Turn 5Views of Distant WorldsTalgoek of D3:You have an invigorating communique with your good friend Tamos over your Aetherpane, catching up over your respective moving woes. He seems to be doing well, which is always a good thing to hear. But anyway, you do have things you need to get to. Like bothering mortals, every god's favorite pastime.
[Looking For God: 3]
You cast a wide net, of course, using increasingly nonspecific search terms to sort out all those beautiful 19-year-old virgins mysteriously cropping up in your area looking for no-strings-attached exploration of secrets of life and death, and eventually find somebody who might fit your bill, a timeworn giant shambling along a Moebius strip made of burnished steel, illuminated by a hundred dying stars as her thoughts carry far into the surrounding vacuum. Her plane appears to be in dire disrepair, and located in a somewhat unsavory, though not overly distant multiversal neighborhood of single-concept planes long-abandoned by whatever divine cooperative was responsible for their original creation. Might be worth looking into. It's pretty rare that these places are actually still inhabited.
[Furnishing A Plane: 2]
But first, a spot of planeskeeping. You try to reshape the area into more of a living space, but, being in a bit of a rush, you try to change everything at once. The result of this is a half-formed wall here, a graininess to spacetime there, a spot of parquet on the vault of heavens, that kind of thing all around. The unfinished aesthetic, you discover, is hardly becoming of a proper godly domain, even with your amazing rug present to distract potential planar guests.
TalgoekIntegrity: 5/5
Divine Power: 8
Allies:
Tamos
Plane D3- The plane twitches with remembered burning and imprinted screaming.
- A dark knot of spacetime holds the ashes of your late Reliquary. The plane seems reticent to let you touch it.
- The forlorn shadow of D3 decorates one edge of the plane, impossible to remove with ordinary cleaning techniques. It seems interested in your Aetherpane.
- Your portable Aetherpane hangs on the vault of heavens, its connection best described as mediocre.
- Your manifold throne hums in the way only induced earthbone can, currently a verdant green and looking exquisitely comfortable. You feel a strong urge to slouch in it a while.
- The Rug of Death has settled down near the shadow for now, its depiction of Death improvising some excellent doomjazz. Death appears to have assumed a particularly expressive pose in order to have its image taken shortly.
- A hollowed-out copy of Will Self's Umbrella currently holds a number of relics you could use to freshen yourself right up. That number is zero.
- A template of an apartment has been somewhat haphazardly forced on the plane, with bits of it rising, falling and folding according to a conventional floor plan, with half-formed artifacts of urban living cropping up in unexpected places.
[Seat of Power: 5+1]
Concentrating on a likely patch of marble floor you raise up your Throne at last - it is a humble, yet utterly flawless chair in construction, made of unknown wood, polished to complete smoothness. The floral carvings of the floor transition seamlessly into the chair's decoration. Despite its seeming lack of distinction, the chair stands out among all things in the room, its proportions golden and radiating the very essence of divine law. This is not the kind of Throne you place somewhere. This Throne defines a place all on its own, a centerpiece for any inner sanctum.
Satisfied with your creation, you take a look at your Aetherpane. Talgoek seems to be trying to message you, so you spend a little time conversing with her as she inquires about your doings. The plane really is coming along nicely, thank you very much. But you also have another thing you need to do right now, and that is to look for hapless mortals to do your bidding. And also places to grab stuff from.
[Aethereal Trawling: 3]
Obviously fake worshipers aside, there seem to be very few mortals looking for gods in the vicinity. You guess this is a multiversal junction very much in development, so any mortals present are probably freshly created and under the unyielding thumb of their creator rather than in the latter stages of their gods losing interest in direct interference (although you do pick up on a bit of a plea from the plane right beyond yours, D4, though it's very vague, weak and tiny).
As for raw materials, you find this place called Guttersnipe Park a few universes down. The Aetherpane shows a somewhat delightful vista of rolling valleys and bountiful forests located on a ratty billboard. A wooden ladder surrounded by a field of burning barrels arranged like ritual candles leads up to it, haggard many-limbed mortals kissing the foot of the image. There are words scrawled in dried blood or perhaps something much worse on the top of the billboard, saying "EVERYTHING IS PERMITTED".
