The Great Book of Destiny

 Two events collided in my life to give birth to this monster project. First, I played Cultist Simulator, which still haunts my dreams with secretive mechanics and the clockwork ticking of the passage of time. Second, I ran Tall Tales of the Orochi Belt, and began to ponder Destiny.

See, I like the Akashic Order, and I’m not alone in liking them, I think. The idea of veiled witches who whisper with one another while manipulating the world to create the fate and destiny they want seems like a great idea. But in practice, how does that actually work? The use their precognition and see things and then… arrange events, I guess. But why? It seems vague. They seem more built to be NPCs making prophecies than PCs manipulating the flow of time. And that’s a shame. Why not have some sort of detailed “magic system” that they could play with?

The more I thought about it, the more I liked it: the Keleni would tap into that too, via the blessings of Communion. The Cult of the Mystical Tyrant, too, would want some way to manipulate, or dodge, Destiny. In fact, Psi-Wars is the only game I’ve ever run or played in where Destiny actually came up! Several times, in fact. But the destiny chosen was often vagie, players casting about for some additional detail.

So, that’s what I have for you today: the Great Book of Destiny. It clocks in at 72 pages, and includes:

• A discussion of the Destiny Mechanic in GURPS and how you can mess with its cost
• A system for “Creating Destiny,” the sort of thing an Akashic Witch might do, and will allow you to create “fights” over Destiny where people try to outmaneuver one another to control the future. This includes “magical modifiers” and a new “Hours” system, and tie-ins with the Paths of Communion.
• 32 pre-defined Destiny templates, everything from Trivial to Greater Destinies, both advantageous and disadvantageous.

Woah, $1?

Chances are, if you’re one of my $1 Patrons, you’ve gone a long time without a special, and I think you deserve something. It’s also broadly useful. and my policy is to release the broadly useful ones to all of my patrons. Yes, I’ve written it from the perspective of Psi-Wars, but it’s pretty easy to scratch out those references and use it for your fantasy or modern campaign.

In the future, I might pull it down. I’d certainly like to give it some art and perhaps some cross-references. One of my original intentions was also to look at the details of the symbols and fortune-telling practices of the various groups and races of the Psi-Wars galaxy, but that had to be parked to get this done. If I get all of that, I might re-release a deluxe version at a higher “price point.” We’ll see. It depends on the sort of feedback I get.

In any case, as usual, I want to thank you for your support! And Merry Christmas! And I hope you enjoy the book! Let me know what you thought.

This special is available to all of my Dreamers ($1+).  If you're not a patron but interested, you can have it for $1 (and get access to all the other specials). If you want it, but don't want to subscribe, get in touch with me and we can work something out.  Just get in touch with me (mailanka (dot) musing (at) gmail (dot) com), or join my Discord Server.

• The Great Book of Destiny (Subscribestar)
• The Great Book of Destiny (Patreon)