Old Gods and Young Guns is a marble-based story game. It is a game in dyad. It is a GMfull game for three to seven players. You will require a set of marbles (10-15 marbles which can be split in two and marbles to act as shooters) and somewhere to use them. You’ll also benefit from something to write on and something to write with.
In the first phase of the game, The Time of the Old Gods, you play a game of marbles which you use to define the Cosmic and Chthonic Gods, doomed gods inspired by the work of Jack Kirby. You tell their story and leave behind the world you’ll play in during the second phase of the game.
The second phase of the game, The Dangerous Lives of the Young Guns, uses the marbles you scored in the first face to make an asymmetric token system. You play gunslingers living in the Meteoric Planes, the devasted remains of the Old Gods’ world, who wield dangerous weapons containing the power of the Old Gods.
The game was initially conceived of for one-shot play, however it may work as a short campaign of multiple sessions, depending on your session length preferences.
Get your shooter ready.
The Olivia Hill Rule
If you’re a fascist, you’re not welcome to play this game. It’s against the rules. If you’re reading this and thinking, “You just call everyone you disagree with a fascist,” then you’re probably a fascist, or incapable of drawing inferences from context and acknowledging a dangerous political climate that causes the oppressed to be hyperbolic. Don’t play this game. Heal yourself. Grow. Learn. Watch some Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood or something. 
Safety Tools, Considerations and Content Warnings
Old Gods and Young Guns is a game that fundamentally involves violence and is likely to involve violence between player characters. The Age of the Old Gods phase deals with the death of the characters you create. The exact form this takes and the detail of such is player-controlled, be considerate of each other and understanding as you find the level you’re all comfortable with.
The Dangerous Lives of the Young Guns phase is essentially space western. The western genre is soaked with racism and misogyny, be thoughtful of the tropes you deploy in your game and how else you can avoid replicating this hate.
Engaging with the western genre means engaging with this and engaging with the genre’s relationship with settler colonialism. Settler colonialism enacts and perpetuates generations of injustice and cruelty. The setting of the game is a science fantasy setting that does not have a relationship to the history of Earth. We did not create sci-fi/fantasy analogues of Indigenous people and cultures as that is not something we felt comfortable or even qualified to do, as a white designer. This does mean however we’ve written a western setting without Indigenous peoples. That gives us pause. It is worth thinking about how this can affect your experience of play and how best to be kind and patient with each other. 
In terms of safety tools (for all phases) we strongly encourage use of the Script Change RPG Toolbox by Beau Jágr Sheldon. Script Change is available at briebeau.com/scriptchange. Script Change is a content, consent and safety toolbox. The core Script Change tools are rewind, fast-forward, pause and frame-by-frame. Being a toolbox means it is not attempting a one size fits all to every safety issue. It’s also something that can aid your communication in play without always acting as a safety tool. Making Script Change tools part of your regular practice can make it less intimidating when it is needed as a safety tool. Read through the Script Change RPG Toolbox on Beau’s website and think of how it can inform your play.

The Time of the Old Gods
Read the five classes and select as many as you watch to be in charge of. Now you’re going to play a round of Marbles.
Create a circle in the area you are playing in. (You might draw this in chalk, use a string to mark it, or place crumpled scraps of paper in an octogen shape.) 
In the centre of this circle place 10-15 marbles of two colours. (Judge the amount based on the amount of players you have.) Designate one colour the Hot Marbles, the other colour the Cold Marbles. (The Hot/Cold dichotomy is not relevant in the Old Gods phase but it is fairer to have decided before playing.)
Grab a “Shooter” marble. It is best if the shooter marble is larger, to better knock out other marbles, and at the very least should be different from the two marble colours in the centre.
Kneel outside of the circle and shoot your marble from the ground. Your objective is to knock marbles out of the ring. To shoot your marble correctly, fold your thumb, pinkie, and ring finger into your palm. Roll your pointer finger around the marble, holding it against your thumb knuckle. When you're ready to shoot, flick your thumb out.
Any marble knocked out you collect. If your shooter is left in the circle and you knocked a marble out take another turn. If your shooter leaves the circle or you don’t knock another marble out in your turn then the next player takes their turn.
After each turn answer a prompt from the relevant picklist to create your Old Gods.
After the round is complete, you might want to summarise and embellish your Old Gods and have an open discussion on what you think the story will be. Then you’ll tell the story of the Great Disaster and the death of the Old Gods. The person with the least marbles gathered can begin the story. When they feel like they’d prefer to listen they pass the story to the player with the next least marbles and this continues so on, until the story satisfies you. (This order is primarily a suggestion to share around feelings of narrative control, depending on your tables varying comforts with improvised oral storytelling you may prefer to use a different order of telling, feel free to do so.)
The section Even Gods Must Die has some thoughts on structuring your Great Disaster and some prompt questions that might help your table out.
Picklists
Single Marble Knockout Prompts:
Describe a Weapon you were linked with
Describe an alliance and it’s purpose
Describe a sacrifice that was offered to you, and how you reacted
Describe a punishing show of power
Describe a benevolent show of power
Describe a wrong that was done to another God