TamosIntegrity: 5/5
Divine Power: 8
Allies:
Talgoek
Plane C4- An atmosphere of strongly medicated placidity mixes effortlessly with the heady scent of assorted exotic flowers, reminding you of a remote sanitarium or maybe a particular kind of party.
- A patch of half-dried and still scintillating reality putty marks the spot where a wound in spacetime used to be.
- The ground is made of petrified oak, covered in elaborate and beautiful flower patterns.
- A workshop filled with assorted divine tools dominates one corner of the plane, humming with potential.
- Planters filled with exotic flowers line the edges of the plane, filling the air with exotic aromas.
- An obsidian and ebony Aetherpane is firmly stamped on the edge of the plane, reaching out across the breadth of the vault of heavens with spacetime funnels and miniature starts, receiving views from a wide variety of aetheric configurations, averaging out to an acceptable connection by the sheer power of statistical probability.
- The Reliquary sits along the edge of the plane, an elaborate chest of marble flowers that unfolds into a variety of floral stone ensembles packed with guest refreshments. Its deeper, premium compartments are currently devoid of relics useful for the host's refreshment.
- A paragon Throne of fabled wood stands alone, floral carvings lining its surface. Its construction expresses concentrated divinity, the unmistakable perfection of divine law. It dares dust to settle upon it, and it seems none of it is willing to take up the challenge.
You shorten your Reliquary's chain, hanging it up a little higher so that instead of floating in seeming abandonment it hangs grimly instead, dripping muck slowly for a while as you set it in perpetual, yet irregular pendulous motion, as if moved by a capricious wind. You set your eyes on the space beneath it, figuring this to be as good a place for a Throne as any.
[The Drowner's Throne: 2+1]
You stack twisted, rotten wood lined with soft moss and wood-eating fungi, forming a misshapen chaise longue that rises from the muck, soaked through and through with the dirt of the realm, its raspy embrace of cold and leafless branches making sure that your brooding will forever be a struggle. Much like drowning itself, you'd expect, though whether making your Throne uncomfortable for the sake of art is a good idea in principle remains to be seen.
ZelifanIntegrity: 5/5
Divine Power: 5
Allies:
Sikre, God of Fishing
Plane C3- The plane has been left blissfully free of obvious evidence by its previous inhabitant, the spacetime quite spotless and ready for suggestion for the most part.
- The floor of the plane is filled with muck up to your knees. It bestows a dank and boggy ambiance you suppose you could build upon.
- Your empty Reliquary swings as if windblown, though the air remains stagnant and damp. It is attached to the heavens by a grim-looking iron chain, the periodic jangling of which creates a jail-like ambiance.
- Stunted and twisted trees grow out of the muck, barely reaching up to your chest. Theirs is a cruel and unforgiving existence.
- A somewhat mild fog makes it difficult to see the very edges of the plane as it gives the place a rather ambient grayness and damp.
- A traveling light wanders through the plane, enticing guests to follow it on a doomed circuitous journey around your dread realm.
- An abandoned and ancient chest sits near the Reliquary, currently filled with visually impenetrable muck.
- Your Throne lurks beneath the Reliquary, a chaise longue of rotten wood lined with softer moss and woody fungus, a spiky reminder of the burdens of infinite creativity.
[The Stars Like Skulls: 2+1]
You don't really suppose you need to make the skulls red, given the lighting, but you elect to do so anyway. Alien formations of bone arise from the vault of heavens, forming eyeholes and tusks and many, many teeth, each one glowing with a soft inner red light so as to illuminate your realm slightly even while you might be elsewhere. You suspect they ought to deter superstitious folk at the very least, and they do look reasonably nice, if perhaps not plausibly of animal origin in a majority of cases. Now all you need is some poor taxidermy of your former enemies and your hall of kitschy horrors will be complete.
[Walk On The Other Side: 4]
Speaking of, you head out for a relaxing walk out of this universe, since the blockage in the Connective Plane has apparently cleared and it seems to be permitting your exit. You wander on in the endless dark of extrauniversal nonexistence, and eventually spot a sensible-looking material universe running not too far off. You tap gently on its reaches, and it seems not unfriendly to your presence, so you dive right in.
