Reviews may be lightly edited for formatting and clarity.
The idea of killing a god is a thought held by the foolish and the bold. Imagine cutting down a being so vastly powerful and universally important that the very ground you stand on was molded by their hands. To even attempt would be an act of immense hubris. Thankfully the multilingual actual play “GODKILLER: Qismat” has hubris in spades.
GODKILLER: Qismat, produced by Amaan HK and Pantsless Tables, is a video actual play of the ashcan of GODKILLER by Connie Chang. It is a game about the lives of mortals and divines, how mortality is pushed and pulled by the whims of gods, and facilitates the stories of how those gods find their ends at the hand of a titular Godkiller. It is a game of divine passion and ferocity, often leading players towards stories about vengeance and survival. Love and hate. Life and death. And through all of it, there is one thing you can always be sure of, players will have to ask the question, “What is divinity?” If you’re going to tell a story about killing the divine, you have to know what it is.
Qismat opens up with Amaan, the producer and first God of the series, standing in front a background of lush green trees to deliver the viewer a simple message. “Love, oppression, nations, and fear, how they steal our loyalty towards themselves. As if we were in their debt, as if our lives were in their name. In these 8 episodes of Godkiller, we’re not just killing gods and goddesses…we are escaping the grip of these ways of thinking…”
The gods and goddesses of Qismat are not just divine by the nature of their power, but also by the nature of the control they have on those who worship them. In the first episode we learn that Khamsa created this world we start our story in and makes sure harvests are good, and that the people are never wanting. All she asks in return is life. A sacrifice, more specifically.
In this context, her follower’s zealous willingness to sacrifice themselves for their goddess reflects the genuine love they have for her and her many blessings from which they thrive and also the lingering fear of what it means if those blessings are taken away. Why does she need sacrifice? “Because the gods are no less than people.” They simply desire to live more than they care about the lives of their followers. This is the duality of divinity as posed by Qismat. The gods create the world and the people within it so that they may worship the gods and sacrifice to them all so the gods can continue to live. And where there is someone who preys on the vulnerable there will always be the scavengers to sup upon the scraps, and in the gods case that is their priests and acolytes like Gruhidar who uses his position to oppress the people under the guise of the it being the will of Khamsa.
It’s a complex and deeply evocative set up, in which Amaan and Asis (who plays Kala our first Godkiller) navigate with the grace of a dancer and with a twist that would sprain the ankles of a lesser show. As you might have noticed earlier, I said that Qismat is a MULTILINGUAL show and I meant it. And we’re not just talking bilingual. Over the course of the episode Amaan and Asis switch between several languages and even bring in a guest who then switches up languages AGAIN. It all adds a feeling of vastness to the worlds of Qismat; all of these different people, and cultures, and languages, brought together by their faith in the gods who ultimately desire their deaths. The allegories make themselves here.
It’s an interesting experience, watching an actual play in multiple languages that you don’t speak. As a monolinguistic, English speaker with ADHD I have to say that GODKILLER: Qismat was a challenge to get through at first. Even the smallest distraction from the screen could mean I missed a caption or two which would leave me completely lost and I’d have to go back a few seconds to have the full context. The attention issue isn’t unique to this series and is common when watching the subbed version of any piece of media but in video actual plays, where the vast majority of the visuals are usually just talking heads with no other visual clues to fill in the gaps, it can be devastating to an audience. But I always WANTED to go back and made sure I got every word of it and Qismat rewarded that attention 10 fold.
GODKILLER: Qismat understands that it is a video actual play and uses that to its advantage by utilizing hand-drawn storyboards, motion-graphic animatics, and edited stock footage to help sell the tone, atmosphere, and fiction of the world while creating a visual feast to keep those needing a bit more stimulus entertained and engaged. Some of the visuals are more impressive than others, but all of them serve their purpose well.
So does GODKILLER: Qismat, do what it sets out to do? Does it tell a story about breaking away from these larger concepts that bind us to them and sap us of our time, energy and lives. Concepts like divinity, love, oppression, and nationality? I think so and not just in its story but in the creation of the show itself. This series is a big swing and Amaan and crew are swinging for the fences. Each decision made in the making of GODKILLER: Qismat is made for a reason that shines like the sun in this grim world of gods and Godkillers. We live in a world where English is a dominant force and in the Actual Play scene a quality, non-english actual play that’s also accessible to English speakers is difficult to find and to sell to audiences. Qismat does it anyway and flows through several languages. We live in a world dominated by heteronormative and transphobic values being pushed by nations and religions alike. Qismat chooses to be explicitly queer anyway. Most virtually produced, video actual plays are follow a format made for Twitch and live-streaming sensibilities. Qismat positions itself as a visual delight with more than just talking heads.
