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Author Topic: Pawns [A God Game]  (Read 7518 times)

Iituem

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Pawns [A God Game]
« on: June 16, 2015, 10:45:33 pm »

OOC Thread.


Back to a more traditional vein of God Game this time.  Going for something more low-maintenance.

In Pawns, as you might expect, players take the roles of divine beings.  In this game your deities are almost entirely passive.  Being removed from the mundane world they have an almost unrivalled overview of it, but they cannot act upon it without mortal intermediaries - priests and pawns.

At the start of the game the six gods start out having freshly awakened, awareness of them having only just been kindled in their tribes.  Whether they will guide them as shepherds or prey on them as wolves remains to be seen, but their avenues of interaction are limited:

Magic: You can gift Power to chosen mortals (priests, or perhaps wizards) with which to do magic.  How this magic is applied is limited by the Aspects of magic they know, which is somewhat informed by your Sphere.  You cannot directly tell them what to cast (except via a Pawn), although you can set certain conditions as part of your blessing (e.g. they must sacrifice a person to you before they are eligible to receive Power, and you indicate an expectation that such sacrifices will continue afterwards).  You can withdraw your provision of Power, but only as a blanket measure - if you set up a ritual to allow your priests to draw Power and one goes rogue, you would need to end the ritual entirely, not just for the rogue.  Magic can do pretty much anything, but is limited by Power and complexity.

Boons: At an expenditure of Power you can directly reshape an object or creature, be it animal, believer, non-believer or Pawn in a beneficial way - increasing or improving some aspect of them, or providing a new one.  Healing or restoration is part of this, as is enchanting magical items etc.  Drawbacks can be included, so long as the net gain is 'positive'.  The more Power you invest, the more dramatic the result will be.  If the boon you are granting relates to your Sphere in some way, the effect will be magnified.  If you intend the boon to be hereditary it will cost significantly more or the effect will be significantly weakened.  You can spread the boon over multiple targets with a consummate increase in cost.

Pawns: At a small sustained cost of Power you can designate one of a small number of mortals born when the Hero's Star passes over the world as a Pawn.  You can appear before a Pawn in their dreams or speak to them in their heads, which is the only way you can directly communicate with a mortal.  Depending on how much they worship you, or how much they stand to gain, they may go along with your commands - but how they approach the task will be defined by their personality.

NB: A mortal can be Pawn to multiple gods at once.  When made a Pawn, the mortal can talk back to their patron and be sure to be heard.  Once you designate a Pawn, you cannot undesignate them - that Power drain will remain until they die.  More than this, designating someone a Pawn makes them important to Fate - whether or not you command them their actions will have a significant effect upon the world.

Prayer: Prayer is a way for mortals to speak to you, but it is a one way communication.  Unless coupled with a significant sacrifice, you will tend to hear prayers as broad desires of your worshippers, not specific details.  A prayer with a significant sacrifice can be used to contact you, even by a non-believer.  You would have to make them a Pawn to talk directly back, although you could send a Pawn to talk to them.


To join, post your signup as follows:

Name:
Sphere:
Agenda:
How you appear in dreams:


We are currently full up.  There is a waiting list you can join by applying in the OOC thread, but I can't take on more than 8 players at once, that would be cray-cray.

Spoiler: Important Concepts (click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: June 20, 2015, 07:33:16 pm by Iituem »
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Deny

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Re: Pawns [A God Game]
« Reply #1 on: June 16, 2015, 11:23:58 pm »

Name Corvric
Sphere Darkness
Agenda Corvric wishes to bring about a great hunt of all things in an endless night. He believes in the idea of might makes right, however might is more than simply physical strength to him, for Corvric might also comes from the mind and ones cunning. In the light he feels that the weak and the stupid are able to thrive and that in bringing about eternal darkness, true strength can finally prevail in an eternal conflict of might and cunning.
How you appear in Dreams  During the heroes time Corvric appears as a great black wolf with burning red eyes. Outside the Heroes Time Corvic instead appears as a hooded bipedal wolf. Though the only sign he is a wolf in this form are his claws and muzzle, as the rest is covered in a grey-black shawl. If he looks someone in the eyes in this form, it is only then that mortals can see his eyes.
« Last Edit: June 17, 2015, 12:22:42 am by Deny »
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Sl4cker

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Re: Pawns [A God Game]
« Reply #2 on: June 16, 2015, 11:43:24 pm »

