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Author Topic: Kalpa: A Game of Divinity  (Read 20903 times)

GreatWyrmGold

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Re: Kalpa: A Game of Divinity
« Reply #240 on: January 11, 2014, 09:50:42 am »

Neyravah were disturbed by the death-cries of Feros, echoing across the cosmos to divine ears, and by the grinding of Ketarus, but they simply filed these away for future reference. There were problems in the here and now...threats that, now that Neyravah had a physical form, could end their entire existence.

First, They commanded that the Drakes cease war amongst themselves immediately. They had been meaning to do so for a while, but had never found an opportunity to do so.
Second, They ordered the Drakes to prepare for a united defense, forming the United Celestial Army, for the purpose of defending the cities of the Drakes, as well as a group of more highly-trained soldiers for more specialized missions.
((Mainly because I've been playing too much XCOM and this sounds awfully like an alien invasion.))
Finally, Neyravah gathered their power to weaken the Wildlings, confuse them, and hopefully make them no longer wish to raid Paradise. They changed the Wildlings, making some of their children be born with two heads, wings, and magical abilities. These Naturelings would have varying gifts, and would inherently question the raids the Wildlings committed, and feel a kinship to the Celestial Drakes.

Neyravah had to hope this was enough...


Not Act: Forbid the city-states to go to war.
Not Act: Organize the creation of a united army to defend against the Wildlings.
Act: Make some Wildlings give birth to Naturelings. This feature will persist with them forever--ie, it is a permanent change.
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Powder Miner

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Re: Kalpa: A Game of Divinity
« Reply #241 on: January 11, 2014, 11:16:46 am »

"No! NO! I knew this would happen, I knew it, I knew it! Yet you continued on, and no no no NO NO NO! Damn it... if this must happen, I must do what I need to do to protect my children, THAT is my goal, and THAT IS WHAT I WILL DO! Damn it, damn, damn, no..."
The rift! The rift! Maybe, maybe that was his method for the escape of his people! Yes... yes... it was an opportunity, and he would SEIZE IT. Because the end had come. Despite his efforts, the other gods had caused it, and they weren't likely to successfully stop it. No... he was getting his people out. His children.
Psaras examines the rift, trying to figure out where it goes to, and uses an act to keep a section of it open and stable, large enough for a fleet to sail through, or at the least a ship.
But... he had to talk to Neiden.
"Neiden, Neiden, I... ...you have nothing to be sorry for, only me. So many things I should have told you, not enough time. But... it's happened . The warring of the other gods has attracted the ender-of-all. They're probably going to fight him. They're probably going to die. I... I... I'm just going to try to get you and the rest of my children out. Out of this universe, out of this Kalpa, just- just- OUT. But... I need your help. I intend to have you sail out, so... my only request is that you get a fleet being built, and get ready for a- a- evacuation. ...I'll do my part.

I'm sorry, Neiden.
I'm so sorry.
"
« Last Edit: January 11, 2014, 11:22:09 am by Powder Miner »
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HissinhWalnuts

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Re: Kalpa: A Game of Divinity
« Reply #242 on: January 11, 2014, 01:52:25 pm »

Oh my, a giant bully for us, as if this is scary.
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gman8181

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Re: Kalpa: A Game of Divinity
« Reply #243 on: January 11, 2014, 07:09:47 pm »

The Great Factory was alight with harsh fires that cast an eerie glow across the caverns which it was contained within. Neiden walked the dark halls, slowly dragging his hand along the walls and listening to the constant clinging of metal and the grinding gears of machines... Grinding gears and a flash of fear... it was here. The sounds were a haunting chorus in his head that set his mind racing and made his breathe feel labored. Where is that damned overseer?

Ah there you are! I take it the factory construction is still continuing at a good pace? . . . . . Good... good. Our task is more important now then ever. You see, this factory is going to play a very important purpose soon. It'll be used to produce the parts to make a ship. The archetype for future ones of it's kind, although they'll probably be smaller. It'll be grand when it's done. It will be - 

Neiden cut off abruptly and his gaze drifted. He turned sharply and walked away, not particularly caring to finish his sentence. There was, as always, much to do. Neiden knew about The End and he knew of the growing Magocracy at his borders. The latter seemed entertainingly unimportant in the grand scheme of things but it is so often apparent that even the small threats can grow large if left unattended. They had fears there- they had desires. Of these things, Neiden knew or could guess. These were the things he would use against them first before it came to armies and force. Neiden had written a letter to the Magocracy and he had is sealed in simple wax and sent off to them.

