Folks, I've just finished the much-delayed (on my part!) layout for Charnel Gods. This Sorcerer supplment is going to kick everyone's ass.

For a bit of a treat, check out the awesome cover, with artwork by Jeremy McHugh:

Charnel Gods cover

probably an ignorant question:

Whats Charnel Gods about. Its got a creepy cover & name, to be sure, though

Nevermet wrote: probably an ignorant question:

Whats Charnel Gods about. Its got a creepy cover & name, to be sure, though

I know i'm tired when the reply that comes to mind is, 'golly.'

But it does look good.

I believe one of the phrases someone came up with to capture the premise was "There's a wall to keep the demons out of your world. It's made out of human bodies. Can you build the wall high enough?"

God I can't wait for this one.

Shit, the Charnel Gods stuff starts without me! God I hate my day job (not true; I love it, but it sure compromises my free time).

Matt, thanks for posting the link to the cover image. Isn't that an f'ing cool cover?

Everyone...this mini-supplement looks good. Real good. Matt did a fantastic job, as did the artists, as did Paul Czege (who provided the cartography for the three sample settings in the text). And it plays well too.

I'll be back with the specs and a big plug as soon as the PayPal button goes live, which should be soon (as soon as people smarter than I can figure out how to compress a 4 meg file into something reasonable for e-mail distribution). Until then, I'll try to whet your appetites by answering questions (as cryptically as possible, of course).

Take care,
Scott

Do what I do with Electric Ghosts, Scott...break it up into a multi-part, self-executing zip file. I go with around 900k apiece, which every mail host I've dealt with thus far allows.

Hey,

Does this setting have anything to do with the french RPG "Bloodlust" ? (violent, hungry for sensual experiences gods incarnated in weapons, dominating their wielders)

Manu

Manu,

There's no official connection between Charnel Gods and Bloodlust, although similarities do exist. In fact, I became so concerned about these apparent likenesses that I bought a copy of Bloodlust from a Canadian distributor, and even though I can't read French, I now rest assured that the two games are pretty damned different.

They both feature intelligent weapons, and as far as I can tell, that's where the parallels end.

Bloodlust features a sprawling, detailed setting. Charnel Gods has a meta-setting, allowing players to create (and destroy) their own customized settings.

I'm led to believe (and maybe I'm wrong here) that Bloodlust has a huge, rollicking metaplot, in which the true nature of the weapons is revealed over time. All of that stuff is up front in Charnel Gods, and the questions that are left unanswered are ones I never intend on providing answers for.

I suspect the two games will play out differently, but it's hard to say. I've never played Bloodlust (and won't until the English version gets produced...let's hope Pearcy does a good job), and I'd be extremely curious to see how fans of that game react to this one. Hopefully that question will get answered for me after Charnel Gods' release (which should be this week sometime).

Take care,
Scott

Scott,

Thanks for clarifying. Bloodlust does have an annoying huge metaplot that IMHO totally constrains the players into the game creator's vision. The one cool thing is the exotic powers of the weapons, the setting is a rehash of ancient earth cultures, with much splat and gore thrown in. Blah.

Anyway, I doubt any Sorcerer-version of another game, if there ever could be such a thing, would look anything recognizable...one year after, I'm still reeling from the change of paradigm, and if only I could find players in my hometown , dammit...everyone here is stuck in early 1980s gamist mode.

Anyway, if by the way you or anyone here needs info on french games, I'd be happy to oblige.

Manu

Manu,

Well, Charnel Gods allows for all sorts of settings, from the familiar to the truly bizarre. The cool thing is that these settings are disposable, so when you've finished exploring one, you can bring it to a close and move on to the next.

And you can do so while preserving a sense of continuity. The game creates a story measured not by the lifetimes of men, but of civilizations.

How this works is something I'm keeping quiet, at least for now, but it's unlike anything I've seen in any other game.

And of course, there's a lot of implied sex and violence. But hey, you gotta' expect that from me.

- Scott

P.S. The French have some cool-ass rpgs. God, I wish I had seen that coming back when I was in college trying to figure out what to take for Linguistics credits. All I remember from my German classes is that rabies is "tollwut", so something like that.

Having seen the first chapter of Charnel Gods, if looks to be pretty amazing. That being said I do _not_ want to see this in my (electronic) mailbox; it wouldn't fit. Would it be possible to host it on an online bookshelf like http://www.anvilwerks.com, or send out a physical CD.

That being said, when in god's name is this thing coming out? If it is much longer, people will think Charnel Gods is being published by Palladium Books.

Hi there,

As soon as I have word that it's available on the Bookshelf (which to my understanding is the plan), the Buy button goes up at the Adept Press site.

Best,
Ron

To echo Ron, I just received word from Clinton.

The indie rpg bookshelf (http://bookshelf.indie-rpgs.com/) should be functional by Thursday. That means Charnel Gods should be available Thursday.

Just in time for Halloween.

I love October.

- Scott

So, I'm wondering whether this new bookshelf will have all of the authorizations that the one on the anvilwerks site does, or whether I will have to log in seperately.

Damn that sounds lazy

Corey