Name: Aperius
Sphere:
Aether; That which is otherworldly, and that which is eternal.
Agenda: To make sure creation stays complete and eternal. With gods, powerful beings seeking to tip the universe off-balance, Aperius has taken it upon himself to become a very good reason creation stays.. well, created. If the world is on the brink of collapse, Aperius shall be there to hold it up. This does not make him innately good nor evil, he is fundamentally on the side of creation.
How you appear in dreams: Aperius takes the form of a humanoid being made out of a pure, golden light, with powerfully commanding azure eyes wearing bronze armor and a helmet with a horsehair crest in the shape of the sun. He wields a two-handed xiphos that has a hilt engraved the symbol of creation: An eight pointed star with intersecting lines. The blade is also made of the same golden light he is made out of.
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Flying Dice

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Re: Pawns [A God Game]
« Reply #3 on: June 16, 2015, 11:53:00 pm »

Name: Guleran
Sphere: Life
Agenda: The exaltation and prolonging of all that lives and is natural; Guleran is the patron of growth and continuation. He is the essence of that which drives the creatures of the world to fight against the closing dark, to claw bitterly for each moment of life. He favors those who are industrious, strong-willed, and sexually fruitful.
How you appear in dreams: Guleran appears as an impossible, fractal tree which encompasses all the world. His roots are buried in the core, his uppermost leaves brush the empty place beyond the clouds, and wheresoever one looks they will always find his face smiling back from bark, sap, and leaf.
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Pencil_Art

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Re: Pawns [A God Game]
« Reply #4 on: June 17, 2015, 12:07:57 am »

Name: Destun
Sphere: Magic
Agenda: The flourishing of all that is magical; Destun is god of the mysterious energy that is magic. He is to create a world where magic runs freely across the lands, beautiful and chaotic. He chooses those gifted with powerful magic and unerring loyalty.
How you appear in dreams: Destun appears as the vague shape of the upper body of a humanoid, void-black and dotted with stars as the cosmos are dotted with stars. Bright blue blood pulses within his body - the lifeblood that is magic -  and his face emotionless.
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Happerry

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Re: Pawns [A God Game]
« Reply #5 on: June 17, 2015, 12:31:11 am »

Name: Tar-Azath
Sphere: Artifice
Agenda: The creation of wonders. Tar-Azath desires, above all other things, that mortals create great things, that wonders stand tall upon the world, and that craftsmen ever seek the unreachable goal of perfection.
How you appear in dreams: Tar-Azath appears as a strong and burly craftsperson of whatever race the current dreamer who is interacting with him is, holding a great hammer that shines with an inner fire.
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Demonic Spoon

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Re: Pawns [A God Game]
« Reply #6 on: June 17, 2015, 01:09:42 am »

Name: Jud
Sphere: Earth
Agenda: To know all the secrets hidden in the deep earth, to master them and make them my own, and have undisputed dominion over the earthen deeps. I prefer for my followers to live underground, surrounded by earth on all sides, take semi-frequent mudbaths (or molten metal/rock baths if they can survive it), and work earth and metal. Mining, farming, masonry, sculpting, smithing, pottery. These types of professions are acceptable and looked upon favourably.
How you appear in dreams: The face of the dreamer carved from animate stone in a cavewall.
« Last Edit: June 17, 2015, 08:08:15 am by Demonic Spoon »
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Spiderking50

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Re: Pawns [A God Game]
« Reply #7 on: June 17, 2015, 01:11:10 am »

Name: Managone
Sphere: Mutation
Agenda: The creation of new and strange life. Managone is a strange deity who embraces and facilitates change and mutation. He delights in see how creatures can change and mutate as well as creating new creatures to fill his stories and gardens.
How you appear in dreams: Managone often appears as an ever changing being. He can appear in dreams in many forms, all of which the dreamer would recognize as him, but most often he appears as a perfectly white humanoid with no distinct muscles or body features. This form is known as the Managonian Blank Slate.
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micelus

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Re: Pawns [A God Game]
« Reply #8 on: June 17, 2015, 04:11:11 am »

Name: Nera
Sphere: Water
Agenda: To ensure that mortals fear and respect the waters of the world. She also seeks to facilitate trade and the enlightenment of certain groups, if they are willing to cary out her will.
How you appear in dreams: An endless ocean is her favoured form although she often presents herself as a dark-skinned women garbed in sealife-based clothing.
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Iituem

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Re: Pawns [A God Game]
« Reply #9 on: June 17, 2015, 06:11:11 am »

[Well, those are all a bit too brilliant, so...]



