Review: Petty Gods

Purchased when a chunky discount for Lulu floated, this is one that was often flagged as a 'greatest of the Lulu OSR' that I had passed over a few times because the old-school 'every PC a divine avatar' style never really caught on with me. I like my gods mostly a bit more aloof. This was a gross misunderstanding of this fantastic book on my part, I should have picked it up far sooner - we have tons of really useful gameable content in here, in a big, chunky book (380 page hardcover).

Cover illustration by Thomas Denmark

I was shocked at how thick this book was - I was expecting ~ 100-150 odd pages of stuff, something like the old orange spine books, instead we get this monster. Art is nice throughout with a wide selection of artists - stylistically it is true to the OD&D era of small black and white illustrations within two columns per page. There is some jokey stuff in here, gag monsters and pun-named gods and cults but just a light salting so you can keep or drop those to your preference without detracting from the whole.

So what is in here? There is a substantial introduction with foreward, definitions of petty gods and guidance for use in play among other bits.
Section 1 is 208 pages of Petty Gods
Section 2 is 68 pages of Minions, Knights and Servitors
Section 3 is 16 pages on Cults & Cultists
Section 4 is 24 pages of Divine Items
Section 5 is 14 pages of Spells
Appendices are another 34 pages
Indices close out the book with 11 pages

So what is in this monster chunk by chunk?

Starting with the Introduction - some good 'handling guide' stuff - What is a God, Using Petty Gods in Play, Propitiation of said Gods and a Guide to Godly Reactions shape up a nice framework for use in play. I like these kinds of things because it is an aspect of the day-to-day reality of those who live in these fantasy worlds and having these aspects in is good to make your game feel different and alive.

Petty Gods - great stuff, and things I never realised I needed before. I had previously been somewhat hesitant about including gods directly into campaigns - their servants sure, their indirect influence through visions and portents, fine, but actually appearing themselves? Made gods feel trivial - which is why the petty gods of this book are perfect. It is entirely reasonable that you might run into them in the out of the way nooks that adventurers frequent and interact with them on something resembling a peer level. Some broad themes of 'petty gods of the dungeon' and 'minor eldritch horrors' but still lots of other minor godlings to fill out all aspects of life and reality.

Minions, Knights and Servitors - all sorts of interesting monsters, some unique, some fairly commonplace. The sheer variety is great and together it all comes together to create a 'petty divine ecology' that gives them all a sense of place. Some of these things are very dangerous, others are almost narrative props where any interaction will almost certainly non-combat but all good elements to have.

Cults & Cultists - starting with a great workflow for why does the cult exist - opening with its promise and then who it follows and what resources it might have. This is a great opener and then the example cults provided range from the slightly goofy (pardon the pun) Cult of D'sney to the dangerous and efficient Cult of the Obsidian Mirror

Divine Items collects items named throughout the rest of the book into a handy place and adds some more. Some deeply weird ones like God Tubes, bottles of godflesh that grant random powers, possibly mutations and one-ness with the gods themselves, the Mauve Trapezoid which acts as the key to the interstitial void and other items of strange power that will instill a proper caution of the items of the petty divine.

Spells adds a few pages of spells tied to various petty gods and classing them by magic-user list. A nice mix of odd things to blend into a found spellbook, stats are for B/X so they may take a little work to use them in other systems but good inspiration in here.

Appendices
A - "Create a religion in your spare time for fun and profit" is a dense 10-page article by M.A.R. Barker - easily the biggest block of run on text in the book, Gygaxian in its denseness.
B - Gods of Barsoom is two pages outlining that pantheon, nice to have.
C - Legend lore of the jale god - a set of nested tables - Feast days, Cacophonies from his pipe, Quests, Side-effects of visions, Colors beyond Human Ken, Invocations & Folk Beliefes, Tales of the Jale God and Tales of his Servants. Lots of meat in here and a nice structure for doing similar for another divine.
D - Petty foods of the petty gods - more great stuff, inspiration to drop into campaigns and encounters
E - Petty classifieds - 3 pages of adventure hooks.
N - Inspirational reading, as an Appendix N should be.

Indices - a handy alphabetical index of the gods and their portfolios, and index of writers and an index of artists to round this out.

Wrap up - I like this as a resource deployable in almost all circumstances to put a twist on your game. This is like a well stocked spice rack, some of the flavours won't be for your table but browsing the lists of petty gods and their servitors is a great spark for inspiration. As soon as I got my hands on this I skimmed it to get a sense of the structure then went straight to the index of petty gods to read through all the domains and spot a couple that might be useful in an upcoming session of my home campaign; found a few and then those inspired some other thoughts and off I went. Exactly what I want from a book like this; busting me out of my own creative habits with stuff I would never have come up with myself.

For other views on this book Coins and Scrolls offers critique and some suggestions on improved use, Swords and Stitchery writes Using The Petty Gods OSR Resource Book For Your Old School Science Fiction or Science Fantasy Campaigns and The Esoteric Order of Gamers writes a review.