…And when I looked up from the grindstone, my nose bloody and raw, I realized that one my products had escaped into the wild. Anointed: Mantle of the Gods was bounding across the lush plains of the Internet and peering up at readers with its wide, innocent eyes. Okay, maybe not so innocent (there’s murder behind those baby blues), but it’s on the loose and looking for readers.
Anointed is a tabletop roleplaying game. In the game, players take on the roles of bronze-age heroes in a setting where humanity is the youngest and weakest in a world of fantasy races. The friendly elder races pity or ignore the humans, while the more hostile ones hunt them for food and slaves. It’s a tough world for humans, but they have the gods on their side.
Heroes in Anointed have been touched by those gods. They are blessed with supernatural abilities and charged with helping protect, nurture, and lead their tribes through a world that mostly wants them dead. This task is even more challenging than it may appear at first, since the players’ tribes are competing not only against other races (and their gods), but against other, hostile human tribes as well — tribes with their own gods, agendas, and heroes.
The world of Anointed (and its sister game, New Gods of Mankind), is the brainchild of Richard Leon, publisher and founder of Dark Skull Studios. I worked with Richard on New Gods a few years ago, so when he needed a designer to help create a new game system that worked on a human scale, he dropped me a line and I jumped at the chance. Tabletop RPGs are my first love, but it seems I rarely get to work on them these days.
One of the coolest bits of design in Anointed is the powers system, which lets players create the supernatural abilities that their gods have given their heroes. Yes, there’s a big list of powers to choose from, but the system for creating those powers is written out right next to it, so you can create your own powers from scratch if you like.
Anointed: Mantle of the Gods is available now from DriveThruRPG and Amazon. Check it out! If you like what you see, leave a review and spread the word.
