Godbound Deluxe Version Beta 1 - Desu User Generated

A World of Glory and BloodGodbound is a game of demigod heroes facing the sorrows of a broken How Does Godbound Play?world. You and your Godbound companions work together to achieve Godbound is based on an "Old School Renaissance" rules chassisyour shared ambitions, whether those ambitions are for seas of shin- strongly inspired by the classic gaming books of Gary Gygax, Daveing golden coins or dreams of a world redeemed from its slow decay. Arneson, Tom Moldvay and Zeb Cook. There are a lot of contemThere are countless troubles and terrors in the scattered realms of the porary systems in currency, and many of these systems are great funformer world, but you and your allies have the power to defy them all. at the table, but the classic OSR framework is one understood andreadily playable for millions of players worldwide.What Do You Do in Godbound?This is crucial, because Godbound is a game meant to be played.A Godbound hero faces the world in the company of their pantheon, a Godbound supports a "sandbox gaming" style of campaign from thegroup of fellow divinities bound by chance or fate to be together. You very start. In a sandbox game, the Game Master, or "GM" sets upmay not always like your pantheon-mates, but together they provide an interesting world for the player characters or "PCs" to encounter,strength and a breadth of power that no single demigod can match. and then lets them encounter it in whatever way they choose. TheThey will be your allies against the myriad dangers of the fallen world. book you're holding provides the example realm of Arcem to serveGodbound drive back the creatures of night. They defeat monsters as a template, but your GM can easily choose to brew up their ownand renegade gods that no mortal could hope to overcome. They dare with the guidelines and tools in this book, or pluck a favorite fictionalthe terrible Night Roads to reach the broken shards of Heaven or setting from other media to use for your game.the seething flames of Hell, there to mend the damaged engines thatAs a Godbound hero, your job is to dig into that world and startsupport their home realm or plunder its riches out from under the working your will on it. There will be threats aimed at you, it's true.shadow of angelic wings.Especially as you start interfering with the plans of powerful entitiesGodbound are defenders of their people. However humble the vil- and thwarting the will of other demi-divine powers, you'll find themlage or hard-pressed the nation, a single Godbound hero can spell the striking back with all the resources at their command. But at thedifference between glorious prosperity and utter destruction. Many game's heart, it's a game about your hero and the changes they chooseGodbound have innate powers that can make the most wretched to impress on the world. For good or ill, there is no judgment andmud-hut hamlet into a thriving hub of peace and prosperity, if only there is no judge. There is only you, your pantheon-allies, and thethey and their allies can hold back the forces that would want to dreams you have for your own world.devour such a tempting morsel.Great works are not accomplished lightly, of course. To achieveGodbound forge agreements between warring nations or spark mighty ends, you'll need to delve into forgotten ruins to accumulatecrusades of righteousness against dark powers. They speak with the the resources and celestial artifacts you need to enact major changesfire and force of divine will, and mortal warlords and emperors fear in the world. You'll need to fight back parasite gods, theurgic Eldritch,their anger. Even when a Godbound's own gifts cannot solve the Uncreated monstrosities, mortal legions, and other nameless enemiesproblem at the heart of a conflict, their strength can force a resolution. that seek to thwart your ambitions. You'll need to find ways to solveGodbound build wonders. The decaying celestial engines have problems with something less than a blaze of divine fury, because aspoiled many old marvels, robbing them of the reliable natural law more direct solution would smash the very structure you're trying tothey required to function. Godbound can renew these old miracles, preserve. To be a god is a difficult thing.building incredible edifices, magnificent vehicles, or wondrous weapAs your hero grows in experience and familiarity with their powers,ons of a former age. A Godbound of the Word of Artifice can provide they will open new vistas. A novice Godbound still has cause to becrackling electrical service, hot running water, and spirit-driven brass wary around mobs of angry mortals, but a veteran wielder of thelabor automata to his humble farming village, if only given enough Words can sweep away armies with their wrath. More importantly,time and divine Dominion.you'll be able to dare the perils of fallen Heaven and risk raids onGodbound rule nations. When pacts and promises are not enough, the flames of Hell, dueling fallen angels to snatch back the