It's bards all the way down

I'm almost certain our gaming group fell victim to some Chinese curse, because everyone (except for me) wanted to play something based on Chinese literature, mythology and demonology, and we couldn't gather and do it for weeks or maybe months. 

I suppose yesterday the curse took a day off or something, because a very Chinese artistocrat (child of a cursed dynasty with uncertain gender characteristics, partially because of the curse, partially because people are generally not very nice), a very Chinese paranormal investigator (I keep thinking of him as Chinese Fox Mulder, because a) he's looking for his lost sister, b) on the way he's looking into strange disappearances and c) government denies knowledge), and a monk (that was me) got together in a little village. 

Now, the aristocrat is a master of swordfighting, and also carries around a bag of holding with a pipa (which is, I'm told, a traditional Chinese musical instrument) in it. He uses the pipa for magic. 

If you ask me, he's a bard is what he is. 

Personal notes: playing Friar Tuck in ancient China is not as good of an idea as it might seem (what, you thought he was a different kind of monk?). However, it is a great opportunity for adding some "Good dogs, such good dogs!" to your roleplaying activities, which is super. The dogs were named Wolfe, Gray, Sheriff, Knight, and King Arthur. And they never had a chance to catch an arrow in mid-air, which I kind of hoped for. 

Anyways, before we got to playing, we discussed the current issues, the war, the russians, and the fact that almost every russian musician in the role-playing circles posted some kind of shit about how great russian/soviet army is/was and how they destroyed fascism with one arm tied behind their backs and so on. 

To quote Zak Smith, bards suck. 

And between the current issue discussion and playing, we tested out the God Generator that I've mentioned before. Zak Smith made it as part of his Cube World, and I brought it to test it in the group. How did it go? Well... 

Zak's not wrong.  

 

We ended up with a one-armed very fat dinosaur wearing a long dress made of meat and/or slime  and carrying a candle who was the god of love and gambling. 

Also a very fit one-handed demon who decorated himself with organs of defeated foes. 

"It says here that they're heads or skulls or other organs". 

"Dicks. Definitely dicks". 

"If you say so, it's your deity". 

Also the demon was the lord of all octopodes, and he turned out to have multiple romantic affairs with other members of his pantheon. 

"The other members of your pantheon are... all animals". 

Pause. 

"Well, they're gods, right? So they can give consent?" 

"I think so". 

"Okay, then it's all cool". 

And finally, we had a god from another planet whose basic shape was a fetus with moustache, holding a lute and a lightning, who ate his worshippers. Metal as fuck. He was declared to be the patron deity of hard rock. 

And bards.

Make a deity for your campaign with a fistful of dice

Or, rather, make as many of them as you want for 15 dollars. 

Because some time ago on LotFP discord, people talked about making up gods for their games. And they brought up some mechanics, and they gave some advice, and talked about what would be the optimal way to roll some dice and get the attributes and cool features and powers and stuff for a god, or goddess, or eldritch being or whatever. And then Zak said that he would write something that does exactly this. 

Well, he did. Here in his Store is the God Generator. To quote Zak, 

"I aimed for a generator that worked like the best character generation systems: providing options but also inspiration at each step, making the user not only eager to create new creatures but to see how they will work in the game world".

So I took the tables and rolled the dice, and came up with a crimson-skinned girl of a goddess who cares for the forests and helps all the fathers. If you want to become her follower, you have to go on a sacred pilgrimage, honouring the goddess's adventures chronicled in a series of pantings. You will also need to, when mentioning your father, always add "Whose voice I will hear forever", or the goddess will be offended by your misbehaviour. 

The girl has some holy weapons, and unusual features that are always shown in her depictions, and her favourite animal is the yak, and if you've fathered a child, she might come to help you. Especially if you have fathered a child in the forest. 

And it's so easy to make her feel like part of the world. Like, having the barbarians that the party encounters tie fangs into their braided hair - this is how the goddess is depicted. Will they treat you kindly if you mention how you always hear your daddy's voice? I dunno, let's find out! 

 And there are tables for determining if your deity is human-looking, or it's an animal (what kind of animal?), or a plant, or mineral, or the whole bloody active volcano is an actual god. And a lot of domains and cool powers that are related to those domains. And the taboos and demands that the gods make for their followers (kind of similar to Vornheim superstitions, only they're numbered and easy to roll up and some things are left out because those are the parts that you fill in yourself, anyways).

 Also Zak included five gods that he made up while testing the generator, with illustrations. They're almost as cool as my crimson goddess. 

But I dunno, maybe your deity will be even cooler.