Month: January 2018

You are the gods of the peoples of this world. You are imbued with the power to bless mighty heroes, answer the prayers of your followers and do titanic battle with other gods in the mortal realm. However, you are not omnipotent, you know all too well your strength and even perception is tied to the belief of your followers, and that even the most fervent believers can only empower you so far; gods may claim to raise and set the sun, but in their absence all that would happen is a fusing ball of hydrogen would crest the horizon in the morning.

 

Your power is mostly subtle, influencing the air currents to redirect rain, slipping tales into the dreams of a sleeper or protecting a faithful champion against the arrows of their enemies. The most direct influence you have is to manifest directly as a divine avatar in the mortal world, but this is a draining process, and for reasons you cannot fathom, only a limited number of gods may perform this feat at once.

 

Now your followers are on a great migration to form the first truly great city in the known world, founded from a simple village of a single faith, and consequently your presence is drawn along with them. Some claim it is a religious pilgrimage, others are fleeing flood or drought or famine and others yet seek to control and exploit the new city. The exact stories are less important than this fact: the gods of all these peoples must now work in harmony, command with an iron will or manipulate each other to rule over their new domain, win followers to their side as cultures mix and fuse.

 

Welcome, to the Gods’ Game.

 

Public documents available here

Summary

The Department of Peculiarities is a top-secret government body located under an unloved toyshop in Marylebone, London. It’s the late 19th Century and most devices from watches to automobiles are experimentally harnessing steam technology., However, this department has its own niche. It caters to the weird, the curious and the downright horrific. If something does not make sense and is too worrisome for normal minds to comprehend, it’ll go to the department. Most of the people who work here are given the title of “Researcher” – that is on the paperwork at least. They are people who explore the vaults, libraries and temporal anomalies in the department trying to understand them and in some cases, neutralise them. Occasionally, that which does not turn the researchers crazy will contribute significantly to popular science.

Underneath the toy shop, the inner workings of the department are vast. From large comfortable reading rooms to the Libraries of banned books to the vaults where the most dangerous creatures are kept, most things can be found if you dare to climb one of the confounding staircases. You will find weirdness and horrors here but you will also find strange things you thought only existed in fairy tales – goblins, mythical creatures and mutants. During the evenings,  employees meet in the Departmental Smoking Room where they can enjoy a drink and discuss their research. While they’re there, however, they are still on duty and will be expected to deal with problems that arise.

The Department of Peculiarities will be a game of mysteries and problem-solving, a game where you can create your plot based on your specific research interests and constantly create the world around you. Do you want to bravely defeat the Kraken who’s been locked in one of the vaults underneath the Great Library? Would you like to solve the minor time anomalies in Room 10Alpha? Would you like to solve the mystery of the lost children in the portal? The choice is yours. The game takes elements from steampunk, lovecraft and other mythology. The magic is generally that which emnates from artefacts and creatures but weirdness is everywhere.

Rules

Red Armbands

In DoP, players vary between normal-looking human beings and strange abominations. To signify this, those characters that look peculiar/not like a standard human will wear a red armband. If you see a character with a red armband on, this may prompt you to ask “NARRATE What do I see?” to figure out their state of appearance.

White Armbands

In DoP, refs will wear white headbands to indicate their refdom and that they are not present in character. You may also see a ref wearing a white armband. This indicates that they are there in-character but may be approached for OC reasons

 

Here – the game’s public documents