Second Marble Knockout Prompts:
Describe a theft of power
Describe a death and resurrection
Describe an act of divine vengeance
Describe a journey to an otherworld
Describe a strange beast you hunted, and its fate
Describe a wrong you committed, and whether you were punished
Describe a way that you proved yourself, and who to

Third+ Marble Knockout Prompts:
Describe a rumour of your miraculous birth
Describe a rumour of how you stole power from a precursor
Describe a rumour of how your precursor tried to destroy you
Describe a rumour of a prophecy that greeted your origin
Describe how you conquered your domain
Describe how you were awarded your domain

Even Gods Must Die!
The question “how did the Old Gods die?” is a pretty big one to answer off the top of your head. We’d suggest drawing from similar stories of godly death that have appealed to you. Perhaps you’d like to tell a story of a new generation rising up to overthrow their ancestors a la Titanomachy. You could explore ideas of a pre-destined apocalypse that key events bring about a la certain pop cultural Ragnarocks. Maybe given the split between Chthonic and Cosmic Gods you’re interested in a grand war across the heavens which destroys them all.
This game draws lots of influence from Jack Kirby’s Fourth World stories. In 1984 the graphic novel The Hunger Dogs was released, Kirby’s attempt to wrap up his cosmic mythology, while complying with editorial mandates to leave the characters alive. The story preceding The Hunger Dogs, Even Gods Must Die, features a final showdown between two key gods, the god of evil Darkseid and his son Orion, raised by New Genesis. The Hunger Dogs itself features the destruction of New Genesis from dangerous technology while Darkseid is overthrown by the oppressed masses of Apokalips. These stories might also serve as influence for you if you desire.
On the next page are some questions that might help your table formulate ideas. You don’t need answers for all of them, or even any of them. Use them as much as they enhance your storytelling experience.

Was the Great Disaster foretold? Did anyone attempt to delay this fate? Did anyone attempt to hasten its arrival?

Who foretold the Great Disaster? What form did this prophecy? How were they treated?

A dangerous enemy was imprisoned once, who were they? How did they know the Old Gods? Who did the deed of imprisonment? The Great Disaster involved their release. Who freed them? What did they do after being freed?

What was the last straw that made the Old Gods turn against each other? Who struck first? Who was betrayed in a pivotal battle? Who was betrayed in their most unguarded moments?

When a Chthonic God dies what becomes of their subterranean domain? Does it crumble, burying all their squires under mounds of dirt and stone? Or does it explode? 

When a Cosmic God dies does the sky weep? Or does it feel relief? 

What becomes of the bones of the Old Gods? Do they form mountain ranges on meteors? Does their spilled blood create news lakes in the heavens? Do their eyes live beyond them? Floating in space, observing their successor, judging them as they repeat the same mistakes?

What was the first sign that life would go on? Was it survivors, huddled together to survive the storm? Is it a flower growing in space, in spite of a supposed lack of oxygen? Does one Old God survive to nurture a new world before gently passing? Or maybe there was no sign, life just did go on.

