Requiem For A God (print edition)

[Messageboard Golem]

A god dies. The faithful mourn. Others rejoice. A few see opportunity. All is forever changed.

Kill a God in Your Game!

Malhavoc Press proudly presents the event book, a new concept in roleplaying products by 3rd Edition codesigner Monte Cook. Requiem for a God postulates that a major event has taken place in your campaign -- the death of a divine power.

This d20 event book offers you the rules and guidelines to introduce this fully-developed concept. Game master notes detail the deaths repercussions on your campaign and new prestige classes tap into the departed gods power. Characters can wield artifacts made of god-relics, as well as spells fueled by lingering divine essence. Meanwhile, dark creatures born of the gods passing challenge adventurers of all levels. Tie-in scenarios feature power-mad villains seeking to hoard their new might, while cosmic forces move to realign the balance.

What is an Event Book?

If you are looking for a how-to guide for implementing a major event into your campaign, the event book line is for you. Requiem for a God is merely the first of many such products. Each takes a major event that could have interesting repercussions on your campaign and examines it thoroughly from every angle. It provides DM advice on staging the event, involving the PCs, and making the necessary changes to the campaign that result naturally from the event. Each event book also includes new NPCs, organizations (usually with associated prestige classes), and even rules, spells, magic items, and monsters that might be involved with the event. In short, it is everything you need to make that event a part of your own campaign. The focus here is that it is your campaign -- the event book is merely a guide. It does not force you into structured plots or leave you with no idea of what happens next.

 

[Pauper]

Requiem For a God is a product that promises to cover a topic of wide scope, but does so with such a narrow focus that DMs may have a difficult time using the information provided.

The back of the Swords & Sorcery/Malhavoc Press softcover claims, "This book has all you need to introduce the demise of a divine power into your game." And in glancing through the book, you're tempted to believe that this is true - there are sections on the effects of the divine death itself, the aftermath of the death on the remaining clergy of the now-deceased god, and other juicy-sounding subject headers. However, as you read through the sections, you notice that a number of terms are salted throughout - terms like 'godsflesh', 'loosed divinity', and such, that are defined within this sourcebook and nowhere else. This would make more sense if the book were written specifically for a campaign world that already had these concepts, or one where these concepts were going to become a part of that campaign worldview, but their presence in a supposedly campaign-neutral 'event book' is somewhat disappointing. Yes, specifics are better than glittering generalities with no seeming application to a game setting, but over-specificity is nearly as bad as a lack of specificity in a supplement that is supposed to have wide appeal and applicability.

In fact, the more you read of Requiem For a God, the more you realize that these concepts aren't just specific - they are required for the sourcebook's internal consistency and self-reinforcing to the point where trying to 'pick and choose' results in nearly as much work as coming up with the entirety of the sourcebook from scratch. Case in point: if you don't care for the idea of a corpus dei existing in the material world following a god's death, you have no use for the concepts of godsblood and godsflesh, which are the components of that divine corpse. If you don't use godsblood and godsflesh, you also are unable to use nearly all of the feats presented here as written. Nearly half the new spells and magic items presented become unusable without significant revision as well. And the most promising of the prestige classes presented here, the necrotheologist, also becomes unusable as presented, as one of the prerequisites is any feat derived from godsblood consumption.

The over-specificity of the supplement becomes even more obvious once you realize that the organizations presented are not just mutually hostile, but unlikely to interact with any other organizations in the campaign world - or at least little effort is spent trying to explore just how groups such as the Cabal of the Dirge or the Memento Mori would interact with the larger campaign world. (Basically all that exists is a couple of paragraphs on each organization that can be summed up as 'if the PCs become involved with this group, they draw the ire of the other'.) Both groups also rely on a campaign background in which a significant number of divine beings have already died, and thus the secrets of manipulating the powers of godsflesh, loosed divinity, etc., are already known. If you purchased this sourcebook hoping to use its insights to stage the first-ever divine death in your campaign world, much of the material here will not be of immediate use, and may never be of use depending on how exactly you wish to portray divine death in your campaign. It is particulary ironic that the back of the sourcebook exhorts you to "Kill a god in your game. Then watch what happens." Particularly when so little of the sourcebook is of use to you if you haven't already killed a god in your game before.

