TEXT: A WORLD OF 
  ADVENTURE FOR
  Chris Longhurst
  GODS AND 
  MONSTERS
  
  This adventure was made awesome thanks to our Patreon patrons at patreon.com/evilhat—thanks guys!
   
  INSIDERS
  Alan Bartholet
  Alexander Keane
  Alexander R. 
  Corbett
  Andrew Sier
  Anne-Sylvie 
  Betsch
  Antero Garcia
  Arlo B Evans
  Brett Abbott
  brian allred
  Brian Chase
  C. J. Hunter
  C.K. Lee
  Cerity
  Charlton Wilbur
  Chris
  Christian 
  Svalander
  Christopher 
  Gunning
  Christopher 
  Stilson
  Dan Moody
  Daniel
  Daniel Gallant
  Daniel Linder 
  Krauklis
  David Dorward
  David E Ferrell
  David Ellis
  David L Kinney
  David Reed
  Demian Buckle
  Dustin Evermore
  Edgardo A 
  Montes 
  Rosa
  Edward 
  MacGregor
  eneko zarauz
  Eric Bontz
  Eric Willisson
  Frank
  Frédéri POCHARD
  Garrett Rooney
  Gavran
  Glenn Mochon
  Graham Wills
  Griffin Mitchell
  Haakon 
  Thunestvedt
  Harry Lewis
  James F 
  Thunberg
  Jamie Smith
  Jason
  Jason Blalock
  Jason Cotton
  Jason F Broadley
  Jeff Chaffee
  Jeff Craig
  Jeremiah McCoy
  Jeremy DeVore
  Jeremy Tidwell
  Jim Hart
  Jim Nicholson
  Jin Shei
  Joakim
  Johannes K. 
  Rasmussen
  John Beattie
  John Black
  John Rogers
  John Rudd
  John Wyatt
  Jon
  Jon-Pierre Gentil
  Jordan Dennis
  Juanma 
  Barranquero
  Katie Berger 
  Tremaine
  Katie Ramsey
  Keith Stanley
  Ken
  Ken Ditto
  Ken Jelinek
  Kenji Ikiryo
  Kieren Martin
  Laura
  LeSquide
  LilFluff
  Luke Green
  MAINGUET 
  Francois
  Marc Mundet
  Mark
  Marty Chodorek
  Matt and Nykki 
  Boersma
  Matt Anderson
  Matthew 
  Broome
  Matthew Dickson
  Matthew Orwig
  Matthew 
  Whiteacre
  Micah Davis
  Michael Bowman
  Michael Cambata
  Michael Green
  Michael 
  Pedersen
  Mitchell Evans
  Morgan Ellis
  Nick
  Nick Bate
  Nick Reale
  Nicola Urbinati
  Nicolas 
  Marjanovic
  Osye Pritchett
  Pablo Martínez 
  Merino
  Patrick Ewing
  Patrick 
  Mueller-Best
  Paul Shawley
  Paulo Rafael 
  Guariglia 
  Escanhoela
  Pavel Zhukov
  peter burczyk
  Peter Gates
  Philip Nicholls
  Randy Oest
  Richard 
  Bellingham
  Richard Ruane
  Rick
  Rick Jakins
  Robert Hanz
  Robert Kemp
  Rod Meek
  Roger Edge
  Ryan Singer
  Sanchit
  Sarah Vakos
  Scott Hamilton
  Sean
  Sean O’Dell
  Sean Smith
  Selene O’Rourke
  Stephen Rider
  Thom Terrific
  Tim L Nutting
  Timothy Carroll
  Troy Ray
  Tyler Hunt
  Will Goring
  William J. White
  William Lee
  William McDuff
  Woodrow Jarvis 
  Hill
  Zach
   
  ADVENTURERS
  Adam 
  Gutschenritter
  Adam M. Coleman
  Adam Makey
  Al Billings
  Alan Hernández 
  Rodríguez
  Alan Phillips
  Alan Timothy 
  Rogers
  Alan Twigg
  Alex Norris
  Alexander
  Alexander Gräfe
  Alexander Permann
  Alexis Lee
  Alistair
  Allan Bray
  Alloyed
  Andrew Betts
  Andrew Dacey
  Andrew Grant
  Andrew Loch
  Andy Arminio
  Angus MacDonald
  Anthony Popowski
  Anthony Wright
  Antoine Pempie
  Arlene Medder
  ArthurDent
  athalbert
  Aviv
  B. Bredthauer
  Barac Wiley
  Bastien Daugas
  beket
  Ben Howard
  Benjamin Cush
  Benjamin Wandio
  Benjamin Welke
  Bill
  Björn Steffen
  Blake Hutchins
  Bo Bertelsen
  Bo Madsen
  Bob
  Bob Hiestand
  Brad Davies
  Brad Robins
  Bradley Eng-Kohn
  Brandon Metcalf
  Brandon Wiley
  Brandt Bjornsen
  Brendan Clougherty
  Brendan Conway
  Brent Ritch
  Brett Ritter
  Brian Bentley
  Brian Creswick
  Brian Koehler
  Brian Kurtz
  Brian S. Holt
  Bruno Pereira
  Bryan
  Bryan Gillispie
  Bryan Hilburn
  Bryce Perry
  Caleb Figgers
  Carl McLaughlin
  Carl-William
  Carlos Martín
  Charles Evans
  Charles Kirk
  Chip Dunning
  Chirag
  Chris Caporaso
  Chris Heilman
  Chris Jourdier
  Chris Kurts
  Chris Lock
  Chris Mitchell
  Chris Nolen
  Christian Lajoie
  Christoph Thill
  Christopher Allen
  Christopher Nobles
  Christopher Smith 
  Adair
  Christopher W. 
  Dolunt
  Chuck
  Cody Marbach
  Cole Busse
  Colin
  Colin Matter
  Craig Andera
  Craig Mason
  Craig Wright
  Curt Meyer
  Cyrano Jones
  Dain
  Dan Behlings
  Daniel Byrne
  Daniel Chapman
  daniel hagglund
  Daniel Kraemer
  Daniel Ley
  Daniel M Perez
  Daniel Maberry
  Daniel Markwig
  Daniel Taylor
  Daniele Galli
  Darren Lute
  Dave
  Dave Joria
  David
  David Bellinger
  David Bowers
  David 
  Buswell-Wible
  David Fergman
  David Goodwin
  David Griffith
  David Maple
  David Millians
  David Morrison
  David Olson
  David Rezak
  David S
  David Silberstein
  David Stern
  Davide Orlandi
  Declan Feeney
  Denis Ryan
  Derek Mayne
  Devon Apple
  Dianne
  Didier Bretin
  Dillard
  Dirk Methner
  Don Arnold
  Don Bisdorf
  Doug Blakeslee
  Doyce Testerman
  Drew Shiel
  Duane Cathey
  Duncan
  Dylan Sinnott
  Earl Butler
  Eben Lindsey
  Ebenezer Arvigenius
  Edgar Schmidt
  Edward Sturges
  Eirch Mascariatu
  Elsa S. Henry
  Elsidar 
  Amhransidhe
  Emmanuel
  Enrique Esturillo 
  Cano
  Eric I
  Eric Poulton
  Eric Steen
  Erich Lichnock
  Erik
  Erik Ingersen
  Ernie Sawyer
  Etienne Olieu
  Ezekiel Norton
  Fábio Emilio Costa
  Fabrice Breau
  FelTK
  Florent Poulpy 
  Cadio
  Florian Greß
  Francisco Castillo
  Frank
  Frank Beaver
  Frank G. Pitt
  Frank Jarome
  Frédérick Périgord
  Gabriel Whitehead
  Galen Pejeau
  Garrett
  Garrett Jones
  Gary Anastasio
  Genevieve
  Geoff
  Geoffrey
  Gian Domenico 
  Facchini
  Glynn Stewart
  Gozuja
  Graham Meinert
  Greg Matyola
  Gregg Workman
  Gregory Fisher
  Gregory Hirsch
  Gustavo Campanelli
  Hans Messersmith
  Heather
  Herman Duyker
  HFB
  Hillary Brannon
  Howard M 
  Thompson
  Ian Charlton
  Ian Noble
  Indi Latrani
  Irene Strauss
  Isaac Carroll
  Ismael
  Istrian Gray
  J. Brandon 
  Massengill
  Jack Gulick
  Jackson Hsieh
  Jacob
  Jake Linford
  Jake Rides Again
  Jakob Hallberg
  James
  James Boldock
  James Endicott
  James Husum
  James Marston
  James Rouse
  James Schultz
  James Stuart
  James Winfield
  Jamie Wheeler
  Jan Stals
  Janet
  Jared Hunt
  Jason
  Jason Bean
  Jason Best
  Jason Heredia
  Jason Lee Waltman
  Jason Mill
  Jason Pasch
  Jason Tocci
  Javier Gaspoz
  Jayna Pavlin
  Jean-François 
  Robillard
  Jeff Vincent
  Jeffrey Boman
  Jeffrey Collyer
  Jens
  Jens Alfke
  Jere Krischel
  Jeremy
  Jeremy Glick
  Jeremy Hamaker
  Jeremy Kear
  Jeremy Kostiew
  Jeremy Wong
  Jerico Johnston
  JF Paradis
  Joanna
  Joe
  Joe.D
  Joel Beally
  Joel Beebe
  Johannes 
  Oppermann
  John
  John Bogart
  John Buczek
  John Clayton
  John Fiala
  John Halsey
  John Hawkins
  John Hildebrand
  John Lambert
  John Petritis
  John Portley
  John Taber
  John Tobin
  John William 
  McDonald
  Johnathan Wright
  Jon Rosebaugh
  Jon Smejkal
  Jonas Matser
  Jonas Richter
  Jonathan
  Jonathan Dietrich
  Jonathan Finke
  Jonathan Hobbs
  Jonathan Korman
  Jonathan Perrine
  Jonathan Rose
  Jonathan Young
  Jordan Deal
  Jose A.
  Joseph Formoso
  Josh Rensch
  Joshua
  Joshua Ramsey
  Joshua Reubens
  JP
  Juan Francisco 
  Gutierrez
  Julianna Backer
  Julien Delabre
  Jürgen Rudolph
  Justin Beeh
  Justin Hall
  Justin Thomason
  Kaarchin
  Karl Maurer
  Kenny Snow
  Kent Snyen
  Kevin Flynn
  Kevin Li
  Kevin Lindgren
  Kevin McDermott
  KevIn oreilly
  Kevin Veale
  Kris Vanhoyland
  Krista
  Krzysztof Chyla
  Kurt Zdanio
  Kyle
  Larry Hollis
  Leif Erik Furmyr
  Leonardo Paixao
  Lester Ward
  Lisa Hartjes
  Lisa M
  Lobo
  Loren Norman
  Lowell Francis
  Luca Agosto
  Lucas Bell
  Lukar
  M Kenny
  M. Alan Thomas II
  m.h.
  Manfred
  Marc
  Marc Kevin Hall
  Marc Margelli
  Marcel Lotz
  Marcel Wittram
  Marcus
  Mario Dongu
  Marius
  Mark
  Mark A. Schmidt
  Mark Diaz Truman
  Mark Harris
  Mark Mealman
  Mark Widner
  Markus Haberstock
  Markus Schoenlau
  Markus Wagner
  Marley Griffin
  Martin Cumming
  Martin Deppe
  Martin Terrier
  Mason
  Mathias Exner
  Matt Clay
  Matt Landis
  Matthew J. Hanson
  Matthew Miller
  Matthew Price
  Matthew Whalley
  Matti Rintala
  Max
  Max Kaehn
  Mel White
  Michael
  Michael Barrett
  Michael Bradford
  Michael Brewer
  Michael D. 
  Blanchard
  Michael D. Ranalli Jr.
  Michael Hill
  Michael Hopcroft
  Michael McCully
  Michael Shumate
  Michael Thompson
  Mighty Meep
  Miguel
  Mike de Jong
  Mike Devonald
  Mike Vermont
  Mikey
  Misdirected Mark 
  Productions
  Mishy Stellar
  Mitch Christov
  Mitchell Smallman
  Mook
  Nat
  Nathan Barnes
  Nathan Reed
  NekoIncardine
  Nessalantha
  Nicholas Pilon
  Nicholas Sokeland
  Nikke
  Noel Warford
  Olav Müller
  Oliver Scholes
  Olivier Nisole
  Orion Cooper
  Owen Duffy
  Owen Thompson
  Pablo Palacios
  paolo castelli
  Patrice Hédé
  Patrice Mermoud
  Patrick Gamblin
  Paul
  Paul Arezina
  Paul Bendall
  Paul Olson
  Paul Rivers
  Paul Stefko
  Paul Yurgin
  Pete
  Peter Griffith
  Peter Hatch
  Peter Kahle
  Peter Woodworth
  Phil Groff
  Philippe Marichal
  Philippe Saner
  Phillip Webb
  Piers Beckley
  PK
  Porter Williams
  Purple Duck Games
  R R Clark
  R. Brian Scott
  Rachael Hixon
  Ralf Wagner
  Ralph Miller
  Randall Orndorff
  Raun Sedlock
  Raymond Toghill
  Red Dice Diaries
  Remy Sanchez
  Renzo Crispieri
  Richard Greene
  Richard Lock
  Richard Warren
  Riggah
  Rishi
  Rob Voss
  Robb Neumann
  Robert Bersch
  Robert Biskin
  Robert Daines
  Robert Huss
  Robert Rees
  Robert Rydlo
  Robert Zasso
  Rocco Pier Luigi
  Rodrigo
  Roger Carbol
  Ron Blessing
  Ron Müller
  RoninKelt
  Roy
  Ruben 
  Smith-Zempel
  Ryan C. Christiansen
  Ryan D. Kruse
  Ryan Gigliotti
  Ryan Lee
  Ryan Olson
  Samuel Hart
  Samuel 
  Steinbock-Pratt
  Samwise Crider
  Sarah Williams
  Sasha
  Schubacca
  Scot Ryder
  Scott Acker
  Scott Dexter
  Scott Diehl
  Scott Greenleaf
  Scott Martin
  Scott Puckett
  Scott Thede
  Scott Underwood
  Scott Wachter
  Sean M. Dunstan
  Sean Smith
  Seth Clayton
  Seth Hartley
  Shadowmyre Kalyn
  Shai Laric
  Sharif Abed
  Shawn Fike
  Simon Browne
  Simon Brunning
  Simon White
  Simon Withers
  Sion Rodriguez y 
  Gibson
  Sławomir Wrzesień
  Sophie Lagace
  Spencer Williams
  Stefan Feltmann
  Stefan Livingstone 
  Shirley
  Stephan
  Stephan A. Terre
  Stephanie Bryant 
  (Mortaine)
  Stephen Figgins
  Stephen Holder
  Stephen Hood
  Stephen Waugh
  Steve Discont
  Steve Gilman
  Steve Kunec
  Steve Radabaugh
  Steven Code
  Steven D Warble
  Steven desJardins
  Steven K. Watkins
  Steven Markley
  Steven sims
  Stuart Dollar
  Svend Andersen
  Teresa O
  Terry Willitts
  Tevel Drinkwater
  The Roach
  Thomas
  Thomas Balls-Thies
  Thomas Erskine
  Thomas Maund
  Thomas Ryan
  Thomas Wilkinson
  Tim
  Tim Popelier
  Timo
  Timothy Seiger
  Todd Estabrook
  Todd Grotenhuis
  Tony Ewing
  Torolf de Merriba
  Travis
  Travis B.
  Trevor Crosse
  Tyson Monagle
  Udo Femi
  Urs Blumentritt
  Victor Allen
  Ville Lavonius
  Vincent Arebalo
  Vladimir Filipović
  Volker Mantel
  Warren P Nelson
  Wayne Peacock
  Wes Fournier
  William Chambers
  William Johnson
  WinterKnight
  Wulf
  Yonatan Munk
  Z Esgate
  Zeb Walker
  Zed Lopez
  
  GODS AND 
  MONSTERS
  A WORLD OF 
  ADVENTURE FOR
  WRITING & ADVENTURE DESIGN
  CHRIS LONGHURST
  DEVELOPMENT
  ROB DONOGHUE
  EDITING
  JOSHUA YEARSLEY
  PROJECT MANAGEMENT
  SEAN NITTNER
  ART DIRECTION
  MARISSA KELLY
  LAYOUT
  FRED HICKS
  INTERIOR & COVER  
  ARTWORK
  MANUEL CASTAÑÓN
  MARKETING
  CARRIE HARRIS
  BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
  CHRIS HANRAHAN
  
  An Evil Hat Productions Publication
  www.evilhat.com • feedback@evilhat.com
  @EvilHatOfficial on Twitter
  facebook.com/EvilHatProductions
  Gods and Monsters
  Copyright © 2015 Evil Hat Productions, LLC and Chris Longhurst.
  All rights reserved.
  First published in 2015 by Evil Hat Productions, LLC.
  10125 Colesville Rd #318, Silver Spring, MD 20901.
  Evil Hat Productions and the Evil Hat and Fate logos are trademarks 
  owned by Evil Hat Productions, LLC. All rights reserved.
  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a 
  retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, 
  electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, 
  without the prior express permission of the publisher. 
  That said, if you’re doing it for personal use, knock yourself 
  out. That’s not only allowed, we encourage you to do it.
  For those working at a copy shop and not at all sure if this means 
  the person standing at your counter can make copies of this thing, they can. 
  This is “express permission.” Carry on.
  This is a game where people make up stories about wonderful, 
  terrible, impossible, glorious things. All the characters and events 
  portrayed in this work are fictional. Any resemblance to real people, 
  ancient supernatural powers, gods, monsters, or primal creators 
  of the universe is purely coincidental, but kinda hilarious.
  