What demand was too great for the common folk to stomach? How long had their outrage been fermenting? Did any of them cry for the Old Gods?
The Old Gods

The Cryptomancer, Diabolus ex Machina
Role: Chthonic God, Afterlife Custodian, Seeker
Domain: Secrets, Code, Design, Afterlife
Desire: They seek an answer to what is and what will be. They seek to make themself the answer.
Two Forms: Their form is a mechanical skeleton flying on wings made of wires, holding a favoured soul in their clawed steel hands. Their form is a digital revenant, hosted on machine powered by the vital organs of a fallen angel.
Describe Another Form:

Cryocaesar, Cursed Upon the North Star
Role: Chthonic God, Devil, Schemer
Domain: Cold, Still, Sleep, Death
Desire: They want to conquer the world and make it still, any who oppose them are enemies.
Two Forms: Their form is an iron statue wielding a spear of ice. Their form is a person, blue to the bone, wearing a crown of frost.
Describe Another Form:

Muds’wallow, Scion of Lost Tunnels, God of Dirt
Role: Chthonic God, Earth Teacher
Domain: Dirt, Minerals, Tunnels, Stone
Desire: They want to be entertained and observed.
Two Forms: Their form is goop. When you look closely you see precious stones shaped like hearts, shaped like lungs, shaped like eyes. You can feel when they smile, and when they don’t. Their form is a one-eyed hag, caked in dirt, wearing a crown of horns and waiting for you.
Describe Another Form:

Hexagon Inferno, The Sýmpanaut,
Role: Cosmic God, Monarch, Judge
Domain: Fire, Victory, Feeding, Sacrifice
Desire: They reward loyalty and forgive nothing. They seek to grow, to feed the flames.
Two Forms: Their form is a spacesuit forged from molten vinyl, a hexed spirit sealed inside. Their form is a tessellating face of fury.
Describe Another Form:

The Sporelord, of the Infinity Fungi
Role: Cosmic God, Trickster
Domain: Plants, Fungi, Mischief, Creation
Desire: The Sporelord is curious, and so they play. Their loyalty is not to the Gods, but to the bugs and the clay.
Two Forms: Their form is mushroom covered body with a charming smile. Their mossy hands weave a daisy chain together, then rip it apart. Their form is an offbeat stranger, twirling an umbrella shaped like a mushroom, wearing a coat weaved out of morels.
Describe Another Form:

Aerovoyger, Shepherd of Storms
Role: Cosmic God, Crossroad Messenger
Domain: Winds, Rain, Travellers, Magic
Desire: Their whims change with the seasons, always seeking strong feeling.
Two Forms: Their form is worn reptile in tattered robes, propping themselves up on a crook carved from lightning. Their form is a hungry runaway with the head of a falcon, a bag of snakes slung over their shoulder.
Describe Another Form:

The Atomic Alchemist, All-Observing
Role: Primordial Claimant, Player of All Sides
Domain: Knowledge, Transformation
Desire: They seek to destroy, to create, to redeem, to damn, and to see the processes reverse and come face to face with themselves.
Two Forms: Their form is a cloaked figure concocting strange experiments at the edge of space-time. Their form is an eye encircled in stars, judging you, watching them.
Describe Another Form: 

The Dangerous Lives of Young Guns

Build your Young Gun. Roll on background tables or pick from them and think about who this Young Gun is. What do they look like? What pronouns do they use or not use? You should give them a name. Describe the artefact of an Old God that is in their possession, drawing on what was played out in The Time of the Old Gods, and answer how it came into their possession. Introduce this Young Gun to the table.  
The Young Guns are not necessarily a posse of gunslingers with shared interest. They might be. They might also be completely opposed.
Pick from the lists of artefact abilities to build your own artefact. Pick as many Hot Abilities as you have Hot Marbles. Pick as many Cold Abilities as you have Cold Marbles. To use your abilities, you must spend a matching marble. The players with less marbles pick first. No ability is shared between Young Guns. When an ability is used it is gone forever.
The game is GMfull, each player takes turns to describe the world and control NPCs. If a player is in charge of setting the Scene they may sometimes find it useful to de-centre their Young Gun. Not always, of course, maybe not even most of the time depending on your game. If one player’s Young Gun is an outright villain for the rest of the cast then you might find it straightforward to GM and play your Young Gun. If the Scene set up is a conversation with only Young Guns involved de-centring is unlikely to be necessary. You might find it doesn’t cause you much difficulty swapping in and out of the GM/player role in an individual scene. But if you do find it difficult it can be helpful to remember not every character needs to be in every scene.

