Inspiration

When the wealth that belonged to men had been carried out of Veii, then they began to remove the gods’ gifts and the gods themselves but did so more in the manner of worshipers than plunderers. Young men were chosen from the whole army and were assigned the task of bringing Juno Regina to Rome. After ritually cleansing their bodies, they reverently entered the temple wearing white robes. At first they were in awe of approaching her with their hands, because according to Etruscan ritual only a priest from a certain family was accustomed to touching this statue. Then one of them, either under divine inspiration or in youthful jest, said, “Juno, do you want to go to Rome?” At this, all the others cried out that the goddess had nodded her assent. An addition was later made to the tale that a voice was also heard to say that she was willing. 

At any rate, we hear that she was moved from her place almost effortlessly with poles, as if she were following, and that she was light and easy to transport. She was carried, undamaged, to the Aventine, her eternal home where the prayers of the dictator had summoned her, and where Camillus later dedicated the temple that he had vowed.

Livius, Titus. 9 BCE. The History of Rome. Translated by Valerie M. Warrior. Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. 

You can read the first ten books of J. R. Seeley’s translation of The History of Rome for free online here.

Core Premise

The setting is a Bronze Age world of small, independent villages built around the temples of their patron gods. These gods are physical beings that sign treaties with human communities, offering to use their reality-warping powers to answer prayers in exchange for worship.

A wandering assassin is hired to kill a target in an unfamiliar village. They succeed, but they’re captured and confronted by the village’s princess, who tells them that they killed its patron god. Now, the village is preparing for war: its leaders plan to conquer another village and claim its patron for themselves as a replacement for their dead god. The princess offers the assassin amnesty if they fight for her village of GOD REPLACERS.

Additional Ideas

The setting grounds the audience in modern irreverence and immerses it in alien ancient ethics.

The setting also allows the writer to explore how complex, driven women chose to lead their lives in harshly patriarchal societies.

A patron god can have any relationship to their village: they can be treated like a civil servant, a prisoner, or a beloved sports star.

Gods compete to become the patrons of desirable villages the same way that villages compete to claim useful or powerful gods as patrons.

Some gods choose not to become patron deities.

The princess’s village plans to conquer a succession of villages with non-combat-oriented deities and assemble their gods into a team that can take on a village protected by a powerful war god. (Optional subtitle: Pokédex of Divine Destruction)

The characters discover that the patron gods of several villages involved in the war are actually a single war god who signed each of their treaties under a different name. This war god engineered the conflict to consolidate the setting’s independent villages into a single, militarily powerful state, and to consolidate its gods into a pantheon with them as its ruler.

If you have an AO3 presence, you can find God Replacers here.