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[Oblivion2007]

There was the aether.

It couldn't really be called the beginning as there was no concept of Time. There was only power, an endless fount of energy and potential that existed before.

In no time at all spacial concepts came into being from the fount of aether. With this the fount could finally be called a 'place' and with that came an identity: The Wellspring. The Wellspring spewed forth massive amounts of aetherial energy, sometimes called the blood of gods, which coalesced and formed into the concepts that built Gaea.

Next came Time; without time there could be no order. One thing follows another and action leads to reaction, with Time events could now effect other events. Then came Substance, a much more stable state of being, something with Substance could hold together and not be in danger of constantly flying apart. After this came Force. Then Heat. Quickly followed by both Light and Darkness. Gravity, Creation, Destruction, Growth, Entropy, etc.


In this time there came into being six cores of aether. These cores absorbed some of the concepts that were all being spewed forth in a chaotic frenzy by The Wellspring, and when they came into contact with one another they began interacting. They absorbed the concepts of the others into themselves and in turn pushed their own concepts out of themselves and into the others. In all this rapid interaction with all the concepts created from The Wellspring something remarkable started to happen, the cores began to become aware. Not intelligent by any stretch, but now aware of what was happening the cores began to resist each others' influence.

A fierce contest of wills was born of their interaction, but without any real intelligence none had any real chance of prevailing. With a mindless greed they started to pull all of the concepts into themselves until there were almost none that were not part of the contest between the six. They began to forcibly steal the concepts of the others to try and hoard them for themselves. It quickly became clear that they were all much better at stealing each others' concepts then at keeping their own. What quickly developed could have been likened to an extremely complex game of hackysack as each of the six could only hold each concept for a microsecond before it was drawn away by another.

With all the concepts drawn into one area and held there by the repeated drawing of each of the six something remarkable started to happen. Through-out all time before this the concepts were constantly whirling around through the aether with barely any time to react to one another or settle down. Now that they were all kept in the same general area the concepts began to react to one another and settle into place. At first the six didn't truly notice this, caught up in their contest, until finally it was noted that when they tried to pull on one concept it didn't move. At all.

Quickly they realized that all of the concepts were now resisting their pull and as the seconds ticked by more and more settled into place and stopped responding at all. Furthermore the concepts were beginning to have a massive effect on the six as they interlocked and pushed towards the six, compressing them. There was a mad scramble as the six forgot their contest and tried to hold on to as many concepts as they could, but the compression caused almost all to slip through their grasp. Finally they were crushed into a sphere of aether with barely any concepts at all held in their grips. As the pressure became too much on their proto-minds they fell asleep, holding the last scraps of concepts they managed to hoard through the compression.

What had happened was simply amazing, through the settling and interaction of all of the concepts something grand had been born. As each concept learned how to interact with one another order was born, and through that enormous conceptual pressure was created that imposed these new rules; this was what pressed down on the six. The enormous conceptual influence created through the interaction of all concepts had created an entire would: Gaea.

As the new world settled the six slumbered, the enormous pressure of Gaea pressing down on their minds. This new stress would develop their minds enormously until it could truly be said that they were intelligent beings. When finally they awoke they broke through their shells of aether to explore this new world that they had inadvertently helped to create. Reborn from the massive influence of Gaea these new beings walked the world with the power of Gods. Their name? The Titans.

========================================================================================================================================


Welcome to The Titans of Gaea. You are in control of one of the titular Titans of Gaea who walk with the power of gods. You have five siblings whose relationship with you is currently one step above neutral. How you interact with each of them will be up to you in the future. Additionally later in the game actual Gods will start to be born. Gods are a bit different from Titans, for one they generally learn a lot faster then you. This is because of the unstable nature of the Gods, they are shaped and fed by the power of belief. If nobody is worshiping a God and they have no aether stored to sustain them they either die or regress into what they were before becoming a God. To become a God all they need is the ability to collect even miniscule amounts of aether and the worship of believers.

As a Titan you are a Primordial being who existed before even Gaea, as such you have God-like powers even without worship. If you gain worshipers you can enhance your powers but those powers that you gained through worship will be lost without that worship. Alternatively you can gain more power through practice and enhancing yourself with gathered aether and those abilities will always be yours regardless of what happens. Note that gaining abilities through worship is a lot faster then developing abilities on your own.