Young Guns
Occupations: Bandit/Bounty Hunter/Lawman/Laborour/Preacher/Undertaker
Why you came to the Meteoric Planes: Riches/Fame/Running from Something/Work/Looking for purpose/Following rumours
Something you left behind: A family you miss/A family you don’t/A bloody scene/A bad reputation/A troubled loved one/Nothing but pain

Hot Abilities

Summon forth natural disasters
Tear the fabric of space
Fire through time
Unmake something
Unmake someone
Unleash a swarm
Break something unbreakable
Steal something immaterial
Scatter something across the world
Make something unstable
Create something from nothing
Feel everything at once

Cold Abilities
Quiet the skies
Banish dreams
Call forth dreams
Remake something
Remake someone
Contain a great flood
Counteract someone’s greatest strength
Shift the world around you
Remove all natural ammunition
Call forth snakes
Create silence, for a moment
Scenes and Set-Ups

Set-Ups - A set-up is a suggestion you might be interested in framing your story around. Set-up Prompts will offer some details on places people and sources of conflict and ask questions to help you define all those things. You do not have to use any of the Set-Up Prompts if you don't want to; you may have your own hook you want to pursue or play within a more vibey free-form structure; as long as the table is on the same page about what you all want out of it.

Scenes - Playing a scene is playing a situation in one place. Players take turns to narrate and populate scenes. There is list of one/two word scene ideas included, they might inspire you before you start playing ot be a useful resource if the table reaches a stumbling block. They can also gather dust, unattended to, this is not a crime.

Scene Prompts

Bank Robbery
A Massacre
Tavern, Interior
Feuding Families
Casino, Interior
Bounty Posting

Graveyard of the Gods
Monster Bones
Dragon Rustling
Atomic Gold Mine
Cosmic Storm
A Survivor Arrives

Set-Ups Prompts

Hang me, oh hang me

It’s a strange world where tree grows on the meteors folk have made their homes on. It’s a cruel world when people chop ‘em down and fashion a gallows. This one sits on the edge of Whiskey Barren, a frontier town “looked after” by Fursho Blanchard, a scornful law enforcer with foul morals and a fouler stench. Someones in a cell. Waiting for their turn. Is it you? How’d they get the weapon off you? Huh, bad luck. 

You better get it back before it’s your turn to swing. Unless it’s someone else in that cell, who the hell are they? To you I mean? I take it you’re here to spring ‘em loose. Or maybe to make sure the job is done? Now that’s cold, all right.

Susie Solset’s been stirring up trouble with the miners in the town, talking about throwing down tools until they all get what they want. Now Blanchard doesn’t have enough to wrap a noose round Solset’s neck, but I bet he’ll look at other ways of staying in business. You could do something about that whole situation, if you cared to.

In town Brother-Sister Tarlor looks after zer community, keeping a memory of the Old Gods alive and raising funds. Oh, you wanna know about the funds? I ain’t heard all that much. The Brother-Sister is a respected figure and has a way with words so coins flow freely. Barkeep told me ze just looks after the poor. My buddy Oxton said they heard it all goes back the home cities. For my money though,I reckon ze’s stockpiling weapons. 

So, what are you gonna do?

Blown off track

You wanna trek across the Meteoric Planes then you got a few options. A pumped up mutant horse is my favourite way to travel personally. Some folks prefer the reigns of the wagon, or hiring a driver for a coach, but not me. I did know a damn fool who tried to make it from Angel Bank to Scorncliff on foot, thinking he’d save some coin, but the exposure cost him plenty. Then there’s the railroad.
It’s how the Mining Corps collect their bloody prizes, how the millitias will flood in troops and equipment, and how construction companies get set up in unclaimed areas. That means these aether-powered locomotives are usually a jackpot on wheels.