souls ofwhen the people cry out for a glorious divine ruler to protect and the unjustly condemned or claim celestial salvage from the brokensustain them, the Godbound can rise to the call. Perhaps these new engines of long-vanished realms. Perhaps you will even summon updemi-deities are not always so wise as they may hope, and perhaps enough power to forge your own Paradise, a refuge-realm where thenot all are given to noble use of their powers, but a god-emperor can souls of your faithful can find safety against the constant downwarddo much without fear of reproach. How many can stand aside when draw of Hell.a suffering people beg them for their leadership?The world can be as you would make it, if you are willing to pay theUltimately, your Godbound hero does whatever you want. Even price. Not all Godbound will want to leave such a mark on creation,as novice Godbound, even as a hero new to your powers, you can of course. Some simply have no desire to mold the world in theirstand against the mightiest mortal heroes of your realm. You can image, loving only a life of excitement, adventure, and fearsome foeswork miracles by your raw will, or mold the natural laws around you worthy of their divine fists. Others have doubts about their ownin obedience to your divine Words. There is no greater authority to righteousness, and are reluctant to impress their will on a world thatcommand you. There is no God on the Throne to tell you what is right might not welcome their idea of perfection.and what is wrong. There is only your will, and your choice, and theYou'll make these choices in the course of your adventures. With aworld you wish to make. Together with your allies you will shape a GM to provide the backdrop and challenges for your heroes, and therealm fit to your desires, or you will be destroyed by the unnumbered players to provide the drive of ambition and grand plans, the gamelegions that rise up to thwart your holy will.will provide you all with an excellent evening's fun.4

INTROHEADUsing This BookTo play Godbound you'll need someone willing to be the GM and If You're Reading This as a PDF Filetwo to four other people who want to play Godbound heroes. The If you're reading this book as a PDF, there are some tricks you cangame can work well with more players, but the GM will have to be do to change its appearance, either to make it easier to print out onready for the group to take on substantially bigger challenges with a home printer or to make it better suit your reading preferences.their wider array of powers and available might.If you're reading the file on Adobe Acrobat Reader, you should findYou'll need a set of special gaming dice, preferably one for each a "Layers" tab to the left. You can click on that to activate or deactivateperson at the table. Role-playing game dice come as oddly-shaped display layers on this PDF. By turning off "Corner Pieces", you candice; for Godbound, you'll need one 20-sided die, one 12-sided die, eliminate the decorations at the corners of the pages. Turning offtwo 10-sided dice, one 8-sided die, four 6-sided dice, and one 4-sided "Art" will eliminate the page backgrounds and any illustrations in thedie. You can get by with just one of each, but you may want more of book, making it more economical to print it out on a home printer.a type if your powers use them a lot. If you've got a smartphone, youThe "Maps" layer controls the maps in the Gazetteer section of thecan also download apps that provide digital dice.book. They're put on a separate layer, as you might not want mostAt many places in the book, you'll see notations like "2d10 2". This of the art in the book when printing it out, but still have need of thesimply means "Roll two 10-sided dice, add them together, and add map illustrations.two to the sum". If you see "d100", that just means to roll two 10-sidedSome PDF readers don't recognize layers, or don't allow you todice and read them as a two-digit number, counting "00" as 100.manually control them. This seems to show up particularly oftenYou'll need pencils and notebook paper for recording details and on tablet readers. If you want to sidestep this, load the PDF up intaking notes. You can copy or print the character sheets from this Adobe Acrobat Reader, deactivate the layers you want removed, andbook, and you'll need one for every player.then "Print" the file to a new PDF. The resulting PDF will have onlyYou'll want a supply of tokens for keeping track of Effort committed the layers you want to keep.by your heroes. A stack of pennies works if you have them to hand,Wherever you got this file, you should also have found a set of .mobias do poker chips, beads, or anything else that can be plopped down and .epub file versions that are formatted as plain single-column text.on a sheet of paper to track your power's current disposition.While not as aesthetically pleasing as the PDF file, these files can bemuch friendlier to an e-reader or to reader software often used bythe vision-impaired.5

