God-Killer Prophecy: Oracle Edition

What is God-Killer Prophecy?

A high-fantasy epic that you play in a single session. A GM-full, map-drawing RPG with strategic card driven play. Will you defeat the Dark God?

God-Killer Prophecy is a one-shot collaborative RPG played against the escalating threat of the Dark God—represented by a deck of playing cards. As you play, you forge a world with your friends; illustrating your journey on chapter cards as you move towards the prophesied confrontation between the Chosen One (one of the players) and the Dark God.

The game uses two decks of standard playing cards; one for the Dark God and one for the heroes. As you progress through the chapters, the Dark God's deck becomes more difficult, and the players try to get their best cards to the Chosen One for the final confrontation.

God-Killer Prophecy is a high fantasy 4 book epic condensed into a 4 hour game session. It is a story-game with teeth.

What You Get and Timeline

God-Killer Prophecy is a thoroughly play-tested and revised RPG. You can get it in printed zine format (8.5x5.5) or PDF. (All print copies include a PDF.)

A PDF of the Art-less version of the game is available immediately to all backers. 

Replayability: You may not win your first quest to slay a god . . . There are also 13 companion concepts and multiple chosen one concepts. For a one-shot RPG this is highly replayable.

You can also include a copy of the variant game Star-Killer Rebellion. See below. 

The game is in final editing and layout. There are no fancy stretch goals to delay things. We expect to ship at the end of November; all so you can slay a god sooner.

Who Do You Play As?

While each God-Killer Prophecy game is unique built from all players contributions, it's foundation is an archetypal story. Some of the 13 companion characters in God-Killer Prophecy are: 

The Soothsayer — You know and can only speak the truth—what is true, but not what will be true. Sometimes your tongue is not your own.

The Worn-out Archmage — Your magic is nearly spent. It has availed you not against the Dark God’s power. The only hope is the prophecy of the Chosen One.

The Crown-less King — You gave up your right to the crown. Very few know why. 

Your chosen one could be an ordinary person, a royal, a warrior, or a wizard. Any might have the blood of the gods...

Concept: A Chosen One, A Dark God, A Journey

In the prologue, you use playing cards to create a prophecy, and then answer questions to create the the Dark God, the Chosen One and his companions.

For each of the 6 Chapters, you rotate through two major phases: the Auguries Phase and the Adventure Phase. A different player assumes the Oracle role each chapter and asks questions and describes the challenges you face.

THE ORACLE EDITION

The Augury Edition of God-Killer Prophecy was released in November 2023. The Oracle Edition enhances the experience, incorporating refinements from player feedback, clarifying procedures and adding variant options. These enhancements join with new layout, cover and interior art to make the Oracle Edition a truly refined god-slaying experience. 

While God-Killer Prophecy is explicitly designed for play with 3-6 players, a variant option to play with two players (neither play the Chosen One, instead it is a shared open-hand of cards) is included in the Oracle Edition.

Some other links, details and info, particularly on the original Augury Edition, is at https://composedreamgames.com/pages/god-killer-prophecy.php

Backers immediately receive access to a PDF of the Oracle Edition Preview, which is much of the text of the new Oracle edition, without the layout and art.

INSPIRATIONS

God-Killer Prophecy was inspired by a myriad of stories in which a prophecy leads a Chosen One to go on an almost hopeless quest to overcome an evil god or Dark Lord.

Key fiction inspirations were the Belgariad series (David Eddings), the Sword of Shannara series (Terry Brooks) and The Dark is Rising Sequence (Susan Cooper).

Game design inspirations include Palanquin (Genesis of Legend Publishing), Vanagard (Pendelhaven Publishing) and The Quiet Year (Buried Without Ceremony).

MECHANICS (THE TEETH) & STORY

God-Killer Prophecy mixes story-game style prompts with strategic game-play.

Story and World Forging 

You create the world, the Dark God and each of the six chapters using question prompts to guide you and synthesize the groups ideas. See the Oracle Procedure sheet (one page PDF) for further details. 

Each chapter encourages you to illustrate something about the location and people you visit. Rough sketches are typical, skilled drawing is not required. An example gameplay spread is below. 
 

Strategic Play (Teeth)

Challenges and the final confrontation rely on strategic co-operative gameplay. The heroes' deck is dealt out evenly between all players (with some special cards set aside). For each chapter, at least two challenges are faced by the players, with only two players able to play cards to face the challenge. When a challenge is failed, a setback occurs, meaning the players must face a new challenge.

