Godbound (Apr 2020)

In February 2023 we revived the April 2020 Godbound Bundle featuring Kevin (Stars Without Number) Crawford’s RPG of divine heroes forging a new world from the ruins of the old. In Godbound you play demigods in a crumbling world. In ancient times the kingdoms of humanity stormed Heaven and fought through angelic armies to the Throne of God Himself – only to find the Throne empty. The mortal kingdoms decided to make gods of their own. Each Made God that attempted to sit on the Throne was reduced to ash. As abominable titans waged the Last War, reality crumbled in a universal Shattering. Now, in the Uncreated Night, new divinities have arisen. Some mortals, seemingly at random, have become bound to the Words of Creation that give control of the fabric of reality. Will the Godbound save the world from destruction, or hasten its demise?

Funded in a March 2016 Kickstarter campaign, Godbound is an Old School take on the themes of White Wolf’s Exalted. The game uses straightforward B/X retroclone rules (with the power settings turned waaay up), so you can loot decades of material for archenemies and challenges. A Dominion and faction mechanic defines mechanically-supported effects on the campaign world. Does your hero want to build a fortress or ward an allied nation? What happens when the pantheon’s holy nation declares war on an insidious empire of evil? The rules give an answer you can use. And as with Kevin Crawford’s other games, one of Godbound‘s prime selling points is its system-neutral gamemastering tools that help you create high-impact adversaries and challenges for any kind of game.

This comprehensive April 2020 offer once again presented the entire Godbound line for an unbeatable bargain price. This revival helped promote the Kickstarter campaign in progress for Kevin’s new cyberpunk SFRPG Cities Without Number, which promises more of the gamemastering tools that make his games widely popular.

This revived offer’s Starter Collection (retail value $25) had the complete 241-page Godbound Deluxe Edition core rulebook and the introductory adventure Ten Buried Blades.

Those who paid more than the threshold (average) price also got this revival’s entire Bonus Collection with four more titles worth an additional $38, including the key supplements The Lexicon of the Throne (new Words of Creation and rules for creating religions), Ancalia: The Broken Towers (gazetteer), and Sixteen Sorrows (dire calamities), plus the full-length adventure Storms of Yizhao.

Ten percent of each payment (after gateway fees) went to this Godbound offer’s designated charity, Benzie Food Partners, a nonprofit Feeding America food bank serving Kevin’s home county in Honor, Michigan.