Another huge perk of being a Titan is free re-spawns. If you die you re-spawn after X amount of time inside your Aether Egg. This amount of time can be increased by the severity of your defeat or decreased by effort from any worshipers you have. Typically expect to be asleep for at least 100 years if you die.

There are more things to talk about but they can probably be covered later in the game or through answering questions you guys have. With only one last thing to mention we can get on to creating your Titan!

========================================================================================================================================
1d100 → [34] = (34)

Spoiler: Dice Rules (click to show/hide)

Generally I will be rolling 1d100s with a spread like this:

1-5= Critical Failure (Disastrous negative consequences)
6-15= Complete Failure (You don't succeed and cannot re-try for some time)
16-30= Failure (You don't succeed in what you were doing)
31-50= Not Successful (Generally gives a bonus of +10 to trying again)
51-70= Minor Success (You manage to accomplish what you were doing but it generally either took more time or wasn't as beneficial as you hoped)
71-85= Success (Accomplished what you were attempting)
86-95= Great Success (Gives an extra bonus to the results or an increase in your skills)
96-100= Critical Success (Gives a huge bonus to the results and increases your skills)

You were haphazard in your attempts to keep hold of your concepts during the great rebirth and only managed to hold onto one, and not even the one you were attempting to hold on to the most!
(Only 1 Major concept, no minors, -rank in bonus skill)
A) You managed to hold onto which power:
A1) Air (Bonus to Social Skill)
A2) Earth (Bonus to Shaping Terrain Skill)
A3) Fire (Bonus to Titan Combat Offense Skill)
A4) Nature (Bonus to Creating Life Skill)
A5) Water (Bonus to Titan Combat Defense Skill)
A6) Death (Bonus to Subterfuge)


1d100 → [57] = (57)

Your development of your new form was difficult but ultimately went off without any real upsets. You managed to do what you hoped to do.
B) Your form: Write-in!

=============================================================================================================================

Spoiler: GM Notes (click to show/hide)

So you didn't get very good rolls on your character creation, but don't worry you can enhance your form later on and can learn new abilities through practice with that concept in-game and can upgrade your skills by using them. I'll also be doing these rolls for each of your siblings who will each start with one of the six major powers that you are choosing from.

[Oblivion2007]

Character Sheet

Titan of Nature

Name: ??
??: ??
Aether in stock: 1
Traits:

Powers:
Nature - Master
Earth - Neophyte

Skills:
Creating Life: Expert

Form Description: A large 4 legged creature, visibly similar to a turtle in appearance, but being mostly composed out of various forms of plant life, with the legs made mainly out of bark and clinging fungus, it's knees are formed from a oddly stretchy and durable cluster of vines, connecting the lower part of the leg to the upper part, the underside of its body, underneath the shell, has a large green crystal, which shines with a bright green light the more life is around it,with the top of its body, it's shell is mainly a massive amount of leaves encompassing a large root system below it, connecting the shell to the body, it's head is a dense cluster of dirt with a massive root system holding it together, it's eyes are two shining gems and the inside of its mouth has a large amount of bio luminescent fungus and bacteria, it can mostly communicate through telepathy, or control of other creatures temporarily.

Territory:
The First Forest

1  Poor Entrance(damaged)- A rough-looking entrance into the cavern system beneath the First Forest (Currently blocked off)
1  Poor Medium-sized Den(damaged)- A rough-looking Den for your Titan to rest in and receive visitors. It is currently large enough for you to maneuver around in.
6  Good Large Caverns(Unassigned)- A large underground cavern of good craftsmanship, capable of housing a small ecosystem. It is currently empty.
1 The Grand Tree(unfinished)- A giant tree whose base starts far below ground, it rises up out of a giant hole in the earth. At the base of the hole are tunnels into the cavern network, creating another entrance into your base. Currently it's trunk at the base of the tree is as wide as you are and the upper most branches barely rise above the trees surrounding it.
1 Sinkhole- You probably want to fix this or do something with it. It's frankly depressing staring at your mistake.