Great Magocracy,
We the Empire at Your border wish to warn you of dangers recently discovered that threaten us both. From information gathered through our intelligence agencies, we have heard of two worlds connected to our own; an Aztof and Feimel, respectively. These two worlds are a great hazard to our own. Feimel engages in an act of such disgust, we fear you might not believe us; the enslavement of Magi. Aztof, even worse if it were possible, has been found to harbor cultists that worship the End Of All Things.
Have you felt it? The echoes from across the Ocean and the lurking Horror. We have and we fear it.
It is our hope in the Empire to reach out to Your Great Nation with the intent of cooperation. The worlds twin to our own are both evil beyond our reckoning and it is through cooperation through you that we hope to put an end to both of their horrid practices. If you are interested in cooperation, please respond as promptly as possible. The fate of our world may well rest on it.
Justice Is Waiting
-Neiden


The courtier sent with the message was ordered to bring back the reply as soon as possible. The hint at Feimel was the lure. Neiden laughed, I bet they care more about the enslavement of magi than the end of the world. Well it doesn't matter, as long as they bite one of the baits. The concept was simple; show a bigger threat and feign subservient cooperation. Not a guaranteed success, especially considering Neiden's recent luck, but nothing ever is. With the End so close, it probably didn't matter anyway.

Continue construction of Great Factory
Continue Research on the Spire
Sponsor the greatest minds in the Empire regardless of religion and give them a place to work in the secret laboratories in the Factory (Keep is quiet though)
Begin Construction of the "Void Ship" (basically just a large tough boat) using parts created from the Great Factory
Send a diplomatic letter to the Magocracy showing a desire to cooperate with them against the worlds Feimel and Aztof


Edit: Actions Added

Take the Nrillix that has been confiscated and allot it to Neiden's researchers (especially those in charge of the factory) to see what they can do with it
Also use some of it personally to see what effects it has with Neiden
« Last Edit: January 11, 2014, 07:26:35 pm by gman8181 »
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HissinhWalnuts

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Re: Kalpa: A Game of Divinity
« Reply #244 on: January 11, 2014, 07:18:52 pm »

Neiden, I would have to request you stop your ban on Nrillix. Using it could help you with your endeavors right now, the factory could use its properties.
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gman8181

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Re: Kalpa: A Game of Divinity
« Reply #245 on: January 11, 2014, 07:25:53 pm »

I didn't ban it, the Enforcers did. Honestly, I would actually make it legal but the people who work for me are so thick headed they'd probably just think it's some sort of test or that my body has been possessed by demons or something else similarly outlandish.

Neiden sighed and shrugged.

Well, I suppose you're right though. I shouldn't neglect a potentially useful tool. It'll have to be subtle though. I'll have to prove it's usefulness first, so others are more prone to accept it.

Take the Nrillix that has been confiscated and allot it to Neiden's researchers (especially those in charge of the factory) to see what they can do with it
Also use some of it personally to see what effects it has with Neiden
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GiglameshDespair

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Re: Kalpa: A Game of Divinity
« Reply #246 on: January 11, 2014, 08:38:55 pm »

Machinery shifted. For a brief second, the entire body of the Ancient was still before the gears once more burst into motion. With apocolyptic concussions, worlds cracked and crunched. They compressed to the size of a pinhead, smaller, and all who were on them were devoured by the pinpricks of oblivion. The Ocean churned as worlds were displaced into the void and obliterated. Those on such worlds had no such fate, though. Shards of worlds were compressed to metal and formed into hulking mechanical shapes. The souls of those who lived on the world were bathed in nothingness. The songs of Ketarus Mechanicus wiped them clean, sinner and saint alike. Spirits of mechanical oblivion, the machine spirits poured into the war-machines. They were the Behemoths of Oblivion.

They were disgorged from nothingness, singing the music of the gears. Colossal, implacable, they hummed across the Ocean, the points of oblivion at their core. When they encountered ships the machine-spirits surged forth; grasping victims and materials, they pulled them back to the Behemoths of Oblivion. Ethereal, the machine-spirits seized elementals and flesh alike. They were fed into the Behemoth's Oblivion Hearts, where they became energy for the Grinding Gears. Those who submitted willingly were not consumed, but frozen: in tubes of crystal their minds were stilled and their bodies frozen. They were held, dormant, until the end was over, and the Kalpa could be renewed.

