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Total Members Voted: 69

[WillowLuman]

I want to allow for free will, and not say that everyone would just sit around without "divine inspiration." Sometimes people go exploring because they want to see what's undiscovered, sometimes people hunt great beasts because they want glory or to protect their people. I just don't like the idea of everything being by divine inspiration, because then characters have only "the gods told me to" as their motivation for anything aside passively existing, and they become boring puppets.

[Halfling]

It sounds very promising so far. The cold facts were

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Unlike in some myths, here God was definitely not a natural craftsman. After creating the stars and the earth, god brought forth the first of all creatures on a plain of rock, in a temple where magma and water meet.
The first of the firstborn, the halflings Adam and Eve, instantly conflagrated and burned with inner heat while trying to kill each other out of mercy. So god declared living creatures should not have a higher inner temperature than it takes to melt their flesh.

Next verse, god decides the spine and the skull are to be inside a halfling's body and not on the surface, and that clothing is to be worn on the skin and not on the skeleton. Later still, trying to create hair, the creator makes everyone grow hair as thick as their bones all over their bodies, that's in all the colors of the rainbow in patches. Next verse details the creation of the "face" in the front of the head to be home to various formerly randomly scattered body parts. Then god possesses one halfling to murder a hundred in order to test whether their skulls are sufficiently thick. And it's just downhill from there on when the combat prowess of all the rest of creation is measured by how many halflings they can kill.

That's why leading halfling academicians craft and bury elaborate fossils in the earth to later uncover and theorize on - to protect everyone from having to know the horrible truth of the world.

but that's a much nicer spin on things.

If we're to be gods in this myth, which is fun , I'm a bit opposed, on a personal level, to "Greater" and "Lesser" creators because I feel that puts more merit on the other, while to it me it seems that this project will absolutely die if there's no players and no stories, and nobody will want to mod if there's no buzz and no interest and no fantasy, so anyone who submits good stories should definitely be on equal terms with anybody who has modded a few creatures...

I would easier see these in theological terms in relation to the world as both are transcendent (from outside the world), some are emanant, "outsiders" (the world is created from them, but they do not dwell in it) vs. some are immanent, "insiders" (the ones who dwell and are involved in the world). That's what it's come to anyway. And then separate from all is the material world.

On the other hand if it doesn't seem like it bothers people then no issue.

[WillowLuman]

We could do the traditional thing and have the narrating characters bear responsibility for the story. That way we have "The God of Arthropods" and "The tale of mastertea", instead of "The god of the tale of mastertea".

[Putnam]

Spoiler: Lesser Creators (click to show/hide)

Despite the name, do not think that Lesser Creators are any less important than the Greater Creators. In fact, it could quite easily be argued that the relevance of Greater Creators is removed the instant Lesser Creators begin the process of shaping the world!

Lesser Creator, even, is an inaccurate moniker, created to make easier understanding of the divine; in reality, Lesser Creators have little influence on the shape of the world itself. The world shaped itself after our Lesser Creator willed it to do so. What influence Lesser Creators have on how the world shapes itself is unknown, but what is known is that it did. Similarly, only a very select few are directly controlled by Lesser Creators, and these are obviously extraordinary creatures, possessing of extreme ability or acting as if possessed by an outside force. Settlements influenced by Lesser Creators do not have any such individuals; all individuals within the settlement act of their own volition, with only a sort of "voice" telling them what they should be doing. A story told by one who lived in such a settlement is that person's story, not the Lesser Creator's.

Greater and Lesser creators are not above or below each other in importance, but in creation. Without Form, there would be no Greater Creators to work with the form; likewise, without Greater Creators, there would be no Lesser Creators to make worlds based on the Greater Creators' Forms given form.

Soon, we shall talk about the Gods and Forces worshiped by the World's people.

[WillowLuman]

That setup still doesn't allow for free will in adventurers, or for fortress overseers to be anything but gods.

[Putnam]

Acting as if, mind. They aren't actually, but they do feats none other would think of doing.

And yeah, that latter part's true. That's why it's open-ended I can't write well enough.

[Aseaheru]

What about idiots like me, who come up with half-assed creations that then get fixed, added to and then entered?

[WillowLuman]

We should also allow for in-world deities to do these things, like "Kendebrarth, Thereposa God" inspiring people to do stuff. Else, what are these generated deities good for?

I think it would be cool if the players came up with "god names" for all the modders. We've already got "The Entomologist"

[WillowLuman]

What site type would be best to represent a monastery or abbey?

EDIT: Sorry for double post

[Vgray]

Why do Scimitars have four attacks?

Slash, Stab, Hack, and Impale.

[WillowLuman]

I think Impale is meant to be something like this:

[Putnam]

dat 60 FPS gif

[WillowLuman]

So, I just need to know 2 things:

-I can have FORTRESS as the default site type, limiting each Adherent civ to a single monastery, but it only works if I have no positions defined. Or, I can have them form hamlets/towns, spreading out, but each can have it's own Abbot. Which would be better?

-If a civ has clothing but only some casts of the creature have [EQUIPS], will only those castes wear clothing?

[kero42]

To be absolutely honest, I'd rather stray away from the phrases "Greater Creator" and "Lesser Creator", for reasons already mentioned above.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Personally, I thought of the mythology being somewhat along the lines of entities on a similar scale/level (above randomly generated gods) as Armok copying His Anvil of Creation to forge worlds of their own designing. Whether Armok felt alright about this would depend on personal interpretation. They removed most of Armoks standard blueprints but were unable to completely remove their presence (the shades), while the copy lost some of its ability to randomly create (Random FBs/demons), which the gods made up for by pooling their ideas together.

Some of their creations had flaws (see: most bug fixes, and the creation myth for halflings in the arena, waaaay back in the thread), but these were slowly ironed out with the many worlds forged in the name of testing. They toiled long and hard, and filled the world with many a being, from the little men, to the large insects that stalk them. They also took some of His designs and re-made them in accordance to how they interpreted them (the new elves, ice hell, etc).

The arena would probably be a sort of divine testing area or something-or-other to that effect.

I'm still not sure how demonic cherubim fit into this, but perhaps they were a remnant of Armoks power, embodied in humanoid form and intent on destroying creation. Whether Armok sent them on purpose or if it was just left over power, I'm not sure. Perhaps they are repurposed demons? As someone who finds that theory somewhere in these forums that the demons are an embodiment of Armoks hate and anger (or perhaps his urge to destroy?) appealing, the idea of them now being sent to observe/destroy the copy anvils creations similarly amuses me.

Perhaps not the most original idea*, and I figure with a little tweaking it could be better. It's missing some rather major points, but it's mainly a base to work a more coherent idea off of.

Depending on how aware the cherubs are, I imagine the creation myth and Armoks place in it would figure into roleplay for adventure mode quite a bit. BTW, for some reason I picture the cherubs a being somewhat contemptuous of other living things, how accurate would you lot find that?

*partially based on a discussion I had with someone else, and I imagine they would write it somewhat differently and the end result would vary from mine to a decent extent, but I think I got most of the main points. They also frequent this thread, so I suppose they can add in or correct any details I got wrong when they read it in the morning.

[WillowLuman]

Well, until the Cherubim, we had been moving away from a traditional "armok-centered" mythology. But now He's got His scabby thumb in our pie, for better or for worse.