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RPG featuring public domain comic book art was inspired by Star Wars and The Outer Worlds

Old Gods and Young Guns.

A brand-new tabletop roleplaying game takes inspiration from the likes of Star Wars and The Outer Worlds.

Old Gods and Young Guns is a new tabletop RPG set in an alternate world wherein humanity has populated various planets across the galaxy, thousands of years after a pantheon of deities ruled space. Taking place in the Fourth Galaxy, the roleplaying game’s world began with the rule of a collective of powerful gods – the cosmic kind reigning in the skies and the chthonic type ruling the underground – who were responsible for creating life and maintaining peace.

Gods from beneath and above the planets would trade children with each other in order to form alliances, whereas other deities would challenge the pact and cause mischief and strife – with their many interactions taking inspiration from Jack Kirby’s New Gods revival of the Marvel comic book universe. The acts of the gods have since become stories in the current world of the roleplaying game, with many people believing that the once ruling gods have since entirely died out. However, there are those living on the frontier planets of the galaxy who have discovered remains of the old gods and have used them to fashion firearms with incredible powers.

A page from Old Gods and Young Guns.

Old Gods and Young Guns takes inspiration from sci-fi epics such as the Star Wars series of films and video games like The Outer Worlds, having players explore a universe rife with lawlessness and imbued with the spirit of the Wild West. As gunslingers wielding the power of the old gods, players immediately paint targets on their backs as rival gunslingers eye up their weapons. Players will need to navigate the dangers of the frontier in the sci-fi RPG, whether they’re flying to planets owned by huge corporations or sneaking across the stars of uncontrolled space.

As a system-neutral roleplaying game, Old Gods and Young Guns doesn’t have any particular gameplay or rolling mechanics attached to it. Instead, players and game masters are encouraged to seek out either a settings-agnostic gameplay system – such as Fate or Charge – to use with Old Gods and Young Guns, or adapt an RPG with a similar aesthetic such as Drifters or Gun&Slingers.

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Old Gods and Young Guns was designed by Kayla MacQuarrie from Rat Wave Game House, whose previous titles include the queer roleplaying game Transgender Deathmatch Legend and Fear the Taste of Blood. The artwork for the RPG is comprised of a collection of comic book art that can be found within the public domain.

Old Gods and Young Guns is available from the Rat Wave Game House page on Itch.io for $10 (£8).

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Alex Meehan avatar
Alex Meehan: After writing for Kotaku UK, Waypoint and Official Xbox Magazine, Alex became a member of the Dicebreaker editorial family. Having been producing news, features, previews and opinion pieces for Dicebreaker for the past three years, Alex has had plenty of opportunity to indulge in her love of meaty strategy board games and gothic RPGS. Besides writing, Alex appears in Dicebreaker’s D&D actual play series Storybreakers and haunts the occasional stream on the Dicebreaker YouTube channel.
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Old Gods and Young Guns

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