Our latest volume of DIE RPG: Scenarios is out! Eagle-eyed readers will notice that Kieron’s scenario, No Rezes, is scoped for four players and doesn’t include anything for the Godbinder Paragon. The simple truth is that it used to, but we cut it (mostly for length). But that’s OK! You can get it here. Right here, in this post.

So, if you’ve got one player who insists on being the gods’ plaything, you’ve got them covered. Or, I suppose, if you want a preview of the scenario, it works for that too.

Adding the Godbinder into the scenario requires a couple of adjustments to Persona Generation and the description of the Map. They’re here too, under the appropriate headings so you can easily wedge them in.

– Producer Chant

Persona Generation

ASK THE JUDGED:

• You tried so hard to impress, but your parents were never satisfied with you. Why? 

• You were never smart enough.
• You were never dutiful enough. 
• You had no interest in being a fucking lawyer.
• Something else
• Who was the Golden Child you could never live up to?

• My older sibling.
• My perfect cousin.
• My own parents’ younger selves.
• Someone else

Which is why you played Clerics, even if you didn’t realise it. You did good things for a higher power, and they helped you instead of saying it wasn’t good enough.

The Map

Godbinder: In the middle of this desert, there’s a famed school for heroes. Before you could get a prestige class, you had to go here and undergo the trials. What were the trials called? Why did your group never actually do the trials?

The Scenario: The Desert (The Godbinder)

Emerging from the desert is the legendary Complex of Heroes. It looks like the Godbinder’s old school, carved from sandstone and it’s full of statues of people who the Godbinder’s parents would have loved to be their children. Adventuring heroes fill the place, recovering from the test. There are celebrations underway—word is, someone has done incredibly well in the final exams, and will surely receive the prize: a Memory Globe.

They’re late for the exams, and will have to find the Heads and argue why they should be allowed to do it. Ask the Paragons for details of any stress dreams they’ve had about missing exams, and work it in. For example, the Paragons may find themselves suddenly naked.

The Cast

The Heads: these are an echo of the Godbinder’s judging parents. Heads, plural, as they have two of them. It’s difficult to convince them that the Paragons can be good at anything, but are perhaps cruel enough to be interested in seeing them humiliate themselves.

The Valedictorian In Waiting: an Echo of whichever Golden Child the Godbinder could never live up to. Ask the Godbinder—how did you know the Golden Child wasn’t really worthy of your parent’s adoration? This failing also echoes in their behaviour. They’ll be celebrating with…

The Valedictorian’s party: ask each other player—who did you think you could never live up to? Each member of the party resembles one.

The Loremaster: ask the Dictator—who most encouraged your interest in your art? The Loremaster of the school resembles them.

The Taskmaster: Ask the Fool—who most encouraged you, for all your chaos? This gentle presence encouraging the students resembles them.

The Warmaster: Ask the Rage Knight—who stuck up for you and encouraged you to fight? The expert in all the martial arts resembles them.

The Shadowmaster: Ask the Neo—who encouraged your darker side? The ninja-skilled Shadowmaster resembles them.

The Master of Mysteries: Ask the Godbinder—who actually helped you in your impossible task? The Master of Mysteries, who barters with gods, demons and everything else, resembles them.

If the specified Paragon isn’t there, ask another player instead. It’s important that the faculty are all player-defined.

The Tests

The tests are performed in any order, except the Master of Mysteries, who has to be last.

Everyone who the Paragons speak to will claim that the Master of Mysteries is by far the most difficult, and completely unpredictable. After a test, a master may give an opinion on how you did… but none will say how well you did compared to anyone else who did the test.

The Loremaster leads the Paragons into an exam hall and presents each of them with an exam paper. They’ll recognise it as one of their own from their teenage years, a test they did badly on. Ask, what was the big question they got wrong? The Loremaster quizzes each about it, what the actual mistake was, and what they’d have done differently.

The Warmaster leads the group into the bestiary beneath the school, full of monstrous creatures. They ask, what’s the most impressive thing you think you can defeat in combat? The Warmaster spends a few minutes to locate it, and then releases it into an arena. Good luck.

The Shadowmaster tells the group they have an hour to bring them the most valuable thing they can. Bonus marks if the person it’s stolen from doesn’t realise it’s gone.

The Taskmaster sets the players a task lifted from the TV show Taskmaster. Ask the players if they’ve watched it. If they have, ask what their favourite task is. They have to do it. If they’ve never seen Taskmaster, ask the players to come up with the most entertaining task for another group to perform. Look, if we’d put this in the book we’d definitely have changed this part. – Chant

The Master of Mysteries meets the Paragons in their arcane chamber, full of petrifying machinery and weird science. They sit the Paragons down, pour them a drink and ask them why they should pass.

The Ceremony

The following morning, all the Paragons and  Masters gather in the centre of the Sandstone School. They are told to go one way or the other, depending whether they have passed or failed, overall (the GM decides, based on their performance in the tests).

Each of the Masters then says who they think should be the Valedictorian. Tradition says that the majority decision will take it… but the actual final authority is the Heads’. If they are uncertain, they may ask for more proof. 

The Heads, if satisfied, bestow the Memory Globe on the Godbinder, making them the Valedictorian, and also invite them to be a new tutor here. They have proved themselves. As for the now-beaten Valedictorian-in-Waiting—they don’t seem so ‘Golden’ now.

If the Godbinder’s party wins, ask—when you dreamed of besting the golden child, how do you think they’d have reacted? They do so.

The Globe

The second the Godbinder touches the globe ask them: the person who is dead, they once said or did something which, for a second, gave you the affirmation your parents never gave you. What was it, and where?

The party then gains a Level.