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[Shoruke]

((Civilization thread is here ))
This is the Out-of-character and announcement thread for, get ready for this, not one but TWO upcoming forum games! They will run in tandem.

The first is a civilization management forum game. The players rule the cities of Humans, Dwarves, Halflings, and Elves, and comprise the Armok Alliance faction. You are opposed by The Monstrous (Goblins, Ogres, Drow...), The Hellish (Devils, undead...), and The Renegades (fey, Mermaids, Kobolds...), and you're somewhat outclassed. Gather and allot resources, build up your cities, keep your people safe and grow your civilization until you are strong enough to properly wage war against the coming evil. Work together if you can, you're all on the same team. There'll be 8 players, one for each of the 8 subraces. There'll be two turns per real-life week.

The second game is a Dungeons and Dragons 5e campaign, which will run in weekly sessions using Maptools. You play as a handful of Adventurers, maybe even Heroes, in the world of the other game. The missions and quests you embark on will be assigned to you by the other thread (by community vote, you can participate in those of course), and your actions will affect their world. Sometimes your tasks will be straightforward (clear out this ruin so we can live in it), sometimes your tasks will be more open-ended or require a creative solution (do what you can to weaken the defenses of this enemy city before we raid it). Sometimes you'll be working on your own, sometimes you'll be assigned a support unit (to guard the wagon or whatever), sometimes you'll be defending a city alongside... well, an entire city. In any case, your party of adventurers basically represents The Chosen Few of the Armok Alliance; where numbers are the absolute determiner of the city leaders' capabilities, a ragtag bunch of misfit badasses has the versatility to do almost anything.


As mentioned before, the two games run in tandem; actions in one game affect the other, and you'll all need to work together with the players from both games. Very few Adventure Town resources will be available at the start; for the Adventurers to get properly geared up, the Civilization players will need to work on building up their cities. Likewise, the Civilization players will come up against several obstacles that the in-game mechanics don't allow them to handle, and they'll need to send in the Adventurers to find a creative solution.
One major point is that the Adventurers have some of their level 2-3 class features, like your Druid Circle or Ranger Archetype, locked out until they visit a class-specific building constructed by the Civilization players. The Civilization players are encouraged to build these quickly, not just to help the adventurers, but because those buildings provide benefits to the Civilization as well (and aren't as expensive as other large projects, and each Civ race gets discounts for some of them, and...). I don't intend to be completely heartless about this, of course; if we've gone too long without constructing or visiting the buildings you need, I the DM will use my plotbending powers and find a way to shoehorn it in. These class buildings will also provide a benefit (increased Rage Damage, an extra spell slot...) to the Adventurers of that class for their next mission, on every visit. Bear in mind, the Adventurers will spend their downtime in the largest town of the nearest civilization after every mission, and will only be able to make use of that town's resources.

I'm planning to have 2 Civilization Game turns per week, each representing an in-game month, and one D&D session per week, on Sunday evenings (North America time. Around 7 or 8 PM CST)


So! Signups time!
You can't apply to play in both games.

Spoiler: To Sign Up for Gods War: Civilization (click to show/hide)

While you won't need any sourcebooks or anything, this game does take place in a D&D world, so knowledge of basic D&D terms will be an asset. Of course, if you don't understand a term I use, just ask me. Or Google it.

I'll be taking 8 players on a first-come-first-serve basis. Everyone has to pick a different Civilization. To sign up, pick a name for your starting town, and one of the following Civilization races:
-Mountain Dwarves
-Hill Dwarves
-High Elves
-Wood Elves
-Lightfoot Halflings
-Stout Halflings
-Plainsman Humans
-Highlands Humans

Sub-race doesn't affect anything in the Civilization game, it's mostly just flavour text for you. Heck, Human sub-races don't even affect anything in actual D&D!

Spoiler: To Sign Up For Gods War: D&D (click to show/hide)

Post a character sheet, and optionally state your intended build. Mythweavers has a template for 5e character sheets, so storing your character sheet there is advised, but anywhere I'm able to access it is fine.

You'll need your own sourcebooks. Now, I'm not saying you should just go download some if you don't own them, because that's illegal and bad and wrong, but I'M JUST SAYING I know they're out there since I downloaded them myself AFTER I bought the physical books from the bookstore. I won't ask where your books came from.

