Following my introduction into roleplaying games, one of my friends ran Stars Without Number by Sine Nomine Publishing. I was so enamored with the concept of Old School <Rules, Revival, Renaissance> (OSR) sandbox style play, I wanted to game master something in that style. After a little digging and months of fretting for a newly growing GM with more ideas than experience, I found Godbound: a Game of Divine Heroes. It had been released following a successful Kickstarter campaign. Without hesitation, I picked up the free PDF version (the Free Version and Full price will be posted at the bottom) and fell in love with it.
The lore of the game is bountiful and inspiring. The rich history of the world is explained by consequences of mortals’ ever growing hubris and desire to become divine beings. Thousands of years before the current time in the setting, great empires existed world wide devoid of hunger, pain, or want. The leadership of these empires could not sit content, and their ambition made them jealous of heaven’s power. Magisters and theurges began pressing towards heaven fighting against the angelic guardians of the One. Mortals battled to the last for the opportunity to enter the Creator’s throne room. They succeeded only to find it empty. Wars had broken out across the world, battle in heaven damaged the celestial machines that balanced climate, gravity and essential mechanisms to control physics. Devices and artifacts from heaven were stolen and used in the creation of Made Gods representing their nations in the ransacking of heaven and their imperial neighbors. The war continued for unknown time, years maybe centuries, eventually the the fighting wound down after many man and Made God alike had perished. Having failed in their ascension, the empires faded away leaving nothing but remnants behind in a broken world. In the increasingly difficult times, there is a thin veil of hope beginning to spread. People of all ages, sexes and race are being blessed with Words of Creation. Philosophers and religious leaders debate what the true meaning of these Godbound is. Whether they are the reincarnated power from the broken and destroyed Made Gods or a blessing from the One who abandoned the throne, no one is sure. The Godbound could be a blessing or curse on the land, but their fate will be written by their divine works.
In Godbound, the Player Characters (PCs) are people who have been blessed with divine Words of Creation. PCs are not limited to race or class, as it is their Words that determine the limits of their function. Words are a fascinating mechanic in the game. They allow the player to create a PC that follows traditional roleplaying game classes or create an entirely more unique concept. For example, if a PC’s first three words are “Earth”, “Might” and “Sword”, you’d create a remarkably powerful fighter analogue. A character with those words, could wield a sword with devastating skill, with an endless well of strength behind the blows, and stone like skin for defense.
Thews of the Gods – Constant
The Godbound is always able to pick up anything smaller than a large building and punch through, smash, or break loose any non-magical substance as a free part of their movement or other actions. This might is quickly deployed, but not finely-controlled enough to help damage rolls or other attacks.
A greater gift for the word Might. Constant means if you purchase the gift, it’s always active. Godbound, pg 46.
You can create a wide variety of characters from highly charismatic, to nurturing, to warlike, and everything in between based on the combination of words you take.
Players have the traditional six attribute system (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom, Intelligence and Charisma) seen across a plethora of RPGs. These provide modifiers for saving throws (Hardiness, Evasion, and Spirit), attribute tests and attack rolls. To perform an attribute test, you subtract the Attribute Score from 21 to determine target number (TN) and the PC is expected to roll over the TN to succeed. Rolling over the TN for a saving throw is also a success.
Godbound does something interesting when it comes to PC histories. Instead of requiring a deeply thought out explanation of a character’s background or some career highlights, it instead asks for three Facts about the character. It gives some guidelines to how to create them. What I found most intriguing about Facts is that there is a mechanical benefit to them. Beyond narratively tying the character to the world, Facts that might be applicable to a particular roll can positively modify it by +4. If you’re attempting to climb a mountain, and your Godbound has a mountaineering background, you can immediately reap the benefit of it.
This game has what I have found to be a unique resource called “Effort”. Effort is used in a few different ways to activate and power a PCs Gifts. You can spend effort for a scene, spend it for a day, or spend for the duration of a gift. Spending a lot of effort all at once can allow a PC to create a miracle! A miracle is a use of Words of Creation that exists outside of the taken gifts for it. If the earth fighter character I referred to earlier is facing down a large mob of 50 soldiers and had enough effort, he could slam the tip of his sword into the ground, spend a lot of effort and create a facsimile of his sword and arm, made from the dirt and stone before the army and sweep the soldiers aside! A lot of really cool things can occur from miracles.
Leveling up is based on two criteria, XP and expenditure of dominion points (a resource logging the amount of influence a PC’s divine power has on the world). PCs can earn both by doing mighty deeds and dominion can also be pooled by creating a church dedicated to their pantheon. Dominion can be spent creating artifacts and fundamentally altering the world around them (like reshaping a mountain to create a natural fortification for a village commonly exploited by bandits).
The PCs do not get to have all the mechanical fun in this game. Sine Nomine makes this game great with all the sandbox tools at the GM’s disposal. There are recommendations, charts, and tables for creating nations, factions, courts, npcs, enemies, ruins, everything! There’s even a faction turn mechanic, where instead of having to write out every painstaking detail and fretting over how to determine which nation, faction, or entity ascends or descends in power; the faction turn mechanics provides a rubric for those interactions in a way gameifying it for the GM. 40% of this book is dedicated to the Players and GM, the remaining 60% belongs to the person behind the screen. Kevin Crawford wrote a fairly comprehensive world into being for the GM to use, and also gives the GM the tools to entirely build either guided or at random their own world for Godbound to occupy. Most notably, it is important to state that in the Sine Nomine books I do own (Silent Legions, Godbound, Stars Without Number, etc) each has their own sandbox world builder that fits a particular kind of setting, and each are system agnostic so they can be taken and plugged into any other game system! If you don’t run Godbound, you can still use it’s toolkit elsewhere!
At first I had some difficulty understanding some components of OSR and Godbound. When I began prep for Godbound, I had never seen the term HD before and could not find an explanation in the book. Assuming it meant Hit Die, it was troublesome to find out how it related to adversaries. Since Godbound is OSR and it’s entirely possible to port in monsters and NPCs from other OSR games, and Godbound are very powerful individuals, an enemy uses it HD number for its HP to highlight the power disparity between Godbound PCs and NPCs. For example, if a lion were to be 3HD (roll 3d6 to determine hp) in one game, and it was used in Godbound that 3HD would equate to 3HP. Another issue I had was trying to understand dominion as its mechanics are almost entirely abstract. Once I came to understand that, working with the PCs on how to spend their dominion was fun and the effects of that expenditure can certainly make the next faction turn interesting for the GM.
Godbound will always get a hefty recommendation from me. I enjoyed seeing my game’s pantheon ascending from slavery in the desert, migrate with their families towards Vissio and begin creating a safe place for their people and the impoverished mountain dwelling natives who had been forced to live exiled from the splendor of the merchant city-states of Vissio. They raised the mountain into a fortress and stood stoically against the exploitative machinations of the Merchant Lords. I want to go back, but I’m sure many GMs can agree, there are so many amazing games out there it’s hard to give all the time they deserve!
Godbound is available for free in PDF at DriveThruRPG.
Godbound, the full version, is available for purchase in PDF and Print on Demand at DriveThruRPG.
Sisyphean Tales 