The Behemoths and their crew bound to the mind, such as it was, of Ketarus, he hung immobile in front of the void. With another act, another flywheel spun down, he sang to the minds of all living beings in the Kalpa.
Behold! I am Ketarus Mechanicus, the Grinding Gears of Oblivion. Your gods have failed you. Their foolishness and violent natures have led to my emergence. This Kalpa is over. Oblivion is coming. All things must end.

But I offer you all a chance. Your gods would risk the end of all. You worshipped them, and they repaid you with death and sorrow. There will be a new kalpa. One without murder. Without sorrow. Your gods demand temples to stave off the end of their age, becasue they are weak and cruel. They gives words of salvation they cannot deliver. Witness! Some had fled a previous Kalpa, abandoning their peoples to do so.

I offer another way. Even now, my servants transverse the ocean to your worlds. Go to them. When this universe is undone, you shall be preserved, and assume new life in the next. But if you fight, if you struggle, I have no choice to rend you into nothing, and never again will your mind be known in a kalpa. When your gods demand worship, lead your prayers to me. Dedicate your temple to the Machine, for that way lies harmony, that way lies perfection.

All things must end, but you may yet begin anew.


And all who heard could not help but feel a spark of agreement, for that clattering, whirring song was copper-sweet and pure...

Major act plus an act or two if necessary - Crush the worlds and transform them into the metal Behemoths Of Oblivion. Those on the worlds were purified into mechanical spirit-beings designated machine-spirits. These are bound the Mechanicus' mind, and gather up unconverted beings and process them. Those who refused the Offer are fed to oblivion and oblitered, turned into energy that is fed to Ketarus. Those who agree are either stored in dormancy inside the Behemoth or are converted to machine spirits as they wish.

Act - speak to the entire universe, manipulating their minds to turn from their old gods and turn to Ketarus instead.

Keep at least 2 Acts and 1 major act in reserve.
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HissinhWalnuts

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Re: Kalpa: A Game of Divinity
« Reply #247 on: January 11, 2014, 08:48:06 pm »

   Lirams voice appears to be split into many with each having very slightly different intervals.
This... THIS... is very bad. Damnit! Damnit it void! That gives me an idea...
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GreatWyrmGold

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Re: Kalpa: A Game of Divinity
« Reply #248 on: January 12, 2014, 10:49:04 am »

Behold! I am Ketarus Mechanicus, the Grinding Gears of Oblivion. Your gods have failed you. Their foolishness and violent natures have led to my emergence. This Kalpa is over. Oblivion is coming. All things must end.
But I offer you all a chance. Your gods would risk the end of all. You worshipped them, and they repaid you with death and sorrow. There will be a new kalpa. One without murder. Without sorrow. Your gods demand temples to stave off the end of their age, becasue they are weak and cruel. They gives words of salvation they cannot deliver. Witness! Some had fled a previous Kalpa, abandoning their peoples to do so.
I offer another way. Even now, my servants transverse the ocean to your worlds. Go to them. When this universe is undone, you shall be preserved, and assume new life in the next. But if you fight, if you struggle, I have no choice to rend you into nothing, and never again will your mind be known in a kalpa. When your gods demand worship, lead your prayers to me. Dedicate your temple to the Machine, for that way lies harmony, that way lies perfection.
All things must end, but you may yet begin anew.
Neyravah heard, and feared. But They had greater, more immediate concerns. Besides, what good would it do to defeat the Gears, and in the process prove the being right?
Also, Neyravah were stuck on one world for the time being. That would interfere with attempts to stop the end, occurring across the Sea.
(Didn't I suggest a better name than "The Infinite Ocean" a while ago?)
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Weirdsound

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Re: Kalpa: A Game of Divinity
« Reply #249 on: January 15, 2014, 05:45:58 pm »

Teskort sits quietly for some time, watching the consequences of his actions play out. It was the absolute worst case scenario, and it likely cost him friends, but he regretted nothing. The Ancient's arrival would have happened anyway, at some point, if he didn't act, and he could have done much good had he taken Feros' esense, and if the attack on the wild god wasn't the final straw.

A foreseen outcome of a calculated gamble.

