Review: Rite Publishing – Xoti, the Usurper (Faces of the Tarnished Souk)


Faces of the Tarnished Souk: Xoti, the Usurper
Xoti, the Usurper is a supplement for Coliseum Morpheuon and the Pathfinder Fantasy system written by Matt Banach and Justin Sluder and published by Rite Publishing.
By Cape Rust

Faces of The Tarnished Souk (FotTS): Xoti, the Usurper is a supplement for the Coliseum Morpheuon adventure for the Pathfinder Fantasy system. Xoti, the Usurper is the celebrated playboy of the Tarnished Souk. He seems to deal quite well with being exiled from his homeland, or maybe he’s just overcompensating.

CONTENT

This 13 page supplement has 9 pages of information on Xoti, the Usurper. This book includes statistics for Xoti at Challenge ratings 5, 12 and 19,20 and 21. In typical Faces of the Tarnished Souk fashion, Rite Publishing has included additional information that is useful and entertaining. This information includes templates, variants of Xoti based on some those templates, a new race (the Mahrog), a description of the Preservation Domain, and descriptions of seven magic items, some of which are new.

OVERALL

Xoti, the Usurper is a godling walking. Some believe that he is a god while others feel that he will be a god someday. His larger-than-life personality combined with his physical prowess and his martial skills lend credence to these god and god-to-be rumors. He is loud and brash, everything that we love and hate in our RPG gods.

RATINGS

Publication Quality: 6 out of 10
The Faces of the Tarnished Souk series has done such a good job for so many of the products in the series that they had to fall short at least once when it comes to publishing, and it looks like Xoti, the Usurper is where and when that happens. There is little art in this book and, to be honest, none of it really worked for me. The cover depicts a well muscled bearded man who must be Xoti. The problem is he looks more like a tall dwarf rather than the picture of the new race the Mahrog that is found later in the book. The use of stock art here could be greatly improved upon. The depiction of the Mahrogs looks more like pictures of either Orcs or Half-Orcs, with the Mahrog name tacked on. The public domain art that was chosen to depict the Fortune-Based creature (some people playing cards) was decent at best. In the description on how to use Xoti, the Usurper, there is a grammatical mistake on page 1 that can stop the easy flow of reading, standing out a bit too much. On the plus side, Rite Publishing does a great job of referencing the sources for any material not covered in this product.

Mechanics: 9 out of 10
Matt Banach and Justin Sluder and the Rite Publishing crew know mechanics and they know them well. In past reviews I have felt that some of their templates are a bit overpowered, but for the Tarnished Souk and Coliseum Morpheuon, most of these templates work well. The Coliseum is a deadly place and the people who live and fight there are no slouches. I am a big fan of templates and Xoti’s templates really add to his image as an interesting NPC and his status as a once and future god.

Value Add: 9 out of 10
Xoti, has the potential to be a wonderful plot driver and is the type of NPC that I personally love to hate. Some GMs put their NPCs in god mode, Xoti, is in god mode, no need for additions from the GM. Xoti is the kind of NPC that gets players into trouble and into the action. In fact, Xoti creates action even where there shouldn’t be any. He is larger than life and not ashamed of it. My hatred for this type of NPC is quickly overshadowed by just how epic of a plot device Xoti can be. If you are a GM and you want to stir things up, unleash Xoti on your players and let the fun ensue. This guy is good to go right out of the box!

Overall: 8 out of 10
I didn’t feel like Matt and Justin immersed Xoti like they have with other NPCs in the past. Xoti is interesting and could really change a game session, but there is something missing. I hope the grammatical error and less-than-ideal use of stock art is improved upon in the future. The Mahrog, as a race, are interesting and definitely on my races-to-play list. The use of what I call the runic border for this product was a good call and the formatting was spot on. I hope that GMs and fans of Rite Publishing and Faces of the Tarnished Souk look past the visual depictions of Xoti, the Usurper to find the godling inside.

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