Long ago, an entity known as the Source visited humanity and gifted certain people with divine power. For a time, the world existed in a state of balance between order and chaos, between life and death, between divinity and mortality. That is, until the gods waged war against the Source and eventually against each other, until the gods were close to extinct.
The gods of today are shadows of what the old gods possessed. Their power has been heavily diminished, and many choose to live a regular, mortal life, revealing themselves as gods only when absolutely necessary. The reason for this is twofold. First, fate doesn’t like it when the gods share their secrets with a mortal. Unless they are the god’s worshipper, terrible events and horrific accidents have a way of happening to the people closest to the god. Secondly, divine works attract creatures and monsters called Outsiders, created by the Source (after its capture) to destroy any god they encounter.
And so, the gods exist today in a state of flux. They have a mortal life, a job (or career if they’re lucky), friends, family, and everything that comes with being human, and they work hard to protect these things from harm. On the other side of the coin, they also have a Dominion to command and oversee, a deific Territory to defend from intruders, secret societies to which they owe allegiances (called Theologies), and other gods in their pantheon to try to get along with. This becomes their life, the balancing of the mortal and the divine, the normal and the supernatural, the mundane and the strange. The gods belong not to either world completely, and each of them knows that delving too deeply into one means losing pieces of the other.
Part-Time Gods Second Edition (PTG2E) is the latest iteration of an amazing setting about gods and the people, groups, and places in their lives that keep them tied to their humanity. This game gives players the tools to create their own gods and go on to tell dramatic, exciting, and engaging stories — the kind only PTG2E can deliver.
Part-Time Gods Second Edition has specialized chapters to help readers access the info in its pages with ease. Here is what to expect from each chapter.
– Chapter One – The Descending Storm: This chapter details the setting of PTG2E, laying out divine origins and what it means to be a god in today’s world.
– Chapter Two – The Spark of Divinity: Contains the rules for making characters, elaborating on the mortal and divine choices players have at their disposal to make just the god they want.
– Chapter Three – Divine Expressions: Divine magic is a powerful tool, and this chapter explains how to use it to protect what they care about and become an even more powerful god.
– Chapter Four – Blessing the Dice: This chapter gives an in-depth review of all the important rules needed to run a game of PTG2E. It’s a must-read for GMs, but a good one for players to read as well.
– Chapter Five – Divine Battles: This chapter details what happens when gods collide, including battles, healing, and weaponry.
– Chapter Six – The Opposition: No game is complete without antagonists to oppose the players and their characters. This chapter contains all these amazing foes and rules for running them in the game.
– Chapter Seven – Creating New Myths: If you are curious about exactly how to run a game like PTG2E, look no further than this chapter. – Appendix: Includes blank character sheets, territory grid, random character creation charts, and an index