  CONTENTS
  Introduction ...................................................................................... 2
  The World .......................................................................................... 3
  Who You Are .....................................................................................4
  How Play Works ................................................................................ 5
  Time ..................................................................................................................5
  Creating the World ........................................................................... 6
  Regions ............................................................................................................6
  Sub-Regions...................................................................................................6
  Communities ..................................................................................................7
  A Basic World and Its Gods  ....................................................................9
  Characters.........................................................................................14
  Aspects .......................................................................................................... 15
  Stunts and Refresh ....................................................................................16
  The Divine Mantle ...................................................................................... 17
  Godly Power .................................................................................... 22
  Intention and Power ................................................................................ 23
  Stations ......................................................................................................... 25
  Boons ............................................................................................................. 27
  Geasa .............................................................................................................29
  Monsters...........................................................................................30
  Becoming a Monster ................................................................................30
  Monsters In Action  ................................................................................... 31
  Telling Your Tales, Changing the World ...................................... 32
  Changing and Creating Regions .........................................................34
  Changing Communities ..........................................................................36
  Changing Yourself ....................................................................................36
  Changing Your Mantle ............................................................................. 37
  Sample Monsters ........................................................................................41
  From the Depths of the Earth .......................................................44
  The Vanishing of the Light ....................................................................44
  Zarivya’s Golden Citadel ........................................................................47
  Passage to the Underworld ................................................................... 51
  The Gravegarden ........................................................................................ 51
  A New Sun ................................................................................................... 55
  Intention in 30 Seconds ................................................................ 57
  
  INTRODUCTION
  In the beginning was everything. A boiling, heaving mass of all that could be. 
  All-encompassing as it was, the everything contained a mind, and that mind 
  contained thoughts. It beheld part of everything and thought “that part is the 
  land,” and it was so. It considered a different part of infinite possibility and 
  thought “that is an ocean; that, a sky,” and they were so. In this way the mind 
  piece by piece comprehended and codified the chaos into the world of forms—it 
  was still everything, just more ordered than it had been before.
  And when the world was ordered the mind turned its attention on itself and 
  shattered into a thousand thousand pieces.
  This is the world of Gods and Monsters: a bright, clean place fresh from the cre-
  ator’s palette. The landscape resounds with majesty—plains sweep, mountains 
  tower, storms split the sky with elemental fury—and although humans have 
  advanced in great leaps and bounds, with their clever tools and their fire, they 
  still hide behind their walls at night. This is a wild world ruled by wild things, 
  and human dominance of the environment is a long way off.
  But humans are not the only things that think and walk upon the earth. There 
  are also the gods.
  Although they may pretend otherwise to mortals, the gods all know what they 
  are: scattered fragments of the chaos from before time, raw bundles of possibil-
  ity manifesting as humanlike minds in humanlike bodies. Their psyches rule 
  their forms, their shapes warping to match their demeanors, and the world is yet 
  young enough to mold itself to the whims and wills of these immortal beings.
  But despite all their power, even the gods know fear—the fear of losing con-
  trol, of losing themselves in the rush of their power and crossing the line from 
  god to monster. Once identity is lost, it does not return.
  2
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  THE WORLD
  The world of Gods and Monsters is untamed and primeval, and in a certain sense 
  allegorical—it’s the sort of world where the sun is a ball of nuclear fire, a golden 
  chariot, or just that thing where light comes from, depending on which story is 
  being told. The wild places of the world are just more than their modern equiva-
  lents: the mountains are more rugged, the forests are darker and more tangled, 
  the ocean is more capricious and full of sea monsters. Human civilization takes 
  the form of scattered villages or nomadic tribes, with the occasional town where 
  the population is dense enough to warrant one, working hard to push back the 
  boundaries of the wilderness and bring more of the world under their control.
  Technology varies from place to place. Bronze-working is common, and iron 
  is the cutting edge; settlements that trade in iron ore or worked iron goods find 
  wealth of all kinds flowing their way, and they are at the forefront of science 
  and engineering. Food comes mainly from small-scale agriculture, with farmers 
  both growing crops and raising domesticated animals, supplemented by hunt-
  ing. What little surplus food exists usually goes to feeding the local blacksmith, 
  if there is one, or to trading for iron goods or other necessities if there is not.
  Most trade is done through itinerant tinkers, who wander between villages 
  carrying news and various useful oddments, or at market if the seller is close 
  enough to the nearest town. Trade is done by barter, although in some larger 
  towns luxury items like jewelry circulate as a form of proto-coinage.
  THE TRUTH
  So is the sun a ball of nuclear fire, a golden chariot, a hard-working 
  beetle of apocalyptic size, the eye of the Creator, or what? 
  The answer depends on the needs of your game. The world of Gods 
  and Monsters is a vehicle for telling mythological stories, and the true 
  nature of things is important only as far as it affects the story being 
  told. Don’t worry about what the true nature of the sun is until someone 
  wants to steal the golden sky-chariot or visit the courts of fire that dwell 
  in the sky—and from then on, whatever you decide, that’s the truth in 
  your game.
  3
  GODS AND MONSTERS
  
  WHO YOU ARE
  In Gods and Monsters you play a god, a locus 
  of power that wears a form and walks the 
  world. You and the other player charac-
  ters will form a pantheon, a loose alliance 
  of gods across a particular part of the land. 
  You do not require the worship of mortals 
  to survive but they nevertheless embody a 
  useful resource and source of power, so you 
  will often bicker and skirmish with panthe-
  ons from other areas, who serve different 
  communities. 
  Gods in Gods and Monsters derive their 
  form from their self-identity, so this game 
  has room for almost any kind of deity you 
  can imagine: from “human strengths and 
  flaws, writ large” as inspired by Greek or 
  Viking mythology, to monstrous creatures 
  that humans placate rather than worship, to 
  beast-headed deities built out of all the pieces 
  left over from other gods, to alien creatures 
  who skirt the edge of what is comprehensi-
  ble by humans. The concept comes first, and 
  then the god bends reality to accommodate 
  that.
  You will perform mythic acts that leave the 
  world reshaped in your wake, inspiring sto-
  ries that will be told for thousands of years. 
  You are also changeable in turn, your form 
  and appearance shifting to better match the 
  expression of your power. Like a river, your 
  nature cuts a channel through which your 
  power flows. The more power you wield, the 
  deeper the channel becomes—your nature 
  turns more and more extreme—and the 
  deeper the channel becomes, the more power 
  you are able to wield. But there is a waterfall 
  in the path of this river: if you become too 
  powerful, your consciousness will become 
  unable to control the torrent. The river 
  will break its banks and your identity will 
  be obliterated in the flood, leaving behind 
  only a powerful and destructive expression 
  of your particular nature: a monster.
  4
  
  HOW PLAY WORKS
  Play in Gods and Monsters is separated into tales: 
  discrete stories featuring the same cast of characters. 
  Each tale tells the story of how a particular facet of the 
  world came to be—where carnivorous plants come 
  from, or how heaven was built, or why that mountain 
  is shaped like a skull—but because this is roleplaying 
  rather than storytelling, you don’t have to decide what 
  that is until the tale is over and you can look back on 
  what happened. 
  The world is separated into regions, which start out 
  as broad geographic areas but become split into an 
  increasing variety of sub-regions as gods exert their 
  power and change the world around them. With each 
  tale told in Gods and Monsters, the world changes: the 
  regions change and new sub-regions proliferate, they 
  will not only reflect the history of the characters, but 
  will also possess their own mythology explaining every 
  feature.
  Time
  The basic unit of mythic storytelling is the tale: the 
  complete story of how something came to be, from 
  the opening cause to the “...and that’s why...” explana-
  tion at its conclusion. In game terms, a tale lasts until 
  a major or significant milestone. Within a tale, time 
  tends to flex to suit the needs of the story. Impossible 
  actions like moving a mountain one boulder at a time 
  take “a long time,” but that time is measured in weeks 
  or months rather than the geological time scales it 
  would normally take; they’re remarkably quick under-
  takings for what they are. Conversely, when mythic 
  characters display their prowess, they often do so by 
  doing something normal—sword-fighting, running, 
  sleeping, carousing—for extreme lengths of time.
  Given these conventions, when describing mythic 
  actions and framing mythic scenes, remember that 
  an epic duel might go on for days, and counting the 
  grains of sand on a beach might take a whole year. 
  The time it takes to do something can still be adjusted 
  using the rules in Fate Core (page 197), just bear in 
  mind that the basic unit of time you’re dealing with 
  may be much larger or smaller than you would expect.
  5
  
  CREATING THE WORLD
  At the start of the game, the world of Gods and Monsters is a blank slate. You can 
  either use the default map provided on page 8 or sketch a new one with the 
  six basic regions. If anyone wants to add some additional details along the lines 
  of “here there be monsters,” go right ahead, but you don’t have to. As you create 
  your gods, you’ll add a few more details—places sacred to your gods and the 
  people who worship them—but you’ll come up with most of the fine details as 
  you play the game and tell the tales of your gods’ actions.
  At a minimum, your world starts with sub-regions equal to the number of 
  player characters, along with one community.
  Regions
  Regions begin as large, homogenous areas with either one or two aspects, but 
  no more: a concept and an optional refinement. These aspects can be invoked 
  by anyone within the region. During play, the gods can change these aspects, 
  creating sub-regions by adjusting the refinement, or even redefining the region 
  entirely by changing its concept.
  In the beginning, the regions are quite bland; this is intentional, as it provides 
  a blank slate for the players to scribble all over. Also, the list of regions we give 
  here is not exhaustive; make up your own during play to support the stories you 
  tell.
  If the world has responded to a character’s power once, it can be persuaded 
  to do so again. Each region has a regional stunt, which can be used only by 
  gods who have marked the region—see “Changing and Creating Regions” on 
  page 34 for more.
  If a region is changed beyond all recognition, such as if the Forest Primeval is 
  clear-cut, then the group should either amend the flavor of the regional stunt to 
  reflect the new state of things or create a new stunt to replace the old one.
  Sub-Regions
  Sub-regions are smaller areas within regions where conditions are broadly the 
  same but different in one or two particulars. A sub-region has the same concept 
  and regional stunt as its parent region, but a different refinement. If the parent 
  region doesn’t have a refinement, then when it gains a refinement, it can split off 
  into a sub-region. A region can have any number of sub-regions.
  GODS MOVE IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS
  Generally, your god—and all others—can go anywhere in the world 
  with minimal effort unless someone or something is actively trying 
  to block you. This someone might even be yourself, as long as your 
  god has an appropriate aspect to compel and there are interesting 
  consequences to failing to arrive on time.
  6
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  Communities
  As part of shaping the world around them characters will often interact with 
  communities: cohesive groups of people who can be led, manipulated or fought 
  as a unit. When a community acts as a whole or you need some approximate 
  stats for one of its members, use its community skills. Not all communities have 
  all skills; if one is missing, assume it is Mediocre (+0). The community skills are:
  • Culture covers the appeal of the community’s arts and “ambience” to 
  outsiders.
  • Integrity is used to resist the forces of change both internal and external. 
  • Subtlety reflects the level of skulduggery that the community engages in, 
  including spying, stealth, and theft.
  • Technology is the overall level of technical advancement. Technology 
  rarely begins at a rank higher than Average (+1), but it can change over 
  the course of the game.
  • Warfare covers how many soldiers the community can round up and 
  what level of training they have received. 
  • Wealth is self-explanatory: how rich does the community tend to be in 
  material possessions? However, it says nothing about how those riches 
  are distributed.
  Communities also have a stress track and a set of consequences, used to resist 
  raids, environmental destruction, depopulation by disease or misfortune, social 
  pressure to change their ways, or other forces of change. Some communities also 
  have stunts or other special powers, but these are rare.
  It’s important to note that, in Gods and Monsters, the PCs are powerful enough 
  to operate on the community scale if they want to; you can sway a town’s opin-
  ions with a single speech by rolling to overcome the community’s Integrity, or 
  you can fight an army by rolling to attack against their Warfare. Sometimes 
  you’ll scale down your interactions and deal with individual members of a com-
  munity, who will have their own skills and aspects, but if you want to work in 
  broad strokes, you can.
  Communities have the same aspects of the region or sub-region they lie within, 
  and each can gain a third aspect that reflects some unique trait. Most communi-
  ties won’t begin with this trait aspect—unless someone has a really good idea for 
  it—but time and the actions of the PCs are bound to change that. 
  7
  GODS AND MONSTERS
  
  Map Here
  Gods of the Ocean might be…
  • Creature from the 
  Abyssal Depths
  • Untamable
  • Keen-Eyed Explorer
  Gods of the Rugged Peaks might be…
  • Queen Under the Mountain
  • Something Precious, Well Hidden
  • Stone-Fleshed, Lava-Blooded
  Gods of the Sweeping Plains might be…
  • The Sky, Clothed in Flesh
  • King of All Herds
  • Mysterious Wanderer
  Gods of the Trackless Desert might be…
  • The One Who Comes Only at Night
  • Far-Wandering Storyteller
  • Living Sandstorm
  Gods of the First City might be…
  • Golden-Eyed Lord of Coin
  • The Disease That Walks
  • Relentless Futurist
  Gods of the Forest Primeval might be…
  • Primeval Hunter
  • Deep-Rooted, Strong-Branched
  • Red in Tooth and Claw
  
