Someone has made a Gideon the Ninth RPG

 After reading Gideon the Ninth, I knew someone had to have made an RPG based on it and I was right. Mandy Szewczuk and Linda H. Coders have given the world The Emperor is Undead. I found it on itch.io 

And I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a game structure like it.

The basic idea of the game is that you are playing out the situation of Gideon the Ninth, playing necromancers and cavaliers who are trying to achieve Lictorhood in Canaan House, which is like Gormanghast in size and architectural complexity.

Gameplay consists of players taking turns picking one of eleven mini-games and playing them out. There is one that will end the game but you can play the other games I’m any order and (for the most part) as many times as you as want.

I cannot imagine what it must have been like to play test the Emperor is Undead.

I have played enough games, indie and old school and whatever is in between, that I usually have a sense of how a game flows and works. I don’t have that for the Emperor is Undead because of its structure. That isn’t a good or bad thing. It’s just how it is.

The Emperor is Undead isn’t the strangest or most experimental RPG design I’ve ever seen but it is very experimental. On the one hand, it is very much an open improv game. On the other hand, it is also a card game you are playing to win. 

That said, creating a story is the most important part. You can still tell a great story while losing while focusing on card play to win would be boring.

Romance is the emotional heart of Gideon the Ninth and I have to note that the Emperor is Undead does give that an option but not a requirement. I feel that it’s a good choice for it to be included but Breaking the Ice is still the best romance RPG I’ve seen.

My biggest nit to pick with The Emperor is Undead is that the tone is very gothic horror but doesn’t touch the snarky tone that was important to the book. In the book, Gideon is a punk rock girl in a gothic horror world and that a big part of what makes the book fantastic.

We are going to have to wait until Tamsyn Muir finishes the Locked Tomb trilogy to have an RPG that really explores the setting. However, I feel it’s a testament to her work that the Emperor is Undead exists and it’s an interesting existence.

Gideon the Ninth hides a sweet romance in a Grimdark world

 Charles Stross has famously described Gideon the Ninth as lesbian necromancers in space. Which is pretty meme-worthy and not an unfair description, even if it sets up an expectation of explicit sex scenes when there aren’t even implicit ones. Me, I’d rather describe it as War Hammer 40K reimagined as a young adult romance.

While I want to minimize spoilers, the basic plot of Gideon the Ninth is that the undying emperor of humanity needs super necromancers and requests that the nine great houses each send a trainee. And because there wouldn’t be a plot otherwise, horrible things happen.

The hero of our story is Gideon who is from the ninth house and sent to be the swords woman for her house’s necromancer. Who she grew up with in the death cult that is the ninth house and the two have a tumultuous relationship to put it mildly.

There’s a lot of good stuff to unpack with Gideon the Ninth, even trying to not spoil the plot.

The world building is tasty. Set more than a millennia in the future, humanity has a galactic empire that is ruled by an undying emperor who once resurrected the entire solar system. (I’m hoping later books give us a little nore insight into that, including the possibility that it’s all a lie) And the empire literally run on death magic with necromancers being a key part of how they do business.

The book takes place in this solar system (which, according to the index, is the only place where necromancers can be born) I know that the empire is fighting wars but we don’t know if it’s with aliens or other humans or chaos marines. While the setting has plenty of differences from WH40K, there is still a similar grim dark, gothic horror vibe.

Which is contrasted but not undercut by a lot of snark. Gideon is an incredibly snarky. Which is also obviously a coping mechanism but her childhood makes Harry Potter’s seem like Christopher Robinson’s so any kind of coping is impressive. It also grounds the story, making it clear a galactic empire run by necromancy is her regular old world.

And while the book is all grim dark and full of more undead than the Tomb of Horrors, the heart of the book is Gideon’s relationships, including her realizing that she can have relationships. The book isn’t marketed as a Young Adult book as far I know but it uses the tools of one very well. (This is not a knock)

I went into Gideon the Ninth expecting cheesy gothic horror. Instead, I found sweet and snarky.