Furthermore, this ancient was not the same one he remembered... not the same one he had loved last Kapla; And this enraged the beast father.

"Success and failure are merely ways of describing the results of a single event or action. For example I can say I utterly failed in my gamble to gain the power keep you at bay. I can say I completely failed on several occasions to choose the course of action that best benefited the universe, or even my own followers. It can't, however, be said that any god here, or this universe in general, is a failure. To do so would be presumptuous and an oversimplification, and nobody, not even you ancient, has the right to make such a statement.

Try and destroy us. That is your role. But don't you claim for one second that you possess any sort of moral highground in doing so.

My role is to protect nature, and that implies guarding the universe against you. I have changed in many ways, but I am still, at my heart, a being of defiance. Now I defy you. Until you personally strike me down, or manage to end this Kapla, know that nature, through me, will always be a thorn in your side!

In place of your oblivion, I propose a Renaissance! And I call on any being willing to forgive my failures, or at least overlook them for a time, to aid in making it happen!"


Teskort twirls his hoof in the air, preparing an act...
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Iituem

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Re: Kalpa: A Game of Divinity
« Reply #250 on: January 19, 2014, 01:42:39 am »

Darkness covered the Grand Temple, the light of the few surviving photospheres blotted out by a screen of thick vegetation growing on the interface between the Sea and sky.  Across the surface, now utterly consumed by the Temple proper, the edifice itself provided light in the form of torchfires and mildly unsettling organic glows; the people continued to pray in the glimmering, trying to understand the chaos within and without.

Liram had granted gifts to the Templars; crystals in the sky that drew upon its energy, giving off light for the impossibly high plants.  Crews worked off telemarines to harvest the food and send it back down to the surface.  In places, holes were kept clear of the booming vegetation to permit the arrival of ships still fleeing the devastation of the many worlds.  Another gift had come too, the return of the Xavrax Quotix to its original bearer.  Once again, the power and knowledge of the God of Animation flowed through Zzdwi, whose presence now stretched for miles throughout the temple's capital spires.

Below, fire and bloodshed tore through the Temple as Templars warred over the words of the Grinding Gears.  A majority - a significant majority - had fallen sway to the mind control woven into the Ancient's message; the few hardcore supporters of Liram now fought for their lives as well as their beliefs.  So far, Zzdwi itself had remained untouched, but it was aware of growing hostility and the imminent threat of its branches being pruned.

A grateful, loyal vassal would not have done what Zzdwi chose next, but a master seeking to preserve the majority of its people might.  The gauntlets rested once more upon the handlike protrusions at Zzdwi's core, and their power burned.  Streams of purple flame burst from the spires and ziggurats of the Temple, soaring to the sky and burning their way through the thick mats of vegetation.  The flames hardened and shifted, forming into thick trunks dotted with purple fires and dark vines, reaching up into the sky and threading themselves seamlessly into the Temple's green shield.  Fresh pools of purple fire formed around the surface of the sphere, and Zzdwi gained a million new eyes and a million new mouths.  Its voice echoed around the surface of the world.

The End of this Kalpa has come.  This existence shall end, and you shall be reborn into fire.  I rededicate this Temple in the name of Ketarus, the Grinding Gears of Oblivion.  We stand now, against all the worlds.

Action: Zzdwi uses the Xavrax Quotix to reshape itself, growing and merging with the biosphere surrounding the Grand Temple, and throughout the Temple itself. If absolutely necessary, the stone-shape power supplements the growth of the skytrunks.
Action: Zzdwi uses the XQ to heal en-masse the worshippers of Ketarus hurt in the violence below.
Action: Zzdwi captures and imprisons surviving worshippers of Liram, preserving them in safe storage.  Those that resist are eaten.
Action: Zzdwi summons the Avatar of Liram and bids it stand guard in orbit around the Grand Temple, ready to defend against inevitable attack.

Action: Zzdwi rededicates the Grand Temple to Ketarus, the Grinding Gears of Oblivion.

Zzdwi commits treachery, writ large.
« Last Edit: January 19, 2014, 01:48:20 am by Iituem »
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HissinhWalnuts

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Re: Kalpa: A Game of Divinity
« Reply #251 on: January 19, 2014, 02:24:52 am »

Tsk, Tsk, Zzdwi, one does not need a major act to call upon the destruction of a planet's life. I could summon any manner of doomsdays. This is not a wise choice.
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