  A Basic World and Its Gods 
  The Forest Primeval
  The forest primeval is a place of massive, ancient trees and a shrouding canopy 
  that lets little light through. The gloom beneath the leaves throngs with life—
  everywhere there is birdsong and rustling in the thick undergrowth—but only 
  the bravest or most desperate hunters dare to ply their trade any deeper than the 
  fringes of the wood; the animals of the forest are quick, cunning, and more than 
  happy to supplement their diet with human flesh.
  The Forest Primeval
  Concept: Pre-Human Forest
  Refinement: Life In All Its Forms
  STUNTS
  Ancient Heart of the Forest: The heart of the forest is thick with 
  forgotten secrets, vine-wrapped and overgrown. Once per game ses-
  sion you can banish a secret here—something known by yourself 
  and no more than two others; when you do, the knowledge will 
  vanish from the world, buried amid the ancient roots of the forest 
  primeval. Normal investigation cannot uncover this knowledge, but 
  a suitable quest into the heart of the forest might be able to find it 
  and return it to the world.
  The Rugged Peaks
  The rugged peaks are mountains from the dawn of time—pure expressions of 
  the earth’s might, heaved up to unthinkable heights to make a forbidding land-
  scape of stone cliff faces, chasms, and steep slopes. The few people who live 
  among them are a hardy lot, used to dealing with the unforgiving environment 
  on a daily basis.
  The Rugged Peaks
  Concept: Falling Down Is Easy, Getting Up Is Hard
  STUNTS
  Proud and Unassailable: The peaks refuse to be conquered, and 
  any who challenge them leave their broken bodies littering the 
  mountainside. Once per session you can ignore all stress from one 
  attack—you are like the mountains, not to be moved by the actions 
  of your inferiors. However, if you then go on to concede the con-
  flict, or you are taken out, the GM will begin the next scene with 
  an additional fate point —in the harsh realm of the rugged peaks, 
  failure finds no mercy, and the mountains punish weakness by turn-
  ing the world against you.
  9
  GODS AND MONSTERS
  
  The Ocean
  The ocean is a trackless, bottomless wilderness where ship and sailors remain at 
  the mercy of the elements. Sea monsters the size of villages—of towns!—lurk in 
  the impossible depths, and ships roll in the waves like ants drowning in a glass 
  of water. But the bold and the insane continue to chase rumors of islands won-
  drous and enchanted out in the waters, where those brave and skillful may find 
  wealth, power, sorcery, or whatever else haunts their dreams.
  The Ocean
  Concept: Elemental Fury
  Refinement: Wonders and Terrors in Equal Measure
  STUNTS
  Terror from the Deep: Once per session you can call for a monster 
  from the deep to aid you. The exact intervention is up to the GM: 
  a thick tentacle might snatch an enemy off a ship’s deck; the island-
  turtle might shift in the water, shaking and crumbling a key part 
  of the arcane device which binds you. Whatever happens, it will 
  solve a short-term problem for you, but long-term you will still have 
  work to do: the snatched enemies will escape and swim to shore; 
  even with your bindings gone, you will still have to win your way 
  to freedom.
  The Trackless Desert
  The desert is the archetypal harsh environment, with its scorching heat, freez-
  ing cold, scarce food, and scarcer water. What life persists there is hostile 
  and dangerous; yet life does persist there, including humanity, searching for 
  something—wealth, enlightenment, or just the next meal—amid the baking 
  temperatures and choking dust.
  The Trackless Desert
  Concept: Unforgiving
  STUNTS
  Dust to Dust: Once per session you can vanish from the current scene 
  in a sudden howl of wind and stinging sand. Somewhere else a 
  sudden wind whips the dunes into a cloud—and there you are. This 
  power has no practical limit on range, but the destination must be 
  in the desert, and it can be defeated if your foes go to lengths to con-
  fine you somewhere from which a whirl of sand could not escape, 
  such as a cave with its mouth firmly boarded up.
  10
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  The Sweeping Plains
  They go by many names—steppe, taiga, veldt, savannah—and vary slightly in 
  the details, but the defining feature of the plains is that they are open. The grass-
  lands seem to stretch forever beneath a colossal sky, broken here and there by 
  trees or other plants, and it is home to thundering herds of wild horses, cattle, 
  and other creatures. Humanity thrives here too, building settlements from mud 
  bricks or stone blocks hewn from the earth, farming the fertile soil and taming 
  the local fauna. 
  The Sweeping Plains
  Concept: Wide Open
  STUNTS
  Majesty: Once per tale you can call on the majesty of the plains to give 
  another person a sense of their true place in the world. This person 
  gains a new purpose in life, a dream to follow which will lead to 
  new horizons and greater fulfillment. By itself this feeling of oneness 
  with the universe doesn’t have any mechanical effects, and the feel-
  ing will fade with time, but the subject may choose to change one of 
  their aspects to reflect what they carry forward from the experience.
  11
  GODS AND MONSTERS
  
  The First City
  In the fork where two rivers join to make a third, there sits the grandest achieve-
  ment of human civilization: the first city, where for the first time a select class 
  of people can rise above the everyday struggle to survive and style themselves as 
  rulers. Wealth flows here, driven by trade, and pools in the hands of those who 
  seize it. Following the wealth come the bright-eyed seekers from the outlying 
  villages, swelling the city’s population and squabbling over what resources they 
  can claim. The first city could become the template for a great civilization or a 
  disastrous footnote in history—you’ll find out which in the tales you tell.
  The First City
  Concept: Heaving With Humanity
  Refinement: The Start of Something Big
   The first city contains a minimum of three communities (page 7): 
  the poor working classes, who are numerous and disorganized; the 
  smaller merchant class, who have access to greater wealth and influ-
  ence; and the tiny ruling class, who have emerged from the merchant 
  class as the best and most ruthless, and who will in a few generations 
  become the first kings and queens.
  STUNTS
  Crowdsourcing: Once per session you can ask the city for an item 
  or piece of information that it possesses; by the end of the scene, 
  a series of coincidences will have brought that item or information 
  to you. If what you seek is rare, unique, long forgotten, or tightly 
  guarded, it will not be delivered to you directly; instead, the GM 
  will give you an opportunity to claim it. If what you seek does not 
  exist, you learn this instead.
  12
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  THE SECOND CITY?
  Far away, where the harsh mountains meet the harsher desert, a 
  second city takes shape—carved into rock faces and mountainsides 
  to escape the heat, home to a people hardened by hours beneath 
  the earth extracting rare minerals and precious gems, and to a 
  people seasoned by hours beneath the sun coaxing crops from the 
  barren soil.
  Or perhaps the second city rises in the thick woods of the south, 
  where the natural bounty of the forest fuels the growth of a civiliza-
  tion in harmony with nature—and just as hungry for meat. Maybe 
  the second city rises among the islands of the trackless oceans, a 
  floating metropolis of boats lashed together where life is cheap and 
  individual freedom is prized beyond measure.
  Whatever form the second city takes, and wherever it stands, its 
  purpose is to create conflict with the First City. It lets you tell tales 
  of war, over and above the tribal skirmishes the gods may be used 
  to, and presents a “mini-setting” within the greater whole where the 
  PCs can see how other gods have shaped the world in their wake.
  Of course, if you like the added complexity, you may find use in 
  third and fourth cities hiding in unexplored areas or beyond any of 
  the many natural barriers to exploration. A clash of warring panthe-
  ons might even be the perfect excuse to introduce a twilight of the 
  gods (page 21) if you’re ready to run the game toward its end.
  13
  GODS AND MONSTERS
  
  CHARACTERS
  Characters in Gods and Monsters are gods—pieces of the unformed chaos from 
  the time before creation, similar in many ways to humans but less limited in 
  their individual potential. They are creatures of volition more than flesh; their 
  bodies twist to match the spirits within, the world itself responds to their will, 
  and the limits of each god’s physical prowess are set more their own self-image 
  than by the petty physical laws that constrain everybody else. However, for all 
  their power, gods are just as susceptible to anger, foolishness, and general poor 
  decision-making as regular human beings. Throughout this book, we refer to 
  gods and player characters interchangeably.
  Moreover, gods face the constant threat of losing themselves and becoming 
  creatures of mindless instinct and fury—monsters so heavy with power that the 
  world around them warps to reflect their nature, the landscape blighted by their 
  simple presence. Possessing the powers of a god with little inclination to listen to 
  reason, a single monster can pose a significant threat to an entire region.
  THINKING MYTHIC
  When creating characters, bear in mind the nature of the 
  source material. Gods and demigods in myths and legends 
  tend to have overwhelming physical prowess, are no more 
  (or less) intelligent than an average human being, and 
  exhibit the emotional maturity of an angry six-year-old. 
  They make mistakes, give in to pride or anger, and follow 
  through on every course of action, no matter how poorly 
  judged, like a force of nature.
  They behave this way partly because mythic figures exist 
  to teach lessons—like “pride comes before a fall” or “punch-
  ing people only makes it worse”—and partly because bad 
  decisions make for more entertaining stories.
  Which is all a wordy way of encouraging you to embrace 
  the epic flaws and terrible decision-making common to 
  mythic stories when making your character. Be impulsive. 
  Get into trouble. Get elbow-deep in other people’s messes, 
  even if you think it’s a bad idea—especially if you think so! 
  It’s all true to genre; mythic stories and roleplaying games 
  alike thrive on misadventure and huge failures.
  14
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  Aspects
  Mythic characters, just like all other Fate characters, have a high concept and 
  a trouble. The high concept should reflect the god’s self-image—are you a 
  Thunder Goddess, a Thing of the Wild Places, or One Who Dances at the End 
  of Time? 
  A god’s trouble, on the other hand, might be anything. It could be something 
  as human as a Weakness for Alcohol, something slightly supernatural like being 
  Subject to Summoning, or the sort of thing that ties directly into the nature 
  of godly existence like being a Power Sink or having No Fine Control or an 
  Unstable Form. Whatever it is, make sure it can come back again and again to 
  make your life difficult.
  Next, make up three more aspects with the phase trio from Fate Core (page 
  38) with two small modifications. First, when telling the stories of your charac-
  ters’ previous adventures, think big. These are the stories of how gods founded 
  civilization, stole fire, killed an unkillable beast, or sealed the evil giants beneath 
  the earth.
  All of the PCs and many of the NPCs are part of the same pantheon: a collec-
  tion of gods who have developed pseudo-familial relationships. They cannot be 
  an actual family—their origins are nothing so biological—but if they choose to 
  see themselves as a family, then they will naturally begin to resemble one another 
  as their appearances adjust to match their ideations.
  The upshot of this for character generation is that it’s natural for a god to think 
  of the other gods as their brothers and sisters, parents, aunts, uncles, and so on. 
  The aspect Me Against My Sister, Me and My Sister Against Our Father is 
  perfectly okay despite your character not really having a sister or father.
  Approaches
  Gods use the six approaches from Fate Accelerated Edition, but here they have 
  different names to better suit the genre, and they are arranged into three oppos-
  ing pairs.
  • Bold covers the doing of deeds with great fanfare, and generally making 
  yourself the center of attention. It replaces the Flashy approach.
  • Subtle is the opposite partner to Bold; it encompasses hiding, sneaking, 
  subtle manipulation, and otherwise getting what you want by remaining 
  unnoticed. It replaces Sneaky.
  • Clever is the approach of quick thinking, fast talking, and improvisation. 
  It is the same as the usual Clever approach.
  • Mighty is the brute force approach, and the opposite of Clever. Whether 
  you’re lifting, pulling, throwing, or smashing, Mighty is the approach to 
  use. It replaces Forceful.
  • Wise is action that relies on planning, preparedness, and knowledge of 
  the world. It replaces Careful.
  • Swift is the opposed partner of Wise, and deals with physical speed and 
  precision. It replaces the Quick approach.
  15
  GODS AND MONSTERS
  
  Just like in Fate Accelerated, you choose one approach to be rated at Good (+3), 
  two at Fair (+2), two at Average (+1), and one at Mediocre (+0). Remember that 
  your character’s abilities—especially their physical abilities—are several notches 
  above those of mundane mortals. A scholarly god who only has a Mediocre rank 
  in Mighty can still swordfight an entire village at once with a decent chance of 
  success; she just won’t be the engine of destruction that a god with a Good rank 
  in Mighty would be.
  In each pair of approaches, one approach is ascendantõ and one is 
  subordinate. A god’s ascendant approaches are those that reinforce the god’s 
  mantle, the shell of identity they have constructed to hold their power. For 
  now, just mark the higher approach in each pair as ascendant, and the other as 
  subordinate. If the two approaches are rated the same, choose which you wish 
  to be ascendant. We’ll talk more about the divine mantle soon. 
  Stunts and Refresh
  Each god starts with 3 refresh and 3 free stunts. If you want to buy more stunts, 
  you can do so by spending refresh, as normal. When choosing stunts, think 
  about the epic scale and flavor of Gods and Monsters. Stunts that just give specific 
  +2 bonuses to rolls often don’t do justice to the world; usually the PCs are better 
  served by stunts which let you “make something true, do something cool, or 
  otherwise ignore the usual rules in some way” (Fate Accelerated, page 32). That’s 
  not to say that +2 bonuses don’t have their place, just that part of being a mythic 
  figure is being able to do things impossible for anyone else.
  Example Stunts
  • Because I can see the threads of destiny, once per session I can arrive in 
  a scene at a moment of great import, even if it would be impossible for 
  me to get there in time (or at all).
  • Because I have buried a portion of myself under the Rugged Peaks, once 
  per session I can bleed off excess intention into that region instead of my 
  immediate environs.
  • Because I am the inventor of archery, once per session I can turn one of 
  my missed ranged attacks into a 2-shift hit.
  • Because the blood in my veins is the blood of the earth, once per ses-
  sion when I take stress from a physical attack I can choose to spout lava 
  everywhere, adding an appropriate situation aspect.
  • Because I live in symbiotic union with a thorned vine, once per session I 
  can make a melee attack into an adjacent zone.
  • Because I am a god of war, I get a +2 bonus whenever a community 
  opposes my actions with Warfare.
  16
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  The Divine Mantle
  The gods are creatures made from leftover pieces of 
  the great primordial everything. This means that, 
  along with their great physical might and their abil-
  ity to attune portions of the world to their own 
  natures, their bodies warp to match the nature of the 
  mind that drives them—it was a spontaneously aris-
  ing mind that shaped the chaos into form, after all, 
  and in a similar fashion the gods too are shaped by 
  their own thoughts.
  But this kind of fluid existence is untenable. A god 
  needs a touchstone, an anchor to hold their self steady 
  against the whims and urges that threaten to rewrite 
  their identity with every fleeting thought. This is 
  their mantle: a loose shell of ideals and concepts that 
  contains and channels the torrent of their conscious-
  ness, acting both as a bulwark for their identity and a 
  source of power tied to that identity. A god’s mantle 
  is a blending of self-image, the beliefs of mortals, and 
  the nature of the world. A dedicated god can manage 
  all of these elements and become exactly what they 
  wish to be, but most drift among the range of iden-
  tities encompassed by their mantle as their actions 
  shape themselves and the world around them.
  In game terms, a god’s mantle is a combination of 
  their identity, the powers they wield, their link to the 
  land, and their connection to the people of the world. 
  A mantle offers boons but also comes with a geas—a 
  limitation that comes with the god’s adopted identity. 
  As a god uses their approaches, they generate a 
  weight of intention, which can cause their aspects—
  their physical and mental selves—to flex, in order to 
  reflect their new outlook. And just as a river flowing 
  in its course becomes deeper, faster, and stronger, a 
  god’s intentions shape their own being into vehicles 
  for expressing that intention. A god who solves prob-
  lems with violence and feats of strength will find 
  themselves becoming muscular and direct, able to 
  crack stone by shouting or to part the sea with their 
  bare hands—adaptations which favor solving prob-
  lems through violence and feats of strength. Likewise, 
  a god who favors a patient, considered approach 
  might develop a third eye which can see the future, 
  encouraging them to be even more patient in their 
  planning.
  17
  
