Game News First public reveal of Wormwood Studios' upcoming RPG, Fallen Gods

[Neanderthal]

​

Whats Futhark say on outside of this stone, i'm rusty as fuck and have only got to - This is the s - need to play Ultima or read Hobbit again I suppose.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Hope those are heavy spoilers.

 

[Darth Roxor]

"This is the song the singers sang, wild wondrous world war?ing war weaving (?) without end and rich with sorrow"

 

[MRY]

I can't actually vouch for what it says, but it was meant to be: This is the song the Singers sang: wild, wondrous, world-warping, war-weaving, without end and rich with sorrow.

The runestone was made by the wonderful Cleopatra Motzel, a German artist who works in a variety of media but specializes in knotwork. For now, this is the only art she did for the game, but resources permitting, and if it fits with the design, she may be able to dip back in down the line.

ArtB Thanks! In the spirit of "pics or it didn't happen," here's the relevant text:

The maid, once so quick to quit herself of child, shakes with naked dread as the hag grabs the babe from the rocks. "Hush, sweet dumpling," sings the crone through snaggled teeth, cradling the child as she whisks away. The song fades, the mother flees, and stillness falls on the hollow. At last, the witch returns, wiping grinning lips with a filthy sleeve. Shamelessly she meets your eyes, eager to serve you further, and blows a kiss your way, sharing some small part of the ill-gotten gift.

 

[Haba]

Your story reminds me of Serpent in the Staglands. Which is a good thing, it is a good set-up.

 

[MRY]

I haven't played SitS, but my sense is that the closest similarity might actually be the way in which we've tried to embed the games' lore in a particular kind of folklore. In FG, the PC's divinity is less significant -- he's not like not-Thor or some god who had a portfolio and temples and stuff.

 

[Maculo]

There is not XP. The god gains soul-power in various ways, and he can use this to level himself up or to perform miracles. Followers level-up randomly by doing useful tasks.

I especially like this miracle vs. power-up option MRY. Should the player notice a significant difficulty difference if one uses all the soul power on miracles? Also, will it be possible for a god to sacrifice portions of himself or herself (permanent penalty) if no soul-power is available?

 

[stony3k]

Sounds good so far. KODP-like should be a new category of games

 

[Galdred]

You got me sold on Lone Wolf with more interesting combat. Lone wolf was my gateway to PnP RPG and boardgames. The tone you chose for writing sure will be divisive, but I like it.
Good luck!
Your space game mock ups look stellar actually. Are you sure you cannot salvage it? It's not like being an FTL cousin would be a death sentence. Some mediocre games only live because some people think they will play like FTL.

 

[Neanderthal]

"This is the song the singers sang, wild wondrous world war?ing war weaving (?) without end and rich with sorrow"

I can't actually vouch for what it says, but it was meant to be: This is the song the Singers sang: wild, wondrous, world-warping, war-weaving, without end and rich with sorrow.

The runestone was made by the wonderful Cleopatra Motzel, a German artist who works in a variety of media but specializes in knotwork. For now, this is the only art she did for the game, but resources permitting, and if it fits with the design, she may be able to dip back in down the line.

Cheers lads, like the cadence of that, reminds me of one of Skallagrimssons ditties.

 

[MRY]

That's high praise indeed!

 

[MRY]

Maculo: There is a fixed soul cost per miracle. Probably "miracle" is using the wrong word -- it seemed like a convenient shorthand for "divine act." Really, we're talking about something more like magic, and definitely on the smaller scale. The player-god is, as I said, not Yahweh or even Thor or even, like, Heimdall. He can do things like healing, burning, controlling animals, speaking to the dead -- it's super powerful as compared to mortals or even wizards or witches, but probably like level four AD&D or something. (I really don't know AD&D well, I'm just talking out of my ass.) The skills can sometimes be used in events; they also have combat or field uses.

The bread-and-butter power of the new gods (called Ormfolk because they were members of Orm's tribe) is soulfire: a supernatural fire conjured by burning through soul power. It was soulfire that Orm used to defeat Fraener, the last winged wurm, and he also whipped up a "soulfire sun" (so the skalds call it, exactly what it was, who knows, but surely not at the level of a star) to destroy a troll army. This can be used as an individual attack spell (combat), or to destroy curses (field), or sometimes to destroy groups of enemies (events). The last might sometimes cost more than the normal combat usage.

You can't substitute health for soul power. A key part of the lore is that without soul power, a god has no powers. I suppose the player-god has some soul-power inherent in him that allows him to revive after death, but it wouldn't make sense mechanically or narratively to let him tap into this.

stony3k: I love KoDP, but this is not a KoDP-like any more than a rogue-like. It's narrower in focus (a warband rather than a tribe), it's much simpler in gameplay, and less ambitious in reactivity. Maybe a KoDP-lite. Very lite.

