Divine Nuke Wrath

The end of days draws near. The ruler of the Pantheon will be whomever has the most devout followers in Heaven. You’d like it to be you. Be careful, though! The God of the Underworld has always resented his (or her) position, and may try to subvert our followers to meet his own ends.

You Need

A Divine Nuke Wrath board.
A Heaven board.
A Limbo board (with two regions: Step 1, and Step 2).
An Underworld board (with two regions: Styx and Underworld)
A homogeneous pool of neutral people pawns (64).
4 homogeneous pools of follower pawns (50) with one hero token each, each pool distinct from the other.
A deck of Divine Action cards for each player.
A Divine Wrath chart.
A Disaster chart.
A divine favor totem.
A bowl or other opaque container.

Setup

Put the board where everyone can see and reach it. Do the same with Heaven, the Underworld, Styx, Limbo, and the Disaster Chart.
Pick a set of follower pawns with matching hero token.
Select a player to start with the divine favor totem.
Starting with the player with the divine favor totem and passing left, put your avatar in a region.
Distribute the neutral pawns evenly among the players. Starting with the player with the divine favor totem and passing left, take turns placing up to 3 units in one or more regions. You may not place any units in regions adjacent to your avatar.

Play

Play in DNW is simultaneous. Play occurs in three phases:
1) Player Phase
2) Game Phase
3) Cleanup

Player Phase
Secretly select a divine action.
Once all players have selected a divine action, reveal your divine actions simultaneously.
The player with the divine favor avatar chooses the order divine actions resolve in.

Divine Action general rules
Before you resolve your action, you may move your hero to an adjacent region.
Your hero token does not count as a pawn.
If you can not pay the whole cost for the divine action you picked, do not attempt to pay the cost and do not resolve the action
You may perform an action that requires your hero in a region where you only have a pawn. To do this, move one of your pawns from that region to your piece stash and move a neutral piece from the piece stash to the first step of Limbo, then pay the cost for the divine action.

Divine Actions
Recruit
Cost: Move up to 2 neutral people pawns from your hero’s region to the piece stash.
Resolve: Replace them with the same number of your pawns from your piece stash.

Convert
Cost: Move another player’s pawn from your hero’s region to that player’s piece stash.
Resolve: Replace it with one of your pawns from your piece stash.

War!
Cost: Move any pawn that isn’t yours from your hero’s region to Styx.
Resolve: If that pawn’s controller has any pawns left in that region, he or she may pay the cost and resolve this action or choose not to pay the cost. If you remove a neutral pawn, the player on your left acts for the neutral pieces. Neutral pieces go to the first step of Limbo instead of Styx.

Total War!
Cost: Move one of your pawns from your hero’s region to Styx.
Resolve: Move any pawn that isn’t yours from your hero’s region to Styx. If that pawn’s controller has any pawns left in that region, he or she must pay the cost and resolve this action. If you remove a neutral pawn, the player on your left acts for the neutral pieces. Neutral pieces go to the first step of Limbo instead of Styx.

Ascend
Cost: None.
Optional Cost: You may move one of your pawns from your hero’s region to Styx.
Resolve: Move up to 3 of your pawns from your hero’s region to Heaven. If you paid the optional cost, you may move all of your pawns from your hero’s region to Heaven.

Boom!
Cost: Move three of your pawns from the board to your piece stash.
Resolve: Move three neutral pieces from the piece stash to the first step of Limbo. Move all pawns that belong to other players from your hero’s region to Styx. Move all pawns that are yours from your hero’s region to Heaven. Move all remaining pawns to the first step of Limbo.

Influence
Cost: None.
Resolve: Move up to 5 pawns (neutral or yours) from their region to a adjacent region. The pawns do not have to of the same type, and they do not have to start or end in the same region.

Empower
Cost: Remove your avatar from its region. Replace it with one of your pawns from your piece stash.
Resolve: Remove one of your pawns from any region. Replace it with your avatar.

Accelerate
Cost: You must play two divine action cards at the same time you play this card. Move two of your pawns from the board to your stash.
Resolve: Move two neutral pieces from the piece stash to the first step of Limbo. Pay the cost for and resolve one of the action cards you played with this card, then pay for and resolve the other action card.

Double
Cost: You must play another divine action card at the same time you play this card. Move two of your pawns from the board to your stash.
Resolve: Move two neutral pieces from the piece stash to the first step of Limbo. Pay the cost for and resolve the action card you played with this card, then pay for and resolve that card again. If that card has a specific area of influence, you may pick a new target for the second use.

Game Phase
If there is no God of the Underworld, each player secretly conceals a number of tokens in his or her hand. Reveal all tokens simultaneously. The number of tokens is equal to the Disaster chart effect that occurs. Remove this many souls from the Underworld.

If the sum is zero, repeat this step twice.
If the sum is greater than the number of souls in the Underworld, the highest bidder (and only the hight bidder) takes the effect of the highest effect the Underworld could purchase.
If the sum is within the range of souls in the Underworld, the highest bidder is immune to the effect.

If you are the God of the Underworld, you may move any number of souls from the Underworld to their respective piece stashes. Take the Disaster chart effect whose number matches the number of souls you spent..
Resolve the Disaster Chart effect. Any neutral people who die go to the first step of Limbo. Any followers go to the Underworld.

Cleanup
If there is no God of the Underworld and you have the most followers in Styx this turn, put all souls in Styx in the Underworld, then put all souls in the Underworld in a bag and draw one at random. If the follower you draw is one of yours, you are the God of the Underworld! Put all souls back in the Underworld when you’re done.

Move every soul in Limbo up one step. Move all souls who step off the second step of Limbo back to the map. Put them in the least populated space. If there is a tie, the player with the divine favor avatar chooses which space.

Each player may move his or her avatar to an adjacent region. The player with the divine favor avatar chooses the order players move in.

Pass the divine favor avatar to the left.

Ending the Game and Winning

The game ends:

if all players but one have followers on the board (not counting the avatars).
if there are no neutral pawns on the board
when a player has 15 pieces in Heaven

If you have the most pieces in Heaven and more pieces in Heaven than you have in the Underworld, you win.

If you are the God of the Underworld and you have more pieces in Heaven than any other player, you win. You also win if no other player has more pieces in Heaven than they do in the Underworld.

Origin & Credits

I hosted the “Let’s Make a Game” panel at ProtoCon 9 for the second year in a row this year. Last year’s panel resulted in Cetacean Ascension Moonbase 8. This year’s brainstorming session started with the following premises:

Screw other players over, co-operative play, religion theme, quick pace, explosions, diceless, guns, apocalypse.

...and this is the game that came of it.

Why’s the game so rough-looking? I made it in less than a week, so cut me a little slack here! If you want to make a new board and such, I’ll happily link to it.