  This might seem like a limitless cycle of self-
  improvement, but there are drawbacks. Even as 
  a god’s power grows, they accumulate strange 
  defects of body, mind, and spirit—the detritus of 
  their character writ large across their physical form. 
  Given enough of these flaws, a god passes some 
  mystic threshold and their nature dramatically 
  changes; they fall into the well of their power and, 
  upon being consumed by it, become a monster.
  Transformation into a monster is quick, dra-
  matic, and cataclysmic. The god loses themselves 
  in their own power, and their body undergoes a 
  violent metamorphosis as it seeks the ideal form 
  with which to express its nature. Change bursts 
  from them in an uncontrolled flood, devastating 
  the immediate scenery, and their mind is irredeem-
  ably warped as the god’s mantle, intention, and self 
  fuse into something new. Some monsters are intel-
  ligent, some are bestial, but none really think like 
  people any more—they are near-perfect vehicles 
  for their nature, and their behavior tends toward 
  exaggerated versions of the traits that drove them 
  to monsterhood in the first place.
  Even then there are plenty of monsters who 
  could be safely ignored, left to make their own way 
  in the wilderness far from civilization, but without 
  a mantle to mediate their will and power they con-
  stantly bleed their nature into their surroundings. 
  Wherever a monster stays comes to resemble that 
  monster over time—and this is never good.
  Creating the Mantle
  A god’s mantle is the meeting of their nature—
  shown through their aspects—and their actions, as 
  shown by their approaches. To create your god’s 
  mantle, take each of their ascendant approaches 
  and link them to one of their aspects. Every ascen-
  dant approach must be linked to only one aspect 
  and vice versa. An aspect linked with an ascen-
  dant approach is known as an ascendant aspect 
  and should reflect the approach it is linked to. If 
  necessary, adjust the name of the ascendant aspect 
  to follow the ascendant approach. If your god’s 
  ascendant approaches change during play, their 
  ascendant aspects will change to match.
  18
  
  Intention
  On the character sheet for your god, you’ll see three scales, one for each of the 
  opposed approach pairs.
  Bold
  Clever
  Wise
  Subtle
  Mighty
  Swift
  2
  1
  3
  3
  1
  2
  0
  2
  1
  3
  3
  1
  2
  0
  2
  1
  3
  3
  1
  2
  0
  These scales measure how far your god’s behavior is pulling them toward the 
  different elements of their nature. This is their intention, a reflection of the way 
  they approach the world that shapes their body to match the spirit within.
  When you create your god, place a token, called an intention token, on the 
  “1” space on the side of your god’s ascendant approach for each approach pair. 
  The numbered spaces represent the tiers of each approach pair. At the start of 
  each tale, mark the positions of your intention tokens on the 
  track itself.
  Your god’s intention will change as you play. Every time 
  you spend a fate point to affect a roll for an action—
  whether to get a +2 bonus, to reroll, to power a stunt, or to do 
  anything else—move the token one step toward the approach 
  you are using on the appropriate track. 
  During a session, the positions of your intention tokens 
  only matter if you push a token off its track, turning your god 
  into a monster (page 30). At milestones, however, their 
  positions determine your milestone tier (page 36), which 
  affects your god’s boons and geas. Upon creating your god, 
  you begin at milestone tier 1.
  Stations
  A god’s mantle also starts with two stations, sacred places in the world which act 
  as touchstones of power. The act of storing power in stations allows gods to delay 
  transformation into monsters, and the power stored there can be used to fuel the 
  boons of their mantle. There are two types of stations: marked sub-regions and 
  communities. As you determine your stations, mark them on the map.
  Your first station is a sub-region that you feel reflects your link to the world 
  at large; you can choose the refinement aspect or leave it up to the GM. This 
  sub-region begins play as marked by you, meaning you can use its regional stunt.
  Your second station is a community to which you have a strong connection. 
  Again, you can make the community by assigning its approaches as if it was a 
  PC (one Good, two Fair, two Average, one Mediocre) or leave it to the GM. A 
  single community can act as a station for any number of gods.
  It’s best if the whole pantheon is linked to the same community, or at least 
  to a collection of communities close enough together that you can focus tales 
  near the same place. However, if the gods have other strong reasons to work as a 
  group, you can get away with scattering the communities of interest.
  FREE INTENTION?
  As an optional rule, also 
  move the token every 
  time you use a free invoke. 
  This will accelerate the in-
  tention engine, which can 
  be a good thing! If it feels 
  like  too much, count all 
  free invokes on the same 
  roll as one.
  19
  GODS AND MONSTERS
  
  Boons
  As part of their mantle, a god has a set of boons, powerful advantages that befit 
  their godhood. When you create your god, though, you only need to invent the 
  least of their gifts: their tier 1 boon.
  First, choose a low-level persistent benefit related to your god’s overall con-
  cept: for example, the ability to see in pitch darkness, minor illusory cantrips, 
  deep pockets filled with odds and ends, or invulnerability to naked flames.
  Then, create a boon stunt following this template: 
  Because I am [something related to your god’s concept], I can spend 
  a power point stored in my stations to get a +1 bonus when I [pick 
  one: Boldly, Subtly, Mightily, Swiftly, Wisely, Cleverly] [pick one: 
  attack, defend, overcome, create an advantage] while [describe a 
  circumstance]. 
  This boon stunt is weaker than a stunt, but as your god grows in power, you 
  will receive more powerful boon stunts. 
  Boons and power points are described in more detail in the next chapter, 
  Godly Power, starting on page 27.
  Geasa
  Each god also has a weakness called a geas. This is something they struggle with, 
  a restriction or weakness antithetical to their nature that worsens as they grow in 
  power. For now, choose one:
  • Your god takes a -1 penalty when doing something that their nature 
  resists. The circumstances for this penalty are often broader than a stunt, 
  covering all actions done with a certain intent regardless of approach or 
  action. For example, a god of war might take a penalty to peaceful nego-
  tiation, or a sun god might take a penalty to concealing their presence.
  • Your god is entirely barred from a certain course of action unless there is 
  an aspect in the scene that allows them to do it. For example, trickster 
  god might be unable to attack until they have created an advantage on 
  their target, or a god of destruction might be unable to do anything cre-
  ative until they have created a situation aspect that reflects how the god 
  has ruined of their surroundings.
  As with boons, we’ll talk more about geasa in the next chapter, Godly Power, 
  starting on page 29.
  20
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  ALSO, YOU’RE IMMORTAL
  Your gods—and the monsters they can become—are immortal. Your 
  character is a sentient, living piece of the fabric of reality, and as such is 
  beyond mortal concerns like…well, mortality.
  This doesn’t help you much in conflicts, as you can still be taken out 
  like any other character. It just means that, if you are taken out, your op-
  ponent can’t kill you. They can chain you to a rock for eternity with only 
  a liver-eating eagle for company. They can tie you up beneath a tree 
  with poison dripping in your eyes. They can cut you into seven parts 
  and seal your soul in a clay jar hidden beyond your sight. But they can’t 
  kill you.
  Mechanically, this means there is always a way back—whatever hap-
  pens to you when you are taken out can be overcome later. It just means 
  that your opponent gets what they want right now and will seriously 
  inconvenience you in the process.
  It might also affect the sort of consequences you choose to take in 
  a physical conflict, depending on exactly where your character falls on 
  the scale between “human but louder” and “numinous alien bodhisat-
  tva.” A god who simply fights with the sword or hammer might get a 
  Broken Collarbone, but a more abstract being might be more likely to 
  start Leaking Hope into the World when injured.
  …EXCEPT WHEN YOU’RE NOT
  Eventually, most mythologies end with a “twilight of the gods”—a re-
  treat from the world, or a final battle, or some other explanation of why 
  the gods no longer interfere in the world of humankind. When such a 
  twilight is in progress—perhaps to clear the way for future adventures of 
  mortals in the world your gods have shaped—your immortality no longer 
  applies. This vulnerability can have reasons as varied as the number of 
  games anyone’s played—but, however it comes about, there will always 
  come a time when gods and monsters alike can be slain, imprisoned 
  forever, or otherwise made a static part of the world.
  21
  GODS AND MONSTERS
  
  GODLY POWER
  A god gains power through increasing their intention and storing it in stations 
  in the form of power points, which are spent to power their boons. 
  If a god’s intention grows to such a point that it cannot be controlled, the god 
  transforms into a monster. If the god cannot stave off an increase of intention 
  by storing it in a station, they can bleed off intention into the land—but this 
  could have consequences.
  At each milestone, you’ll evaluate your intention and set your milestone tier 
  (page 36), which determines the strength of your god’s boons and the severity 
  of their geas, a divine weakness. 
  All mentions of tiers in later sections on boons and geasa refer to your god’s 
  milestone tier, not the positions of your intention tokens.
  If you need a quick reference on intention during play, read Intention in 30 
  Seconds on page 57.
  A god...
  ... acts ...
  ...which 
  generates 
  intention...
  ...which 
  reinforces the 
  god’s nature...
  ...which 
  bleeds into 
  the world.
  ...maybe a bit 
  too much.
  ...which is 
  stored in 
  stations...
  ...which 
  power 
  boons...
  ...
  us
  ed
   b
  y..
  .
  22
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  Intention and Power
  Intention is the main measure of a god’s power: The more they favor their strengths, 
  the stronger they become, and if they act against their nature, their power will 
  leach away. One might conclude that the gods want to push themselves as far 
  toward their nature as possible in order to maximize their powers—and this is 
  true, to an extent. But this is not a boundless cycle of improvement and ever-
  increasing power. If their flow of power becomes too great, a god will inevitably 
  lose themself in it and become a monster. 
  This happens in the game when spending a fate point pushes your intention 
  token off the end of one of the scales. At that point your character immediately 
  succumbs to their power and becomes a monster, with deleterious consequences 
  for everyone and everything nearby (page 30). 
  Fortunately, gods have two ways of managing the build-up of intention. They 
  can store the power in their stations, or they can bleed it off into the world.
  Storing Intention
  A god can store intention in their stations, using the metaphysical connection 
  between themself and the world as a buffer. Even better, once grounded in the 
  world like this, this “refined” intention can be used to fuel the god’s boons in a 
  way that raw intention cannot. 
  Stored intention takes the form of power points, and a god can store 1 power 
  point in each of their stations. Whenever you would move an intention token 
  toward a higher tier of your ascendant approach, you can instead store 1 power 
  point and keep the token where it is. If you have no empty stations, you must 
  either move the token or bleed the intention into your surroundings. 
  At the beginning of a tale, all your stations begin empty. Any stored intention 
  vanishes between tales with no ill effects. 
  If you want to spontaneously fill a station with a power point, you can do so 
  at any time by spending a fate point. 
  Bleeding Off Intention
  Rather than storing intention in their stations, a god can bleed off the excess 
  power into their immediate surroundings. By diverting the resonance of their 
  nature through the sympathetic link between themself and the underlying mate-
  rial of the world, a god can force their surroundings to warp in place of their 
  bodies. This keeps them in control of their power, but the changes in the local 
  landscape are uncontrolled and almost always unwanted.
  A god can bleed off intention just before they would move one of their tokens. 
  Unlike with storing intention, a god can bleed off intention no matter which 
  direction the token would move, In this way a god can prevent themself from 
  weakening at an inopportune time, but can also stall their transition into mon-
  sterhood if needs be.
  Bleeding off intention is simple: the god’s intention token doesn’t move, and 
  the GM changes the refinement of the local region or sub-region, either chang-
  ing the current sub-region or creating a new one.
  23
  GODS AND MONSTERS
  
  The new aspect should reflect the events that caused it to occur, the nature of 
  the god who created it, and the kind of intention that was bled off, and it should 
  be “bad” in some way—either directly and immediately hostile, or likely to pres-
  ent a long-term problem, or laced with enough poetic irony that it makes you 
  want to wince. It’s more art than science, though, so if a particular aspect feels 
  right but doesn’t meet these criteria go with your instincts.
  When bleeding off more than one step of intention at a time, the created 
  aspect is more intense or covers a wider region. In particularly egregious cases it 
  might apply to all regions of that kind in the world.
  On the plus side, bleeding off intention marks that region or sub-region, 
  giving you access to the regional stunt.
  MAKING THINGS WORSE
  If the characters hang around in a particular area for a while 
  they’ll probably bleed off a lot of intention there. As a gener-
  al rule, rather than stacking extra aspects on a region, try to 
  limit yourself to one or two and just keep making them less 
  helpful and more antagonistic. Eventually the characters will 
  have to either fix the fallout from their actions or just move 
  on, leaving a trail of ruined landscape behind them.
  As an example, consider the following progression of re-
  finements for a sub-region:
  • “Justice Comes Swiftly to the Evildoer!”
  • “Punish the Evildoers!”
  • “Death to the Outsiders!”
  • “DEATH!”
  Cassia is proud of her Implacable Strength (Mighty) and she takes 
  care to keep her Mighty at tier 3 to make the most use of her power. 
  However, while helping Herakhty in a wicked village she has to display 
  uncharacteristic cleverness and her token is about to slide one step 
  down toward tier 2. Cassia decides to bleed that intention into the 
  village instead of letting it affect her directly.
  The GM pauses for a moment to have a think. She puts together 
  the events of the story with the Clever intention that Cassia is bleed-
  ing off and comes up with the idea that the villagers are scared of 
  a return to their old, wicked ways and have become suspicious and 
  mistrustful. She adds Inquisition! as an aspect on the village, and 
  describes how the headman approaches Herakhty and Cassia with a 
  list of so-called “subversives” he believes have not fully given up the 
  old ways.
  We’ll talk more about the effects of bleeding off intention in “Changing and 
  Creating Regions”, starting on page 34.
  24
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  Stations
  A god’s self functions as a conduit for intention, but it is too unstable to store 
  that intention for long without warping. However, the world at large is a much 
  less fluid place; the gods can tap into that to store power for future use. These 
  bastions of stability, whether places or communities, are called stations. Gods 
  are always dimly aware of events in their stations, and people present at a sacred 
  place or who are members of a sacred community can deliver messages through 
  prayer. A god might not be able to answer these prayers unless their mantle 
  allows them to communicate over a distance, but they can always hear them.
  A station that takes the form of a place is a sub-region—usually an extremely 
  small one consisting of a single sacred location, feature, or building—which 
  reflects some truth about how the god sees themselves. Anyone in the station can 
  sense its sacred nature but has no special knowledge about which god claims it.
  A station in the form of a community does not have to worship the god in 
  question—they may leave worship to priests, invoke the god’s name to avoid 
  misfortune, or actively revile their divine patron—but they think of the deity 
  often and their idea of the god forms a stable repository of power. Communities 
  don’t have the same sacred aura as places, so it is not immediately obvious who 
  the patron god might be. Even so, the citizens might erect shrines or churches 
  that proclaim their allegiance—and of course, you can just ask someone about 
  their religious beliefs.
  A place can support one god, unless two deities are so similar that one place 
  could speak to the truth of both. A community can support any number of gods. 
  However, changing the nature of a community can change the nature of all the 
  gods worshipped there, so pantheons often diversify their stations.
  Gaining Stations
  New places are harder to find and vulnerable to desecration, but easier to claim—
  all a god needs to do is find or create a sub-region that reflects some truth about 
  them or their power, and claim it. Bleeding off intention is easy but risky: the 
  created sub-region may not express enough truth about the god to qualify as a 
  station, and its refinement will be hostile. A surer way is to create a sub-region 
  with an explanation (page 32), and surer still is to explore the world for the 
  perfect place. 
  The actual claiming process is a symbolic ritual that varies from god to god but 
  usually takes about five minutes. It could be a religious ceremony, bestial scent-
  marking, a rainbow touching down from a clear sky to burn arcane sigils into the 
  ground, or anything appropriate to the god in question. Claiming a sub-region 
  as a station marks it.
  New communities are easier to find—any community will do—but harder 
  to claim. To claim a community, a god must first take it out in an ideological 
  conflict or convince them to concede with the consequence that they worship 
  her. However, for each exchange a god wishes to begin for this intent, she must 
  have done something noteworthy nearby. Naturally, gods who act Boldly have 
  an easier time with this.
  25
  GODS AND MONSTERS
  