There’s a train coming this way soon and I heard what’s it’s carrying is juicy. Nah, I won’t spoil the surprise for you. Oh, you already know? Exciting, right?

The train’s engineer, Sylvester Hekkoz, is a serious sort, unconcerned with anything other than keeping per crew in line and keeping the train chugging along.

Gotta level with you though, there’s a lot of guards and such on the train. Heard they hired Bealuh Grubford’s crew, they’re straight-shooters, but unforgiving, and unforgiven.

Then there’s the poor suckers who are gonna get in the middle of all this. Oh, don’t get wrong, no sympathy for ‘em. Folk a little too fancy for me to shed a tear. I hear Luther Lordia’s here to keep an eye on things, you got any clue what that’s about? 

I’m getting all excited to see how this blows up. So are you in? Seems a simple idea, knock off the Interstellar Telegraph Office on Tombsnag to force the train to stop. Figure you know what to do from there. Though you better have your getaway planned tight. 

That is if you’re in the crew. Suppose if the operators hired Grubford they may have hired others. An’ someone with the weapon of dead god is always in pretty high demand. Hell, maybe you just were catching a train, but with that power in your holster you better be prepared to use it.

So, what are you gonna do?

Timebomb at the Jailhouse

As far as hotbeds of sin go, Thundercrag is in my top three. Wait, top five, forgot about Sunlessrun, but still! There’s tavern ran by a barkeep I respect. There’s a casino ran by a man I don’t. How long have you been in town? Well maybe I’m telling you stuff you already know but no one ever said I don’t like the sound of my own voice. 

So the problem with hotbeds of sin is not all sinners are created equal. Thonmago Burdette was a rich sinner, the worst kind. Daddy’s a land baron. Momma’s a politician. So he walks around like he owns the place. Thing is no one let Rosa McGraw know that. She’s the big lass with the battered hat and after Thonmago crossed the line she’s tossed him in jail. Called in a bounty hunter, a young butch named Ollie, who’s gonna escort him to Angel Bank.

The Burdette’s want their own resolution before Ollie even makes it to Thundercrag though. They hired a posse, led by Halmo “Have Mercy”, to break their little prince out and put anyone standing in the way in the ground. Did you ever know Halmo back in the day? Tell me about ‘em, I’ve always been interested, given the reputation.

Then there’s some in town who’d rather see justice served by one of Thundercrag’s own. It’s just talk for now. Harriet Zunset causing a ruckus in the tavern, talking about what they’d like to do if they got their hands round Burdette’s neck. But I am curious. Sometimes talk is talk. But stewing in cheap booze can change that pretty quick.

I think we trust eachother, so you can let me know, who’s side are you? Best make up your mind though, cause all these players, there on a collision course. I’ve already placed my bets on how things are gonna shake out.

So, what are you gonna do?

A Magnificent Battle

The tiny village of Lone Tusk has been raided, again. It will be raided, again. But don’t worry, there’s a bit of time, there’ll wait until it’s after the harvest. You don’t raid for the scraps; you leave that to the villagers. It’s a certifiable army of bandits, led by Sampson Lull. Once upon a time this army was a militia hired to break strikes. A miner I once knew said that after one such occasion Sampson found something in a mine while sending folks back to work. A little bit of power from the old world. You know more about that stuff than me, tell me what he got her hands on?

Last time Lull’s army ran through Lone Tusk things got bloodier then before. Sampson did something to a villager. Unleashed the power on ‘em. Fella who told me this wouldn’t say what happened, but he had a stunned look about, and in the bathroom I saw him bringing up his lunch.

As you can guess, after this the village is looking for a way out. The old lady, Norim, once saw the power of an Old God’s weapon with her own eye. Was it in your hands when that happened? Or was this before? Anyway, she had the bright idea to find fire with fire. 

They sent the tailor, Shilo Marvus, to find some Young Guns willing to see Sampson smashed. The pay is meager. But maybe it’s not about the pay. Come on, you can tell your ol’ pal, why are you doing this?

