Monte Cook Games has released their strikingly unique seeming Invisible Sun RPG in PDF on DriveThruRPG. The game had a huge Kickstarter run and certainly looks like a unique take on not only a science fantasy sort of setting but also aims to revolutionize roleplaying itself. Gamers can score an astonishing 80 files and 1000 pages of material for $99.00.
From Monte Cook Games:
Do you think you live in the real world?
You don’t. This world you see around you is Shadow—a world illuminated only by the Grey Sun. You think it is your home, but that’s because you have forgotten your true self. Awaken, and return to the Actuality and Satyrine, the city under the Indigo Sun. You are a vislae, a wielder of fabulous powers and capabilities, a shaper of reality itself. You sought shelter in Shadow to escape the war, but the war is now over and your home has called you back.
Invisible Sun is a roleplaying game of surreal fantasy. The player characters are vislae—wielders of magical power—recently returned to their true home: the Actuality, a world that seems like a surreal dream to those of us toiling aimlessly in the boring, grey realm you and I falsely believe is the real world. These characters face incredible challenges, visit breathtaking places, and discover secrets so astonishing that the only ones who can cope with them are those who understand the truth that powers the universe: Magic.
Magic: A power that can be pursued, studied, and even mastered, but never completely understood or controlled. It is fluid, unpredictable, and ever nuanced in effect. Its secrets are boundless. But that does not mean it is without rules and methods. There are four orders, major schools of magical thought and training. Vances study their spells carefully, believing they are, in their own way, intelligent in and of themselves. Makers, as the name suggests, use magic to create powerful items. Weavers cast spells with a fluid and improvisational sort of sorcery. Goetics use their magical skills to summon demons, angels, and other creatures to do their bidding. Outside of the four orders, Apostates are vislae who find their own paths and methods for wielding the power of magic, rejecting the hierarchies of the orders.
It is a rare vislae who does not have a house. Your house is as integral to your being as your spells or character stats. The houses of vislae are often haunted, filled with mysterious unknown rooms, bigger on the inside, or possessed of their own intelligence. And in Satyrine, a house is defined as much by what goes on around it as by the contents of its walls (assuming, of course, that a vislae’s house even has walls). Local personalities, sites of interest (or danger), organizations or factions, and ongoing conflicts all affect a vislae’s house and life. And all of this is determined as part of the character creation process.
The Invisible Sun roleplaying game is an unprecedented production, filled with massive amounts of content for a unique roleplaying experience. The Invisible Sun PDF contains roughly 80 files, including (and this is not an exhaustive list):
- Four books totaling over 600 pages of game and setting content, fully hyperlinked and bookmarked.
- Roughly 1000 cards laid out in a printer-friendly format.
- The Sooth Deck, a beautiful tarot-like deck that’s instrumental to game play.
- The Path of Suns, used with the Sooth Deck.
- A wide variety of tokens for tracking game info.
- Several poster maps.
- The Guiding Hand, GM’s notebook, in both a printer-friendly and form-fillable format.
- Character tomes (similar in function to character sheets in other RPGs) for all four orders, plus apostates, along with grimoire sheets.
- Five pregenerated characters.
- Loads of in-setting handouts and props.
- A gorgeous art book.
- And the Invisible Sun app is free from the MCG Shop.
Invisible Sun is a game about discovery and secrets. There may be other content awaiting discovery in your PDF.