  Losing Stations
  Places can be desecrated and communities can be converted to new forms of 
  worship; stations can be lost as well as gained. When a god loses a station, they 
  can no longer store their power in it, and any power they had stored there van-
  ishes into the fabric of the world with no further effect.
  Desecrating a place is as simple as changing the refinement of the sub-region 
  associated with the station so that it no longer reflects the prior god. This is 
  usually a simple matter of bleeding intention into it—this chaotic outpouring is 
  highly unlikely to favor the old owner. A god can restore the station by returning 
  there and changing the refinement back. Because places are fragile, gods who 
  favor places over people tend to be extremely territorial, never straying far from 
  their power sources for fear that an enemy will sneak in and wreak havoc before 
  they can return.
  Desecrating a community is considerably more difficult. The people who 
  make up the community must be convinced to turn away from their previous 
  patron—not just to hate them, but to forget them altogether. One way to do 
  this is by displacing the patron’s presence in the community’s belief system with 
  your own, done in the same way as claiming a community as a station. Another 
  method is by wiping the community off the map entirely—whether one by one 
  on the edge of your axe, or all at once with a landslide or firestorm—but this 
  invites savage retribution from the patron of those people you destroyed.
  Corruption
  Communities offer a way to drive them against their patron deities: corruption. 
  Because the community’s idea of the god is what stores the power, a subtle god 
  can quietly amend the community’s view of their patron in order to get lever-
  age over them. This is done by creating an advantage against the community’s 
  Integrity. The resulting aspect can be invoked and compelled by anyone as if it 
  were an aspect of the community’s patron god, and it can be “healed” as if it 
  were a moderate consequence. A god can carry a maximum of one such aspect 
  per community station they lay claim to.
  The fearsome nature goddess Thorn wants to teach Herakhty the 
  folly of favoring civilization over the wilderness. Disguising herself as 
  Herakhty, she visits the once-wicked village that Herakhty has since 
  claimed as a station, and counsels them to place more trust in their 
  emotions and indulge their animal sides. She attempts to Subtly 
  create an advantage against the village’s Integrity and succeeds, 
  making the community Emotionally Driven. 
  As the community’s perception of Herakhty shifts, his nature warps 
  to accommodate it: Emotionally Driven appears on Herakhty’s char-
  acter sheet, and it can be invoked or compelled as normal. Because 
  Thorn successfully created an advantage, she gets a free invoke on 
  Emotionally Driven for either Herakhty or the community.
  26
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  Boons
  A god’s boons are the powers provided by their divine mantle, which reflect their 
  essential nature and become more powerful as their weight of intention grows. 
  Boons come in thee tiers, showing how closely god and mantle are aligned. Each 
  tier offers different gifts, and the gifts vary from god to god. When designing 
  your god’s mantle, think carefully about what each boon says about your god’s 
  nature. At any given time, your god will have boons equal to your milestone tier.
  If you are at tier 0 you cannot use your boons at all.
  Tier 1
  At tier 1, you can expect to receive a constant low-level benefit related to your 
  concept: the ability to see in pitch darkness, minor illusory cantrips, deep pock-
  ets filled with odds and ends, invulnerability to naked flames, and so on. These 
  benefits tend to take two forms:
  • It offers no mechanical advantages but lets you do things you might not 
  otherwise be able to, such as produce a valuable gem from your deep 
  pockets, or use your illusions to display silent messages.
  • It offers a mechanical advantage over a limited scope, such as being invul-
  nerable to fire damage or immune to compels on darkness-related aspects.
  At tier 1 and above, a god can spend a power point to grant a bonus to a roll 
  equal to their tier, but within limited circumstances, similar to those of a stunt, 
  that must relate directly to the god’s concept. When you created your god, you 
  created a boon with a +1 bonus because all new gods start at tier 1. As your tier 
  rises, so too will your boon’s bonus.
  Julian is a god of lightning. At tier 1 he cannot be hurt by lightning. 
  Also, because lightning is fast, he can spend a power point to add his 
  tier to any Swift roll related to covering ground quickly.
  Oyalede is a goddess of quiet, still death. At tier 1 she can tell on sight 
  how a mortal died. Also, because her kind of death steals up unno-
  ticed, she can spend a power point to add her tier to any Subtle roll 
  related to entering a place unseen.
  27
  GODS AND MONSTERS
  
  Tier 2
  At tier 2 and above, a god can spend power points as if they were fate points, but 
  only while invoking one of their ascendant aspects. Spending power points in 
  this way does not affect intention.
  Second, the bonus of the god’s tier 1 boon increases to +2.
  Finally, the god gains another boon that is roughly equivalent to a stunt, offer-
  ing either a +2 bonus under limited circumstances or an overall expansion of 
  capability. Like regular stunts and fate points, a particularly powerful tier 2 boon 
  might require you to spend power points. If a god gains an approach-based power, 
  the approach of that power must be one of the god’s ascendant approaches. If an 
  ascendant approach linked to a power ever becomes subordinate, wording of the 
  power changes to reflect the new ascendant approach.
  Arroy is an entity which transforms pain into transcendence. At 
  tier 2, whenever ze suffers stress or a consequence, ze can rename 
  another’s consequence so it begins healing, or purge a dangerous or 
  harmful aspect in the scene.
  Yul-Terra is the goddess of the lizard kings and has an appropriately 
  reptilian head, with teeth to match. At tier 2, she gets a +2 bonus 
  whenever she Mightily attacks someone with her bite.
  Tier 3
  At tier 3, a god gains the most powerful boon: they can spend power to make 
  something just happen, as long as it relates to the god’s overall concept and 
  identity.
  Also, the bonus of the god’s tier 1 boon increases to +3.
  Ellisa is a goddess of evil. At tier 3 she can spend a power point to 
  give physical expression and form to a mortal’s evil, populating the 
  world with twisted beasts spawned from and preying on humanity.
  Surut is a god of semiotics and meaning. At tier 3 he can spend a 
  power point to imbue a symbolic connection between two things, 
  making one a stand-in for the other.
  28
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  Geasa
  A god’s mantle also comes with a geas: a 
  cost associated with the identity they have 
  assumed that grows greater as their power 
  waxes. Geasa can be physical in nature—a 
  fire goddess who increasingly resembles a 
  walking inferno as she falls further into her 
  own power—or something more subtle, 
  such as a god so beautiful he cannot 
  conceal his presence or one so subtle she 
  threatens to fade from existence altogether.
  Geasa normally do one of two things: it 
  gives a penalty equal to the god’s current 
  tier on some activity that runs contradic-
  tory to their nature, or it prevents a course 
  of action until the scene has one or more 
  aspects that allow it. Other options are 
  possible, such as taking extra stress or 
  being flat unable to perform particular 
  actions, but those are harder to balance. 
  Talk with your GM about these.
  As your god’s tier increases, the sever-
  ity of their geas increases as well. For a 
  geas that gives a penalty to an action, that 
  penalty equals the god’s tier. For a geas 
  that requires aspects to “unlock” the god’s 
  actions, the number of aspects required 
  equals their tier. The more powerful a god 
  becomes, the harder it is to act against 
  their nature.
  For homebrewed geasa, a good starting 
  point is to look for patterns of three and 
  tie them into the tiers at increasing sever-
  ity. For example, a moon god vulnerable 
  to silver might, when touched by it, take 
  a mild consequence at tier 1, moderate at 
  tier 2, and severe at tier 3.
  If your god is at tier 0, then you do 
  not suffer from a geas. By reducing your 
  power to that of a mere demigod, you can 
  avoid its demands on your nature.
  29
  
  MONSTERS
  Becoming a Monster
  A god becomes a monster when they lose themselves in their own power. This 
  happens when spending a fate point pushes their intention token off the end of 
  the track, and they are unable or unwilling to store or bleed off the excess. Also, a 
  god with an ascendant approach at tier 3 can choose to transform themself into 
  a monster at any time—it’s simple for them to tip over the edge and become 
  something both greater and lesser than they were before. 
  When your god becomes a monster, you lose control of them immediately. In 
  the space of moments their power erupts and they transform into something 
  twisted, powerful, yet still recognizable as the being they once were. The precise 
  nature of the new monster, and what they do now, is up to the GM—you will 
  need a new god.
  However, there is one benefit to becoming a monster: you get to dictate how 
  the current scene ends. You could defeat and imprison your enemies, or scatter 
  them far and wide, or sink an island beneath the waves. You could blast a vil-
  lage into glass statues, raise up a spontaneous cyclopean temple engraved with 
  unreadable runes, or just fly off and leave everyone to their lives. You could even 
  become something of unspeakable beauty, so radiant that everyone who sees it 
  is inspired to live their lives in harmony with nature and their fellow human 
  beings.
  You can effectively shape the landscape, freely changing the local area’s concept 
  or refinement and creating new regions or sub-regions accordingly (page 34). 
  30
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  Anyone you choose to aggress upon must accept defeat and be taken out or must 
  flee for their lives, in which case they suffer an immediate consequence but can 
  otherwise escape the area unharmed. In this case “aggress upon” can also include 
  acts of supernatural persuasion or mind control, like the inspirational beauty 
  example above.
  Monsters In Action 
  Once the initial transformation has stabilized, monsters operate using more or 
  less the same rules as gods—their identity and form have found a new equilib-
  rium, and they will never tap into that kind of power again. Monsters are often 
  extremely powerful in their own right, however, so they should not be underes-
  timated because they fail to be unstoppable forces of nature.
  A monster doesn’t have a mantle and need not worry about intention, ascen-
  dant approaches and aspects, stations, or anything like that. Any powers they 
  have that require spending intention to use can be activated by spending a fate 
  point instead. They have no geas other than “being a monster,” although that no 
  longer feels like a restriction to them—instead, it is simply their nature.
  In addition, monsters constantly bleed their twisted power into the world 
  around them. For every tale that passes where the threat of a monster goes unad-
  dressed, they mark the region or sub-region where they lurk as if they were a 
  god. Monsters that stay in one place slowly transform their surroundings into 
  a blighted land that reflects their own corruption. Monsters that move around 
  spread their corruption wherever they go.
  31
  GODS AND MONSTERS
  
  TELLING YOUR TALES, 
  CHANGING THE WORLD
  One of the key features of mythic stories is that they describe how the world 
  gained its many qualities. They answer the question of “Why is that the way it 
  is?”
  In Gods and Monsters, the mythic feel remains but the order of events is 
  reversed: The world responds to the potential for change at the heart of every 
  god, so your gods’ actions leave lasting effects on the world around them. When 
  you tell a story in Gods and Monsters, you’re telling the story of how something 
  came to be, but you won’t know what that something is until you’re finished.
  When your tale has reached a conclusion, think back over everything that 
  occurred. As a group, come up with a fact about the world that their adventure 
  explains. This is the explanation: the “…and that’s why…” that comes at the 
  end of most mythic tales. Some examples might be:
  • “…and that’s why crows are black.”
  • “…and that’s where owlbears come from.”
  • “…and that’s why no-one sails the Sea of Glass.”
  32
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  When choosing an explanation, you have three broad options: something cos-
  metic with a global scope, something more potent but more local in effect, or 
  something potent and global but that other parties will contest.
  Cosmetic: Cosmetic changes are things like why crows are black, why roses 
  have thorns, or why people speak different languages in different places. These 
  things might affect the background of the world, but aren’t significant enough 
  to function as aspects, nor do they count as marking. On the plus side, these 
  changes can have global scope; if you determine that crows are red because they 
  got soaked in carrion following a huge battle, then all crows everywhere are now 
  red. Alternatively, you could declare that only the crows of this particular region 
  are red, while others remain black. It’s up to you.
  Potent and Local: The potent-but-local option makes a major change in a 
  region or sub-region by creating or changing the region’s refinement aspect. 
  The character most responsible for the change is considered to have marked the 
  region, and gains access to its regional stunt (page 35). 
  Global: The “biggest” option is to create an aspect that applies to the entire 
  world as a result of your actions, reflecting the outcome of your tale. Going 
  forward, this aspect acts as a situation aspect in every scene, but it comes with 
  two important conditions: First, this aspect doesn’t affect individual regions or 
  sub-regions, so it doesn’t count as marking anything. Second, people will notice, 
  and they won’t like it.
  When you make a change this big, the next tale or two will focus on how 
  others—gods, mortals, monsters, or some combination—attempt to undo your 
  meddling. The tale after that will be about people seeking a new equilibrium in 
  a changed world, and the problems it causes you. After that, the aspect you cre-
  ated fades into the background of “the way things are,” becoming just a fact of 
  the world that people take for granted.
  MULTIPLE ENDINGS
  Sometimes the tale you’ve told won’t have a single clear explana-
  tion. Perhaps each god gained something different from it. Perhaps 
  multiple events of note transpired and you want to make sure that 
  each has the proper impact on the world. Maybe you just want a 
  world where different cults take different lessons from the same 
  myths. At times like these, it’s not the end of the world if you let 
  more than one explanation ride on a single tale, but only let one 
  of these explanations generate a new aspect. There can be other 
  explanations, but those are only cosmetic.
  33
  GODS AND MONSTERS
  
