Return of the Ancients
Transcript of Return of the Ancients
Return of the Forgotten
Once – you were a lord of the heavens and the Earth. Tens of thousands, if not hun‐dreds of thousands, of faithful human wor‐shippers erected statues and shrines to your glory. Epic poems and parables fur‐ther spread the legends, increasing the range of your authority within and beyond the ruling civilization. The high priests of your Temples maintained your connection to the mortal plane, ensuring your power could reach the farthest corners of the known world. And wars were fought to expand kingdoms, with sacrifices offered to your name before the conflict and praises shouted in victory. While mortal champions secured your dominance on Earth, you rested in an ethereal realm of your own design, where the creatures and landscape changed at your every whim. Palaces and strongholds under your control graced the surface of the clouds, composed of the surrounding air but stronger than solid marble. The dreams of man became the foundation of your homeland, given form and purpose by your will alone. Other deities visited the realm, even beings with terrestrial power and influence greater than yours. But you remained unchallenged and unquestioned inside the comfort of your cultural domain.
After centuries of dominance, your worlds came crashing down around you. The decadence and weaknesses of the civi‐lization grew until its decaying foundation either collapsed under the weight of inter‐nal corruption or could no longer hold back the invasions of the next ascending kingdom. Your high priests were con‐verted by another pantheon or hunted
down as blasphemers, leaving your Tem‐ples unprotected and quickly losing their sanctification. You – a true god among men – became obsolete in the eyes of the world. And before you could regain your Divinity in another culture, your avatar fell to ashes, your essence absorbed back into the Ether, and your consciousness locked away in a deep sleep. Eons passed, and humanity slowly for‐got about the old gods. Empires rose to rule continents, and the original patterns of the Ether were transformed by the con‐tinuity of a new and powerful deity – the All‐Father. Drawing worship from three separate civilizations and faiths, his priests and followers quickly converted much of the Mediterranean world and gained a strong presence in every corner of the planet. Simultaneously, resistance to Christian supremacy and the advent of the modern sciences produced the seeds of atheism that abandoned the divine to the sole dominion of mankind. With few ex‐ceptions, the realms of the Ether became an empty wasteland and monument to the golden age of Antiquity. Now, after nearly a millennium of hu‐mans without contact to the divine, you stir from your long slumber to a world not of your design. Weakened by centuries of inactivity and ignorance, you wake with only a small fraction of your former power and knowledge. Your new priests have lit‐tle connection to your cultural heritage and even less understanding of their role in your resurrection. The kingdoms that supported your worship and fought wars in your name have all turned to dust, filling
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giant tomes of historical reference and mythological story. No mortal in the cur‐rent era believes you and your brethren ever existed. What’s a deity to do?
The Pantheon Roleplaying Game is a game of identity and renewal. Players as‐sume the persona of a fallen god from a previous era, suddenly returned to Earth without warning or explanation. Although each in their time and place represented specific aspects of mortal existence, the possibilities of growth and change are lim‐itless in this brave new world. Many will choose to recreate the glory of their lost empires, using their worshippers and em‐powered champions to seize political and military power. Others may take the op‐portunity to become the savior and protec‐tor of a modern group of mortals, filling the overwhelming void of spiritual belief with direct and visible miracles. Some still may embrace the simple pleasures of hu‐manity, rejecting the impulse to lord over the Earthly masses and instead decide to walk the world as one of them. The following chapters of this book possess all the tools necessary for players to construct their divine characters and Storytellers to build a campaign fit for the gods – literally! Chapter One takes the players on a brief tour of humanity, the origins of the divine beings, and how we arrived in the Modern Age. Chapter Two presents the rules for basic character creation and advancement. Each of the god’s stats – Attributes, Skills, Health – is briefly explained, though cov‐ered in more detail in subsequent chap‐ters. This section also reveals the timeless
language of the gods and how they form Commands to manipulate reality itself. Chapter Three explains the core game system – the Lonely Die System – describ‐ing the process of resolving conflict be‐tween characters and the circumstances around them. Chapter Four explains the current state of the world as the old gods return and re‐veals what knowledge is immediately available to them. Chapter Five lays out many of the secrets and truths of the game, including a deeper look at the history of the Ether, the mortal and divine beings active in the modern world that may influence the direction of a campaign, and discussions on the multi‐tude of themes and styles available to the Storyteller in building their own plot. Chapter Six gives the statistics and de‐scriptions of example creatures, humans, and deities a new pantheon may encounter in the game.
