Gonna tuck most of this under a read-more, but first: an introduction. Sealed Pacts, for those unfamiliar, is my magical girl TTRPG (full elevator pitch: magical girl but it's mecha but it's coming of age but it's climate grief but make it all queer). In it, players form Pacts with different Powers, entities that rule over some cosmic-yet-human scale domain. Some of them are gods, some of them are not, and what draws the line is left deliberately ambiguous. All that matters is you can pray to them, you can bond to them, and in return you are granted powers related to their domains.
Originally, I was trying to make Sealed Pacts a fast turnaround, low-ish effort hack of Lancer, so I kept the Powers superficial & broadly aligned into magical girl tropes: the planets/zodiac, alchemical elements/metals, tarot cards, and conspiracy theories. As Sealed Pacts grew in scope, however, this Western-centric & shallow pantheon became less interesting. It felt like all my interesting ideas were getting tossed into the catch-all conspiracy theory banner, and that wasn't fun. So, after some waffling, I decided to work in the opposite direction: invent the Powers, then sort them & decide on their themes. To that end, these were my guiding principles:
- Powers should be recognizable & easily summarized, but they shouldn't be a cliché trope (e.g. no saying "this is the Nature God, they do Nature")
- Any given Big Deal Subject (e.g. change, death) should be reasonably covered by at least two Powers
- Names & domains should come together such that they imply a personality, and thus inspire ideas for player mechanics and (more importantly) cosmic social drama
With that all in mind and presented in a random order, here are the 16 Powers at play in the pantheon of Sealed Pacts (as they exist right now, at least).
What makes all of these so good is how clearly they feel like the playbooks of most Narrative-First games; make a pact with a Major Power, their distinct and vivid personalities will guide roll play! Where it completely stands out from the pack (pact 😝) is the ability to mix and match these, solving my personal issue with the restrictive nature of those style games.
To get into specifics, the tenet of letting these Powers cast a wide net of “Major Domains” is brilliant! I love seeing “Femininity” split between two different Major Powers. Also the lack of simple nature, death, justice, etc. Powers keeps character ideas fresh.
For me, I cant wait to make a pact with The Ever, Heterologos, and The Outsider!