended setting
beyond the borders, we intend to re-focus on the Known Worlds as the centre of the
Fading Suns universe. In addition, well highlight alternate campaign types beyond
the standard Questing Knight troupe, such as Inquisitors, Traveling Circuses, Bounty
Hunters, or Alien Rights Activists to encourage players to take full advantage of the
rich background. Besides adding the Etyri and Gannok races as playable options in the
core rules, we also intend to introduce a new guild, the Town Criers, to allow for new
character types (journalists, information gatherers, and spies).

As with the previous edition, well continue the timeline and advance it to 5008 or
beyond and intend to introduce Grail as the standard or starting setting offered
by the core rulebook, replacing Pandemonium for the reason that Grail serves as a
2 better representation of the Fading Suns universe. All the main aspects of the game
come together on Grail: the presence of the alien Etyri, a newly opened jumproad to
Rimpoche and the still hidden night road to Swans Way, and the complementary
political developments. As House Keddah makes its gamble to reclaim its royal heritage,
Grail moves towards the center of the political stage, emphasizing the politics/intrigue
aspects of the setting.

These core events are highlighted below in more detail.

Set t ing Developments
ince Fading Suns is a living, developing game world, some of the conflicts

S hinted at in the previous editions are coming to a head. With the following
developments, well move the setting focus more strongly on the core of the
Known Worlds, and show how these political conflicts threaten to imbalance
Emperor Alexius carefully sustained equilibrium of the major powers.

The Dying of the Light

Patriarch Hezekiah is terminally ill and while he lingers for several years to
come, various candidates position themselves for succession and build alliances.
This limits the Churchs intervention in other matters, hampering the previously
omnipresent Inquisition and adds balance to the setting. Of course, this opens
the Known Worlds to occult threads and dark forces, emphasizing that, while the
Inquisition often takes a villainous role, it actually does protect the Known Worlds
from the Dark.

3
Resurgence of House Chauki
House Chauki is caught between a rock and hard place; the Emperor will not
side with them or offer them protection. House Decados claims Iver by right of
gate and the Hazat claim Iver by right of blood. A protracted legal argument rages
over who has the right to govern Iver. The Chauki are forced to settle the matter
by direct negotiation with their two claimants. The Hazat agree to support House
 FA DING SUNS
Chaukis petition for Imperial recognition in return for vassalage and support in
the call for a Kurgan crusade, an ironic reversal of fortunes, making the former
masters into vassals of the Hazat. Iver remains Chauki property, but is in fact
governed by a Hazat advisor.

Schemes within Schemes

Through a series of secret meetings the Keddah and al-Malik form a secret
alliance to discredit and destroy House Masseri. They spread the rumor that there
is a Voting Sceptre on Daishan, causing a rush to unearth the treasure. During
the treasure hunt, House Masseri expends what little fortune it has, calls every
standing favor and a few more besides to lead a coalition force composed of Decados,
Masseri, Keddah, and Dextrite to Daishan. As desperation sets in the Masseri
know that they have been set up, but cannot pull out until they have exhausted all
hope of finding what they have bankrupted themselves to obtain. Keddah springs
its ambush, exposes several Masseri knights to the Symbiot taint, and releases
them to the Masseri Court. The Patriarch issues a bull of excommunication against
the Masseri. House Dextrite makes immediate claim to Masseri landsand House
Keddah is no longer bound to the Decados.

One to Rise, One to Fall

Unfortunately, the situation gets out of control, and the Known Worlds pay a terrible
price: the new Symbiot agents hatch the Cadavus World Egg and effectively create a
new Symbiot front. Despite the hysteria on Cadavus and claims of Symbiot hordes,
there are no more than a handful of Symbiots on the world, but fear of their capabilities
has House Decados take extreme measures.

Then the Keddah play their trump card, revealing the existence of Rimpoche and
claim it by right of gate. In an instant House Keddah now controls two planets. However,
the Emperor has yet to confirm Keddahs new Royal status or to uphold their claim to
Rimpoche.

The Jilted Bride

After a bitter argument between Alexius, his mother, and brother, Lady Penelope
4 Hawkwood weds Prince Alvarex Hawkwood. Their royal wedding occurs a year later,
and swiftly produces an heir. Alvarex ambition then moves towards replacing Lady
Victoria as head of the House.

The Rise of the Town Criers

During the Emperor Wars the Town Criers guild fell on hard times. With only
recently rediscovered technology, the Town Criers have managed to develop a new
information network. The recent growth of fear against Symbiot infection helps them to
set up a co-operation with the Imperial Eye and the
Charioteers Guild, granting them Interstellar Guild
status through a monopoly on the network.