There are a handful of ideas that can be pried loose from this supplement and are applicable to nearly any game. The Lance of Endless Night, tweaked so that it doesn't require an 'energy well' left behind by a dead divine being, makes an interesting Doomsday Device, for instance. But so much of this sourcebook is so closely tied to the rest of the material in it that it seems your choices are to use the entire book as written or ignore it all, which in my mind makes it a bad investment as a gaming supplement.

This is the first d20 product I've purchased that I regret purchasing.

 

[Nail]

review of Requiem for a God
by Monte Cook, Malhavoc Press

ISBN: 1-58846-104-1
MSRP: $12.95
soft-cover, staple-bound, 64 pgs, good TOC, no index

Why'd I buy it?
For the last year I've been interested in creating a home-brew with a complete cosmography -- that is, a "map and guide" of the universe and its workings....you know, planes 'n gods 'n stuff. This product looked like it could fill a role there. After all, "What if gods could die?" sounds way too interesting not to look into for a home-brew...


Overview
The author does a great job covering all of the bases in this book. There were a few parts I thought could use more coverage, but the book does a great job of "setting the scene" and giving DMs guidance. As a confirmed "crunchy" gamer (that is, "give me mechanics that work, not setting fluff") I was very pleased that the propsed new rules and additions were not drowned in fluff and flavor. The idea has as much flavor as it needs already without extra being added.

The sections that sparked comments:

Integrating the Event
The material on what happens to the clerics of the dead god was especially welcome. CR adjustments, reasons that some would still "hang on" to worship, and societal changes. This stuff I'll use. My only (minor) complaint: The idea of "comic locality vs. immediate locality" of the god's death is sometimes difficult to make sense of, especially when the DM tries to plan for the event. I'm not sure the concept is even necessary, actually. (shrugs)

"Loosed Divinity" and "Godsblood"
An excellent idea, and good mechanics to pull it off. This could have been a fiasco of Munchkinism -- instead it's something (IMHO) that's both cool and balanced. "Godsblood poisoning"...who'da thunk?


"Adventures"
Normally I give these sorts of suggestions a pass.....but in this case, I was wishing for even more ideas! The adventure seeds given are great, and are arranged so that you (the DM) can take them individually, or as a series within a campaign. Nonetheless, I kinda wish Monte had provided a "50 adventure ideas" list as well, with a few one-liners to spark the creativity.

******************************************
Conclusion

• 
  Production: 4.5 Very good. Excellent use of "sidebars". Occasionally the side bars are mis-placed, however.
  
  Art: 4 - Good. Black and white art, with occasional, but well-placed as chapter headers, repeats.
  
  Game Mechanics: 5 - Excellent. No complains there!
  
  "Cool" Factor: 5- Excellent. The idea alone is worth the admission price. Very well handled.

Overall: 5 - Excellent. I'm very happy with my purchase....should my campaign go in this direction, I'll be sure to use it.

 

[Khur]

It's an idea almost as old as myth itself--the death of the divine. Yet, there's never really been a product for the fantasy RPG world entirely aimed at this one premise. What happens when a god dies? Requiem for a God, from Monte Cook's Malhavoc Press takes this idea and runs with it for the D&D community. It's the first of a series of "event books" aimed at introducing unique story arcs into a d20 fantasy game.

The book is impeccably designed (by the able, once-art-director-of-Dragon, Peter Whitley), and the text density suggests a book with many more pages (if it had been laid out by a less professional team). A great cover piece by (once-ICE-art-director) Kieran Yanner sets the mood, followed up capably by the ubiquitous work of Sam Wood. The interior art is black and white, but accents the pages nicely where it appears.

