Sunday 12 January 2014

Of Gods and Mortals: Our Take

We needed a bit of cheering up before Christmas, so Maff bought us both a copy of Osprey Publishings new Of Gods and Mortals mythological wargame rules.

Of Gods and Mortals is laid out very closely to In Her Majesty's Name and I'm guessing this is going to be a familiar format and not a bad thing at that. Of Gods and Mortals is 'Fantasy Lite' with plenty of club gaming potential, allowing a quick transition from historical with minimal outlay.

Of course, we can't just leave Of Gods and Mortals as it is.... I suggested to Maff we use it for Hyborian Gods but he shot back a cracking idea, which was to use it within my very own Dark Ages Valley of the Fire Dragon setting.

Valley of the Fire Dragon is open-ended so we can include the VoFD Gods and supernatural elements if we wish at any time, but what we want to do with OGAM is have more of a 13th Warrior quasi historical approach based on primal fears and superstition.

How does that work? The OGAM rules basically remain the same. The main change being that Gods are replaced by Superstition, Legends by Champions, whilst Mortals more or less stay as is.  

Superstition can be embodied by a simple totem, a Druid, a Witch Queen, even standing stones or a grove of trees. Of course you lose some of the powers that the Gods can wield that are equivalent to an 88 or Stuka raid but you have a more subtle game in tune with the men who read the Sagas rather than the characters in them.


During the break between Christmas and New Year, I started sorting through my Dark Ages figures, Norse fighters and fantasy barbarians for suitable OGAM/VoFD goons (see above).  It was really great looking at them again in a different light. A real benefit of OGAM is that the number of figures required for a faction is 20 or less and VoFD means you can use your Saga or Brytenwalda collection practically as is. Maybe a Druid, Shaman or similar and you are off and running. Plus I have a good excuse to add my favourite Hasslefree Barbarians, Fighters and Shamans.
 
Cheers
Mark

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