1. Game Board, a Map of Christendom

2. Rule Book

3. Event Board

4. A pad of faction sheets

[This is for play testing. If such a game were to be produced cool plastic tokens and markers would replace the items below.]

1. Change: 50 pennies, 10 nickels, 5 dimes & 1 quarter per player

2. 1 pen or pencil per player

3. An opaque cup

4. A set of chess pieces

5. 4 or more 6-sided dice

Many war-gamers prefer historical simulations as these games offer realistic challenges actually faced by leaders of the past. Some war-gamers prefer fantasy games out of the desire to engage in an open-ended power struggle. This game was designed to appeal to both types of players. Rather than replicating an exact historical circumstance or descending into a flight of fantasy this game attempts to depict leaders at war in an allegorical realm that retains the social dynamics of medieval Europe infused with the clannish and cultic aspects of feudal Japan.

This game is actually built upon the bones of two game designs: Daimyo set in 16th Century Japan; and Tyrants of Yitar, a slap-dash sardonic fantasy. The intent is to provide the player with an authentic sense of seeking political dominance in a feudal setting without having to bog the design down into myriad specifics. There is not a lick of magic here. Everything is realistic if not real, down to the geology.

Rather than trying to replicate the lineage, geography, ethnicity and timeline of a specific feudal struggle, God Shall Know His Own offers the ultimate experience: the heroics and stunning geography of Feudal Japan played out within the fanatical xenophobic worldview of medieval Christian Europe. As a warlord of this ‘Christendom’ you will be called upon to abide by a strict code of honor among the stark reaches of a mist shrouded realm as did the daimyo of the Sengoku Edo, even as you struggle for temporal supremacy in a world ruled by a pitiless God’s unscrupulous minions, beset by the vile forces of Araby, Tartary, Jewry, Heresy and Heathenry, as did the princes of medieval Europe.

“Slay them all. God shall know his own.”

-papal legate at the siege of Beziers,

The game is intended for play by 4-6 players [with a 3-player option]. As a player, your struggle for supremacy among the rival Lords of Christendom will proceed on multiple levels:

1. All players must struggle against the enemies of Christendom. If the Three Cities of the Trinity fall to the Enemies of Christ than every player loses.

2. Christendom is split by the Schism into the Orthodox [black] and the Universal [white] churches. A player is not eligible for victory unless his faction is victorious.

3. Each player represents a faction: royal; papal; or noble. The faction of the victorious Church who has acquired the most holdings is victorious.

4. In the case of a tie, the longest lived faction—that headed by the longest lived family—is victorious.

The game begins in The Year of Tribulations, 971, with the Fall of the City of The Sepulcher to the hordes of Araby. The game ends in one of three ways:

1. In total defeat, with all three Cities of The Trinity in the hands of Non-Christian hordes which immediately experience 3. This is why there is no ‘barbarian player’ option. Really, what would be the point in winning if you are just going to be nuked by an army of archangels?

2. In victory, with all three Cities of The Trinity controlled by The One Church.

3. In Damnation, when, In the Year of Judgment, 1,000, a heavenly host descends from heaven to cast all souls not joined under The One Church into the pit of Hell to burn for eternity alongside heathen and heretic.

Become rich and powerful as you support your church in avoiding outcomes ‘1’ and ‘3’ above.