A Feudal Bug’s Life
I didn’t think OSE was for me, but Settlers of a Dead God has infested my mind.
We are all bugs, fighting for the rotting scraps of a dead world. Or at least, that’s the pitch of Exalted Funeral’s Settlers of a Dead God, an Old School Essentials setting by Lithuanian game designer Eduardo Carabaño. When I received a review copy of Settlers, I wasn’t sure what to expect, other than gorgeously grotesque illustrations by François Licata. As the resident bug killer in my home, I have a surprising amount of sympathy for insects—beings with complex social structures simply trying to survive the eldritch chaos of a universe that is unfathomably large, all on a dying planet moving in a direction they have no control over. There’s also a pun on worker ant solidarity somewhere in there, which would be a terrible opportunity to miss.
To my great shame, I’m not well versed in Old School Essentials, a system originally by Necrotic Gnome. Birthed from the OSR (Old School Revival or Renaissance, depending on your source) movement that started in the early aughts, OSE was meant to evoke the experience of the eponymous old school Dungeons & Dragons. I’d always understood it to be for hardcore gamers, those who love for their mechanics to crunch like the shed husk of a cicada underfoot. I’d assumed Settlers was an esoteric revival of a forgotten gnostic lineage, and therefore not meant for RPG players baptized through the theatrical tradition of actual play. However, as I followed the rise and fall of Settlers’ feudal bug societies, I discovered that I was only kind of right.
Like many OSE settings, Settlers of a Dead God describes itself as rules-lite ( I will still never truly understand THAC0, and I wish nothing for the best to those who do). While fighting monsters is a major feature of the setting’s conceit, it is an exploration guide that focuses less on the creature players must kill, and more on the ways the setting’s institutions of power falter in the face of a rapidly fleeting and increasingly dangerous world. The horrors of Settlers emerge from competing factions that have built their empires on the decomposing flesh of the Dead God—a being who may not be a god at all.