A little exploration reveals this to be some sort of exhibition universe. Public as much as a universe can be. A colorful sphere miles across, crystals several meters in diameter floating all around, an oddity living, dead or never alive encased in each. A single-horned cow composed of beautiful flavor, for example, seems to be floating nearby, tempting you to press your face into its encasing crystal. The exhibitions appear to cluster toward the center of the sphere, where you see fragments of a former planet, shattered by an unknown force, captured and preserved for all time.
You observe a robed humanoid floating in the distance. A mortal, you think, if only in the technical sense, dressed in the manner you'd expect from a powerful wizard. A planeswalker if you've ever seen one.
XenronackIntegrity: 5/5
Divine Power: 4
Allies:
Tiamat, Goddess of Evil Dragons
Plane D4- The previous tenant's hot pink, heavily customized Aetherpane hangs in the fourth corner, going about an aether trawl of indiscernible purpose. It appears to like the new lighting.
- The plane smells like Arcadian flower-scented air freshener, lingering from some previous cleanup campaign.
- Your magnificent Bone Throne graces one corner of the plane, looking very inviting as well as perhaps unfashionably risque out in the open. Its surface has been mildly browned by the power of your lamp.
- Your ultra-lamp is currently bathing your plane an unfriendly shade of Seemingly Harmless Red.
- In the other corner stands your lovely glass terrarium, filled with convincingly cheap props (some of them alive and none too pleased about it) and slightly-too-bright lighting that are sure to provide a good time.
- In the glass terrarium a miniscule race of half-inch rubbery mortals are trying to figure out why the invisible radiation of death is now red and seemingly harmless. The nearby living plastic plants seem to be taking the change rather well even if they seem somewhat heavily damaged by the initial burst of deadly space rays.
- In the other other corner is your plausibly repurposed cardboard Reliquary, currently filled with completely inedible packing peanuts. It seems to have miraculously not burst into flames just yet.
- The floor of the plane currently affords a view into the Connective Plane, where a large object of uncertain origin completely blocks its view.
- Red skulls of questionable origin and structure line the vault of heavens, glowing softly with red light.
[Quick Landscaping: 1]
You do manage to put your Throne in the place you envisioned, though there is the slight problem of the strawberry bushes, which, while not capable of holding under the weight of your mighty artifact, still manage to keep growing underneath it regardless, leading to an unfortunately lopsided look to the thing. A thriving community of gnomes begins to emerge beneath it, feeling the place to offer a particularly good vantage point at the actions of their creator.
[Easy Reachability: 4]
Hedge management issues aside, you still feel your chosen spot to be a good one, and fashion a nearby strawberry bush (never a shortage of those about) into a portal-like shape through bending its branches with divine power, forming a powerful extradimensional lens of collected resin to peer through from your Throne. It works unusually well, all things considered, the connection coming out rather mediocre, but nevertheless consistently there. Not half bad for a first shot at this sort of thing.
[House of Worship: 1]
You're not quite sure what you expected the gnomes to do in reaction to the deep red stone house you built from them, but undisguised unease and, when pressed, mortal fear of entering was not quite it. Near as you can tell (and as well as the gnomes feel they can elaborate), you appear to have inadvertently included something anathema to their existence in the construction. As it turns out, it can take under an hour for spirits to develop odd superstitions.
AmarantaIntegrity: 5/5
Divine Power: 7
Allies:
Hassha, God of Silence
Atian the Elephantman God
Hanping, God of Fortuitous Coincidence and Opportunity
Plane B1- The spacetime of the plane feels respectably aged and seasoned, a remnant of the snake god of time that lived here previously.
- The ground of the plane is fertile humus blessed with a wormlike intellect and rudimentary animation, currently bothering a crop of enormous strawberry bushes into impossible excellence.
- Strawberry bushes taller than the gods themselves scratch at the heavens as they sprawl along the top and bottom of the plane alike, spreading wildly and in a mazelike fashion.
- Your ancient and glorious Throne stands in your realm atop a bed of crushed strawberry bushes. A gnome community is forming and seemingly thriving underneath it.
- A functioning Aetherpane made of a convenient strawberry bush rises near the throne, an extradimensional lens of hardened resin offering mediocre universe overwatch.
- Your Reliquary is half-buried along the edge of the plane, tempting would-be treasure seekers.
