Defying Deities in Ancient Sumer

What does it take to “Defy the Gods?” That’s the question that Chrys Sellers, the owner of Hectic Electron and the writer of the game of the same name, which will be seeking funding on Kickstarter on April 29. 

Sellers describes the game as a “queer sword & sorcery story-game RPG” built on the Powered by the Apocalypse ruleset and set in a world inspired by ancient Sumer and Mesopotamia, where messy romance, cursed power, jealous gods and cruel tyrants await our group of adventurers. 

Sellers has been playing TTRPGs since the 1980s and recently found themselves drawn toward the art of game creation with the GM-less Raccoon Sky Pirates, a book about raccoons raiding a house with a trash ship. Defy the Gods adopts a different tone, hoping to embrace the sword-and-sorcery genre (known for books like Conan and The Elric Saga) but avoid some of the setting’s questionable tropes and practices.

A fantastical version of ancient Mesopotamia was lovely for Sellers as a setting, since it allowed them to move away from the “bog standard” fantasy Western tropes that consumed most fantasy fiction and draw on a different set of cultural ideals to make a story. The world of this fantasy-inspired ancient Sumer is best described as “buildings made of giant stone blocks or thin mud brick. Chariots in a sun-baked world. The dawn of writing with the clay tablets. It just had a hand-made feel that felt very sword-and-sorcery to me,” Sellers said.

However, it’s easy to get caught up in the exoticism of old periods, where our understanding is often mired with fantastical images of ancient culture. A key influence on the game was Orientalism by Edward Said, a 1970s historical text that criticized Western histories and stories for treating cultures not like their own (Asia, the Middle East, etcetera) as “exotic” and filled with tropes like harems or geishas.

Sellers actively tried to avoid that by drawing on a number of historical texts to inform the creation of the world as well as getting the input of consultants and experts on the book’s content. The team behind Defy the Gods is quite large, involving writers and artists connected to Paizo, Monster Hearts, Cosmere and many more. But each of them bring their own unique flavor to the text and give it a unique perspective to stand out from other PBTA games.

One particular design decision where the book stands out is its approach to forward-facing nudity. Several of the pictures featured in the promotional material and within the book had female characters with exposed breasts, a design that would cause most people to frame the art as erotic. At the same time, the book’s design makes these exposed breasts feel natural to the setting, as many early civilizations and tribal nations tend not to care about such things as that sort of nudity. “One of the things that drew me to sword and sorcery was how sexy it can be,” Sellers noted “But I wanted to explore it in a way that did not seem to be entirely from the male gaze,” such as an unsexualized approach to female breasts. 

But this simple design choice reflects what Sellers attempted to do with Defy the Gods; to bring a new perspective to a classic fantasy trope and explore it in a different way that they and the LGBT community would appreciate. The most significant element that “queerifies” the game is how the main character classes (known as playbooks) are all based on LGBT tropes. The Sword playbook is inspired by the “Sword Lesbian” or the “Himbo”, character archetypes that are “very big-hearted, proud and obstinate.” The Sailor, in contrast, is a “polyamorous disaster” who flirts with everyone. The playbooks reflect a particular style of personality and establish story elements and relationships that a player character might have with the gods, the world, the other players and more.

“The game sets you up as marginalized by prestige society. And it's a world where the gods hate you. Being queer, it can often feel like God hates you and society wants to erase you and push you to the margins. And in this game, those things are true, but you can also fight back against it,” Sellers said.

That focus on exploring the state of queerness in the game ended up having a personal meaning for Sellers, who has identified as queer for a large portion of their life. However, they found specific themes resonating with them as they created the “Revenant,” a playbook exploring the life of a fugitive from the underworld. The playbook is a “baby trans,” as Sellers put it. “You used to be alive and you're not that person anymore. And you used to be dead and sort of languishing in the underworld, and you're not that person anymore now either. And you're trying to figure out who you are now, and that gives you the power of a limited possibility. And as I began writing this playbook, it hit me. Am I trans?” Suddenly, the themes of this particular playbook resonated with Sellers more and more, causing them to decide that they would now identify as trans.

There’s something to be said about a piece of art that you create which also holds significant meaning to you and your identity. Do you keep this to yourself, or do you share it with the world? Sharing Defy the Gods is “wonderful and terrifying,” Sellers told TTRPG Insider. 

Defy the Gods enters a heavily saturated market of PBTA games,where plenty of creators try to bring their own spin on the mechanics to tell a new story. While Sellers could have easily tried to recreate the Conan vibe with the standard fictional tropes, they’ve actually created something that may offer an interesting way to explore one’s identity and the ancient mythos of Sumer and Mesopotamia with a scrupulous eye.

Defy the Gods is currently available to back on Kickstarter.

Thanks to Chrys for chatting with us! You can learn more about Sellers at Hectic Electron, and about the campaign on Kickstarter.

Are you launching a new product? Do you have something interesting in the TTRPG space you want to discuss? Or maybe you have a story tip? Feel free to email me at [email protected].