Disclaimer Whenever someone speaks of the divine, some‐one else gets offended. It is unfortunate and unavoidable. The Pantheon Roleplaying Game is a work of pure fiction. While the game uses elements of ancient mythology and modern religion as a foundation, it is not intended to serve as a “true” alternate history or theological treatise. If you find yourself overly sensitive about the spiritual and have difficulty separat‐ing the events of a game from those of reality, you may want to place this book back on the shelf from whence it came and search for the Candyland® box in your closet.
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Lexicon All-Father The combined monotheistic deity of Juda‐ism(Yahweh), Christianity(Jehovah) and Islam(Allah). He has been missing since the fall of the Profanobex. Attribute One group of a character’s stats that repre‐sent their raw abilities and talents. Each value generates the Target Number of a Skill check. Avatar The physical body innately created by a god on the mortal plane, housing the di‐vine essence and granting the ability to di‐rectly influence events on Earth. Avatar Fatigue Damage caused to an avatar from the strain of utilizing Divine Commands. BCE / CE The abbreviations for “Before Common Era” and “Common Era”, which are the modern equivalent of B.C. and A.D. Sorry – history graduate. Boon A special bonus gained to a Skill check as a result of extraordinary roleplaying or prob‐lem solving. Command With a capital C. A connected string of Power Words that generate a supernatural or godlike effect.
Divine Attribute A Fixed Power linked to one of the six pri‐mary Attributes and is always active on a character. Divine slumber A deity without any active Temples on Earth suffers the destruction of their physical avatar and falls into an indefinite torpor, floating unseen and unaware through the Ether. Divine symbiosis The interdependence of gods and man‐kind. Mortal priests worship the gods and empower Temples in their names, thus imbuing them with form and power. The gods in turn gift the faithful with items of power or supernatural abilities. Divine Tongue The innate common language of the gods, often communicated telepathically. When used in the proper order, inflection and tone, they form Power Words and Com‐mands. Ether, The The spiritual plane of existence. This is the birthplace of the gods and their respective heavens from the dreams and worship of mankind. Sometimes referred to as the Mists. Ethereal realm A partitioned section of the Ether that has taken the shape and appearance of a civili‐zation from Antiquity. The old pantheons called these realms home while not among mortals on Earth.
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Etherite Another term used for the gods. Fallen, The After the Angel Rebellion, the renegade angels followed Lucifer out of the Seven Heavens and became known as the Fallen. Ferox A wide category of monstrous creatures that originated in the wild realms and now besiege most of the ethereal realms of Earth. Font The heart of an ethereal realm. Locating the Font is necessary for a god to attune himself to an abandoned realm in the pre‐sent. Gateway A cosmic tear in the Profanobex that when found in the Modern Age allows the gods passage to and from the Ether. Health Pillars A chart representing the six portions of the body that records the overall wellness of the character. Legend With a capital L. Short form for legendary creatures and other ethereal constructs of the gods. Pantheon A group of gods, joined by a common cul‐ture or purpose. Powers With a capital P. A general term for the supernatural and godlike abilities of a de‐ity. These include Fixed Powers, Divine Attributes, and Commands.
Power Word A piece of the Divine Tongue that the gods learn to use in Fixed Powers or Com‐mands. Profanobex An invisible barrier emerging at the end of the 13th century that prevented the gods and their ilk from returning to Earth. Skill The training and knowledge a character possesses. This value determines the dice pool for a relevant Skill check. Target Number(TN) For Skill checks, a die rolled must be equal to or less than this value to be counted as a success. Temple An object or location enchanted by mortal priests to generate and maintain an ava‐tar’s powers on Earth. Temples are a con‐nection point for a particular deity be‐tween the mortal and ethereal realms. The more a god has, the greater his Divinity rank. If a god ever has no Temples, they are sent into the divine slumber. Trauma Major physical wounds incurred during combat, such as shattered bones, free‐flowing blood, and decapitation. Wild realm A term collectively given by gods for the alien realms that appeared in the Ether at the latter part of the 13th century. From these regions poured forth the deadly ferox, which continue to plague the re‐maining gods of Earth.
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Chapter One History of the Gods
In the beginning, there was everything. The universe newly made, all was possible in the emerging order of existence. Galax‐ies appeared, stars illuminated the dark‐ness, and planets danced across the sky. Against all odds, one planet nestled in the infinite void possessed the proper balance of element and spirit to spawn life. As life begot life, the infusion of genesis and time created a bipedal species capable of self‐awareness and conscious thought. Evolu‐tion on Earth crafted mankind about 200,000 years ago, and with the dawn of humanity came the birth of reason and dream.
