Now add some other elements to further spin this into very much a fantasy setting. The world, Riven, is so named because in legendary pre-history, it was literally shattered into hundreds of islands that now float through the atmosphere, maintained in their position by magic unknown to anyone who lives today. Humans are the base race, but were (somewhat) recently enslaved and were bred the same way we would breed cattle, dogs or horses. The racial selections, then, are "Unbred" humans and "Bred" humans; working breeds that originally had a specific purpose, the same way a German shepherd or Border Collie does vs. simply a generic dog. Take a gander at the RACES link to your left to get more information on the races available in this setting.

Magic is important, but Dungeons & Dragons style magic doesn't fit a swashbuckling flying pirate game very well. Also, I don't particularly like it from a flavor standpoint, especially after seeing a number of (in my opinion) superior alternatives in print in the Open Game Content RPG market. Since D&D magic is heavily built in to the four dedicated spellcasting classes, and three other minor spellcasting classes, seven of the eleven core classes are inappropriate for the setting. The monk is also way too focused and supernatural, although the concept of an unarmed fighter is still a good one. Check out the CLASSES link to the left for information on available character classes.

How can you have a swashbuckling pirate and musketeer campaign without "early" firarms? Blimey! I've found some great OGC rules for firearms that I've used a handful of times before and been very happy with. Check out the FIREARMS link to see rules for use to create that good ole' fashioned swashbuckling feel.

A few other house rules are to be found on the site. Notably, FEATS gives you a few extra feats to use for character building. MAGIC tells you how and why magic works in Riven, as well as giving you rules to have PC's become spellcasters. The SETTING page has an extremely brief overview of the setting (naturally) while HOUSE RULES has a few miscellaneous rules that didn't really fit anywhere else, including some details of character generation.

And finally, I should probably address the style and tone of the game itself a little. Although wild, swashbuckling adventure is indeed a mission statement of the setting, that can be interpreted many ways. Just to be clear, the heroes of the story do not have any type of "plot immunity" and poor choices (or a series of poor die rolls) can indeed lead to PC death. In general, I'm very much against PC death as a GM; it's disruptive, it's a pain to work with integrating a new PC back in, and the like, but I'm also very much against fostering an attitude of "the GM won't kill me no matter what I do." Stay on your toes, think quick; the game will feature a lot of intrigue, political manipulation, and random violence (not to mention carefully planned and plotted violence) and will hopefully challenge players on several levels; as roleplayers, as combatants, as skillful diplomats and politicians and more.