Galdred: Yeah, I might come back to it down the line. I hit two walls -- one with events being too complicated, the other with combat -- but having now spent a couple years on FG, I think I could surmount those walls if I had to. But FG is much farther along, and I'm definitely not switching gears till it's done. At least, I hope not. :/

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Trenchmouth looks like it'll be cool.

 

[Tigranes]

Miracles sounds like halfway between fate points (Arcanum) and Effort (Numenera). I like it.

 

[stony3k]

stony3k: I love KoDP, but this is not a KoDP-like any more than a rogue-like. It's narrower in focus (a warband rather than a tribe), it's much simpler in gameplay, and less ambitious in reactivity. Maybe a KoDP-lite. Very lite.

Hmm.. OK, but even a KODP-lite would be welcome. Some of the mechanisms sound similar, and maybe I'm just being too wishful

 

[Archibald]

Are all three games going to be sold as "Wormwood games" or other two projects will be separate things? All three projects look interesting, add Primordia to that and your studio could have some solid library.

 

[MRY]

Are all three games going to be sold as "Wormwood games" or other two projects will be separate things? All three projects look interesting, add Primordia to that and your studio could have some solid library.

That's the plan, yeah.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Are you going to self-publish these three new games, or is Wadjet Eye publishing any/all of them again?

 

[MRY]

Are you going to self-publish these three new games, or is Wadjet Eye publishing any/all of them again?

UIHY is being published by someone else. I have not thought about publishing for FG. The only one where it might be a possibility is Trenchmouth, but my understand is that Dave is kind of out of publishing.

 

[Maculo]

Maculo: There is a fixed soul cost per miracle. Probably "miracle" is using the wrong word -- it seemed like a convenient shorthand for "divine act." Really, we're talking about something more like magic, and definitely on the smaller scale. The player-god is, as I said, not Yahweh or even Thor or even, like, Heimdall. He can do things like healing, burning, controlling animals, speaking to the dead -- it's super powerful as compared to mortals or even wizards or witches, but probably like level four AD&D or something. (I really don't know AD&D well, I'm just talking out of my ass.) The skills can sometimes be used in events; they also have combat or field uses.

The bread-and-butter power of the new gods (called Ormfolk because they were members of Orm's tribe) is soulfire: a supernatural fire conjured by burning through soul power. It was soulfire that Orm used to defeat Fraener, the last winged wurm, and he also whipped up a "soulfire sun" (so the skalds call it, exactly what it was, who knows, but surely not at the level of a star) to destroy a troll army. This can be used as an individual attack spell (combat), or to destroy curses (field), or sometimes to destroy groups of enemies (events). The last might sometimes cost more than the normal combat usage.

You can't substitute health for soul power. A key part of the lore is that without soul power, a god has no powers. I suppose the player-god has some soul-power inherent in him that allows him to revive after death, but it wouldn't make sense mechanically or narratively to let him tap into this.

Thanks for clarifying that MRY. I really like what I hear so far, and I look forward to future updates.

 

[DwarvenFood]

Wow, not sure if I'm more excited about Fallen Gods because of MRY's writing, or if I should instead be more excited about Trenchmouth because of Pflug's art. In any case, good things are coming our way.

 

[StaticSpine]

Wow, not sure if I'm more excited about Fallen Gods because of MRY's writing, or if I should instead be more excited about Trenchmouth because of Pflug's art. In any case, good things are coming our way.

Why not being excited about both?

 

[Archibald]

True Codexer gets excited only for one game, everything else becomes shit by default.

 

[shadow9d9]

I find roguelikes to generally be completely unfulfilling design and generated maps tend to make gameplay awful. Just my opinion.

 

[MRY]

DwarvenFood Vic is doing art on Fallen Gods too: at a minimum, UI work and the item illustrations and sprites. And I'll probably do writing on Trenchmouth. So far I've provided some story consultation, but we'll see if it turns out to be more.

shadow9d9 I generally agree with you, although my understanding is that Spelunky does good map generation, and Incursion is spoken of highly in this regard. I particularly find the map generation disappointing in "rogue-like" Metroidvanias. The thing is, the FG map is really pretty simple -- more complicated than the map in Weird Worlds, but not hugely so, and I never had much problem with WW's maps. There's not really any way that I could see FG working with a premade map. But yeah, I think it's fairly safe to assume that the map will be less interesting than, say, the Barbarian Prince map, but I think it'll look pretty and get the job done. I hope!