We're starting at level 1, using Point Buy for stats, and the optional rules in the Player's HandBook (Variant Human Traits, Multiclassing, Feats...) are allowable. I'm also ruling that spells that use attack rolls are usable with Sneak Attack.
I'll be taking 6 players to start with. Applications will be accepted on a Best Fit basis, and more players may be added to the party later, so don't feel discouraged once there are six applications. Heck, don't be afraid to use a race or class that's already been picked, you can never have enough meat shields or whatever.
I'm reserving one spot for a divine caster (cleric, druid), an arcane caster (sorcerer, warlock, wizard), and a stealthy person (rogue, possibly a stealthy ranger or monk). You'll probably also WANT to have a melee specialist, but I won't stipulate that.
The Uncommon Races (Dragonborn, Tiefling, etc.) are permissable, but Drow Elves and Duergar are not (they're with The Monstrous).
NO evil-aligned characters.

Due to World reasons (see below), most of your contacts or rivals or whatever will be largely irrelevant. You'll all be given a Contact, the head of your race's civilization, at the start of the game.

There will be several environments and scenarios encountered, so over-specialization could be crippling. You'll be inside, outside, underground, in the wilderness, in small towns, at guardposts, in ruins and caves, in large enemy cities, every flipping where. I think ruins will be the most common and enemy cities will be the most difficult, and quests that take place inside friendly cities should be quite rare, but it'll depend on community votes in the end. You'll encounter evil-aligned sentient enemies much more frequently than "wild monsters"; you'll be fighting Goblins and Bugbears more frequently than normal bears or Owlbears, with undead and demons later on.

The class features that need to be unlocked by Civilization buildings are:
Barbarian: Primal Path (lvl 3)
Bard: Bard College (lvl 3)
Cleric: Channel Divinity (lvl 2)
Druid: Druid Circle (lvl 2)
Fighter: Martial Archetype (lvl 3)
Monk: Monastic Tradition (lvl 3)
Paladin: Sacred Oath (lvl 3)
Ranger: Ranger Archetype (lvl 3)
Rogue: Roguish Archetype (lvl 3)
Sorcerer: Metamagic (lvl 3)
Warlock: Pact Boon (lvl 3)
Wizard: Arcane Tradition (lvl 2)

Spoiler: The World (click to show/hide)

Oram Alnis is a "sandbox", of sorts. Occupying a similar dimensional space to the Material Plane, the gods use this world for their hobbies, their little god-games... and their proxy wars. Currently, it's in use for the latter. As war brews on the Material Plane, a wager was made between Armok, Lolth, The Morrígna, and Loki: whoever's subjects wins the proxy war on Oram Alnis, may take part directly in one battle in the upcoming war on the Material Plane. Suffice to say, a literal god could win a war on their own, and wreak as much devastion as they please in the process. Stakes are high.

However, not everything is equal here. The first group to be placed onto this world were The Monstrous, under Lolth: Orcs, Goblinoids, Trolls, Drow Elves, Ogres, Gnolls, Giants... There are plenty of monsters. Whereas they are usually ambivalent to each other on the Material Plane, clashing when they meet but not seeking each other out, here they have an uneasy alliance, and are all motivated to see you dead. Monsters tend to have some sort of advantage over a human in a fight; Trolls and Ogres are big and strong, the Drow are cunning and ruthless, and Goblins are famously conniving.
The second group to be placed here were The Hellish, rallied under The Morrígna: Fiends, Devils, Demons, various undead, or humanoids corrupted by evil. In general, they far outclass humans in several ways. In theory, victory over them is possible, but they have been capturing or destroying land and resources at a terrifying rate, outpacing The Monstrous.
Third were The Renegades, loosely associated with Loki: half-breeds, Kobolds, Tieflings, the Dragonkin, several Fey species, anything too monstrous to fit in among humans, but too human to be a monster. The Renegades are not rallied as strongly as the other factions; they're split up, and prefer to stay that way, living in whatever uneasy peace they can find. They might be willing to trade, but on the other hand, it's a reasonable assumption on their part that you want to kill them, so they may well kill you first.
The Armok Alliance has only been placed on this world recently. Humans, Dwarves, Halflings... even those hippy Elves have renounced their Short Jokes, excessive militarism concerning trees, and cannabalistic lifestyle to join forces under Armok, our Lord and Saviour and I'm sure the whole God of Blood thing is just a title and he's a super cool bro. *ahem*