New Fronts
With the exception of Cadavus, the Symbiots
have gone very quiet. The battle for Stigmata
has actually been won. While the humans fought
against mindless Symbiot drones to take and
hold surface territory, the Symbiots conspired to
access the World Egg by subterfuge. They simply
burrowed to the World Egg deep though it was
in human territory. With its awakening, the
planet has suddenly bloomed. The wild places are
expanding and the Hives are ascendant through
peaceful means. They are content to let the humans
have what they hold, though no one has told the
Garrison this.

The Hazat control much of Hira, but insurgents

keep rising, making a Kurgan Crusade the first
item on Hazat diplomats lists, and with the
Chauki supporting their new masters, the balance
begins to tip. The Li Halan are watching the
internal Church politicking and rumors abound as
to their involvement. The al-Malik are bolstering
against a potential Symbiot push from Stigmata.
House Hawkwood seems to be sitting in the corner
growing in resentment of the Emperor, especially
as Imperial diplomacy seems to prevent any major
confrontation on the Vuldrok front.

The Decados Backlash

After the twin disasters of Cadavus and Iver,
the Decados are licking their wounds. They are
now effectively checked in their expansion by the 5
new al-Malik/Keddah alliance and the new Hazat/Chauki coalition. The Symbiots are
on their very doorstep. The keenest observers of the Mantis theorize that the Decados
are forced to score a major victory soon. While many expect this to be Salandra
marrying the Emperor, or Prince Hyram taking a renewed interest in the political
fate of his house, possibly bringing back dark knowledge from the Void, the Decados
are actually maneuvering to bring one of their own candidates onto the Patriarchal
throne. This may entail moving their Metonym, Bishop Yetari, into the position of
Bishop of Byzantium Secundusor beyond.
 FA DING SUNS
Game Mechanics

F
ading Suns Third Edition will no longer support the d20 game mechanics.
Instead, we will update and streamline the original rules, based on the core
mechanics of the Victory Point System. Some of these you will be familiar with
already, as we included some of your earlier suggestions.

Core Mechanics
Characteristics and Natural Skills: these will start with an initial value of 3 (or
possibly even 4; this equals a 30-40% chance of success for utter novices). Learned
Skills still start with 1, but we will apply an increasing XP cost for learning skillsto
make it easy and cheap to learn the basics, but more expensive to master a skill).
During Character Creation, we will ensure that the core skill package of a character has
enough skill points to make a difference.

Expertise: A player character gains an Expertise in his profession or field. Expertises

are rated +2 to +10 and are tied to the characters rank in his House, Guild, or Sect.
This bonus represents the characters ability to use the resources and access the
knowledge of his faction to achieve a given task. A factions Expertise is defined with
the faction description, and is employed at the gamemasters discretion. Expertise
comes into play when the task at hand relates to the characters background. For
example, a Scraver will have an easier time to fence something off than someone else,
and a Hawkwood negotiating a treaty might have an easier time than someone else,
because he is backed by his noble house. All of that at the gamemasters discretion
and depending on the situation.

Successes and Failures: we will remove automatic failures and successes on 19 and
1, respectively. Normal failures and automatic successes (formerly 19 and 1) will be
moved to 20 and the Goal Number, respectively. Critical successes and failures will be
moved into a secondary roll with the same goal number. If the player rolled a 20 and
the second roll is a failure, the result will be a critical failure. If the player rolled the
goal number and the second roll is also a success, he scores a Critical Success. However,
rather than doubling the number of successes, a critical success allows the character to
add the VP of his second roll to the VP of the first roll.
6 Six-sided Dice: these will be removed from the game entirely. Instead of effect dice,
there will be effect points, which work just the same (just assume each Effect die is
automatically successful). The same goes for armor, which will also use points rather
than dice.

Victory Chart: For increased simplicity and less table-lookups, we alter the chart to give
a VP with every 2 successes, rather than 3. Since this has rather high rates of success, we
will encourage more contested rolls, so the GM (and players) can counter an attackers VP
(and maybe reduce his success to nothing). The VP table will look like this:
 Roll VP

1-2 +1

3-4 +2

5-6 +3

7-8 +4

9-10 +5

11-12 +6

13-14 +7

15-16 +8

17-18 +9

19 +10

20 Fail

Character Creation
The character creation system remains largely the
same, with the following proposed changes:

Attributes: All attributes begin with a value of 3.