This series isn’t breaking new ground, as there have been non-english shows, queer shows, and visually stunning actual plays for years. But it is doing what it set out to do and it’s doing it with a confidence and a style that few could ever replicate.
To what extent do we owe our lives to the Gods and how far are you willing to go to sacrifice for them?
GodKiller Qismat is a multi-lingual actual play that explores stories of culture and identity through the lens of different planets whose Gods feign power only to be felled by one’s humanity. I dove into the first episode of Qismat which was set in the planet of Khilona. We follow one of our protagonists, Kala, as the whole town is mourning the death of their God, Khamsa. As guests from different lands arrive in droves to pay their respects, Kala goes down a
rabbit hole of possibilities presented by the devout to preserve this fallen deity. We learn of rituals to revive this God through ways of sacrifice and this is where Kala’s adventure begins.
This was only the first episode, but it set up a robust and expansive world that was expertly described by each of the different storytellers. You can really see the care and passion in the world building that the situations the protagonists feel real, dire and relatable. God Killer is a game of killing Gods, obviously by its name, but the set up of these storytellers create a sense of buy-in through shared culture and experience. It is not a show simply to watch a hero fell a God, but a show that focuses on life and love and what we are willing to do in the name of those in our lives.
The Protagonist in the first episode, Kala, played by Asis, was built up to be relatable, and I can say that this was felt throughout the whole episode. You learn to care about her early on and worry about what is to become of her as the story progresses. Amaan did a masterful job of painting the image of the world through words and had impeccable technique in shifting the mood to create tension in each scene. I genuinely was drawn into the story as the episode
progressed. You easily learn to dislike the central antagonist of the story with how they are portrayed. Truly, a compelling style of storytelling was displayed from start to finish.
While I enjoyed the presentation of the show, with smooth editing and sound design I do have to be honest about a few of its flaws. While I may point to these details as such, I would say these criticisms are more from a perspective of personal taste and philosophy towards actual play. I think there is a need for multilingual actual play, but my internal struggle with ADHD made it hard to catch every detail through the subtitles. I believe it was a timing issue. I also had a slow start to engage with the story as the characters felt like they were warming up to the performance themselves. I felt more engaged as the players felt more urgency as the story progressed, but it did take some time before I felt myself worrying for our hero. While I might be nitpicky with these aspects of the show, I still enjoyed it from start to finish. The innovation and the diverse voices are more than enough for me to want more.
GodKiller Qismat deserves all the praise and more through its bold storytelling and its grounded characters.
Podcast, PG-13
Adventure, Experimental, Fantasy
System: GODKILLER RPG Ashcan
Content Notices: Violence, Death, Death of NPCs, Ritual sacrifice, Manipulation, Drowning, Murder, Screaming sounds, Eye scarring, Choking, Falling from heights
Description
GODKILLER: Qismat is an interstellar tale of several lives whose destiny are shaken up because of a murder of a God among the pantheon of a galaxy by an outlying comet. Each Godkiller pursues their own story's end which are intermingled with the fate of the God who lords over their planets and whose divine lives are at stake. Each Godkiller has their own struggle, unique and universal, under the shadowed canopy of rules that their planet forces upon them, and yet each Godkiller has the choice of becoming something more than their destiny. GODKILLER: Qismat is not a story about killing Gods, but breaking down pillars of thoughts which become our Gods.
Liberatory Artistic Practices
I'm not entirely sure how to answer this but Qismat's story came of my own journey of breaking away from thoughts and cultures which I inherently disagreed with but tolerated and participated because that was what I knew. It was very hard breaking friendships, connections, including familial ones knowing that they loved me but didn't see the world as I did. Many if not all of my cast members and crew members have felt the same thing or gone through the same process. When I wrote the gods, the planets, the premise, it was with the knowledge that even then I would wrestle with family and friends would question what I do [and they did]. Yet I still made it and it is liberating to tell the story knowing that I was faithful without compromise.