I’ve been working on transforming the rough notes for my *Fünf Winde* campaign into a 64 page setting book or high-level sandbox. It’s all on GitHub as parts of my Halberds and Helmets project. You can take a look at the first few pages.
There, I’ve introduced the gods on a single page. I think this needs to be short. If you’re going to write more, chances are, it’s going to be boring. In order to make the gods *useful* at the table, I’ve described my current iteration of the Reputation mechanics. The most important of these is that your reputation score is a percent chance of getting help from your god. This help will almost always be a creature that is being sent to aid you. I didn’t want to duplicate a classic spell from B/X D&D and creatures being sent has a nice vibe to it. In my campaigns, I’ve started describing the same agents as they join clerics in performing the miracles of fourth level spells and higher. I like it when a Valkyrie comes down from heaven and helps you raise a dead comrade, returning him from her halls. Keep using the same Valkyrie, give her a name, let her comment on the cleric’s deeds and you’ve got another interesting plot element. Somebody to visit when you’re in Asgard! The gods also grant *boons* to those they favor. So every god comes with a small list of boons – stuff that mark you as a member of the god’s faction, grant you an animal companion, etc.
I’ve also added the Astral Sea as a hex-crawl using flying ships. I’ll be providing a random table of six ship encounters so that a busy GM has something to use right away. One of the big themes in this setting is slavery. If you want to engage and start fighting slavery, you’ll have a lot of enemies. There are various slaver factions in this setting. All of them could use a beating. Thus, this is one of the hooks into the domain game. I guess *The Guardians of the Flame* by Joel Rosenberg and their fight against slavery left a lasting impression on me after all!
#RPG #Old School #bx64