In sure Monte Cook fashion, Requiem for a God analyzes the subject matter in the form of taking the many possibilities, picking a few (usually the most extreme), and presenting them in a concise way that ultimately reveals many alternatives and potential variants. Requiem takes a look at all sorts of factors from how the god died to what happens to the departed god's spirit, what happens to the remains of a god, the ramifications upon the world (both material and metaphysical), and the consequences on social constructs. The best part about all of this information is that it doesn't tie you down to a single "right way" of handling god death.

Gods die for all sorts of reasons, whether they tire of life, fade due to obscurity, or are slain in conflict. Requiem reminds us that the divinity leaves signs of its passing and each campaign can have a flavor all its own, from reincarnation (not unlike the rebirth of Dream in Neil Gaiman's The Kindly Ones) to resurrection of a deity to undead gods. Further, that passing has all sorts of story value in which PCs can participate or oppose others. The heroes can also be caught up in the effects of a god's passing or seek parts of the being as valuable treasures.

When the holy being shuffles off the immortal coil (?), it has all sorts of implications. Requiem for a God explores the effects on religion and society. The DM is enabled in creating the various reactions of lay worshippers, handling the priesthood, and dealing with the power vacuum created by the god's absence--including the problem of loss of clerical power and the reaction of other gods. Cook even explores the blending of religions, the loss of faith in all gods, and the formation of secret societies around the idea of divine mortality. While the two example societies in Requiem for a God are not particularly inspired (they are obvious reactions to a god's demise), they serve as good examples. Like most of the first part of the book, these societies take opposing roles to show the realm of possibilities. They also serve as a solid point of reference from which the prestige classes in Requiem are derived.

The prestige classes themselves are more colorful. The fallen-cleric Disaffected are particularly interesting, deriving power from the ambient divine energy in the universe. While this ability is tied to the energy released by slain deities, it can easily and painlessly be converted to a type of spell-user that taps some hidden force always present in the cosmos. The same is true for the other classes, each requiring some aspect of a dead god, but malleable enough to be reworked into a setting without such possibilities. Only the Harvester of Divinity is overpowered, with the base attack progression of a rogue, two good saving throws (Fortitude and Will), and extremely potent abilities.

What seems largely underpowered is the effects of the release of divine energy on the surroundings of a god's death. The list of suggested effects is solely based upon the domains of the god in question, not its alignment, relative power (though range can be based on this), or mode of death. The lack of an effect based on the deity's alignment is strange, but largely prevalent throughout the book--nothing created by the death of a god has anything to do (in game mechanics terms) with the alignment of that deity (besides absorbing three divinity sparks (see below for definition), which creates a divinely infused creature--a special creature template, with the alignment of the slain god). Arguably, alignment effects can be functions of the god's domains, but some alignment-specific effects are certainly warranted.

In Cook's vision, gods have different parts that can have differing effects on the world when the god is gone, which makes sense if the deity has a body and a spirit like mortals. The awesome power of a divine entity leaves an impression in the universe, like a small piece of the dead god's will and personality, called the demiurge and loosed divinity. The corpse of the dead being is valuable (godflesh), as are other remnants such as "godsblood" and the remains of the divine spirit called "divinity sparks".

Each of these items is related to the others in Requiem for a God, and each has specific effects, but a little work can separate them. If your campaign doesn't allow for a corpus dei (the god's body), you can still use the demiurge and divinity sparks. The fact that some part of a god or another is related to spells, feats, or abilities in the book is also easily alterable with some flexible thinking. In fact, the ideas can be used in campaigns that have no gods at all. The spiritual and physical aspects can be applied to the deaths of powerful outsiders or even to the idea of ambient spiritual energy in the universe.

What's strange is that Requiem suggests pieces of a god can be purchased (50 gp per pound of godflesh, 700 gp per ounce of godsblood, 55,000 for a divinity spark), yet the rules for such items try very hard to limit the efficacy of these potent items. Godsblood, for example, has very limited effects, can only work on a given creature in any significant way once every six months (via a drink), and results in severe, permanent poisoning if consumed too often. While it's always a good idea for systems to consider the game balance of objects they present, some things should be left under the sole purview of the DM, not controlled by overbearing rules. An example is the suggestion of a ritual that allows ascendancy to godhood, but it's described in such a way as to prevent any good character from trying and suggests that the ritual destroys vast areas of land, regardless of the alignment of the ascendant--"so it is generally in everyone's best interests to stop it from happening".