Map View


Story Index:

Prologue         : Above
Rebirth           : 001
Q&A               : 002
The Offer        : 003
First Creature : 004

Spoiler: Terminology (click to show/hide)

Aether: The primordial energy of creation. The usage of this energy is extremely difficult and one of the requirements of being a god.

Divine Mastery (DM): The level of control you have over your concept. You start the game with Master level DM in your chosen concept. The ranks are Unranked(0), Neophyte(1), Novice(2), Able(3), Adept(4), Expert(5), Master(6), Grandmaster(7), and Perfect(8 ).

Gaea: The world on which everything lives. It is not sentient in any way and has only a basic will that takes the form of what we would call 'physics'. This is formed from the relationships between concepts that were established in Gaea's creation.

God: A powerful being who gathers strength from worship and can manipulate Aether. They are fluid existences who are shaped by the belief of their worshipers.

Titan: A primordial being created from a huge gathering of aether that began manipulating and gathering other concepts rather then morphing to become a concept itself. This led to awareness and eventually intelligence.

The Wellspring: The fount of aether that existed before time and is responsible from the creation of the concepts Gaea is built upon.

Spoiler: Known Characters (click to show/hide)

Titan of Air
Name: ??
??: ??
Aether in stock: 1
Traits:
Unknown

Powers:
Air - Master

Skills:
Social - Expert
Sense Divine - Adept
Exploration - Expert
Musician - Novice

Form: A large feathered serpent with four wings. It's head is like that of an eagle with an amethyst gem set on the crown of it's head. The back of its head is crowned with long white feathers and interspersed are several large peacock-like amethyst feathers. It is very nimble and very quick though not particularly strong or durable. It has excellent vision and can produce birdsong from it's sharply hooked beak.

Spoiler: Creations (click to show/hide)

First Species - Primfant / Primfantes
Idea by cheesemcmuffin88
A small corgi sized insect. It has the characteristic head-thorax-abdomen body design of insects and looks very much like the current earth ant. It posses an adaptable coloration in its carapace that allows it to change color in a generation to one more suitable for it's habitat. Reproduction is handled by a mating pair of a 'Queen' and a 'King'. The Queen is able to produce 8-10 eggs per fertilization and spends most of its time nurturing the young and directing the young Primfantes development by careful oversight of the larva's diet. The colony's second figure head is the King; the only male member who, unlike the queen, serves more of a purpose of directing the colony's actions outside the nest by manipulating pheromones. Colony size maxes out at about a hundred members after which point the Queen will set off a certain reaction during reproduction that gives birth to Queen and King castes. After the new King and Queen members mature they set off to find breeding members of other nests to mate with and establish a territory, accompanied by an honor guard from their own nests. The Primfantes are omnivorous and have a very complicated system of instincts that cause them to transplant edible plants to richer low land soil to promote growth as well as herding pastoral animals towards better "pastures" so that the Primfantes may eat more poop which they eat as well. If the King decides that the present food levels grow too low he releases a pheromone that tells the rest of the colony to switch into raiding mode. While in raiding mode the Primfantes gather into large raid groups and invade the territory of other Primfantes. During the raid the raiders release large amounts of their colonies' identification pheromone to scare off their victims. When raided the Primfantes will smell the strength of the enemy's pheromones and by the size of the signal will decide whether to retreat or contest the raid by sending out their own signal. When one party decides that the enemy signal is too strong they will retreat, it is exceptionally rare for any actual combat to take place.

Spoiler: Character Growth (click to show/hide)

This describes the ways you can develop your character and how to do so. Note that because this is a sandbox game it is highly likely that you will think of a way to develop your Titan that I haven't thought of yet. In that case simply state your idea and ask if it is possible and I will respond.

Concepts/Abilities: These are also called domains by some other games and are basically your powers as a Titan. The more narrow the concept the easier it is to rank up your Divine Mastery in that ability. For example if you were the Air Titan and decided to try and add Water to your portfolio then you would take X amount of effort to try and rank up your Water DM. However if you intentionally narrowed it down to Rain rather then Water in general you would only need 1/5X to rank up your Rain DM. Naturally you couldn't control the ocean or rivers with Rain but you could develop your control over rain/clouds/storms etc much faster than you would if you tried to grab everything at once.