Year 1, First Hero Time

The Age of Ice had come to an end with a great upheaval of fire.  A mountain that had once borne life all around it through the endless cold erupted into a furious display of flame and death.  For fifty long years the skies were darkened by ash, only glimmerings of light piercing the cloud cover - barely enough for the world's plants to scrape a living.  Only in the last ten years have the skies begun to clear enough for one to truly see the stars again.

So it was that no man or woman alive had last seen the Hero's Star - to them it seemed a new thing, a glittering green jewel in the sky to signify the dawn of a new age.

On one side of the sleeping mountain, a woman looked up at the Hero's Star and saw it framed against the bulk of the dormant volcano.  For her the Star shone light upon the majesty of Earth.

On another side, where the volcanic ash had laid the foundations for fruitful forests and plains, a man looked up and saw the Star heralding an age of such bounty, an age of Life.

Distant from the mountain, on great rolling plains of grass where horses roam, a child looked up at the stars revealed by the break in cloud, of which the Hero's Star was but a part, and became enraptured by the majesty of that which is eternal and otherworldly, the Aether.

On the banks of a great river snaking through high hills a man looked up from the simple fish traps he had constructed and saw the Hero's Star shining brilliant light upon his creations.  For the first time in his life he realised the simple beauty of Artifice.

At the river's mouth, on the coast of an endless sea, an old woman knelt spearing fish when the Star shone its light upon the waves and for a brief moment in the Star's light she caught sight of the glimmering bodies of a school of fish.  To her became apparent the power and bounty of Water.

Far from the sea, on the border between lush plains and endless desert, there sprung a great diversity of life, struggling in myriad forms against the harsh and unpredictable conditions.  A young man picking fruits from scattered bushes caught sight of the Star over the plains and in its light beheld no less than three dozen different plants and animals over the hour he watched.  He did not have a name for it, but in that moment he became enamoured of Mutation.

Deep in that desert was a tribe always on the move, travelling from oasis to oasis beneath the newly revealed stars.  Food was scarce and water scarcer, but that desert held many strange plants that while of little use as food produced the most wonderful effects when burnt.  While sat around a campfire of burning droppings one night, a pair beheld the Hero's Star above them, warped and magnified by the effects of the incense.  In the great and terrible green light that overcame the land, they knew the glory and terror of Magic.

Finally, to the north of these lands where the world was still blanketed in snow and the sky had not truly cleared, a man ran in desperation from a pack of wolves.  For ten long minutes they hounded him beneath the light of the glimmering Star until he was spent and all but ready to collapse from exhaustion.  In those last moments he saw a cave and leapt into its protective shadow.  He tripped and fell some distance down into the cave and felt a terrible pain in his leg, but he remained quiet and still and the wolves passed him by.  As he stared up at the distant cave mouth, all he could see was black and the single light of the Star - and he knew safety and pain in Darkness.

The world is young, and tools are still bone and stone.  How will you shape it?

Spoiler: Pawns (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Potentials (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Gods (click to show/hide)
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Sl4cker

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Re: Pawns [A God Game]
« Reply #10 on: June 17, 2015, 07:10:28 am »

This child.. This child has potential. This child could be the warrior that will hold the world upon his shoulders. He is young, yes, but the balance need not be maintained now. Rather, mine and thus his future powers can.. build up, be saved for use when they are needed.

But firstly, I must gain a way of absorbing power. How much would it cost, to appear to someone in their dreams? I wish to tell the old woman that many gods other than myself have awoken, and I sense that, although most of them house little malicious intent, they may threaten the world in the future. For the task of protecting the world, I require power, worshipers. She has a connection to my power and she will likely become my priest.

Of course, I will not make her a Pawn.. not yet.
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micelus

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Re: Pawns [A God Game]
« Reply #11 on: June 17, 2015, 07:19:44 am »

And so it begins.

Blessed are the Old, for their wisdom is impeccable. May they be honoured in their old age...


Grant a Boon (4) to Gysha. She now has a compulsion to spend long periods of time by the sea, just watching it. For every hour she does this, a form of sealife will emerge and offer themselves to her. As each organism dies, it will utter 'Thank Nera', despite the logical impossibility of this. The sealife will get incrementally larger/complex for every year she continues this habit.
« Last Edit: June 17, 2015, 12:35:00 pm by micelus »
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Demonic Spoon

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Re: Pawns [A God Game]
« Reply #12 on: June 17, 2015, 07:51:14 am »

Jud watched the Mountain Tribe, and knew them as his people. Now they would have to learn the glory of Jud. The first would be Velda, who understood the majesty of Earth. She shall become my pawn [-5 Power].