The Dark God keeps his best card from each challenge, and his cards explode (causing an additional card to be added to the challenge) if the card is equal or lower than the current chapter number. This increasing difficulty ratchets up the tension as the heroes cards dwindle and the final confrontation approaches. 

STAR-KILLER REBELLION - Optional Add on

Since Joshua is always tinkering, you can add a copy of the standalone hack of God-Killler Prophecy, Star-Killer Rebellion. This game flips some of the GKP's procedures to support a unified group with disparate backgrounds fighting against impossible odds.

Star-Killer Rebellion sets a group of reluctant allies against a super-weapon and the foe that controls it.

There is no prophecy in Star-Killer Rebellion. Instead, there is the plan. The mechanics also change so all heroes take part in the final battle against the super-weapon (rather than just the Chosen One). 

Star-Killer Rebellion is oriented towards political intrigue, espionage and warfare among the stars.  

Include this as a backer if you enjoy a bare bones game document, at a partially experimental stage. Don't include it if you'd prefer to wait for the final version of Star-Killer Rebellion. 

FORM FACTOR & CONTENTS

God-Killer Prophecy: Oracle Edition is a ~36 page zine (8.5 x 5.5), with a colour cover, and black-and-white interior. 

It includes multiple black-and-white illustrations, an extended example of play and variant prophecy tables. 

Star-Killer Rebellion: Alpha Flight is a bare bones ~16 page black-n-white zine. All the rules you need are included, but with more limited examples. Simple illustrations of how to play are included, but no true art pieces.  
 

TEAM

Joshua John Kitz: Game Designer and Author
Joshua is the designer of Simple Superheroes, Monsters Unleashed, Fabrication: A Game that Makes Games, and head honcho of the Compose Dream Games RPG Marketplace. Compose Dream distributes and sells indie RPGs (including PDFs) in Canada and the UK. 
Joshua lives in Ottawa, Canada, when he isn't traveling for game conventions. 

Timothy Kitz: Editing and Layout 
Timothy was the long-time editor of The Leveller, a community and campus newspaper, and The Canadian Friend, the magazine of Canadian Quakers, where he also did layout and ran the website. As a freelance editor, he has edited novels, picture books, academic articles, history books, game manuals, short stories, self-help books, legal transcriptions, medical translations, band biographies, and other forgotten things. He's recorded and done all the art and layout for his band, Wychwood. 
He's been the editor on all of Compose Dream Games projects.

Eric Palermo: Cover and Interior Art
Eric played in two early games of God-Killer Prophecy with Joshua at Phantasm in Peterborough and Breakout Con in Toronto. He used those experiences to provide art for the Oracle Edition of the game.
Eric has worked professionally in animation for a decade. His art graced some of the pages of Fight to Survive: Martial Arts Meets Heart. He loves indie RPGs and hails from Port Perry, Ontario. 

DISTRIBUTION, PRINTING & FULFILLMENT

Compose Dream Games fulfills crowdfunders for other publishers from both their Canadian and British warehouses, on top of distributing 500+ indie RPG titles.

You are in experienced hands. 

UK and EU backers will be fulfilled by our UK warehouse, while Canada and Rest of World will be fulfilled by our Canadian warehouse. 
Printing will occur in Canada and the UK. 
PDFs are provided through Compose Dream Games platform.

 A Word on Special Reward Tiers

The Prophet reward tier harkens back to the original hand-drawn covers of God-Killer Prophecy by giving you something hand written. Variant prophecy options written in pen in your book by Kitz. These are limited, and each will be completely unique.

The Compose Dream Games supporter tier is for those who wish to support the CDG Marketplace mission: getting indie games into the hands of gamers in Canada and the UK, supplying and working with local game stores, promoting our publishers at conventions, and working in the appropriate currency!
A little extra support to help improve the websites for all is much appreciated. You will be asked whether you want your Reward Points (redeemable towards any of ~400 PDFs) on our Canadian or British platform.

Why we need your help

It takes time and expertise to make a good RPG. It takes time and expertise to make good art.

While art, layout and editing have already been paid, helping us recoup those costs now helps us to keep developing more games. And helps to fund printing the books. 

Thanks for the support, and thanks for sharing.