Abilities are all individual. By that I mean that just because God A is the god of War doesn't mean that he is the ONLY god of War. God B can pick up war as one of his concept abilities regardless of God A, because God A doesn't have any divine right or absolute control over War; War as a concept exists outside of God A and God A's DM of War just indicates how good he is at manipulating it. However if God A has focused more of his effort on the concept of War and has a DM of 6(Master) in war while God B is only starting and has a DM of 2 (Novice) in war, then any direct conflict between them that uses War will be won by God A as he has more skill in manipulating the concept.

Aether: Aether is basically a material that you can gather to use with your divine abilities to enhance them as a single use, or you can use on yourself to enhance yourself. Exact numbers will be hammered down over the course of this quest but in general Aether will be pretty difficult to get. As an example of something you could do with Aether:

Let's say you are the Titan of Earth. You haven't been around long and Gaea is still very young. One of your siblings mentioned that they saw a not-Titan form recently and use a massive amount of effort to create some tiny (to you) bipedal animals before falling asleep. Your sibling says these animals are strange and appear much smarter than the animals your other sibling made. They also seemed to have built some sort of artificial hill at the not-Titans resting place and somehow seem to be helping him wake up faster. This all sounds strange but you think they might be some sort of servants for the not-Titan.

This seems like a pretty good idea to you and so you decide to make some servants of your own, but like, WAAAY better. Instead of a bunch of tiny things you decide to make servants more fitting to your size and design 12 beings you decide to call Colossus out of earth. However to make them intelligent enough to be servants they will need a spark of divine essence, which you could donate from yourself. To do that though would tire you greatly (probably what happened to the not-Titan) and so you decide dig into your massive stockpile of Aether, much more than any of your siblings have(a point of pride). You decide to spend six out of the seven points worth of Aether you have stored up to invest into these Colossi, enough to not only give them life but to give them power enough to be helpful to you. {1d100 = 91 Great Success} With this act you create 12 powerful servants, each with a DM rank of 3(able) in Earth and 2(Able) in one other concept known to you decided on an individual basis.

What the Aether did there was allow the Titan to create 12 extremely powerful god-like beings subordinate to you within a few years and without the need for any rest afterwards. Despite creating something that could easily wipe out the humans that the God created it will be quite awhile before that god wakes up and you are still active. That is the power of Aether.

Alternatively since he had 7 Aether the Titan could have ranked up his Earth DM from Master(6) to Grandmaster(7) which would give him much more power over Earth and essentially ensure his dominance over Earth in the early game because Gods can only spawn with a max rank of Master and it would be a long time before any God could get enough worshipers and practice to rank up to equal the Titan in that field.

[GiglameshDespair]

A2: Earth


A grand rock hound-like creature walking on four stone legs. The front two legs are more like arms, ending is vast hands instead of hooves forest covers its back like fur on a beast. A huge tree, almost a mountain in it's own right, sprouts from the centre, roots winding around and through our body. A ponderous head projects from the shoulders, with a short snout and three glistening crystalline eyes.

[Oblivion2007]

You have a base level physical form without any enhancements. For a Titan that is, Titans in general have better physical forms then Gods have in-setting.

A grand rock hound-like creature walking on four stone legs. The front two legs are more like arms, ending is vast hands instead of hooves forest covers its back like fur on a beast. A huge tree, almost a mountain in it's own right, sprouts from the centre, roots winding around and through our body. A ponderous head projects from the shoulders, with a short snout and three glistening crystalline eyes.

So for this I would have to veto the giant tree, that goes against your actual size. However you could very easily be about 2000 feet long and 1500 feet wide with a shoulder height of around 700 feet. This would make you pretty big and you would have a decently sized wooded area on your back. This form would give you very good stability and being made out of rock would make you tanky. Unfortunately being so large, made of rock, and carrying around a small forest on your back would make you pretty damn slow. Additionally any melee combat would probably destroy a great portion of the forest on your back because any sudden moves will disturb the forest and any tilting would greatly disturb any animals as well as any plants that aren't deeply rooted into your back.

Also until you grab any nature abilities you wouldn't have any real power over the forest on your back. It would essentially be just like any forest grown on the ground and I would explain it as having grown on your back while you were asleep since you are made of rock and dirt.