In the attitude of control, permanency isn't much of part of a divinity's passing either. The law of conservation of energy don't apply, for all things pass in this model of deific death, except the corpus dei itself (until it's used up). Everything else fades with time, which makes sense for the demiurge, but not necessarily loosed divinity or divinity sparks. The only effect that might remain for a considerable amount of time is a rip in space and time, called an energy well, that some god-deaths create. But even these are governed heavily by rules that make their use, arguably, too risky.

The lack of permanence and risk involved with the use of godly materials is appropriate to some ways of thinking, it makes some of the other mechanics in the book harder to consider for use in a game, because they too become impermanent or chancy. Many of the spells and feats require aspects of the divine remnants, and once those leftovers are gone, the use of those abilities is limited or impossible. This is especially problematic for a sorcerer.

Still, the feats and spells in Requiem for a God are some of the best rules material in the book (the suggestions for altering your world upon the death of a god are equally good, but not really rules). As stated before, there's nothing stopping a crafty DM form using some of these abilities, like Overwhelming Presence (awe normal mortals), based on power taken from a dead outsider of considerable might. Others, like Bloodsight (allowing the detection of magical auras with a standard action) can have the requirement of some part of a dead god removed and replaced by something else, like race. So, even though the abilities and spells are aimed at the subject matter of Requiem (and why shouldn't they be?), they have application across other avenues of thought.

Magic items in Requiem for a God follow suit, for the most part, though some are more limited to use with the concepts found in the book. Baubles vary from the obvious (godsblood infused items or those crafted from godflesh) to specific artifacts (the fist of a dead forest god that grants great power over nature). Yet bothersome is the divinity collector, which gathers and stores divine energy to be recycled into spells--vexing only because this device is required by a feat (Create Divinity Spark), which itself probably should have been a spell. This is a minor point.

A minor part of the book, the four monsters delineated in Requiem are completely in the realm of "dead gods", but very nice additions to any campaign that features such huge happenings. The only one that seemed too odd was the divinity parasite, which is neither divine, nor a parasite, but feeds on the corpse and divine energy left by the passing of a god. The others, spectres of the divine, godflesh golem, and especially the divinely infused (template) seem right on the money.

Additionally, Cook was thoughtful enough to give some extra material, rounding Requiem for a God into a thoughtful package. There's a checklist throughout Requiem for issues brought up by the event and Monte's particular take on the aftermath. The only way for this idea to be better is for it to be inserted as a form in the back of the book, or made into one as a bonus PDF or web-enhancement. The book includes seven clearly labeled adventure plots, from low- to high-level, some with a bonus character attached. If one considers the characters and plots given in other sections, the book really has covered all angles, giving many jumping off points for adventure.

On this last point, Requiem for a God covers divergent ideas (as stated either by pointing out extremes or through the inclusion of information that leads to other avenues of consideration and creativity. Despite any of its shortcomings, the book gives what it purports to offer and supports the creative thinking of DMs with other thought on the whole idea of the divine, death, and great changes in a campaign world. If you want to kill a god, and you need some help putting all the pieces together, Requiem for a God is essential. Otherwise, it's a good book to have for some interesting suggestions and game-expanding possibilities.

This review was originally written for Gaming Frontiers on 05/22/03.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Requiem for a God by Malhavoc Press

Requiem for a God is an Event Book by Monte Cook, possible the most recognizable name in the d20 market. An Event Book is simply a single product that covers a campaign-changing event. The event covered here is the death of a god.

The book is soft bound and 64 pages in length for $12.95. It was originally released as a pdf. The layout seems sparse, as there is a lot of white space in the borders. The art is pretty good, but some of the pieces are reused from else where in the book. The full color cover is a nice piece by Kieran Yanner of some priests with a glowing box in the foreground.