Maximum un-augmented human potential is 10 (max
during character creation is 7; only experience points
can raise a Characteristic higher). Characteristics will be
restructured, with the former system for Spirit attributes
gone (see below). This new setup with less attributes
also solves the old problem of some attributes being
more powerful than others (Dexterity and Perception, for
example). The new attributes are:

Body: Dexterity (DEX): Agility, nimbleness, etc.; Vigor

(VIG): Physical might, staying power, health.

Mind: Will (WIL): Mental force and resistance; Wits (WTS):

Reasoning ability, left-brain. 7

Social: Intuition (INT): Attunement to the subconscious; right

brain, perception; Presence (PRE): Force of personality.

Vitality: these points will be separated into a physical, a social, and a mental track.
While the physical track retains the same function as the previous Vitality, a characters
base Social Vitality is 5 + PRE and his Mental Vitality is 5 + WIL. Losing Social Vitality
levels define how well a character holds up in social situations (debates, negotiations,
 FA DING SUNS
etc), while a characters loses Mental Vitality levels state how susceptible he is to occult
powers and similar abilities.

Faith: formerly known as Wyrd, the Faith rules will be expanded to make them more useable
for non-occult characters as well. Faith can now aid to pull out the stops and perform amazing
feats above and beyond normal capacity. Players can only spend 1 Faith point per action,
which can be spent for:

Best Out of 2: Re-roll your test; choose the favored result and apply it to
your action.

Automatic Success: Spending a permanent Faith Point will buy an automatic

success on the roll performed. This buys the maximum number of VPs possible,
but critical successes cant be bought.

Divine Intervention: A permanent Faith point may also be spent to save

your characters life. This is only possible if the situation allows the slightest
possibility of survival, and the gamemaster and players should come up with an
explanation on how this comes to be.

Incite Passion: As per previous editions, but simpler and adapted to the
new Attributes and rules.

Generational Character Development (optional): One idea we are

tinkering with is borrowed from Pendragon (which is similar to Fading
Suns in many ways): offering the option of generational character
developmentthis one could be the thing to differentiate Fading Suns
even more from other current (and upcoming) sci-fi games. Characters
grow old over the years, have children (or not), generate glory/infamy for
themselves, and their descendents continue on. Essentially, players will
have a stable of characters with whom they can play, each with their
own goals and histories, all contributing to the greater tapestry of the
setting. Some families die out; others go on from strength to strength.

Given the scope of Fading Suns in terms of its Dune-esque, broad

background, this could make Fading Suns Third Edition greater than
the previous versions. Gamemasters can run historical campaigns,
featuring their current troupes ancestors fighting in the Emperor
Wars, encountering the Shantor, or being annihilated by the Vau on
8 Apshaiall without disrupting their current game or having to start
a completely new campaign. Given that many Fading Suns fans are
advanced and mature roleplayers, this actively supports a wider scope
of play which we feel makes better use of the vast, rich history of the
setting.

Note that (if we implement it) the game does not have to be played
this way, but merely supports a different gaming stylewhich,
however, could take Fading Suns to an entirely new level.
Languages and Skills
In keeping with our design goals, we intend to restructure the skills and languages
system. This involves the following changes:

Languages: The vast majority of player characters are members of the elite (nobles,
guilders, priests) that need to be able to read and write, a free ability for player characters.
Ignorant serfs can buy the Illiterate Affliction, however, if they cannot write in their native
language. To encourage players and gamemasters to make the most of the many different
cultures of Fading Suns, we are adding an element of cultural awareness to Language
Skills; a character who can speak and read Vuldrok well also has a good idea of Vuldrok
culture as he has been exposed to cultural concepts when learning the language.

Natural Skills: This list largely stays the same, but well consolidate a little to bring
all skills to the same scale of usability: Influence replaces Charm/Impress/Intimidation,
Observe includes Searching, Athletics includes Acrobatics.

Learned Skills: We are taking a step back towards Fading Suns First Edition in using
the limits placed on specific skills denoting those that can only be learned from Nobility,
Church, or Guilds. This does not prevent outsiders learning them but it makes them
more difficult to obtain. The point of this is to enforce the differences in social station
and function, and spotlight the monopoly status on training specific things.

