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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pauper" data-source="post: 2010052" data-attributes="member: 17607">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.</blockquote>

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