The book takes on through the process starting with how the god or gods die to what happens to their followers. It has suggestions for how to handle things like what happens to the body, what happens on the site of the death, and how to involve the players in all of it. Overall, while I found many of the ideas interesting, I constantly felt that there needed to be more. There are good ideas, but nothing really awe-inspiring. Many of these ideas are very much common sense and I think a greater level of detail was needed.

There are rules for what happens to a cleric after his god dies including a variant that allows a cleric to keep at least some of their spell ability. There are rules for using the blood and body of the god as magical items that give temporary abilities. Then there are energy wells that are created where the deity dies. The first prestige class is the Disaffected. They are devious clerics of either a dead god, or of someone who has lost faith in their god. There is also the Harvester of Divinity that seek out dead gods to retrieve parts. There are a couple other prestige classes as well. They all seem well balanced and decent enough. There are also new feats that deal with the gods blood and the god’s body. There are also many new spells, some new magical items and artifacts, some monsters and templates. As with all of Monte’s stuff , balance should not be an issue with any of this.

Overall, I just found the book lacking. It’s a fine book, and does the job it sets out to do. I think it could have gone beyond that. Some of the pages I feel are wasted as they are filled with NPCs and organizations. These things just did not seem to fit that well.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Requiem for a God is an "event book", which means that it falls into a special category. It provides materials and ideas for staging the death of a god as a campaign event. The book is deliberately vague about how the god's demise came about and its consequences, trying to cater to a number of different campaign assumptions about the nature of the gods.

I must that the book was a great disappointment. The idea is thrilling, and much of the execution is good, which checklists at every point where the DM must judge how things work in his or her world, covering issues like what the god's dead body would look like and where it would be situated, what consequences the god's demise has for the world at large and the effects on the site of the death etc.

There is just one major problem here, and that is that Monte Cook seems to conceive of gods not so much as embodiments of metaphysical principles, but basically chunks of material. The proposed rules for the godly remains, "godflesh", "godsblood" and "divinity sparks" more remind me of Terry Pratchett's The Fifth Elephant, where a cosmic elephant crashes into the earth, leaving strata of lard and crispy bits to be mined by the dwarves. The divine remains seem to be basically chunks of cosmic lard. They provide hefty bonuses to characters using them, but there is very little flavor to them. It hardly matters what god they used to make up. They are just pieces of raw power for the characters or possibly some more unscrupulous figures that specialize in using this power.

The bulk of the book is made up with rules for exploiting these kinds of remains, including a number of new spells and a few prestige classes with two organizations centred around the remains of the dead gods. The biggest problem I had with these is that gods would have to die rather frequently for there to be any point in taking levels in these classes, or else you would have to play in some kind of post-apocalyptic world where dead gods abound. This is of course feasible and even an interesting option, but it would be difficult in an existing campaign world.

Now for a closer look:

The book has eight chapters, and I'll review each briefly in turn. The first chapter is called
Preparing for the event, and discusses what issues the DM must address in order to stage the death of a god. It is reasonable and generally well written, even if I don't quite see the point in the concept of the "demiurge", which is a kind of divine entity that monitors the deity's relations to the world and that remains even after the deity's demise. It is essential to some of the mechanics, so it can't be easily removed, but I still think it is metaphysically dubious as well as superfluous.

Then follows a chapter calle Integrating the Event, which continues reasoning about how to implement the event in the campaign, and also introduces two organizations, the Cabal of the Dirge that's devoted to letting the dead gods rest in peace, and the Memento Mori that utilizes the remains for their own purposes. This could lead to interesting conflicts. As I said, the rules concerning godsblood are my greatest grievance with this book, as I feel that it's more going to promote powergaming than any kind of veneration of the dead gods.

Then follows a chapter on Prestige classes. Of these, the Disaffected, fallen clerics, and the
Necrotheologist, a kind of divine necromancers, are the most interesting and useful outside the setting. These two classes are very good indeed.

