La Compania for Free RPG Day

I ran two games for Free RPG Day. The first was "Slugfest," using Lamentations of the Flame Princess. This was my first time running Lamentations, which is a pretty crisp little retroclone. The PCs were members of La Compania, a private mercenary company in the pay of the Viceroy of New Spain.

I was pretty proud of the PCs that I created for the game (eight created, five used), which included one based on Lance Hendrickson's "Bishop", another based on the notorious historical figure Malinche (didn't get played), and another a member of the von Bek family (I often have a von Bek or another of the Moorcockian-Hal Duncanian lines of Champions in my games).

They PCs entered a Smoking Mirror Engine beneath an ancient shrine to an ur-Lord Tezcatlipoca in the long-abandoned city of Teotihuacan, and proceeded though a series of Engine gate links to alien worlds. First they were surprised coming out of a gate by Octovoidal Transvectors, and later had an encounter with some Achernarians investigating a crashed starship module.

The mood shifted from grim SF to goofy Slugfest shortly thereafter. The slug minis up above are Garganta-Slugs from the Hereticwerks blog, as were the Octovoidal Transvectors and the Achernarians, who have been recurrent characters in a number of my Fate, Dr Who, and old school SF games.

The Slugs sourcebook for Free RPG Day has great illustration (with typical, not-for-children LoTFP flourishes). But I don't really see the "gaming revolution" promised in its introduction and the re-release hype. There's a difference between revolution and revolt, which is why both punk and metal were ultimately dead ends, but persist as simulacra. I'll leave it there.

"I am a petty god at the moment."

"You will find me more lordly and benign when I achieve the position of a greater god."

Those are the words of the immortal sorcerer, Prince Shool. Today I noticed that the phrase "petty god" was used in Michael Moorcock's first Corum novel, The Knight of the Swords. The term is deployed in both senses of the term, designating both a lesser god and a god with a propensity for pettiness. The novel is filled with petty gods in fact: Pilproth, the Gorged God; inadvertent organ donor deities, Kwll and Rhynn; and the sad deity who accompanies Serwde, the Brown Man of Laahr; perhaps the Dog and the Bear as well.

There's also just a suggestion of an association between giants and gods, which reminds me of another blogger's recent question of why there wasn't more interest in giants as a monster type...

Over the last week, petty gods have come up in a couple of other ways too. At last weekend's Fate of Tekumel game at Con of the North, I had a chance to use the Tzitzimine Star Demons minions and the non-canonical Eyes that I wrote for Petty Gods.

In fact, the Eye a player selected for her character was none other than the Eye of Petty Theogony! An ordinary sellsword was elevated for a good chunk of the session into a petty god in his own right, taking on the mien of a minor god of war. When I wrote up that Eye, I never dreamed that anyone would use it on anyone other than their own character! Players do find ways to do things with our creations that surprise us.

Co-creation makes us all petty gods.

Petty Gods In Xeno-Meso

Pottery from Esteli, Nicaragua
Photo © 2013 John Everett Till

Good poets borrow, great poets steal. The best sourcebook for gaming is often reality. The primary reference for the major (and many minor, petit, or petty) gods in the Xeno-Meso setting is this work right here:

Many of the deities of the peoples of Xochiquetzatlan (quasi-decadent Aztecs), Olmeca (Mesoamericans of African descent), and the Maya in the Xeno-Meso setting are taken right from this book. However, like any GM I also like to create/extrapolate my own creations. And Gorgonmilk's Expanded Petty Gods project seemed a perfect opportunity to do just that.

The Original Petty Gods book came out this summer, and can be downloaded here. The Expanded Petty Gods project where my deities will be featured is forthcoming this summer. I have submitted three deities, three minions, and twelve magical items for this community project.

Two of my deities will be illustrated by the incomparable +Juan Ochoa, whose website is here. Juan is also illustrating the Titzimine, or Star-Demons, which are one of the minion races  created.

Another of my deities is being illustrated by +j garrison of Hereticwerks; regular readers of The Everwayan know I am a huge fan of Jim's writing and art and it was a great to be able to work with him on the art for one of my gods.

All of the deities, minions, and items that I created will fit-in extraordinarily well with the Xeno-Meso setting, as well as with other Mesoamerican settings. I imagine they can be adapted for a variety of other settings, particularly those that use a broader cultural palette than Western and Northern Europe.

Our creations will be of particular interest to people who enjoy combining planetary romance and pulp SF influences with their fantasy settings. Sorcerers using the spells of Space-Age Sorcery will find worthy allies, adversaries, and artifacts among our submissions.

So who are the deities? I'll wait until XPG comes out to provide all the details, but here are a couple of them:

• Chicxulub, the Petty Goddess of Decaying Orbits
• Wicked Skein, the Petty Goddess of Unwelcome Messages

Strangerside Scholar: The Seven Unlucky Spherewalkers

Although the Sphere of Xeno-Meso is very far away from Everway, The Paddlers are not the only Everwayans to have visited the Sixth World. According to the scroll-book Things Seen In the Obsidian Mirror by Lightning Diviner Crookstaff  (and from the title we assume you can guess the name of the book's author), seven other Everwayans have visited that Sphere.

Apparently, none of them returned.

Instead, the scroll-book tells us they became Petty Gods among the peoples of the Sixth World.

Mr. Lightining Diviner Crookstaff's cursive is quite crabbed, and consequently his scroll-book rather difficult to read. But we are slowly making progress with the text.

In time, the Strangerside Scholar will have more to say about these unfortunates.

Ogun In Xeno-Meso

http://www.7-angeles.com/ogun.html

Among the spirit-beings or deities that the Olmeca brought with them from the old world, the deity Ogun stands out fearless and unchanged among his peers. His iconography is the same as the day the Olmeca arrived in the Sixth World. He cannot be mistaken for or combined with any native deity of Xeno-Meso. This purity of blood is one of his aspects.

Ogun is a smith-god, and iron is his supreme metal. Only the Olmeca have mastered the art of ironwork in the Sixth World. That's why Ogun's innermost secrets and truest magics are kept by the Olmeca smiths.

As a god of war, here too Ogun stands without peer. Other war gods get out of his way, lest they be bested by him and become Petty Gods.

While all war-gods should be feared, some are more fierce than others. While deities like Huitzilopochtli can deliver the deft, quick slashes that make blood flow, Ogun delivers blows that shatter bone or cleave a person in two. While Huitzilopochtli is the graceful, gallant - perhaps even flashy - opponent, Ogun is the boisterous, boastful war god who never backs down, and delights in making even the bravest warrior turn and run like a coward.

He also drinks, smokes, and womanizes.

He can pull miracles out of his pockets.

He can slay the dragon-gods of Xeno-Meso.