  Changing and Creating Regions
  It is in the nature of gods to change the world with their actions. During 
  play, the gods will split the world’s regions into a patchwork of sub-regions by 
  marking them, done either by bleeding off intention (page 23) or using a tale’s 
  explanation (page 32).
  Whenever a god creates or changes a region’s refinement, this creates a new 
  sub-region within that region. If a god marks a region or sub-region that has 
  been marked by another god, the previous god loses their mark.
  Thorn is in the Forest Primeval when she is forced to bleed off some 
  intention to avoid becoming a monster. In doing this, she narrates how 
  the forest around her becomes a darker, more predatory place, and 
  creates the Wild Wood, a sub-region of the Forest Primeval. Within 
  the Wild Wood, the refinement Life In All Its Forms is replaced with 
  Life Hungers for Life.
  Whenever a god changes the refinement aspect of a sub-region, they can either 
  alter the nature of the entire sub-region or create a new sub-region inside the 
  old—their choice.
  Herakhty and Cassia tell the tale of how they drove a road through 
  the Wild Wood as part of their goal to create and bolster civilisation. 
  When they do this, they could replace the refinement aspect Life 
  Hungers for Life with The Wilderness Bows Before Mankind across 
  the entire sub-region—which would effectively replace the Wild Wood 
  with The Road, which remains a sub-region of the Forest Primeval. 
  Otherwise, they could choose to make The Road a sub-region of the 
  Wild Wood, creating the fairy-tale situation where the road is safe, 
  but the moment you set foot off it you’re in mortal danger. Naturally, 
  they choose the latter.
  If the actions of the story support it, and the GM agrees, you can use an 
  explanation of a tale to change the concept of a sub-region, splitting off from its 
  parent region to become a completely new region. In this case, the group will 
  need to invent a new regional stunt.
  34
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  Regional Stunts
  When your god has marked a sub-region, you gain access to the regional stunt of 
  the parent region. If someone wipes out the marked sub-region—by changing 
  its refinement aspect and choosing to replace the sub-region with a new one—
  then your god loses access to the stunt. Creating multiple sub-regions within 
  one region doesn’t change how you use the regional stunt, but it does make it 
  more difficult to cut you off from using it; you wouldn’t lose access to it until all 
  of your sub-regions in that region were destroyed.
  If your god uses an explanation to create a new region by changing the con-
  cept of an existing one, then you get access to whatever the new regional stunt 
  turns out to be. In this case, the regional stunt will be much harder to take away 
  from you because the entire region would have to be wiped off the map.
  Destroying the Status Quo
  At the end of a tale, you can choose to bleed off all the intention your god has 
  accumulated, returning the tokens to where they were at the start of the tale—
  unless they became a monster, in which case they cannot be saved.
  If you do this, count the number of steps on the track that each token moves, 
  and note which approach the token moves away from. Bleeding off this energy 
  has the usual effects—changing a region’s refinement aspect in an uncontrolled 
  and negative way—but the intensity depends directly on the total number of 
  steps the tokens moved:
  • 1–2 steps: As normal. You mark the region, and the refinement aspect 
  becomes something unpleasant based on the approaches you’ve bled off.
  • 3–4 steps: This is bad. The refinement aspect on the region jumps straight 
  to something hostile—coming here in future is going to be difficult and 
  dangerous, and the mortal population will be starkly affected.
  • 5–6 steps: Really bad. It’s just like 3–4 steps, except that either you affect 
  a very large sub-region, or you hit multiple smaller sub-regions. Also, the 
  power you create in the sub-region hates you and anything that reminds 
  it of you.
  • 7+ steps: Grossly irresponsible. Your drive to avoid the consequences of 
  your actions by pouring your power back into the world causes numer-
  ous large sub-regions to spring up all over the region you affect and any 
  other similar regions in the world—all forests, all oceans, all mountain 
  ranges, and so on. All these sub-regions have the same hostile refinement 
  aspect, and the creatures they spawn bear a special hatred for you and 
  anything like you. Nice work.
  This list is only guidance, of course. If you have a better idea of how to ruin 
  a god’s day with the unintended consequences of their reckless use of power, go 
  with that.
  35
  GODS AND MONSTERS
  
  Changing Communities
  While gods can influence the scenery, they can also influence the communities 
  of the world. Gods can change a community’s refinement aspect by bleeding 
  off intention there or by using an explanation, just as if the community were a 
  sub-region. They can also create a community’s trait aspect in the same manners. 
  Note that communities are not sub-regions, even if you change their refinement 
  aspect.
  When a god uses their explanation to change a community’s refinement or 
  trait aspect, they can instead improve one of the community’s approaches by 
  one rank. In this way, a technologically minded god can drive the advancement 
  of human knowledge.
  MEDDLING
  As a general rule, communities inherit their concept and refinement 
  from their parent region or sub-region. If someone adjusts the re-
  finement aspect of the sub-region, then all communities of that 
  sub-region change theirs to match.
  There is one exception: do not change the community’s refine-
  ment aspect if it has already been changed to something different 
  from its parent region or sub-region’s. In this case, a god has in-
  vested time and effort into shaping that community according to 
  their will—they have made it narratively important—and it’s poor 
  form to let that get wiped out by someone bleeding off intention 
  twenty miles away.
  As communities are active participants in the world, there are other ways to 
  change them. They can be engaged in conflicts and pick up consequences, allow-
  ing the deity in a hurry to apply temporary aspects to them by pounding them 
  into submission—socially or physically, as necessary. A community that con-
  cedes a conflict may offer social changes as part of the concession; these do not 
  have the mechanical weight of aspects, but could still get the god what they want.
  Changing Yourself
  The gods in Gods and Monsters are fluid entities, stabilized by their connection 
  to the world and their careful management of their own power. Change is less 
  something they choose to do and more something that happens to them as they 
  exercise their will on the world. At every milestone, in addition to gaining the 
  usual benefits of the milestone, reassess your god’s mantle and the locations of 
  their intention tokens. 
  First, slide each token that isn’t on a numbered space toward the tier 0 space 
  until it arrives on a numbered tier space, where it stops.
  Second, if any of the tokens have shifted to the subordinate side of a track 
  during play, switch the subordinate and ascendant aspects of that pair; once you 
  36
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  do this, rewrite your corresponding ascendant aspect to better match the new 
  ascendant approach of that pair. For example, a god with Earth-Shaking Power 
  (Mighty) whose token moves onto the Clever side of the scale might replace that 
  aspect with Landslides and Sinkholes (Clever). If you find your god switching 
  back and forth between aspects, you can either stick with one or two that work 
  well or choose a new one each time.
  If the token is on tier 0, you can choose any aspect at all to describe the ascen-
  dant aspect, but both approaches of that pair are considered subordinate until 
  you swing one way or the other.
  Finally, find the highest tier of your ascendant approaches. This tier is your 
  milestone tier, which determines the strength of your boons (page 27) and 
  geas (page 29) until your next milestone.
  After his trials—both metaphorical and literal—in a wicked village, 
  Herakhty reaches a milestone. He’s a cerebral god, with Wise, Clever, 
  and Bold as his ascendant approaches, but he’s been consistently 
  using quick wits over strength, and behaving in a reckless and flashy 
  manner.
  Bold
  Clever
  Wise
  Subtle
  Mighty
  Swift
  2
  1
  3
  3
  1
  2
  0
  2
  1
  3
  3
  1
  2
  0
  2
  1
  3
  3
  1
  2
  0
  First, his tokens slide toward tier 0, leaving him with Clever at tier 2, 
  and Bold and Swift at tier 1.
  Second, because his token on the Wise/Swift track is now in Swift, 
  his ascendant approach changes from Wise to Swift and the linked 
  ascendant aspect changes from My Mind Contains Libraries (Wise) 
  to Speed of Thought (Swift). His other ascendant aspects and 
  approaches remain the same.
  Finally, he notes that his Clever has risen to tier 2, which is now his 
  highest tier. Until his next milestone, his milestone tier is tier 2.
  Changing Your Mantle
  At a major or significant milestone, you can choose to adjust your god’s mantle 
  to better reflect their current nature. Perhaps their tier 2 boon doesn’t make 
  any sense now their ascendant approach has changed. Perhaps their tier 3 boon 
  doesn’t feel big enough.
  Whatever the reason, talk to the GM and the rest of the group and adjust your 
  god’s mantle accordingly. The gods in Gods and Monsters are changeable, mercu-
  rial beings at the best of times, so clinging to a pre-set power framework that 
  doesn’t quite fit makes no sense, in character or out.
  37
  GODS AND MONSTERS
  
  Example Mantles
  THORN
  Thorn is a wrathful nature goddess, an embodiment of predation who can com-
  mand the plants and animals of her domain.
  Ascendant Aspects and Approaches: 
  õ
  õ Nature Holds the Answer (Clever)
  õ
  õ Apex Predator (Swift)
  õ
  õ Patient Hunter (Subtle)
  Boons: 
  At tier 1, Thorn can spend a power point to get a bonus equal to her tier on 
  any roll to damage or destroy a sign or exemplar of “civilization”—buildings, 
  roads, gods with strong ties to humanity, and so on. She can also cause thorned 
  vines to sprout from her footprints, although these plants are merely aesthetic 
  without using further powers.
  At tier 2, Thorn gains a limited ability to shapeshift. She gains a +2 bonus 
  whenever she uses Clever to create an advantage related to adopting animal 
  characteristics—wings, gills, claws, and so on. If Thorn’s ascendant approach 
  switches from Clever to Mighty, this stunt remains the same but the bonus 
  applies instead when she uses Mighty.
  At tier 3, Thorn needs not conduct her destruction in person. She can spend 
  a power point to spawn a creature from the earth—or from a cloud of roiling 
  smoke, if she desires—with a unique appearance and a singular purpose. If she 
  spends two power points, she instead creates a mated pair of creatures that will 
  breed true, adding a new form of life to the world.
  Thorn’s spawned creatures function like powerful mooks. They are Good (+3) 
  at their decreed purpose, and Terrible (-2) at anything else. They have one or two 
  aspects, chosen by Thorn, and two stress boxes, and they unerringly obey the 
  spirit of Thorn’s initial instructions to them.
  Any offspring of these creatures are less powerful then they, and the offspring 
  behave how normal animals of their type might: giant spider-serpents make 
  regions unsafe, swarms of builder beetles assemble alien structures in isolated 
  places, unicorns befriend the sexually inexperienced, and so on.
  Geas: Thorn is at home in the wild; as she grows more powerful, the ways of 
  people become ever-stranger to her. She suffers a penalty equal to her tier to 
  any roll to persuade or manipulate humans or gods, except when she is using 
  intimidation.
  Stations: Thorn draws part of her stability from a grove in the Forest Primeval, 
  a sub-region where Life In All Its Forms has given way to Bloodthirsty 
  Overgrowth. This is her sacred place. Her sacred community is the treetop vil-
  lage of Haven not far from there, where the villagers often cast fearful glances 
  toward the grove and take care not to break Thorn’s laws for living in harmony 
  with nature. Thorn disdains people, so if she desires more power then she’ll 
  likely lay claim to—or create—places that symbolize the dominion of wilderness 
  over civilization and animals over people.
  38
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  CASSIA
  Cassia is a straightforward goddess of strength, forti-
  tude, and nobility.
  Ascendant Aspects and Approaches: 
  õ
  õ Radiant Armiger (Bold)
  õ
  õ When All You’ve Got’s a Hammer… (Mighty)
  õ
  õ Still Waters Run Deep (Wise)
  Boons: 
  At tier 1, Cassia bears a halo that illuminates her 
  surroundings. She can choose how brightly it shines, 
  dimming it to nothing should she wish to be subtle, 
  or brightening it until it is hard to look directly at 
  her when she lets her true glory show. She can spend 
  a power point to get a bonus equal to her tier on 
  any roll related to resisting pain, bearing burdens, or 
  displaying supreme endurance.
  At tier 2, Cassia draws literal strength from adver-
  sity: she gains a +2 bonus when using Mighty to 
  wrestle or subdue someone or something with a 
  higher Mighty rank than herself. Should her ascen-
  dant approach change from Mighty to Clever, she 
  will still find her deepest reserves of greatness when 
  confronting someone superior; she will gain a +2 
  bonus to Clever rolls against someone with a higher 
  Clever rank than hers.
  At tier 3, Cassia is unassailable in her areas of com-
  petence. When she would roll to defend using one 
  of her ascendant approaches, she can instead spend 
  a power point to shrug off the attack with no further 
  effects. No stress, no consequences—nothing.
  Geas: Cassia endures. She does not back down, or 
  show weakness, or bend before the storm. Once 
  engaged in a conflict, she cannot concede unless she 
  bears at least as many consequences as her tier.
  Stations: Cassia is the patron goddess of Everlast, 
  a village on the Sweeping Plains where the people 
  revere their guardian and seek to emulate her stoic 
  nature. At great pains to themselves, the villagers 
  have raised a tor and erected a stone circle upon it, 
  symbolizing the unyielding nature of their goddess 
  and the halo she wears. This is her sacred place, a 
  sub-region where the plains’ Wide Open aspect is 
  supplemented by a Stone Circle, Redolent With 
  Symbolism.
  39
  
  SILVER
  To call Silver’s words poisonous is no metaphor; this snake-tongued 
  charmer is toxic in every sense of the word.
  Ascendant Aspects and Approaches: 
  õ
  õ Quicksilver (Swift)
  õ
  õ What They Want to Hear (Subtle)
  õ
  õ Serpent-kin (Clever)
  Boons: 
  At tier 1, Silver is obviously, inherently untrustworthy—yet 
  when they speak, people can’t help but listen. No matter how much 
  someone might hate or mistrust them, they will always give Silver 
  the chance to speak unless the scene has already descended into 
  violence. Also, Silver can spend a power point to add their tier to 
  any rolls intended to persuade someone that their ideas are worth 
  listening to, or that they’re worth trusting this time.
  At tier 2, Silver’s tongue all but drips with corrupting venom. 
  They gain a +2 bonus whenever Subtly trying to convince someone 
  of anything that’s a bad idea to agree with. Should Silver’s ascendant 
  approach change from Subtle to Bold, this boon remains as it is, but 
  it instead reflects glorious glamour rather than subtle manipulation, 
  replacing any mentions of Subtle with Bold.
  At tier 3, Silver is able to corrupt even the strongest wills with 
  only a few moments of conversation. After chatting with someone 
  briefly, Silver can spend a power point to bring out the darkest urges 
  of their conversation partner along with an almost uncontrollable 
  desire to act on them. The effects of this boon vary with the target: 
  at minimum it acts as a compel on at least one of the target’s aspects, 
  but against the right target it could get as terrible as you can imag-
  ine. Whatever it does, though, it invariably works in Silver’s favor; 
  for some reason, the darkest urges of Silver’s victims never seem to 
  include Silver’s destruction.
  Geas: Silver’s twisted thinking precludes the straightforward 
  approach. During a conflict, Silver cannot attack unless they have 
  created advantages on their target of a number at least equal to 
  Silver’s tier.
  Stations: Silver has allied themself with corruption, decadence, and 
  poison—and such things can be found in plenty at the highest levels 
  of society in the First City. Silver’s community of choice is the nobil-
  ity; they come to Silver for their distractions and their depravities, 
  and Silver feeds off their addictions. When Silver seeks more sta-
  tions, they’ll likely start spreading their cult into the lower echelons 
  of society. Silver’s sacred place is a distant swamp they never visit: 
  The Origin of All Serpents, where snakes of infinite variety crawl 
  from cracks in the ground to spread their venom across the world.
  40
  