The chapters on feats, spells and magic items are heavily dependent on the godsblood rules, and some of theses feats (that require absorbing some of the power of a dead god) are quite powerful, but also have a lot of flavor, so they could be of use in an epic-type or high-powered campaign. The same goes for the spells, that are mostly high level and delineate ways of manipulating concentrated divine energy. The magic items are few but interesting, especially the artifacts, including a weapon designed to slay the sun.

The seventh chapter details a few monsters that can be found around the site of a god's death. They look rather bland to me.

Lastly, we are treated to a number of adventure suggestions for varying levels. They are interesting insofar that they show that the death of a god can become a concern for characters of any level, but none of them stands out.

Overall, I'd say that Requiem for a God is a well-written and professionally executed product, but I find it fundamentally flawed by its weird conception of divinity as some sort of cosmic rocket fuel.

I think it deserves a 3: average.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

By Ian Hewitt, Staff Reviewer d20 Magazine Rack

”The clerics of the evil god of darkness and destruction clearly had no power…they sought to get at the tower and drink its seeping blood. They craved the power pulsing from the tower and the sparks of energy that leapt out of it. They desired to feast on the remains of their own dead god.” -Requiem for a God

Initiative Round
Requiem for a God is written by Monte Cook and published by Malhavoc Press. Keiran Yanner contributes the color cover and Sam Wood (the artist most in need of a website!) illustrates the interior with simply stunning black and white art. Requiem is a softbound 63-page ‘event book’ providing all of the tools that a DM needs to kill a god in her game and deal with the far-reaching repercussions.

The ‘event book’ was a concept designed by Monte Cook that provides a DM with the tools to actually design a specific event within her own campaign. It is important to note that ‘event books’ do not provide the plot and specifics of the event itself. Requiem was the first of its kind, and has proven successful enough that Malhavoc Press has since released Cry Havoc which deals with war and When the Sky Falls which provides the tools needed to bombard your campaign with comets and meteorites.

But back to the book in hand, obviously the death of a god – or of multiple gods – is going to be a truly significant event in any world and one not to be treated lightly. Requiem does not shy away from any of the difficult topics to be considered. The book progresses through eight chapters each deals with different aspects of the event – the first two do so the most directly.

Chapters One and Two comprise almost exactly half of the total page count and they cover Preparing and Integrating the Event respectively. They do so in a logical manner beginning with choosing the god who is about to pass, deciding how exactly they will die (or be killed) and exactly what will happen to the physical remains. These are all incredibly weighty subjects that have been tackled to some extent in different game products over the years, but Requiem leans away from the high fantasy of mythology or of the approach offered by the Forgotten Realms’, Birthright and Scarred Lands settings and remains impartial - simply describing the gritty details and letting the DM decide the outcome.

Many original concepts are introduced in these opening chapters that are used throughout the rest of the book such as Divinity Sparks which are literally bits and pieces of loosed divinity which can be used as a source of power to those who know how (such as the Harvesters of Divinity a new Prestige Class) or Godsblood and Godsflesh which are similar concepts. Bathing in or drinking the blood of a dead god imbues significant (if temporary) powers such as being able to kill a creature of equal or less Hit Dice with a touch or being able to commune a finite number of times. Godsflesh may be used to craft especially potent magical items.

The discussion on the death itself is thorough but leaves many options open for DM’s to custom their own campaigns. For example the question of what happens to a god after they die is answered with a series of potential answers from which individual DM’s might draw inspiration or simply choose. Potential causes of death are discussed, Requiem leans heavily away from the idea of epic-level characters killing the gods themselves as this is not what the book is about (although that option would easily be available if it suited the personal tastes of the group). Death is more likely to be the result of a loss of worshippers, or at the hands of another god.

This is an event book and so a great deal of focus is given to the event itself and exactly how to stage it. Again, no answers are given and no plots are laid out, but a very thorough discussion is given that does provide almost all of the tools a DM would need. In essence, the DM needs only to apply his own creativity to bring these concepts to life. Most of the ideas, deal with the aftermath of the death – PCs are not expected to be involved in the death in any way, but merely to experience the shocking aftermath. In this way, it is a suitable option for all levels of play, indeed an event of this magnitude could very easily be the long term story arc of the campaign taking the characters through a sizeable chunk of their adventuring careers.

