On the steps of a temple raised with her own hands, a priestess cuts the throat of a horse with her knife and flicks the blood across the faces of the people gathered around. The crowd roars as they prepare to march to battle, confident in the favour of the gods now marked upon their skin...
Amid the croaking of ravens, a stooped figure paces the blood-soaked battlefield searching for a lost companion. Finding the other warrior lying mortally wounded, he places his hand against the wounded man's cleft ribs and calls on the vitality of the gods. With a hiss and the scent of burning ash wood, the warrior's wound begins to close under his rescuer's touch...
In the streets of the city rival clansmen clash, overturning booths and wagons in the marketplace with their brawling. Planting herself firmly among them, a young woman calls on the authority of the Goddess of Law to lay down a geas upon the assembled fighters, forbidding them from raising arms against one another until after the next þing...
On the crest of a hill, a man draws back his bowstring, a prayer to the God of the Sky on his tongue. His arrow crackles with the power of a lightning bolt as he holds the string taut, and when he releases, it lances down to land among his foes with the explosive force of a thunderclap...
The Goði
The Mortal World exists as it does through the efforts of the divine. When ancient giants still ruled in the shadow of the World Tree, it was the gods and goddesses who threw them back into the Primordial Realms of Ice and Fire, and who slew their progenitors and fully third of their numbers. In the aftermath, it was the three brother gods who shaped the Mortal World from giant's flesh, and so doing became the Wild Gods of Mountains, Sea, and Sky. And it was the the three sister goddesses who made humankind from ash and elm wood to people the new land, and who taught them their first lessons, becoming the Hearth Goddesses of Law, War, and Craft by doing so.
The gods and goddesses still watch over the mortal world and its denizens, and it is the role of the Goði to be their agent in the mortal world. A Goði is responsible for managing the community's relationship with the divine, and in return they are granted the favour of the gods and the ability to call on divine power in times of extremity or need.
Every Goði has access to some generic powers, but much of what an individual Goði can do is also determined by their choice of Divine Patron. Bodil's Gap is a setting under the purview of six deities, each with their own domain and powers; by pledging oneself to a particular deity or subset of deities over the others, one Goði can wield wildly different abilities from another. Many of a Goði's powers also rely on an expenditure of divine power that can only be gained through sacrifice. When in need of another boon from the gods, a Goði must turn to offerings to ensure the goodwill of the divine still rests with them.
The Power of the Gods
Every Goði's most basic powers stem from their particular Divine Patron. The simple attention of a god or goddess grants every Goði a simple, passive ability, and the power to call on greater divine favour to imbue themselves with a particular blessing. A devotee of the God of the Sea, for example, finds water posing less of an obstacle in any form, and may call on even greater power to breath below the waves as though in open air. A follower of the Goddess of War, meanwhile, is never burdened by armour no matter how heavy, and may call on greater power to strengthen their own strikes while turning aside the blows of their enemies.
Greater favour allows a Goði to call on yet greater powers. A follower of the God of the Mountains, for example, can gain the endurance of a stone, shape the bones of the earth with a word, follow the scent of gold, or call boiling magma from the inner earth to swallow their foes. A worshiper of the Goddess of Craft can repair or even improve objects with a touch, make divination about a person from the things they touch, grant objects the lightness of a feather, or work in magical materials to produce tools and items of great power.
Some abilities are also open to a Goði regardless of their particular patron. A talented Goði may heal the injured, grant good luck to all those who partake of a feast made from the beasts they sacrifice, bless a person by flecking them with sacrificial blood, or even summon one of the servants of their divine patron, whichever god or goddess they be.
Authority in the Community
Because of their important role as an intercessor with the divine, a Goði also wields a great deal of influence among the folk of Bodil's Gap. A Goði is often called on to oversee oaths and promises, and can wield their influence to ensure such promises are kept. They can call on the community to assemble for a festival or rite, or to bring tithes and offerings to support a higher cause. They can raise an altar or temple to serve as a locus of power for their rites and offerings, and they can draw fellow adherents of their particular patron to become their followers and acolytes.
Using the Goði
This playbook is intended for characters who are a combination of leader and wonder-worker, calling on the favour of higher powers to support their allies and their community at large, while also having access to some more direct divine abilities. Like the Óttimaðr, Goði is a playbook without a single root image, stemming more from my desire to rework and re-theme the generic Cleric for a non-generic setting. Use it instead of playbooks like Cleric or Paladin to present a warrior and leader empowered by the gods of a wild land and its people.
Bodil's Gap is currently in playtesting, and the playtesting version of the Goði playbook can be found here. If you have any insight or feedback, leave a comment or send an email to brazenhead@zoho.com.
Up Next
Next week I'll be talking about one or two of the Compendium Classes for Bodil's Gap, starting with the terrifying Dragon-Cursed.
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