As my pawn I grant unto her a boon, she can swim through earth as easily as a fish swims through water (including the ability to breath earth I guess), and sense through the earth around her via a mystical ability called Earthsense. As a drawback, she sinks like a rock if she tries to swim in water (be sure to mention that to her. Also, earthbreathing does not prevent waterdrowning). These abilities are hereditary. [-5 Power] May she and her children never be lost when within the earth's loving embrace or endangered when they can flee into the safety of the earth.

I appear to her in a dream, having her experience the pleasures of a warm mudbath in the dream, then command her to spread the practise of mudbathing to the rest of the Mountain Tribe, speaking to them of Jud's greatness, and his desire for them to know the embrace of the earth. (If there are any mudpots near the volcanoe, they can probably survive bathing in some of the cooler ones? Disregard volcanic mudpot idea if there's a better way I'm missing or that would be lethal. They may be able to make their own, unheated, mudbaths?) Just rubbing soil or mud on their skin is acceptable if they can't manage mudbaths. Friendly group games of mudthrowing are also encouraged.

I then appear to her in a dream once more, showing her how to take the seeds of plants, and plant them so new plants sprout up. Cultivating them for generation after (plant) generation into a reliable source of food. Have her begin the practise of agriculture in the Mountain Tribe. If necessary, also show her how to construct terraces (considering they're the "mountain" tribe).

Also try to encourage her to have some babies I guess, otherwise the hereditary blessing will go to waste.

Try to get the tribe to live in some caves if any are nearby?

((Clarification request: You say magic is limited by the power invested, but then give a specific pricetag to teach someone magic. Does this mean you create the magic system separately and then teach it to people? If so, the the teaching cost it prohibitively expensive...))
« Last Edit: June 17, 2015, 10:47:40 am by Demonic Spoon »
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Spiderking50

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Re: Pawns [A God Game]
« Reply #13 on: June 17, 2015, 10:07:32 am »

The world is undergoing change. New life and a new world are rising, blossoming, and evolving under the light of the Hero's Star. And change is good. Managone is delighted at the changing world and watches as the creatures of the Edge of Diversity change with it. He revels in the nature of all of his dominion; the endless serenity of the plants, the gentleness of the herbivores, and the ruthlessness of the carnivores.

These variations bring Managone joy, but one creature is not like the others. It towers above the smaller creatures, its legs are to few, and it has developed two most powerful mutations: a good mind and deft hands. This creature, so different and strange than the roaming beasts, must be a champion of mutation. Managone looked down at Urtul and watched him. Urtul looked upon Managone's strange land, and in some ways, looked back. Urtul reflected many of Managone's aspects. He was artful, but a bit thoughtless in his endeavors. He missed may fruits as he picked from the bushes. But most importantly, he had thoughts and opinions on everything around him.

This man will be mine, thought Managone. Managone appeared to Urtul in his sleep. Managone appeared as a towering humanoid made of perfectly white and perfectly featureless white flesh. No marks, facial features, or otherwise affected Managons visage. Urtul beheld Managone's visage and was struct by great faith as Managone's featureless face split to form a mouth. It was terrifying, and interesting simultaneously. Managone told the awe filled Urtul that great change was upon them and that he must lead his people into this change. Urtul could barely manage a nod. Managone's dream visage picked up dream Urtul and dropped him into his his terrifying gaping new mouth.

Urtul awoke drenched in sweat. He had fallen asleep picking fruits. However, he was not the same. His skin was now pale white, and his hair a light blond. His baskets of fruit, and all the bushes within a few feet of him, were now full of juicy white berries. Urtul knew he was changing, he just did't know into what. It seemed as if these berries carried his strange transformation within. He went back to his tribe to share with them the bounty he had collected and his intense new faith. They must ready for change.

Notes on what I did:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: June 17, 2015, 10:26:28 am by Spiderking50 »
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Demonic Spoon

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Re: Pawns [A God Game]
« Reply #14 on: June 17, 2015, 10:40:42 am »

Quote
Boons: The more Power you invest, the more dramatic the result will be.
Spiderking, you choose how much power to put into a boon.
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