  Sample Monsters
  The Sea Serpent
  Once a mighty god of the oceans, the sea serpent gave in to his power and 
  became a titanic monster that embodies the raw fury of the sea. Although no 
  longer capable of coherent thought or speech, the sea serpent still understands 
  the languages of humankind and might be calmed by a suitably charismatic 
  speaker—if they can first survive his fury long enough to get close.
  Any region in which the sea serpent makes its home slowly descends into anar-
  chy and tribalism; its presence causes tempers to flare, emotions to run high, and 
  people to be possessed by a strange desire to sacrifice objects of value to the sea. 
  If the serpent is left alone for long enough, civilization around it will crumble 
  and vanish.
  The Sea Serpent
  High Concept: Titanic Sea Serpent
  Trouble: Bestial Fury
  Other Aspects: Limbless; Keeper of the Treasures of the Deep; Not Yet Lost
  APPROACHES
  Bold: Great (+4)
  Clever: Average (+1)
  Mighty: Superb (+5)
  Subtle: Poor (-1)
  Swift: Good (+3)
  Wise: Average (+1)
  STUNTS
  Vast: Because the sea serpent is so huge, weapons of human size have little 
  effect. The sea serpent can take two extra mild physical consequences and 
  one extra moderate physical consequence. However, if the sea serpent 
  is attacked with a weapon of a scale similar to its own, such as a siege 
  weapon, it can’t use these bonus consequences to mitigate that stress.
  Capsize: The sea serpent can use an action to capsize any ship it can reach, 
  destroying the ship and throwing any on board into the water, there to 
  contend with dramatically appropriate quantities of sharks. Any god who 
  wishes to prevent this can enter a contest with the sea serpent, choosing 
  an approach to oppose the sea serpent’s Mighty.
  POWERS
  Head and Tail: The sea serpent can act twice in a physical conflict—its head 
  acts in regular turn order, with its Swift of Good (+3), and its tail strikes at 
  the end of the exchange after all others have taken their actions.
  Stormbringer: The sea serpent travels at the heart of its own typhoon; any 
  scene it is in gains the Apocalyptic Storm situation aspect or a similar one.
  STRESS
  3( 3) (six consequences)
  41
  GODS AND MONSTERS
  
  The Vampire
  It was never clear exactly when the vampire—a goddess 
  of the night and those who prowled within it—crossed 
  the line from god to monster, but now she is a twisted 
  creature of fear and sudden, predatory violence, who 
  uses the shadows to conceal her nature and cannot abide 
  the light that strips them away.
  Where the vampire lurks, people become fearful and 
  superstitious, animals become violent, and the light is 
  always weak—even the sun is only ever seen through a 
  layer of cloud.
  The Vampire
  High Concept: Twisted Night Predator
  Trouble: “The light reveals my true form!”
  Other Aspects: Bloodthirsty; Locus of Dread; Strange 
  Vulnerabilities
  APPROACHES
  Bold: Poor (-1)
  Clever: Fair (+2)
  Mighty: Fair (+2)
  Subtle: Great (+4)
  Swift: Good (+3)
  Wise: Fair (+2)
  STUNTS
  Burst of Speed: Because she has an unnatural grace, 
  the vampire can spend a fate point to go first in any 
  exchange.
  Menacing: Because she exudes a supernatural menace, 
  the vampire can use Subtle in place of Bold when 
  attempting to inspire wordless dread.
  POWERS
  Night Sorcery: By spending a fate point and conduct-
  ing a brief occult ritual, the vampire can use Wise 
  to create an advantage against anyone in the same 
  region, so long as she has a sample of the victim’s 
  blood, skin, or hair. If the roll succeeds, she can forgo 
  the advantage in order to learn the exact location of 
  her target.
  Fueled by Blood and Fear: Whenever the vampire 
  inflicts a consequence related to bleeding or fear on 
  someone, she immediately recovers a consequence of 
  equal severity.
  STRESS
  3( 3)
  42
  
  The Shapeless Ooze
  No one knows who or what the shapeless ooze was before they succumbed to 
  their own power. What it is now is a congeries of eyes and mouths and almost 
  transparent flesh, organs of indefinable purpose dimly visible within its bulk. It 
  roams with no discernible pattern, ruining anything in its path, leaving muta-
  tion and strange phenomena in its wake.
  The mere presence of the shapeless ooze seems to warp natural processes and 
  cause the world to unravel. Its passage creates mutations and insanity, and if left 
  alone it can rapidly change a region beyond all recognition.
  The Shapeless Ooze
  High Concept: Ever-Changing, Ever-Shifting
  Trouble: Mindless Devourer
  Other Aspects: Congeries of Eyes and Mouths; Transformative Presence; 
  Uncertain Anatomy
  APPROACHES
  Bold: Great (+4)
  Clever: Average (+1)
  Mighty: Great (+4)
  Subtle: Poor (-1)
  Swift: Fair (+2)
  Wise: Poor (-1)
  STUNTS
  Lethal Touch: The shapeless ooze’s touch leaves flesh warped and ruined. A 
  slight brush is worth 2 stress. Also, if it succeeds on an attack, it inflicts 2 
  additional shifts of stress.
  Resilient: The shapeless ooze is difficult to hurt; it can absorb an extra mod-
  erate and severe consequence.
  POWERS
  Bringer of Change: The shapeless ooze can add, remove, or change an 
  aspect of anything in the same scene. For gods this change is temporary—
  their nature reasserts itself by the start of the next scene—but for anything 
  else the change is permanent. The shapeless ooze can use this power once 
  per scene for free, while every subsequent use costs a fate point.
  Formless: The shapeless ooze can squeeze through any gap or crevice, even 
  ones far too small for its obvious bulk—it can even ooze through the gaps 
  between dimensions to bypass solid, seamless walls. Passing through a solid 
  barrier costs an action, but not a roll—it just arrives on the opposite side.
  Unreal: Near the shapeless ooze, reality starts to break down, and people 
  exposed to this unraveling find themselves struggling to understand the 
  evidence given by their senses. Anyone in a scene with the shapeless ooze 
  suffers an immediate consequence relating to their fraying faculties. This 
  consequence fills in their lowest slot; if no slots are available, they suffer 
  no effect—they have enough problems already that the disintegration of 
  reality seems relatively minor.
  STRESS
  3( 3) (five consequences)
  43
  
  FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE EARTH
  A long time ago—but not that long ago, for the world is still young—a goddess 
  of stone and darkness trysted with a god of the sun in her caverns beneath the 
  earth. The sun god’s light sparked life from the stones, alien flowers in colors 
  unknown to the surface world. He promised to return often so the goddess and 
  flowers alike might know the warmth of the sun.
  But the surface world is full of distractions; the sun god forgot his one-time 
  lover and did not return to her caverns beneath the earth. And in her caverns the 
  stone goddess grew bitter. She steeped in darkness and anger, drawing into her-
  self all those other things that could not abide the light of the sun, and became 
  something other than what she had been.
  This is not that tale, but the tale which follows after. This is the tale of how the 
  sun was eaten by a giant skull, and what the gods did about it.
  “BUT I’M THE SUN GOD!”
  By default, Gods and Monsters assumes that, while gods may claim 
  kinship with certain forces of nature, they do not have sole owner-
  ship of them—in this case, there can be multiple sun gods who share 
  kinship with and responsibility for the sun. They may cooperate, 
  they may be rivals or even bitter enemies, but they’re all “sun gods.”
  However, if you’d prefer that there’s no more than one god of any 
  particular thing, it turns out Zarivya’s been pretending to be god of 
  the sun. He’s found that potential lovers respond more to that than 
  whatever he’s actually god of: flowers, illusions, physical attractive-
  ness, or whatever you choose. In this case, the events of the tale 
  play out more or less as written—with some changes necessary to 
  Zarivya’s Golden Citadel—but Zarivya ends up as a much less sym-
  pathetic character.
  The Vanishing of the Light
  Stewing in her bitterness over being abandoned, the stone goddess Gothad-Ul 
  concocted a plan. The sun god Zarivya had promised her warmth and light, and 
  if he was not going to uphold his promise then she would simply have to take 
  what she was due. She shaped a gargantuan skull from the bones of the earth and 
  worked a great magic to enliven it and bind it to her will, and when the working 
  was finished it burst from the ground and snap snap ate the sun.
  The player characters will likely become aware of all this about when everything 
  goes dark not long after dawn. The moon and stars still await their appointed 
  times to appear, so the sky is black from horizon to horizon and only the torches 
  and bonfires of humanity light the world. Once the moon and stars do come 
  out, they’re in no hurry to move along, so everything is blanketed in an Eternal 
  Haunted Night.
  44
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  The pantheon will naturally want to investigate this sudden change in ambient 
  lighting, but they have more immediate threats to deal with first: Now that the 
  sun resides in Gothad-Ul’s underworld, the creatures there which detest its light 
  have fled to the surface to make trouble among humanity. The living shadow, 
  an avatar of corruption, has fallen upon one PC’s sacred place or community, 
  and the ancestor-ghosts are embittered spirits who want to force another PC’s 
  community to return to “the old ways”—or at least to pay the dead the honor 
  they are due. The pantheon will need to deal with or stall these threats, or else 
  they will pursue the missing sun while weakened by the loss or corruption of 
  their stations.
  The PCs might take to investigate the missing sun in various ways: they might 
  seek out a sun god to question (“Zarivya’s Golden Citadel”, page 47) or they 
  might pursue the sun by hunting it, seeking visions of it, calculating its posi-
  tion from the time of day when it vanished, or simply asking around until they 
  find someone who saw it rise from the northern desert and tracking it that way 
  (“Passage to the Underworld”, page 51). They might even shrug their shoulders 
  and get stuck straight into building a new sun to replace the old one (“A New 
  Sun”, page 55).
  45
  GODS AND MONSTERS
  
  Living Shadow
  High Concept: Dark Mirror
  Trouble: Hide from the Light
  Other Aspects: Appetite for Corruption; Living Shadow; Force of 
  Change
  APPROACHES
  Bold: Poor (-1)
  Clever: Fair (+2)
  Mighty: Mediocre (+0)
  Subtle: Good (+3)
  Swift: Fair (+2)
  Wise: Average (+1)
  STUNTS
  Intangible: Because the living shadow is not a fully physical being, it 
  can defend against physical force with Subtle.
  Darksight: Because the living shadow is made of darkness, it can see 
  in any amount of light—even its complete absence.
  Corrupter: Because the living shadow is an embodiment of corrup-
  tion, when it succeeds in Subtly creating an advantage, it can forgo 
  giving the target a new aspect to instead replace one of the target’s 
  aspects with a dark inversion. The living shadow still gets any free 
  invokes it generates. Against gods or monsters this inversion lasts for 
  only a scene. Against mortals the effect lasts until a god removes it, 
  by overcoming the shadow’s Subtle, or until the shadow is destroyed.
  STRESS
  3
  Community: Angry Ancestor-Ghosts
  Aspects: The concept of their home region, plus Bound By Tradition.
  APPROACHES
  Culture: Average (+1)
  Integrity: Fair (+2)
  Subtlety: Average (+1)
  Technology: Mediocre (+0)
  Warfare: Good (+3)
  Wealth: Poor (-1)
  Special Weakness
  Daylight Powerlessness: The direct light of the sun renders these 
  ghosts invisible and powerless. Their memories are eroded while 
  they are trapped in this state, giving them a mild consequence after 
  an hour, a moderate consequence after a day, a severe consequence 
  after a week, and dissolving them entirely after a month. This forces 
  them to seek lightless places to haunt and prevents them from orga-
  nizing against the living—until now.
  STRESS
  3
  46
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  Zarivya’s Golden Citadel
  Zarivya’s Golden Citadel sits on a mountain peak in the east. It sprawls over a 
  town-sized area, large enough for the palatial living quarters of Zarivya and his 
  cult, gardens, works of art, and huge 
  echoing empty spaces in which the 
  sun god cannot decide what to dis-
  play. Despite its location, the citadel is 
  filled with Sweltering Heat. Zarivya 
  and his followers tend to wear as little 
  as possible, and place a correspond-
  ing importance on a well-sculpted 
  physique.
  But today Zarivya cannot relax and 
  enjoy his palace. He knows exactly 
  who would send a giant skull to eat 
  the sun, and why. Even more, the 
  dread knowledge that it’s all his fault 
  is accompanied by the tiny, insistent 
  voice of guilt over the way he treated 
  Gothad-Ul. Compounding all this is 
  his long-time rival Gloria, now at his 
  door, demanding that he relinquish 
  his solar mantle and cede his cult and 
  power to her.
  When the PCs arrive at Zarivya’s 
  door, they find it sealed. Gloria waits 
  there with inhuman patience. Zarivya 
  will let the PCs in, but not Gloria 
  under any circumstances, so she tries 
  to convince them that Zarivya is an 
  irresponsible child who has mislaid 
  the sun and that his divine connec-
  tion to the sun should pass to her. 
  Zarivya on the other hand sees the 
  PCs as potential allies. If they promise 
  to help, he’ll spill the whole story; he 
  has no idea what to do next other than 
  “go to Gothad-Ul and try to get the 
  sun back,” but the moment he leaves 
  the citadel Gloria will strip away all 
  his power here and add it to her own. 
  Could the PCs maybe see their way 
  clear to helping him?
  NPC GODS
  Although NPC gods can benefit from 
  fully detailed mantles and stat blocks, we 
  suggest you just give them 3 to 5 power 
  points, which they can spend on their 
  ascendant approaches and aspects as if 
  they were fate points. When running an 
  NPC god, GMs, you can spend fate points 
  in place of the god’s power points.
  In addition, you can spend one of their 
  power points (or one of your fate points) 
  to have the god do something broadly 
  related to their concept: fire gods set 
  things on fire, sea gods drag things to the 
  bottom of the ocean, and so on.
  GLORIA’S PLAN
  Gloria knows that the sun has been car-
  ried into the depths of the earth by a 
  giant skull. She doesn’t know why, but 
  that doesn’t really matter: this is just a 
  golden opportunity for her to pursue her 
  interminable and one-sided feud with 
  Zarivya. She’s sent Mazakal to watch over 
  the cave where the sun was taken (see 
  “Passage to the Underworld”, page 51) 
  and instructed Pharos to construct a new 
  one (see “A New Sun”, page 55). 
  And if the sun does spontaneously 
  reappear in the sky, well now there’s a 
  backup sun should the one up there go 
  missing again—and that’s the sort of for-
  ward thinking that proves she’d make a 
  better sun god than that layabout Zarivya.
  47
  GODS AND MONSTERS
  
  Zarivya
  High Concept: Hot In Every Sense (Bold)
  Trouble: “…I don’t understand.”
  Other Aspects: Sculpted Physique (Mighty);  
  Short Attention Span (Swift); Free Lover
  APPROACHES
  Bold: Good (+3) õ 
  Clever: Poor (-1)
  Mighty: Good (+3) õ
  Subtle: Mediocre (+0)
  Swift: Average (+1) õ
  Wise: Average (+1)
  STUNTS
  No Harm Done?: Because Zarivya is wildly irresponsible, he has an extra 
  mild consequence slot. This slot can only be used to store a consequence 
  related to something he should have done but didn’t.
  Lifegiver: Because Zarivya embodies the life-giving nature of the sun, he 
  can cause flowers to grow and plants to bloom no matter how poor the 
  soil. This is usually cosmetic, but if he creates an advantage in this way 
  he can do it with Bold instead of some other approach.
  Wrestler: Because Zarivya is a skilled wrestler, whenever he makes a Mighty 
  attack or defense opposed by another god’s Mighty approach, he gets a 
  +2 bonus.
  Boons
  Warm: Zarivya is immune to harm from fire or heat. Also, he can spend a 
  power point or fate points to give a +2 bonus to someone else’s physical 
  action; transform a consequence of any severity into something which 
  can begin healing; create an aspect on a mortal person or community 
  related to how much they like him; or do something else related to the 
  life-giving, mood-soothing warmth of the sun.
  POWER POINTS
  4
  STRESS
  3(four consequences)
  48
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  Gloria
  High Concept: Blinding Radiance (Bold)
  Trouble: It’s Only Pride If You’re Not Actually 
  Exceptional
  Other Aspects: Cautious Planner (Wise); Clarity 
  (Clever); The Light That Searches Out Weakness
  APPROACHES
  Bold: Fair (+2) õ
  Clever: Fair (+2) õ
  Mighty: Average (+1)
  Subtle: Mediocre (+0)
  Swift: Average (+1)
  Wise: Good (+3) õ
  STUNTS
  Strategist: Because Gloria is always thinking ahead, 
  when she succeeds in Wisely creating an advan-
  tage to reflect how she has prepared a battlefield 
  in advance, she can spend a power point or 
  fate point to immediately take an action which 
  invokes the new aspect or boost.
  The Light Which Burns: Because Gloria’s heart is 
  a blazing radiance which burns body and soul 
  alike, whenever she takes a consequence the 
  mortal person or community who inflicted it 
  takes 2 stress.
  Prideful: Because Gloria’s certainty in her own bril-
  liance is unassailable, she gets a +2 bonus when 
  she Boldly defends herself from an attack meant 
  to make her feel stupid or worthless.
  Boons
  Radiant: Spend a power point or fate point to make 
  someone who looks at her Blinded, lasting until 
  the end of the scene for gods, and permanent 
  for mortals; to travel instantly to anywhere she 
  can see; to create a light-based situation aspect 
  or remove a darkness-based one; or otherwise 
  express the burning light she carries within her.
  POWER POINTS
  4
  STRESS
  3
  49
  