Character CreationThe first step towards greatness is to create your Godbound hero. nation. Your hero is a demigod, and almost any feat is somethingThis section will explain the rules for fashioning your newly-forged they're capable of achieving with enough time, effort, and allied aid.demigod and point out some matters to keep in mind when develop- It's fine to make a hero who's just all-around awesome, but that aweing your character. Your hero is a budding demigod and possessed of someness needs to have a direction.incredible powers, but even they need to work well with the others inThis is crucial because most Godbound campaigns are sandboxtheir pantheon if they're to prosper in this perilous world.campaigns. The GM has built a setting with a great many conflicts,When building your hero, you'll want to talk to the GM and your villains, heroes, sympathetic bystanders, long-standing afflictions, andfellow players to make sure everyone's on the same page about the fabulous rewards to be seized. They've brewed up a starting session togame. The GM can provide details of the campaign setting that you'll thrust the pantheon into a crisis situation to help you all warm up tobe using, either the example realm of Arcem provided in this book, a the game and the setting. Beyond that, however, the game's progresshomebrew world of their own devising, or an existing fantastic setting is your responsibility. Your goals and your choices are going to be theplucked from the wider gaming world. These details will help you things driving the game, and while the world will doubtless react toround out the background of your hero and choose the goals that fit your decisions and have its own share of ambitious actors, the heartyour idea of fun.of the game is about the new world your hero is making.At the same time, you'll want to work with your fellow players toEvery part of a realm is subject to a Godbound hero's influencemake a hero that fits in well with the rest of the player characters. and decisions. It may not be easy to change something. It may takeWhile it's possible to play a one-on-one campaign of Godbound with heroic exertions and terrible sacrifices to accumulate the power andjust a single player and a GM, games that involve a full pantheon resources necessary to enact some tremendous change. But even so,need to have demigods that at least tolerate each other. Their goals your hero and their comrades are the judges of last resort. There ismight not be in perfect alignment and their personal talents and no ultimate power above you to decree how the world must be made.niches might not be free of overlap, but the heroes need a reason to There is no pantheon of greater divinities to punish you for a refusalbe willing to work with one another.to accept the world as it is.The pantheon forms much of that reason. While Godbound haveThis can make for its own kind of conflict. Your heroes will haveonly started manifesting within the past few years in most realms, it's enough to keep them busy in fighting rival Godbound, casting downnot uncommon for small groups of them to find themselves thrown parasite gods, struggling with human monarchs, and trying to maintogether by chance or destiny. These cells of demi-divinities are drawn tain your integrity in the face of so many choices and temptations. Dotogether by the powers they have and the opportunities that present they really want to add custodianship of the world to their duties?themselves to a unified pantheon, as together they can work wonders Are their ideas for the world really an improvement over what chancethat any single Godbound would be sorely taxed to achieve. You and and mortal choice has wrought?your fellow players are part of the same pantheon, and you should beThere will be disagreements about that, no doubt, even within yourable to work together with no more than a mutually-enjoyable degree own pantheon. Different Godbound will have different ideas aboutof internal tension in the group.what kind of world awaits their coming, and these disputes will haveOne thing to be careful about when making your hero is the risk to be settled one way or another. Yet even after the work is done, evenof divine apathy. It's crucial that your hero should have goals and after the malevolent angels are banished and the seasons put arightambitions in the world, whether those goals are a simple hunger for and the starving fed from fields of divine abundance, are all thingsfabulous mortal luxuries, a higher ambition to redeem their conquered truly as they should be? The world was shattered once by the warringhomeland, or a dream of ending a centuries-old war that's torn their dreams of those who would be God. Will it be broken again?6

