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Last year, in a Vanor and Dungeon World Facebook group discussion, Eran Aviram raised a question that stuck with me: what if we “upgraded” Vanor? The reasoning was simple – Dungeon World, Vanor’s foundation, is over a decade old. PbtA games have come a long way since then. Modern titles are considerably more refined than what was possible ten years ago. Seeing that evolution made it hard to ignore the gap between Vanor and where the genre had gone.
Patchwork past, promising future
Vanor as a commercial product turns ten this year, but the setting itself goes back to my initial creations in 2002. That history has real weight. Some of it holds up – the familiar orcs and goblins, the internal logic of the world. Other parts feel arbitrary now, like the limitation of exactly five dragons. And certain elements, like the Magitech dwarven empire built on the old “Pundak” forums, carry a collaborative history I don’t want to erase.
But comparing this accumulated, patched-together approach to a tightly designed modern PbtA game like Masks: A New Generation makes the difference obvious. That contrast is what motivated a dual goal: refine the rules and build a setting with more coherent internal logic from the start.
Beyond the D&D mirage
Most fantasy RPGs, including D&D, struggle with internal consistency. Magic item economics are often nonsensical, and the existence of adventurers as a profession rarely makes sense within the world. Some games tackle this directly – 4th edition D&D, Torchbearer, and Dungeon Crawl Classics all try in different ways. I wanted to do the same with my next project.
Godflesh rises
That push for internal logic wasn’t a solitary effort. Discussions with Eran, drawing on Dark Souls, Elden Ring, and Pillars of Eternity, eventually produced “Godflesh: Cycle of Inheritance.”
In Godflesh: Cycle of Inheritance, divinity is a brutal truth. Gods aren’t celestial beings – they’re monstrous transformations mortals undergo upon ascension. These grotesque entities rule over vast territories, dictating weather and events within their domains. Entire countries operate under their influence. But gods are mortal too. When they die, their domain collapses into wild, untamed wasteland.
These wastelands are both dangerous and irresistible. They’re littered with the remnants of past civilisations and the decaying bodies of fallen gods. That “godflesh” is the coveted prize – it holds the key to ascension, allowing mortals to challenge existing gods and potentially become deities themselves. The bones and tendons also provide raw materials for powerful magic items and alchemical concoctions.
Building a world together
Building a compelling world is a collaborative effort. Rather than doing it alone, I brought in my gaming group. We played “Microscope,” a game that builds worlds through shared narrative. Through that process, Godflesh developed some genuinely distinctive traits.
One is the world’s deep hostility to literacy. Reading and writing are forbidden for common people and reserved solely for the high priests of deities. Learning to read carries a death sentence. Tied to this is a taboo against eating meat – consuming it is symbolic of usurping a god’s power, which makes it culturally off-limits.
The world of Godflesh also lacks advanced technology – even Renaissance-era firearms are absent. Some of this comes from games like “Tyranny,” where a domineering overlord restricts technological advancement. In our case, the cyclical rise and fall of civilisations, combined with the taboo on written knowledge, creates a natural barrier to progress. Things get lost. They don’t get rebuilt.
Tailoring the system to Godflesh
Next week, my gaming group starts a Godflesh campaign using the recently released Demigods rulebook. The game has excellent character creation (Playbooks) and useful advice on player group management, but the core system has missing rules and uneven execution.
Despite that, Demigods gives us a foundation to work from. Characters inheriting god-like powers fits Godflesh’s thematic core. The “magical realism” setting doesn’t – it clashes with the grim-dark atmosphere we’re building. But we can fix that.
We’ve already started adapting Demigods. That means cutting abilities that contradict the world’s limitations, like teleportation, and rewriting the “How to Play” section to reflect Godflesh’s specific mechanics.
Demigods is the starting point, but the deeper inspiration comes from PbtA itself. Dungeon World’s core mechanics provide a framework for replicating a D&D-like experience within Godflesh’s logic. I’m also drawing from Monsterhearts, Masks, Urban Shadows, and Root.
I won’t be creating a pre-defined map. Instead, I’ll use an online generator to build a Mediterranean-inspired base map – matching Godflesh’s classical-age themes and leaving room for expansion. Players will shape their characters’ origins: which god they descend from, which domain they come from. The playtest campaign is the first step toward refining Godflesh into something people can actually sit down and play.