Te Deum pour un massacre

"And the Queen Mother kept her embrace on her crowned son,
Who she strangles, clutches, and destroys.
And so, at the end night, the King weakens,
The King gives in to the choirs of the high-born wolves.
The King falls in the languid arms of his mother.
He lets out an awful shriek.
A scream that will forever leave its mark on Paris, the whole country, History even;
You want it? Well,
Kill them all!
Let none survive!"

– The Opening pamphlet.

Te Deum pour un massacre, also known as Te Deum for a massacre in English, is an historical Tabletop RPG made by Jean-Phillipe Jaworski published originally in 2005 as an amateurish game, and then re-introduced into the scene in 2023 as part of an Ulule campaign for its masterful reedition. Not too far from your average D&D inspired RPG, the game's action is set in XVIth Century France, as your characters find themselves in the tangle of a religious war between catholics and protestants. Your objective? Survive. There are no villains, this is a period of pure chaos and disorder. The only quiet parts of the country are protected behind walls of stones and heavily armed guards. Killing anyone, from the lowest peasant to the highest ranking official, is certain to give you a bounty on your head. Every man and woman could be your undoing or a precious ally. And it's only up to you to figure what you want to do in these horrifying times; Escape France in the hopes of a better life? Profiting off the situation to climb the social ladder? Purging heretics? It's all up to you.

The RPG is a classic among french players, and possess quite the reputation among RPG connoisseurs. It's historical and niche nature makes it a hard entry for beginners and fantasy aficionados, but let us tell you, it's worth your time. Especially if your DM is a history nerd.

The Setting

Sacré Bleu, where do we even start?

History

Welcome to France...! That is, XVIth Century France! We're in the middle of a renaissance and the current year is 1562. Musketeers aren't a thing yet, guns have just been introduced, but people still use their good ol' spears and swords. So we're in the middle of military overhauls and political instability too! Why? Because we don't have a proper king! No, we have a Lady Regent; Catherine de Médicis, who stays in charge until one of her kids gets the crown. And while this wonderful situation is going, the country and the nobility are having religious feuds! What a time to be alive!

See, somewhere in Germany, there was this monk called Martin Luther. He had a dream once, that the Church would stop being so bullshit and hypocritical. You see, at the time, the Church struggled to keep its relevancy going after years and years of failed attempts at taking back Jerusalem, and just being generally morally bankrupted. How so? Well, they started selling literal tickets to get to Heaven, which hasn't been done since the times of good ol' Charon, and also presecutting anyone who thought slightly different that they do. So Luther published pamphlets detailling the many reasons why the Church sucked and deserved nothing from its followers. Turns out, a lot of people agreed with that. Especially a good chunk of the new nobility. Luther lead what was called at the time the Reformist movement, which would in turn generate chaos in Germany. What does this have to do with France? Well, you see, there's another monk, called Jean Calvin, who agreed with Luther, and he started Calvinism, another flavor of the Reformist movement tailor-suited for the french diaspora. He, too, would divide his country more than Luther did in all of Europe.

In France, there were multiple parties involved in religious affairs. The loudest of the bunch, the Huguenots, french protestants. The Old royalty, of which Médicis was a part of, wasn't a fan of them and threatened to raze their cities and institutes if they were to spread their ideas too much because the French Kingdom, as it was, held on tight thanks to their catholic roots and values... At least according to the nobility in charge. Things turned to shit when Hugenots were getting more and more numbrous. How so? Well the vast majority of the nobility were basically protestants, including some of Catherine's entourage. She tried to calm things down with an edict of tolerance that spectacularly failed and led to multiple massacres all across France, which would kickstart a series of religious and civil wars.

Back to royal affairs, the heirs to the Throne and their families were very much divided on this religious question and had no particular solution to the dividing issues of royalty. This would turn the whole situation to shit when the Estates Generals (an assembly of the Clergy, the nobility and commoners) kept assembling themselves in response to the lackluster royalty that didn't advantage anyone anymore. Internationally speaking, France was also dealing with religious wars in Europe, as well as games of successions that most of the time led nowhere good for them. In other words; the situation is quite shit. France was slowly turning into a massive battlefield where multiple wars were bound to happen. You read that right; WARS.