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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psion" data-source="post: 2009378" data-attributes="member: 172">Requiem for a God"Now watch closely, everyone. I'm going to show you how to kill a god. A god of life and death. The trick is not to fear him." - Lady Eboshi, from Princess MononokeRequiem for a God is the first in a series of "event books" from Malhavoc Press. Event books provide ideas for incorporating a particular event in a game, including mechanics to support those ideas.A First LookRequiem for a god currently distributed as a PDF file, available at www.rpgnow.com and other fine outlets for $7.00 US. The PDF has 66 pages total, including a mock front and back cover. A published version will be released in November.The cover art by Kieran Yanner is a nice piece depicting some robed men before a shattered altar with a dreary apocalyptic backdrop. Interior art is black-and-white and handled by veteran D&D artist Sam Wood.The PDF file has the usual refinements such as bookmarks. The interior uses black-and-white, making it more printer-friendly than the early Malhavoc books with color banners across the top.A Deeper LookRequiem for a God is basically divided into two major parts: ideas and crunchy bits.The introduction, the first two chapters (Preparing the Event and Integrating the Event) and the eighth chapter (Adventures) comprise what I call the ?ideas section.? These chapters provide you with ideas and advice for orchestrating the death of a divine figure in your campaign. The third through seventh chapters support these ideas with mechanical details - new feats, prestige classes, spells, magic items, and monsters.The ideas section is very flexible and lets you make the final decisions. But it gives you all the elements to structure an exciting campaign around this concept to pick and choose from at your pleasure. The first to chapters are with checklists that help guide you through the process of integrating the event into your game. Details are covered such as how the god died, what to do if you don't have a convenient deity you want to die, the reaction of the populace, and so forth.These chapters have many ideas regarding the effects of a divine death. For example, when such a powerful being is slain, it does not go away. It leaves behind traces of its former essence and power, like divinity sparks, energy pools, godsblood, godsflesh, and the demiurge, the semi-sentient lingering essence of a deity. These ideas are parleyed into  game mechanics later in the book, such as godsblood feats, godsflesh items and golems, and spells that allow the character to take advantage of energy pools.Building upon these ideas, the book introduces two new organization that you can integrate into your game that have an interest in divine remains. The Cabal of the Dirge are a society that reveres gods in passing and protects the remains of deities, but are not adverse to using the remains of deities if it furthers their cause. Memento Mori is a more scholarly organization dedicated to studying (and in some cases, exploitation) of dead deities. Both organizations have sample NPCs, as well as prestige classes later in the book.There are mechanics for divine remains in the chapters accompanying the ideas, and the "crunchy bits" section follows up the ideas section with more mechanical implementations. Four new prestige classes are presented that have a relationship with the death of a deity:-Disaffected: The disaffected are characters who once followed a deity, but has now lost that power. The disaffected regain some of their former power and gain abilities through divine remains (particularly divinity sparks.)-Harvester of Divinity: These are members of the Memento Mori that learn how to best utilize divine remains.-Necrotheologist: These are characters specialized in the study of dead gods. They may come from either (or neither) of the aforementioned organizations. They have their own spell list, and have class abilities that lets them draw on their knowledge of dead deities.-Threnody: These are members of the Cabal of the Dirge. They have properties of bards and warriors, but have class abilities from their closeness to the cylce of life and death.The feats section introduces a new kind of feat, godsblood feat. To gain access to the godsblood feats, a character must have been exposed to godsblood. The feats have some interesting and useful effect. For example, bloodblend lets you infuse a little energy in magic items you carry, increasing their power, overwhelming presence lets you awe others with your presence, and spell affinity enhances your ability with spells of a specific descriptors (e.g., if you take this feat and select the lawful descriptor, you affect all nonlawful creatures as if they were chaotic per the spell description.)The new spells primarily deal with divine remnants, letting you utilize or manipulate them in interesting ways. The magic items are primarily those made of or infused with some sort of divine remnant. Creatures include the divinity parasite (a parasite that springs up near the death site of a god), godsflesh golems, the spectre of the divine, and the divinely infused creature template (with two sample templated creatures.)The last chapter is the adventures chapter. It includes a number of adventure ideas related to the death of a god, or remnants or followers of such a deity. The level ideas are sorted into level ranges. On the low end, "Treasured Blood" is an adventure idea for 2nd to 5th level characters that has the characters searching for godsblood as a possible cure for a rampant disease. On the high end, "The Abandoned Throne" is an adventure idea for 15th+ level characters that has them journeying to the former abode of a deity in an attempt to prevent two would-be usurpers from gaining his power.The adventures are not fully fleshed out, and consist of just a few paragraphs worth of ideas about each adventure. However, NPCs are provided for some adventures.ConclusionsOverall, I very much liked Requiem for a God. I really thought I wouldn't at first; I really didn?t see the need to kill a deity in my game and after the whole FR "Time of Troubles" metaplot, I was very jaded to the idea killing deities. However, not only did the book present other options that killing a current deity, but the material and ideas were compelling enough that I actually did consider the idea that having one of the current deities in my campaign pass away.The book does leave an awful lot to the DM. If you have never stepped away from published adventures, the book may be a bit daunting and perhaps asks a bit too much for an inexperienced GM.However, if you have a well developed setting and find normal adventures to be hard to fit into a game because of it, Requiem for a God may be right up your alley. It seems to me that the ideas flowed more freely precisely because I had a detailed setting. The book is a great catalyst for a creative DM who would rather not be saddled with an inflexible adventure but would still appreciate a few good ideas.Further, if you are disgruntled by products that provide prestige classes and other mechanics that, detailed as they may be just don't fit in your game, you may find Requiem for a God refreshing. The book provides you everything you need to build up the surrounding circumstances in your game to justify these mechanical bits.-Alan D. Kohler</blockquote>

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