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Creating Your HeroYou can follow the steps here to create a newly-forged demigod. Lessexperienced players can read more about each step in the followingpages, while those familiar with the process can just go down the list.The character sheet reproduced to the right is numbered to show youwhere each entry goes. You'll find a blank sheet on page XX, withthe page background removed to make for easier printing or copying.1.Roll or assign your hero's attribute scores to determine theirinnate strengths and weaknesses. If you want to roll them, roll4d6 six times, dropping the lowest die each time and addingthe other three together. The higher the roll, the stronger thehero in that quality. Assign these six scores to the attributes inthis section in any order desired. If you'd rather just assign anarray, put these numbers in any order: 16, 14, 13, 13, 10, and 8.2.Record your hero's attribute modifiers. Usually, you don't applyyour whole score to a relevant die roll. Instead, you just applya bonus or penalty. If your attribute score is 3, your modifierfor the attribute is -3. For scores of 4–5, its -2, for 6–8 it's -1,for 9–12 it's 0, for 13–15 it's 1, for 16–17 it's 2, and for amighty score of 18, it's 3.3.Note down your hero's attribute checks. For each attribute, subtract it from 21 to find that attribute's check score. Wheneveryour character tries to accomplish something that would taxeven the prowess of a legendary hero, you need to roll 1d20 androll equal or higher than this check number. Particularly difficulttasks might apply a penalty, while a relevant background mightgrant you a bonus, or even make the effort an automatic success.4.Decide three Facts about your hero and record them here. AFact is an important truth about your hero, one that shapes theirpast and abilities. One Fact should be about where they camefrom, one Fact should be about how they acquired the skillsthey used to survive before awakening to their divine power, andone Fact should be about some sort of important relationshipor organization they're involved with.Each Fact doesn't need to be more than a sentence or twolong. Facts help you when you make relevant attribute checks.Whenever you're making an attribute check to do somethingyour Facts would make you good at, you gain a 4 bonus tothe attribute check roll. In some cases, you might not need tomake a check at all where a less pertinently-experienced herowould need to roll.If you're playing a campaign in the realm of Arcem, checkpage XX for a quick description of the nations of that placeand some ideas for your hero's background. If you're playingin some other setting, talk with the GM and choose a concept.5.8Pick three Words from those described in the Divine Powerschapter. These Words describe your hero's divine powers andGodbound might. They should express something meaningfulabout the character's personality and favorite approach towarddealing with problems. Ultimately, though, a Godbound'sWords are emanations of their nature. Your hero controls theirWords and decides how they manifest their powers.6.Record the special abilities your bound Words grant you. Every Word gives a special power to the Godbound who binds it.Some of these are magical abilities, while others let you boostcertain attribute scores. Don't forget to change your attributemodifiers and checks if you need to, or reshuffle stats if needed.7.Spend six points picking divine gifts. You can pick gifts fromyour bound Words by spending one point on mastering a lessergift and two points on mastering a greater one. You can masterlesser gifts from outside your bound Words by spending twopoints apiece if you can explain how your own existing Wordscould create that effect. You'll find the gifts listed in the DivinePowers chapter, but don't forget to glance at page XX for thosegifts that every Word offers. Optionally, you can spend threepoints to bond yet another Word. You'll learn how to bind moreWords and gifts with time and experience.8.Record your saving throws here. For your Hardiness savingthrow, measuring your resistance to exhaustion, poison, andbodily transformation, subtract the higher of your Strength orConstitution modifiers from 15. For your Evasion saving throwto dodge explosions, death rays, and other incoming hazards,subtract the higher of your Dexterity or Intelligence modifiersfrom 15. For your Spirit saving throw to resist mind control,curses, and magical sendings, subtract the higher of your Wisdom or Charisma modifiers from 15. Note that if both of yourmodifiers are penalties, your saving throws might actually behigher than 15.When the GM tells you to make a saving throw, roll 1d20 andtry to roll equal or higher than your saving throw score in thatcategory. As a Godbound, you can always automatically succeedon an otherwise-failed saving throw if you have enough divineenergy left to save yourself.9.Choose your weapons from page XX, assuming you want tocarry any. Weapons have a damage

Godbound Deluxe Beta 1.7 Changes Tweaks and edits to many gifts, including Corona of Fury, and to the Strifes of the Hunting Beast, Dying Hour and Bitter Rival More art, including work by Jeff Brown and Aaron Lee Nerfed heroic mortal attacks per round in the deluxe character creation section Assigned art to proper PDF layer Edits and typo fixes