God-Killer Prophecy -- Augury Edition is at Hand
God-Killer Prophecy is my new game. You can get a copy at the link, or from our UK site here. I'm running it this Saturday evening at Phantasm Gaming Convention in Peterborough, ON.
It's a one shot game where you create the world together and face escalating threats across 6 chapters to see if the Chosen One can vanquish the Dark Lord.
This was playtested at CanGames in May, and at the Hastings D&D Festival in July.
It has been . . . under the radar so far, but there will be copies at Phantasm!
Each put together by hand by yours truly with the help of my brother Timothy Kitz, who also did some editing and provided feedback. Each cover is a little different because each is written by hand.
But how does it work do you ask?
Play is divided into two major phases: Auguries Phase and the _Adventure _Phase
Adventure Phase
You use two regular decks of playing cards. One a heroes deck, and one the dark gods deck. In each chapter you face at least two threats, where the heroes use their cards to overcome the dark gods deck.
The heroes lose card's as they face challenges and must get more cards into the hands of the chosen one so they can defeat the dark lord in the final confrontation.
While that is happening the dark god's deck also loses cards, but only the weakest, causing increasing tension.
Auguries Phase
The playing cards are first used to setup the prophecy. This is the first thing that shapes the story.
Then there are question prompts for each chapter that guides players to illustrate where they find themselves and who and what they must do. This then feeds into the challenges of the Adventure Phase.
I thought to myself one day -- "I want a one shot story-game with teeth." And then I thought, "if I am doing that it must be the high-fantasy epic that I loved to read." Thus, God-Killer Prophecy was born.
There's more to that story, but those are tales for another time.
Here's a few from the initial 14 we printed:
Comments
So I had an absolute blast running this Saturday evening at Phantasm. It feels like I've caught lightning in a bottle.
In a brief pause in the game, one of the player's (Eric) said "I can't believe how much has happened already!" Paraphrasing from there "a whole epic fantasy series has gone by and we're not even done."
Personally, I found the tension as the hidden card from the dark god's deck was flipped over extremely engaging. And when that flip caused more cards to be draw . . .
In the final chapter we had a string of setbacks, and I think that is really what caused us to end the game with "mixed results." I'll likely share more in another post.
Several folks picked up the print copy, to which I am very grateful and you can too right over here: https://composedreamgames.com/marketplace/god-killer-prophecy
Image from the end of our game:
In the book, I talk about how it is inspired by a number of books and other games:
All of these games are on the marketplace and I have run all of them in the past year or so. I also think that WILD likely had an impact. So a thanks to all the designers and publishers of these games.
But I think something else was likely a very important factor: playing games with Kurt Riefling (of A Smouldering Lighthouse) at local Ottawa area conventions and events (CanGames, Jefcon)
Kurt facilitates a lot of GMless story-games. I'm pretty sure we played A Penny for your Thoughts, Kingdom, Wanderhome and a number of others. He plays and runs with a laid back excitement and courtesy that brings out the best ideas in everyone.
These experiences had a big impact on the prologue, auguries and epilogue of God-Killer Prophecy.
God-Killer Prophecy has a lot more mechanical/strategic-ness to it then the games Kurt seems to favour and design (GPK "has more teeth"). If you ever get to play a game Kurt is facilitating, or one he designed . . . do it. You are in for an experience that may change how you think about games.
A handful of a revised "Augury+" (augury plus) edition of the game have been assembled! I've incorporated a number of enhancements based on feedback including improved the flow and clarity of the writing and adding a section on sharing the spotlight and a place to create your own prophecy tables.
I . . . may occasionally write a random entry in one of these
This brings it to a full 24 pages.
With the improvements, we've increased the price by $1. Anyone who has purchased the Augury edition can go sign in to download the updated Augury+ edition.
Here is a video looking at a whole bunch of recent copies we made.
I also take a good look inside and talk about how the game works in all it's glory!
I had a great time with this game at Breakout Con this year. The narrative we generated has stuck with me.