- A self-sufficient budding society of gnomes has emerged in your realm, recognizing you as their creator and master. They coexist with soil and strawberry, leading carefree lives of contemplating the meaning of divine artifacts as they try to work out the beginnings of a society.
- The Red Temple towers over the gnomish populace on the plane floor, an unknown horror lurking within and sowing fear among your plane's inhabitants.
[Many Multiplied of Fishes: 5]
You dunk your finger into the sacred river, making entire ecosystems come to be with a single thought. They are small creatures, unworthy of too many second thoughts, easy to manipulate and fill with uncommon adaptability to the twin hazards of encroaching salt and lurking traps. Soon enough they permeate the waters and multiply vaguely, living their own secret lives of productivity. Lumpy places his hand in the river, and his reward is three fingers bitten and a handful of delicious tiny fish. He scarfs them down, chewing ponderously for a few moments before giving you and Lady a thumb up each.
[Trapping The Traps: 6]
While they amuse themselves you layer some more traps throughout your realm, and make progress in smoothing over and randomizing your previous ones. Traps upon traps, traps
within traps, yes! Yours is a realm to be reckoned with by any would-be infiltrator. And also, it seems, by your half-elves, of which Lady falls into a dimensional pit that you put there just now, getting taken on a ride along agonizing violations of causality before being spat out into the forest, where a multitude of tiny spear traps flies into her flesh, driving her into a springboard that sends her flying over the palace and, of course, into yet another set of even more heinous traps.
Lumpy observes in horror, frozen in place for fear of setting off any new traps himself. You reassure him with the plain and obvious fact that he's likely not any safer for doing that. You set one trap in particular specifically to roam around and seek out loiterers. Can't have loitering in your realm, nosir.
[Chimeric Botany: 1]
Letting that play out for a bit, you set your sights on making some lovely trees. Applenut trees, to be specific. A lot like apple trees, except the apples are hard, encased in a hard pod and subterranean. And also trapped with natural explosives (the best plant defense mechanism by a long way), to further the theme of your realm. You suspect they might be edible as well, but you think you'll let someone else touch them first to check just to be sure.
Atian the Elephantman GodIntegrity: 5/5
Divine Power: 2
Allies:
Amaranta
Plane C2- Your roommate currently is in a state of existential flux. She is likely going to use this fact to mess with you somehow. That is, if she actually exists.
- Your lawn filled with rocks is dead. Murdered! And someone's responsible!
- A model palace stands in the middle of the room atop your sacred hill, the resting place of your Aetherpane as it awaits worthy mortals to bear its superb connectivity.
- Tiny salt-expelling trees cover the floor of the plane in miniature forests, filling it with a dense covering of salty leaves.
- The alarming sensation of being watched and that you are in mortal danger at all times informs you that your traps (and the traps within them, and the traps overlaying them) are in superb operating condition. If this was a tomb plane, you could almost certainly keep anything at all in here with the expectation of safety.
- A tiny freshwater river snakes out of the foot of the hill, spiraling around for a good bit before terminating uneventfully. It is powered by a mystical spring in the center of your sacred hill. It is inhabited by a teeming ecosystem of tiny and exquisitely delicious creatures, of which fish are the very largest.
- Two half-elves, temporarily dubbed Lumpy and Lady, inhabit your realm in an innocent, uncorrupted fashion, though they are a little bit larger than basically everything else in it due to a slight miscalculation of necessary materials. Lady is screaming as she is thrown about on your cunning traps and subjected to horrific torment as a result. Lumpy is frozen in shock and horror.
- Lovely miniature applenut trees beckon unwary travelers with their delicious subterranean applenut pods. Little does anyone know of the explosive surprises contained all around the trees, within the trees and in many places even vaguely associated with the trees (you like to be thorough).
Planeswalkers are ostensibly mortal individuals who can travel between planes and universes with almost godlike ease. They command vast resources and powers in comparison to a regular mortal, though fundamentally they have more in common with them than with gods.
Also, messaging another god constitutes an Aetherpane action, and it is functionally equivalent to looking something up. So Talgoek can message a god with a single Aetherpane action, while Tamos can message her and perform any number of other Aetherpane things in a single action due to his acceptable connectivity.
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Topic: Flat Earth: Turn 7, A Night Out In The Multiverse (Read 5754 times)