Revised Learned Skill List

A lchemy L ore
B eastcr aft a catch-all specialty skill can include
Animal care, training, riding knowledge of sciences, folk lore almost
any special knowledge a character might
A rts require
Painting, sculpting, etc.
Bureaucr acy P erform
acting, playing instruments
C ulture P hysick
the ability to understand the language
covers first aid at the lower ranks, gen-
and customs of a given culture/society
eral medicine, surgery, etc at the higher
D iscipline levels
resist pain and mental domination reg-
ulate autonomic functions; formerly Stoic
P ilot
using spacecraft
Body/ Stoic Mind
D eception Sail
using watercraft
lying, disguise
D riv e Surv ival 9
using landcraft Steal
sleight of hand and pick pocketing,
E mpathy tricks of dexterity
a perception skill; Influence is used to
change minds or opinions Streetw ise
lower class society
Etiquette
high society T ech R edemption
make and fix technology
Ga mbling
I nquiry Think M achine
using and programming computers
I ntrusion Torture
lockpicking and security systems
 FA DING SUNS
The Occult
We are planning to expand and restructure the list of rituals and psi paths to
make them more interesting and consistent. Occult powers now come as their own
abilities, and each is based on an attribute (roll Attribute + Power rank).

Learning Powers and Rituals: Psi powers belong to a given Path, which determines what
powers can be learned by the character. Although all theurgy rituals can theoretically
be learned by all theurgists, they are usually only taught to members of a certain sect.
Also, rituals can only be learned when reaching a certain rank in the sect.

Urge and Hubris: these no longer have powers, they should have effects because they
represent something lying beyond the control of the player. We encourage gamemasters
to come up with their own urge and hubris effects and on how to use the consequences
of player characters actions to encourage roleplaying, conflict, and drama.

Combat
Initiative: Initiative will be replaced by a different system, due to the high number of
complaints about having to use the same Skill that was used in the characters action.
Instead, this is now replaced by rolling Wits+Observe at the beginning of a round or
once per combat (or optionally, once per round, for those people who like to roll the dice
to kick off a new round). The more successes, the quicker you go. As usual, a critical
result doubles successes. If the roll is failed, the character goes last. A critical failure
results in the character stalling for one round, unable to act at all.

Actions: Each turn, a character can act once and evade one attack (evasion is a free
action; a contested roll). Characters cannot evade attacks of which they arent aware of.
The VP gained on the evasion roll subtracts from the attackers VP; if the attackers VPs
are reduced to zero, his attack fails.

Physical Evasion: Dexterity + Dodge (attacks)

Social Evasion: Intuition + Influence (fast talk attempts, negotiation)

Occult Evasion: Will + Discipline (mind control attempts) (Note: performing an

occult evasion requires the character to forego his action unless he has occult
powers or some form of occult resistance trainingAvestites and Brother Battle,
10 for example. Without these, occult attacks are not evident to him, and so he will
not be told about an attack unless it succeeds.)

Combat Options: Combat Actions are gone from the systemas they made combat more
complicated without having much tactical value. Differing fighting styles are a matter
of description; a game mechanical representation is not really needed. What we can do
is add a set of general Combat Options (a similar concept is used in Earthdawnwhich
covers fighting defensively, aggressively, etc) which allow the player to achieve the
same thing without pumping XP into something they should be able to do anyways.
The game mechanical basis is different in Fading
Suns, but can be easily adapted. This is especially
suitable for running duels.

Damage: Damage is not rolled anymore. Instead, a

weapon has a fixed damage rating which is added
to the VPs of the attacker. This effectively removes
the entire d6 subsystem and makes combat faster
because attack and damage are resolved with one
roll.

Weapons & Armor: Weapons will have fixed damage

ratings (modified directly by VP, as usual). Armor is
rated by the amount and kind of damage it blocks.
This rating is not rolled (as in previous versions); it
is simply subtracted from an attacks damage points
Since Armor can get bulky; it hinders evasion rolls.
Some armor has additional protection:

Ballistic: Bulletproof. Armor not labeled

ballistic receives only its protection
(rounded down) against bullets.

Flame Resistant: Treated to resist fire and

insulate against heat. Armor not labeled flame
resistant gets only its protection (rounded
down) against fire.

Laser Resistant: Treated to refract coherent

light. Armor not labeled laser resistant
gets only its protection (rounded down)
against lasers.

Blaster Resistant: Treated to resist hot plasma. Armor not labeled blaster
resistant gets only its protection (rounded down) against blasters.

Stacking Armor: Most hard armor cannot be worn on top of another, but a
soft/soft or soft/hard combination is sometimes possible, such as wearing a
synthsilk jumpsuit beneath a leather trenchcoat or a chain mesh vest. In such 11
cases, do not add the Protection values together; instead, take the highest
Protection rating and add 1.

Starships and Vehicles: one of our goals is to keep up with the recent trend of
playing starships and vehicles as if they were characters by keeping the underlying
game mechanics at a similar level, allowing for fast and furious combats on one
side, and for development of the vessels over time. To keep the game compatible to
the Noble Armada game, there will be a conversion guide allowing to convert game
statistics from one ruleset to the other.
 2007 RedBrick Limited