Due to their advanced mental capacity, humans strove to understand their sur‐roundings and questioned their own real‐ity. They created tools to answer their queries and help control their environ‐ment. What man could control and un‐derstand formed the basis of the ancient sciences and rudimentary technology. The questions that could not be answered through reason and scientific experimenta‐tion demanded an explanation. And in the visions and untold dreams of man, the un‐explainable became the domain of higher beings. These collective beliefs somehow crossed the mortal realm, and reached into the Ether.
No one knows how the Ether came to be or if it had another purpose before hu‐manity arrived. The Ether, or the ephem‐eral realms, represents the stuff of dreams, where the abstract ideas and imagination of people take form. Most that know of this plane of existence speculate that it
remained completely malleable and cha‐otic prior to religion, constantly shifting its landscape to the whim of dreaming man. However, the unified beliefs of humanity somehow focused the energies of the Ether into creating beings of pure spirit, of pure human thought – such was the birth of the gods. It was initially unclear, with all the diverse tribes and budding civilizations of the prehistoric era, why certain deities over others were born of the Ether. How‐ever, as civilizations became larger and more stable, their pantheon of gods mate‐rialized in the spirit realms, shaped by the belief and desire of their worshippers.
The first gods were unilaterally primal and elemental in nature, mirroring the vi‐sions of early man. Storm gods were con‐stantly angry, voicing their displeasure with thunder and striking the land with bolts of lightning. Gods of the sea only granted fisherman and sailors calm waters after the proper offerings and sacrifices. Though they considered themselves far above mortals, the early deities maintained close contact with mankind. As humans and their societies became more sophisti‐cated, the personalities of the gods also developed into those of intelligent, self‐aware beings. They not only understood their powers, but also recognized where they came from and their connection to humanity. For the gods to exist, they must continue to be worshipped by their mortal followers.
Thus began the divine symbiosis. The gods guided their worshippers to erect and maintain shrines and Temples within their
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communities. Mortal priests were also taught rituals and ceremonies to maximize their offerings to the gods, as well as dic‐tums and commandments to control the people. In return, the gods imbued their high priests and mortal champions with powers and supernatural abilities, occa‐sionally answered the prayers of the de‐vout, and granted blessings upon the cho‐sen people. Each pantheon, or set of dei‐ties, also discovered their ability to step across into the Ether and occupy a divine realm, created from the same legends and dreams of humanity. While the gods were still bound to the mortal realm through their Temples, they had a place of their own to interact with each other away from the demands of their followers. Yahweh’s Army As human history trudged forward, civilizations rose and fell, and with a fallen people went their fallen deities. Occasionally, rival pantheons would war against each other in the heavens, but no conflict ever resulted in lasting damage or the death of a deity. Regular worship at dedi‐cated Temples is necessary to sustain the gods, and without it, their Temples lose their power and they vanish from the mortal realm. But once a dream takes form in the Ether, the imprint remains long after it is forgotten by man. Gods without a people are forced into a deep torpor, called the divine slumber, unconscious and seemingly unaffected by anything else in the universe. They drift outside the river
of time, waiting for someone to dream and worship them once again. Such was the natural order and the fate of many socie‐ties and pantheons during early Antiquity. Only one god maintained a constant fol‐lowing and survived across the centuries.
Yahweh emerged out of the collective worship of various nomadic tribes along the eastern Mediterranean and the Sinai. Though starting out slowly and usually worshipped among the enslaved or mar‐ginalized peoples of the Fertile Crescent, the adherents of Judaism found represen‐tation in many early civilizations. With the construction of the Temple of King Solomon around 1000 BCE, Yahweh be‐came a major deity in the divine registry of the Ether and the focus of one of the few monotheistic religions in the world.
Amid the competing celestial forces in the ancient world, Yahweh possessed several advantages. First, as
a monotheistic deity he received the constant, undivided worship of his followers, concentrating his base of power. Jews were both devoted to their faith and present in many cultures, allowing for uninterrupted veneration of their god despite the rise and fall of empires. But Yahweh’s ultimate trump card came in the form of his divine
servants: the angels. Possessing the power of gods and unquestionably loyal to Yahweh, angels were an enigma to the other residents of the Ether. Pantheons tended to organize themselves in a clear hierarchy, with “lesser” gods struggling with but eventually
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