In terms of its position in the Planes of Existence, Oram Alnis is in a similar spot to the Material Plane, in that the Ethereal Plane and Plane of Shadow are easily accessible (relatively speaking), but it's not exactly the same; in some ways, everyone on this world is classified as an Outsider since they're all technically from a different plane, and so you don't so much "die" as "go back to where you were before, inexplicably at full health". The Material Plane has also been put under a God-Powered Time Stop, so your life will still be waiting for you when the Gods War is over. More people can be summoned over to Oram Alnis by making sacrifices to your patron god; giving birth normally is impractical here because mutter mutter Outsiders mutter Time Stop blah blah blah.

Spoiler: Applications so far (click to show/hide)

Urist Mc Dwarf, Mountain Dwarves, "The Iron Halls"
tntey, Hill Dwarves, "The Hills of Technology"
crazyabe, Wood Elves, "The Jungles of Death"
Omeganaut, Stout Halflings, "BadJack" (and the Democratically Elected Negotiators Intelligently Administering Law)
Urlance Woolsbane, High Elves, "Moooooooooooooompacked" (and Coalition of Potoos)

Rolen Cals werty892, Half-Elf Rogue
Conseguir Arruinarás, My Name is Immaterial, Human grapple-bard
Nicodryn Bloodiedhammer, The Fool, Dwarf Fighter (Edlritch Knight)
Nisoven, Tyler Darkness, Gnome Wizard
Otto Meribraun, Apocryphan, Human Wizard

This thread will serve as the Out-Of-Character thread for both games once they actually start, but for now, signups time!

[werty892]

Reserving a spot in the DnD campaign. What kind of tech level are we talking here? I assume standard DnD, but just in case... Or will there be tech progression?

[Urist Mc Dwarf]

I'd like to be mountain dwarves for civ game

[tntey]

Hills Dwarves. My civ will be called, "The Hills of Technology!"

[crazyabe]

Race: "Wood Elves"
Civ Name: "The Jungles of Death"

[My Name is Immaterial]

I'd like to reserve a spot for the D&D game. I'm probably going to build a Monk or a grappling Fighter.

[werty892]

I'd like to reserve a spot for the D&D game. I'm probably going to build a Monk or a grappling Fighter.

I'm working on a rogue at the moment.

[My Name is Immaterial]

I'd like to reserve a spot for the D&D game. I'm probably going to build a Monk or a grappling Fighter.

I'm working on a rogue at the moment.

I'll hold them down, and you can stab them!

[The Fool]

Made a Mountain Dwarf Eldritch Knight for the D&D campaign. Beer for all!

[TylerDarkness]

Made a Rock Gnome Wizard for the Dnd campaign Fuck Spiders

[Shoruke]

What kind of tech level are we talking here? I assume standard DnD, but just in case... Or will there be tech progression?

Yeah, the setting's technology level is basically at the D&D standard, only... well...
Imagine a Dwarf Fortress embark where you had 200 Dwarves but few tools and not enough food, and had to build as much infrastructure as you can in two months. The end of those two months is where civilization's pretty much at right now.
Eventually the Civ players can build some nifty magic things, but for now, there's mostly just wood and stone and a little bit of steel.

[Shoruke]

I went ahead and made a section in the OP for submissions thus far. Easier to stay organized, you understand.
Also, remember, there's no "reserving" spots on the D&D roster. Best fit wins on that one. Although even if you don't get in, you can always play in the Civilization game if there's spots left, and anyone can participate in the community votes!

[My Name is Immaterial]

Conseguir Arruinarás, an in-progress Luchador.

[werty892]

Conseguir Arruinarás, an in-progress Luchador.

You just want to be Los Tiburon, don't you.

[My Name is Immaterial]

Conseguir Arruinarás, an in-progress Luchador.

You just want to be Los Tiburon, don't you.

No...

...

Alright, fine, I do! Is that so bad?