  Mazakal
  High Concept: Legalistic Spider God
  Trouble: Binding Agreement
  Other Aspects: All Webs Have Holes (Clever); Hidden Friend of 
  Civilization (Subtle); Spider-Bodied (Swift)
  APPROACHES
  Bold: Mediocre (+0)
  Clever: Fair (+2) õ
  Mighty: Average (+1)
  Subtle: Fair (+2) õ
  Swift: Good (+3) õ
  Wise: Average (+1)
  STUNTS
  Scuttle: Because Mazakal is a giant spider, when he tries to intimidate 
  or startle someone, he can use Swift instead of Bold.
  Webs: Because Mazakal is a web-spinner, whenever he tries to create 
  an advantage related to entangling something or someone in his 
  webs, he can use Subtle instead of Mighty.
  Clarity: Because Mazakal has an exceptionally keen mind, he gets a +2 
  bonus whenever he Cleverly defends himself from a mental attack.
  BOONS
  Laws and Silk Unbreakable: Spend a power point or fate point to 
  have Mazakal catch something in his webs that could not normally 
  be caught; to transform physical entrapment into emotional entrap-
  ment or vice versa; to appear swiftly and silently behind someone 
  who is trapped; or to do anything else that blurs the line between 
  literal and metaphorical webbing.
  POWER POINTS
  4
  STRESS
  3
  50
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  Passage to the Underworld
  In the desert to the north—where the red dust collects between low mesas 
  and scrubby plants scratch out a meager living from what little water they can 
  find—surrounded by a rough triangle of rocky outcroppings there is a crack that 
  leads deep into the earth. This crack leads to Gothad-Ul’s underworld, and it is 
  the only path she knows that is big enough for her sun-eating skull. The local 
  communities all shun this place as Haunted, but since the sun vanished it has 
  become even more dangerous: the spider-god Mazakal has established himself 
  here, wrapping the place in his webs under the cover of its full darkness. Anyone 
  trying to enter or leave the cave or its immediate environs will find themselves 
  caught.
  Mazakal is a member of the same pantheon as Gloria. He doesn’t care much 
  for the goddess of blinding light, and he finds her squabble with Zarivya tire-
  some in the extreme, but he owed her a favor and he is nothing if not exacting 
  in his favor-trading. Gloria wants to ensure that nothing and no one passes 
  through this passage to the underworld, whether entering or leaving, with an 
  exception for the sun. To fulfill these wishes, Mazakal is her agent of choice. If 
  questioned, Mazakal knows that Pharos has been sent to construct a new sun, 
  but knows no details of Pharos’ plan.
  The Gravegarden
  The desert cave descends at a steep angle, splits, branches, and splits again until 
  the explorers find themselves in a strange and tangled network of underground 
  caverns. Eerie plants sprout from the rock, their heavy flowers aglow in shades of 
  blue, green, and violet. Albino centipedes scuttle amid the plants, ranging from 
  finger-length to the height of a tall man, and all manner of things that shun the 
  light lurk in the shadows.
  Finding the skull—and the sun it contains—is not difficult. The simplest 
  method is asking one of the many semi-solid ghosts that populate these caverns, 
  but doubtlessly the gods have their own potent means to find the things they 
  seek. The skull sits in the center of a colossal cave, sunlight streaming out of its 
  eye sockets, from between its teeth, and through every chink and crack in its 
  construction. In this Patchy Illumination grows a Strange Garden of plants 
  that have never seen the surface, tended by the lumbering figure of Gothad-Ul 
  herself.
  Gothad-Ul is polite but wary—she knows her theft of the sun is likely to draw 
  some attention and suspects the PCs want to steal it back. As far as Gothad-Ul 
  is concerned, she has a right to the sun based on Zarivya’s promise, but she’ll 
  relinquish the sun if the PCs can get her another light source of equal potency, 
  deliver Zarivya to her in chains, or both.
  51
  GODS AND MONSTERS
  
  Region: The Gravegarden
  Concept: Life in Death
  Refinement: Shrouded in Bitterness
  STUNTS
  Bones of the Earth: Once per tale, you can call upon the earth to 
  disgorge its ancient dead. Skeletons and ghosts burst from the 
  ground, forming an immediate community where you are located. 
  The living dead will perform a single service for you, but it is not 
  their sole interest and they will not vanish once their service is dis-
  charged—once raised, the dead chart their own destiny.
  Community: The Living Dead
  Aspects: The concept of their home region, plus Ghosts and Skeletons.
  APPROACHES
  Culture: Average (+1)
  Integrity: Fair (+2)
  Subtlety: Average (+1)
  Technology: Mediocre (+0)
  Warfare: Fair (+2)
  Wealth: Mediocre (+0)
  NOTES
   When you first summon this community, you can swap the values of 
  any two of the living dead’s approaches.
  STRESS
  3
  52
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  Gothad-Ul
  High Concept: Body of Earth and Tombstones (Mighty)
  Trouble: Lumbering
  Other Aspects: Patient Gardener (Wise); A Heart as Vulnerable as 
  Anyone’s; Stony Camouflage (Subtle)
  APPROACHES
  Bold: Average (+1)
  Clever: Average (+1)
  Mighty: Great (+4) õ
  Subtle: Average (+1) õ
  Swift: Mediocre (+0)
  Wise: Fair (+2) õ
  STUNTS
  Tough: Because Gothad-Ul has a stony body, she has an extra moderate 
  consequence slot.
  Poisoned Whispers of the Embittered Dead: Because Gothad-Ul has 
  spent too long taking the advice of ghosts twisted by hatred and jealousy, 
  she suffers no stress or consequences from social attacks based on the idea 
  that people—or gods—are good or decent.
  Strength of the Earth: Because Gothad-Ul is as inexorable as a landslide, 
  whenever someone tries to Mightily defend against one of her attacks, 
  she gets a +2 bonus to her attack.
  BOONS
  Earth Elemental: Spend a power point or fate point to have Gothad-Ul 
  ignore a physical attack; create a Good (+3) barrier or a situation aspect 
  by shaping earth or stone; “glide” through walls or floors; produce a 
  handful of gemstones or other precious items from beneath the earth, 
  equivalent to Good (+3) Wealth for a community; or something else 
  related to her command over earth, stone, and underground caves.
  POWER POINTS
  5
  STRESS
  3 (four consequences)
  53
  GODS AND MONSTERS
  
  Pharos
  High Concept:  
  A Cloud of Smoke and Molten Iron (Bold)
  Trouble: “I will not be outdone!”
  Other Aspects: Obsessive Creator of Wonders 
  (Clever); A Transformative Flame; Never 
  Destroy What Can Be Repurposed (Wise)
  APPROACHES
  Bold: Average (+1) õ
  Clever: Good (+3) õ
  Mighty: Fair (+2)
  Subtle: Average (+1)
  Swift: Mediocre (+0)
  Wise: Fair (+2) õ
  STUNTS
  Twisted Builder: Because Pharos uses whatever 
  is nearby as raw materials, it can spend a power 
  point or fate point to transform any situation 
  aspect into a related but different one.
  Smoke and Fire: Because Pharos’ body is a cloud 
  of smoke, heat, and molten iron, anyone coming 
  into physical contact with it takes 1 stress.
  Slave to Its Nature: Because Pharos cannot help 
  but create, whenever it succeeds with style on a 
  Clever roll, it can spend two shifts to create a 
  new situation aspect. This aspect does not start 
  with any free invokes.
  BOONS
  Creator: Spend a power point or fate point to have 
  Pharos create a unique wonder from whatever 
  materials are at hand. The wonder has an aspect, 
  or has a stunt usable by its controller, or serves 
  some sort of story purpose, such as making a 
  new sun out of gold and fire. Every additional 
  point spent at creation gives the wonder another 
  of these properties.
  POWER POINTS
  4
  STRESS
  3
  54
  
  A New Sun
  If the PCs are unwilling or unable to recover the original sun from Gothad-Ul, 
  another solution would be to copy Gloria’s approach and craft a new one—or 
  steal hers.
  Building One
  Cerebral PCs might work out how to construct a sun by themselves, and anyone 
  might be able to learn Gloria’s plans. However, if the pantheon is short of ideas, 
  Zarivya knows what’s needed to enchant a new sun—he just needs to realize that 
  building one is an option at all.
  The three ingredients of a new sun are a great quantity of gold, a flame of 
  surpassing power, and the eye of a sun god to provide its proper divine charge. If 
  the PCs build attempt to build a new sun, they will find themselves opposed by 
  Pharos, a member of Gloria’s pantheon who has the same objective. Pharos cares 
  nothing for Gloria—its only love is creation, raw and wild—but she represents 
  its best chance at getting the eye required to finish its new sun, and it’s likely to 
  consider the PCs its enemies because they are competing with it for the same 
  resources.
  A great quantity of gold can be acquired in a number of ways, but the simplest 
  three are these:
  • Stripping Zarivya’s Golden Citadel of its golden decoration. This is 
  simple and avoids conflict with Pharos, but will deprive Zarivya of one of 
  his stations—a non-golden citadel doesn’t properly embody his nature—
  and will tip off Gloria about what the PCs are trying to do.
  • Taking a total of three levels of Wealth from communities. This avoids 
  conflict with Pharos but puts the PCs in conflict with the communities 
  whose resources they are liquidating.
  • Finding a deposit under the mountains that will provide enough gold. 
  This is where Pharos is focusing its efforts. It has constructed a Twisted 
  Arcane Framework which when activated will invert a large portion of 
  the mountain, exposing the gold and causing vast collateral damage.
  55
  GODS AND MONSTERS
  
  Likewise, a flame of surpassing power can be collected from several locations:
  • Pharos himself embodies a flame of surpassing power. It’s not willing to 
  sacrifice the core of its nature in order to become a new sun, but perhaps 
  the PCs feel differently.
  • If one of the PCs is a god invested in love or lust, a flame of intense 
  enough passion would do the trick. Zarivya is an easy and symbolically 
  important partner in this sort of plan, but he lacks the required intensity. 
  Mortals can produce the right emotions at the right strength, but tearing 
  these out will remove their ability to feel at all.
  • Lightning isn’t exactly fire, but it has enough in common that a god 
  aligned with the storms might be able to bind it to the task. This is 
  Pharos’ plan, but it does not wish to deal with a storm god. Instead, 
  from the material of the Sweeping Plains it has extruded another of its 
  machines, one which will attract and concentrate the lightning into a 
  sun-igniting spark.
  • In the absence of other options, there is the Demon, one of the first mon-
  sters bound by the gods. He is chained in a ziggurat on the seabed, where 
  his bottomless hatred can ignite nothing but the stones around him. The 
  Demon will always uphold a bargain he makes, and he is more than will-
  ing to ignite the new sun if someone will just set him free—and Pharos 
  will, if its plan to harness lightning is foiled.
  Of the three parts, the sun god’s eye is potentially the easiest to acquire: 
  Zarivya and Gloria have four between them, but neither is willing to give one 
  up without serious persuasion.
  The PCs will probably come up with several other ideas about where to get the 
  parts for a new sun. Generally, these plans will work, but with a twist, cost, or 
  penalty—at the very least, Pharos is quite happy to sabotage its rivals in order to 
  receive the glory of being the new sun’s creator. 
  Stealing One
  For PCs of an underhanded bent, an obvious plan is to wait for Pharos to finish 
  constructing its replacement sun, then steal it. This scheme has many advantages, 
  but any attempt to steal the sun will pit the characters against Pharos, Gloria, 
  and Mazakal—because, despite the distances involved, the latter two gods can 
  spend power points to arrive anywhere they need to be.
  56
  FATE: WORLDS OF ADVENTURE
  
  INTENTION IN 30 SECONDS
  At the start of the tale, mark the current locations of your intention markers.
  Every time you spend a fate point to affect a roll, choose one:
  • If you are using an ascendant approach, imbue one of your stations with 
  a power point.
  • Bleed off the intention into the environment (page 23).
  • Move your intention token one step toward the approach rolled.
  If moving your token would push it off the end of the track, you must store 
  the intention in a station, bleed it off, or turn into a monster and end the scene.
  At every milestone, in addition to the regular parts of that milestone, do the 
  following:
  1. Move your intention tokens not covering a numbered tier space toward tier 
  0 until it covers the numbered space of the next lowest tier.
  2. If any of your ascendant approaches have changed, adjust your ascendant 
  aspects to reflect that.
  3. Check if your highest tier, now your milestone tier, has changed. If so, 
  adjust your boons and geas as appropriate.
  At the end of the tale, you can choose to return your intention tokens to where 
  they were at the start of the tale by bleeding off all the excess intention in one go. 
  The more you bleed off, the worse things get.
  A god...
  ... acts ...
  ...which 
  generates 
  intention...
  ...which 
  reinforces the 
  god’s nature...
  ...which 
  bleeds into 
  the world.
  ...maybe a bit 
  too much.
  ...which is 
  stored in 
  stations...
  ...which 
  power 
  boons...
  ...
  us
  ed
   b
  y..
  .
  57
  GODS AND MONSTERS
  
  Bold
  Clever
  Wise
  Subtle
  Mighty
  Swift
  2
  1
  3
  3
  1
  2
  0
  2
  1
  3
  3
  1
  2
  0
  2
  1
  3
  3
  1
  2
  0
  INTENTION
  STRESS & CONSEQUENCES
  APPROACHES
  Name
  ASPECTS
  STUNTS
  STATIONS
  BOONS
  GEAS
  High Concept 
  (Ascendant Approach)
  Trouble 
  (Ascendant Approach)
   
  (Ascendant Approach)
   
  (Ascendant Approach)
   
   
  (Ascendant Approach)
  Boon 
  Tier
  Geas 
  Tier
  REFRESH
  Mild
  Moderate
  Severe
  Gods and Monsters Character Sheet ©2015 Evil Hat Productions, LLC. May be printed and photocopied for personal use.
  GODS AND
  MONSTERS
  BOLD
  CLEVER
  WISE
  SUBTLE
  MIGHTY
  SWIFT
  +
  +
  +
  +
  +
  +
  MANTLE
  MILESTONE TIER
  Station
  Station
  Station
  Station
  1
  3
  2
  STRESS
  2
  4
  6
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/FATE (fudge) [multi]/World of Adventure/Gods-and-Monsters.pdf