All of the questions that you might have are neatly addressed. What happens to the religion and/or the church? What happens to the priests? What ramifications will this have upon society? How will it affect the larger universe? How do the other gods react? These questions are examined in much the same manner as above (perhaps the priests commit suicide, or perhaps they fear a loss of political power and attempt to cover it up, maybe they can’t hide the fact because the god’s corpse fell from the sky and landed outside the city…) providing food for thought and potential options rather than a single definitive answer.

The problems are addressed in a manner friendly to the DM though, introducing the Cabal of the Dirge a detailed and usable organization devoted to the protection of deific remains and to the Memento Mori an opposing organization that seeks not to protect the remains but to utilize them for their own gain. Both organizations are presented with adequate detail including NPCs that they provide an immediate in-road to staging the intrigues and power struggles that may very well ensue.

While this first half of the book has been devoted primarily to the flavor content, the remaining half of the book contains the more mechanical content. Prestige Classes, Feats, Spells, Magic Items and Monsters each receive their own chapters. All of these ‘rules’ draw directly upon the groundwork already built in the first two chapters, clearly demonstrating that work in action and as directly applicable options to implement into the game.

The Dissaffected are a prestige class of clerics who have lost their god. Every player’s worst nightmare perhaps – to have their class skills stripped away from them – but the role playing potential of this prestige class is difficult to match as they wander about the realm attempting to draw upon the loosed divinity to harness what remaining power of their god there is to be had.

The new type of feat introduced – Godsblood Feats – are available only to those individuals able and prepared to drink the spilled blood of a dead god. Such a dubious process could imbue such abilities as Divine Resistance (resistance to divine spells) or Overwhelming Presence.

The thirty-plus new spells are powerful additions to any spell casters repertoire but many require such tokens as divinity sparks or godsflesh in order to cast them, while others tap directly into the fading power of a dying god and are available only for a short time.

Only a handful of magic items are offered and they are exactly what you might expect to find in this book. The creatures include the Divinity Parasite, a six-foot long, 300-pound worm that feeds upon the corpses of dead gods. The Godflesh Golem is sure to terrify most PCs, not to mention the Spectre of the Divine.

The final chapter is devoted to Adventures, or more accurately to adventure seeds and ideas. Seven different teasers are given here covering low to high-level play.

Critical Hit
The entire book is written in a very concise and informative style that neatly accomplishes the intent of the author to show a DM how she may introduce this exciting concept to her game.

It would be easy with this subject matter to utilize the recent interest in Epic gaming and concentrate upon the death itself and the involvement of the PCs – but this would limit the playability of the product. Instead it focuses more on the aftermath of the tragedy and its implications on the mortal world which allows for characters of all levels to become involved.

The artwork is outstanding. All of the interior artwork is by Sam Wood who has since become a familiar illustrator of Malhavoc Press products. His style increases the beauty and value of this product immensely.

Throughout the book, checklists are provided in sidebars addressing the questions and issues raised in the main text. This simple technique is greatly beneficial to a DM hoping to implement the concepts in Requiem and stage his own such event. Other sidebars provide ‘flavor fiction’, a few paragraphs of story illustrating the content of the text (such as the quotation at the opening of this review).

Critical Fumble
This is obviously a niche product and if you have no interest in staging such an event in your campaign this book will be of very limited use to you.

Coup de Grace
Requiem for a God may not cover entirely new ground, but it does so in an entirely new way, paving the way for similar event books, and devoting an entire book to a topic usually covered in novels or adventures. There are not very many 63-page books that could so dramatically affect your entire campaign for years and years to come – but this is one. Even if you have no intention of seeing a god in your campaign die, it will be hard to say no after you read this book.

Buy Requiem for a God IF: You: (a) Enjoyed Cry Havoc or When the Sky Falls; or (b) enjoyed The Complete Book of Eldritch Might.

Final Grade: A