Open Call: Petty Gods

Inspired by this post over at Planet Algol (and with Blair's permission to pursue this), I've decided, likely foolishly, to put together a book with the help of anyone who's willing to donate their time, energy, and creativity to it. The working title is Petty Gods and it's intended as an homage to Judges Guild's awesome Unknown Gods, which presented 83 minor gods -- complete with stats -- for use in your D&D adventures and campaigns.

And when I say "minor gods," I mean it: we're talking deities like the goddess of dancing girls, the god of summer storms, and the goddess of deep water fish, among others. That's the vibe I'm aiming for with this project too. If anything, I'd prefer that the divinities in Petty Gods be even more minor, esoteric, and obscure than those in Unknown Gods -- the kinds of beings worshiped only by a handful of devoted (and probably crazed) followers and whose power is limited enough that they could conceivably be offed by a party of appropriately bloody-minded PCs. In short, this is a "Monster Manual" for swords-and-sorcery in the manner of Elric.

So, here's the plan. If you're interested in participating in this project, send a description of the minor god(s) to me at jmaliszeATgmail.com with the tag [Petty Gods] in the subject line, using the format presented below. There's no limit to the number of words per submission as such but each deity should have no more than a paragraph or two of descriptive text; the idea here is to be evocative and inspirational rather than exhaustive. If possible, stats should be as compatible with Labyrinth Lord as possible, since that's my go-to game for "generic" old school D&D, but I can make adjustments as necessary, if you make a submission using OSRIC or Swords & Wizardry or whatever.

I'd also love to get some artwork for this project. Unknown Gods includes an illustration for every deity, such as Paul Jaquays's portrait of Tangadorn above. That's probably too much to expect in this case, but a guy can dream, can't he? So, if you're an artist with lots of spare time and a willingness to do some pro bono illustrating, I'd be in your debt if you'd drop me a line too. I won't know how many illustrations I'll need until after I get all the submissions in -- which reminds me: the deadline for submission is December 31, 2010, though I reserve the right to extend it a little beyond that date if I deem it useful to do so. But, if you're at all interested in contributing, I recommend doing your best to get your stuff to me before the end of the year.

This is a volunteer project without any compensation beyond a free PDF of the final product, so I don't begrudge anyone who prefers to devote their creativity to other, more lucrative projects. I'll also make the book available through Lulu.com at cost, since I know there are many folks, such as myself, who prefer physical books to electronic ones. My goal isn't to make any money off this, but simply to put together a cool collaborative project that fills a niche no one else has yet filled. This is the kind of thing at which the old school community excels, so I have little doubt I'll get great submissions.

Here's the format I'd like to see for the submissions:

Name:
Symbol:
Alignment:
Movement:
Armor Class:
Hit Points (Hit Dice):
Attacks:
Damage:
Save:
Morale:
Hoard Class:
XP:

Each entry should also include a specialized Reaction Table to represent how the minor god reacts to any who encounter him. The standard Reaction Table uses a 2D6 roll, modified by Charisma, but, these being gods, and petty ones at that, their tables could just as easily use 1D20, 2D12, 3D6, or whatever and be modified by other ability scores. Use your imagination. The important thing is that each petty god make an interesting potential enemy or ally of PCs in a swords-and-sorcery style fantasy campaign. Go wild!

I'll post a sample petty god on my blog Saturday, in case anyone is unclear about what I'm asking for here. Thanks in advance to everyone who submits. This is going to be fun.