Some of the villagers might be able to lend a hand, those not too busy with the harvest at least. Go Calvera, child of a village elder, wanted to leave home and become a bounty hunter, send money back, was a nice dream. Couldn’t work out though, not just yet. Their old folk needed them to stay, for a reason I was just a tad too drunk to catch all of. Go will help out, but they’ve got mixed-up feelings about y’all, a murky mix of admiration and jealousy. 

Course not everyone is happy with Norim’s play. They go along with it out of respect. But if it was up to Petra Opamak they’d just give Lull’s what they want and get on with their lives. They really want an out then they should run, cause truth is she reckons you’re dead folk. Don’t take it personally, it’s only your capabilities and life expectancy she’s doubting.

So, what are you gonna do?
Credits

Game Design by Juliet, of The Dice,
with assistance from other members of The Dice

Layout by Finley and Juliet, of The Dice

Digital collage by Finley, of The Dice

Cover title designed by the generous and talented Aaron King

Fonts used are Crimson, Comic Neue, Merriweather, Montague and Futura

The AI generated art was created in Artflow.ai and Night Café Studio

The comic book art is public domain and was sourced via comicbookplus.com. The collage on the cover was created from work by John Parker (The Cisco Kid) and Jack Kirby (Race to the Moon). We hope to add more detailed credits about the art used in the book at a later date.

Photos used in collage were sourced from Unsplash

Certain icons came from Game-Icons.net, licensed under CC-BY 3.0

Paintings used in collage are by Frederic Remington and Charles Marion Russel, the work is now in the public domain and was sourced primarily from WikiArt

This game was created for KeganExe’s Space Western Summer Jam.

For Jack Kirby. Fuck John Wayne.

Thoughts on Remote Play
The core mechanic of The Time of the Old Gods, playing a game of marbles together, is not something that cleanly translates to remote play in a seamless and accessible way. We propose three alternatives which could allow remote play. These are presumably not the only alternatives, these are just ones that have occurred to us and may be useful if you’d like to play this game without a physical gathering.

Marbles Alone
Every player would set up their own circle of ten marbles at home and over a voice call they could take turns at attempting to shoot marbles out. 
The rules of these solo marbles would work just like the regular rules for in-person play, the only difference being your circle is not affecting other players.
Instead of playing till all marbles have been allocated it’s best to decide when you want to stop. This may be when 15 marbles have been allocated, or it may use another number, or be more based on when you all feel ready.

Spinning Coins
Each player would have a coin with them, it doesn’t matter what kind of coin as long as it can be spun and has two distinct sides.
Instead of shooting marbles a player spins their coins and counts how long it spins for. They then pick and answer a knockout prompt, with the time of their spin mattering as opposed to marbles knocked out.
They make note of whether the coin was heads or tails, heads corresponds to Hot Marbles scored and tails corresponds to Cold Marbles scored.
After each spin as well as answering your chosen prompt you record however many Hot or Cold Abilities are being earned for the next phase. (A seven second spin that lands on heads would be worth two Hot Abilities for instance.)
Before spinning a player should call heads or tails, if they call correctly they spin again (and call again), if they call incorrectly spinnin passes to the next player.
Under 5 Second Spin - First Marble Knockout Prompts
5-10 Second Spin - Second Marble Knockout Prompts
Over 10 Second Spin - Third+ Marble Knockout Prompts

Rolling Dice 
Players, either using a dice or a dice rolling app, roll a d6 each. The highest roller is the player who picks and answers from a picklist. They roll again to see what picklist they answer a prompt from.
1 and 2 - First Marble Knockout Prompts
3 and 4 - Second Marble Knockout Prompts
5 and 6 - Third+ Marble Knockout Prompts
An odd number equals Hot, while an even number equals Cold. After answering the chosen prompt a player should record how many Hot or Cold Abilities have been earned for the next phase.
After this all players, including the previous highest roller, roll again to see who answer next. You can be flexible with this if it seems the dice (as in the random numbers, not the authors of this game) are overly favouring or excluding someone.