Three eyes would give you pretty good depth perception though! (For whatever that is actually worth )

[Cheesecake]

A4: Nature

A giant elephant-like creature with four tusks. It stands upright, and has the mane of a lion, and wings of an eagle. It's legs are wildebeest hooves, and has one central eye in the center of it's chest.

(This looks like a really cool game. Do we name ourselves or do our worshipers do that?)

[Urist Mc Dwarf]

A3: Fire


A giant tiger like creature with the horns of an elephant and the wings anf talons of a falcon. It has seven eyes and is made out of a kind of magical fire.

[Oblivion2007]

It's up to you on choosing a name. You could decide on a name for yourselves or wait for any sentient that develop to name you. Alternatively I had planned to give you a prompt to name yourselves if any of your siblings received a name and you talked to them frequently.

Your siblings are like you in that they will respawn if killed. In this sense they will likely inevitably end up as major characters in this story simply because you can never get rid of them. Barring any ridiculous shenanigans down the line, considering this is a sandbox game you guys will inevitably surprise me with something.

So what I'm going to do after your character is finished being created is roll up a personality for each of them, then I'll roll the order in which they get to pick their powers (as player character you get first pick privileges) which I'll choose for them based off personality. Each also gets a 1d100 roll for their powers and physical form as well.

[Execute/Dumbo.exe]

Ill see what I can cook up:
A4: nature

A large 4 legged creature, visibly similar to a turtle in appearance, but being mostly composed out of various forms of plant life, with the legs made mainly out of bark and clinging fungus, it's knees are formed from a oddly stretchy and durable cluster of vines, connecting the lower part of the leg to the upper part, the underside of its body, underneath the shell, has a large green crystal, which shines with a bright green light the more life is around it,with the top of its body, it's shell is mainly a massive amount of leaves encompassing a large root system below it, connecting the shell to the body, it's head is a dense cluster of dirt with a massive root system holding it toghether, it's eyes are two shining gems and the inside of its mouth has a large amount of bioluminescent fungus and bacteria, it can mostly communicate through telepathy, or control of other creatures temporarily.

[TCM]

A6 Death:

A humanoid figure comprised of vapor-like substances. Its color shifts between various shades of grey and black. It shifts shapes, so its limbs and entire body can form all sorts of shapes, though its total volume always remains the same in any form. Occasionally, bright white ovular orbs appear on its 'head', forming eyes to see as a mortal would, and a mouth to communicate physically.

[Oblivion2007]

So in preparation for choosing the powers of your siblings I rolled up their motivations and the rolls for their powers and form.

Turns out you didn't do so terribly on your power roll after all! Only one of your siblings rolled above a 51 for their power and that's not enough to get a second minor power at the start. Two others got into the same bracket as you with a 48 and a 49, and the other two? They both rolled complete failures . A 9 and a 13, meaning not only do they NOT get their bonus skill at all they actually suffer a negative to their DM scores, starting at Expert(5) rather then Master(6). Appropriately however the one that rolled a 9 has 'get stronger' as it's motivation!  (I rolled motivation before their power numbers.)

In regards to form, all but two have the same rank you do. One managed to get above a 71 for a Success and the other got a 38, so a Minor Failure for him.

[Gamerlord]

Posting to watch.

[GiglameshDespair]

So which god are we?

Personally I voted for earth, but I would also downvote death if possible.

[TCM]

So which god are we?

Personally I voted for earth, but I would also downvote death if possible.

Wait, we aren't individually controlling each of our own Titans?
.....
Oh.

[GiglameshDespair]

So which god are we?

Personally I voted for earth, but I would also downvote death if possible.

Wait, we aren't individually controlling each of our own Titans?
.....
Oh.

yeah, for some reason I thought that at first, too.

[Oblivion2007]

Currently Nature is winning as it has two votes.

Despite my admittedly desperate wish to get started with the game I don't really want to start with so few votes because there doesn't really seem to be a consensus of opinion on what powers to start off with. Admittedly you can develop any of the powers later in-game but you start with a huge boost in your chosen power and it will probably shape most of your capability early game which will heavily influence your path the whole game.