Hello! This is another post on a series I am sharing about the development of Petty Gods & Playthings, The Game about Small Gods, Their Great Ambitions, and The Mortals Entangled in Them! Wow, that’s a mouthful, but it does explain all there’s to it. Well, quite. If you want to understand it a little bit better, I recently made this post with the introduction of the game. I meant, the currently written introduction. Who the hell knows how it’s going to be in the final thing.
Today’s post is the first in a series I will share about the creation of your Petty God, which I tried to turn into a kind of narrative game on it’s on. It’s all randomly generated, but there’s no real imbalance in the process, as the results are not numerical, but subjective. They define the player in qualitative terms, and asks them to participate in the world building. That detail might not be so clear right now, but it will become an integral part of the process as you will see.
My idea is also to play with solving a lot of the prep procedures with a single roll of a set of polyhedral dice. This is me trying to approach this mechanic as a toy. We rarely get to roll all those weird dice at once, so I am creating instance when this is possible and is fun in the game.
Again, this is a work in progress. So if you say it’s bad I will pretend I am gonna fix it!
You might be a nascent godling, or a forgotten deity whose faith has dwindled, or even a god that has just arrived from a distant land. It doesn’t matter, as your ambitions are godlike, but your Divine Spark is still lacking. Time to get to work!
Generating Your Petty God
To create your Petty God, roll an entire set of standard dice. You know them, the good old d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20. After that, create your Temple (hah! Temple! That’s funny.), create a Title for yourself, and fill in your real name as your True Name, which is the same thing. Right?
- The d4 determines your Origin.
- The d6 and d8 determines your initial Divine Domain.
- The d10 determines your initial Doctrine.
- The d12 determines your initial Worshippers.
- The d20 determines your initial ReligiousFact.
ORIGIN
All Petty Gods begin the game in the lowest of Divine Ranks. They are the lowest of the low. The true of hobos Divinehood. Some are just being born out of the drunken dreams of a believer, others might have been demoted to the lowest rank due to some misdeed, and some might even be completely alien to this reality, have migrated here in search for a better eternity. One might have been forgotten for thousands of years for some reason. They might have just gone to the bathroom really quickly out here and eons might have passed on the Mortal Realms. Who knows?
The d4 clarifies the origin of the God. That will help inform the fiction of the game and can even affect its reality.
| d4 | Petty God’s Origin |
| 1 | Newborn: You are a new God. How were you born? How do you relate to older Gods? Who were the first mortals to believe in you? |
| 2 | Forgotten: You were forgotten by your worshippers. How were you forgotten? How do you relate to the Gods from the time people knew who you were? Who were the first mortals to remember you? |
| 3 | Punished: You were stripped from your Divine Rank for a past deed. What did you do to attract such punishment? Do you regret your actions or would you do it again? Who were the first mortals to recognize you as a God again? |
| 4 | Alien: You are not from around here. What brought your Divine Will here? How do you relate to the Gods in this world? How did you acquire your first worshippers? |
DIVINE DOMAIN
Every God is a God of Something. The Greater Gods hold sway over great things like the sun or the moon, war or peace, fire or ice, and even life or death. You, however, do not hold such power, as you hold domain over small and often not so important things.
The d6 determines the Domain Theme, and the d8 specifies which Divine Domain within the Theme you hold sway over.
| d6 | Petty God’s Domain Theme |
| 1 | Biosphere: This includes all things alive such as animals and plants. Remember to think small though. No lions or tigers, buy stray cats! |
| 2 | Nature: Includes all natural things and events that are not alive, such as rocks, bodies of water, and natural disasters. Forget mountains and oceans though, think of dirt mounds and rain puddles! |
| 3 | Humanity: Encompassing everything pertaining to humanity and all other similar beings who think themselves above other animals. From the nails of their toes to the grease in their hair. You are not the god of smiles or fingers, but broken teeth and earwax. |
| 4 | Craft: Contains everything these beings who pretend to be Gods create. From torches to the great engineering marvels built by tehcnomancers. Don’t think castles and claymores, but shacks and shivs. |
| 5 | Emotions: Almost as if these were living beings themselves, emotions can drive people to do unthinkable things. Gods as well. Forget love or hate, and think of anxiety and hangryness. |
| 6 | Concepts: Including all the things humanity loves to create and doesn’t really exist. Like justice and honor, but in your case atheism and trickle down economics. |
Well, that’s it for this part. Next post we will continue with the Petty God creation, taking a look at the Biosphere, Nature, and Humanity Domains! Stay tuned! The gods are watching!