Turn 3Forestation Is InTalgoek of D3:[Connectivity Issues: 1]
You have some trouble getting the Aetherpane to work properly with the way spacetime appears to twitch all the time. Hanging it up seems quite elementary for the time being, but the connection is, well, largely nonexistent. That is, until it decides not to be and flash a whole lot of information at you in a startling burst, then promptly die again. You jostle it a few times to see if reception improves, but no dice at the moment.
[Situational Awareness: 4]
In addition, you can't help but feel a little weirded out as you work on the 'pane. A strange chill hits you every now and then as you try to disconnect and reconnect a couple of times, then turn it off and on again. You look around, and see the shadow next to you. It seems to have moved slightly in your direction, reaching for the Aetherpane absently. Old habits die hard, you suppose.
Pausing to ponder this set of circumstances, you give your Throne a sidelong glance and a well-placed word, and it starts looking almost refreshingly verdant and extremely inviting as it configures itself into a lazy-chair kind of conformation. You could definitely see yourself spending some quality time on that sometime soon. Maybe you really ought to sit down on it a while, and see if this plane doesn't feel like calming down on its own.
TalgoekIntegrity: 5/5
Divine Power: 10
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 near the forlorn shadow, currently experiencing fatal connectivity issues.
- 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.
[Realigning Reality: 5]
That spacetime wound is quite an eyesore, you figure after some thought. You step over to your workshop and get your seven-stringed dimensional spackling knife and a handy can of scintillating reality putty, whistling as you coat the wound firmly and completely, smoothing the wounded patch with a great deal of care, then stepping back as you make sure the fresh reality dries properly and, more importantly, largely invisibly. It's perhaps not
invisible, you conclude after a few minutes of that. But if you manage to cover the vault of heavens with something, you figure this ought to look pretty dang inconspicuous as well as cause the barest minimum of dimensional disturbance.
[Clearing The Air: 6]
Next you resolve to do something about that murderous jungle air you've got here. Scenting it didn't seem to help all that much, and you don't really have anything convenient on hand to threaten it with. So instead you decide to counterbalance it with some under-the-counter grade peaceful and happy thoughts, channeling concentrated divinity to change the very intent of the plane. Your plane grows placid with thorough application of your power. Then it grows slightly sleepy and incoherent in the fashion of a divine poppy field. This seems considerably preferable to its antisocial tendencies from before, so you leave it at that for now.
[Window Into Society: 3]
Having cleaned up the plane nicely, you set your mind on making an Aetherpane for yourself. You don't happen to have any raw materials for it on hand, so you put your hands on the edge of the plane and somewhat inelegantly fashion a circular pane of black and flowing glass into the surface of the heavens, encircling it with an ebony and brass frame to give it additional solidity. You check for structural integrity with a firm shove (the best kind of structural test) and it fails to budge, which you consider good enough. That done, you set it to work in finding good views of other universes in order to check the quality of the installation.
Good news, it does let you look into other universes. Bad news, you think the connection's about half-strength at best. And you're fairly sure moving this thing is going to be a little difficult with how well you've set it into the plane.
TamosIntegrity: 5/5
Divine Power: 10
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.
- Your obsidian and ebony Aetherpane is firmly stamped on the edge of the heavens, allowing you a wide range of extrauniversal views at the somewhat unpalatable price of having mediocre connectivity at best.
[Swamping It Up: 3]
You call upon the power of swampy shrubbery, calling tiny trees into existence all around you, their roots choked by muck, with stunted trunks and mostly leafless branches. Maybe a little overly stunted, considering they barely come up to your chest. But you guess that's all right, as having branches in your face all the time would get really old really fast. The plane looks rather nicely filled out with twisted little trees, to the point where you could call this a right and proper representation of a bog.
[An Excellent View: 2]
You take a moment to wonder where an Aetherpane could fit into all this. It's looking very low-tech so far, so maybe a stump? Or a sinister eye in the sky? Hard to think of a way to work it in without altering the theme somewhat. Well, that and you have no real idea on where a good place to put one would be. You hear that Aetherpane connectivity optimization is something of a modern art.
[Pea Soup: 3]
Thinking a while, you do get a pretty cool idea. You've heard of platforms, half-walls and other such things to help separate individual parts of pocket planes. But some gods like to get a little more naturalistic with it and instead just reduce overall visibility. It makes the plane seem much bigger, you've heard, especially if you can add some anti-navigation enchantment to it, maybe give the landscape some randomization to complete the effect. It's not a bad idea. So you test it out by filling the plane with a rather large cloud of water aerosol. It's a very good start, you figure, even if your head's a little above most of it and it's a little on the thin side. A natural autumn sort of fog rather than the supernaturally horrific kind. Makes the place a lot cooler and damper at the very least.
ZelifanIntegrity: 5/5
Divine Power: 8
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 floats on the muck, attached to the heavens by a grim-looking iron chain.
- 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.
[An Unorthodox Floor: 2]
Windows into other places are not unheard of, of course, but most gods prefer to have Aetherpanes. The reason for this is that most views aren't terribly impressive, or aren't very impressive for long. And also that there is no such thing as a one-way view, which tends to make gods nervous about making permanent ways to look into their own planes. You figure the idea is worthwhile, however, and render your floor into clarity as you connect it to... the Connective Plane! Yes! Now you can gaze into the connective area between planes with impunity! And people in the connective area can gaze back at you with similar lack of trouble. Hypothetically, anyway. Right now all you get on the floor is the image of some large object pressing into it. You'll give that some time to clear up.
[Creation's First Light: 1]
Figuring the place is a little dark, you shape your divine power into a handy mixed UV-C/proton lamp to the heavens. You prefer your tanning more ionizing than most, but just in case you will a nearby plastic dial into the heavens so you can adjust the wavelength if you're ever feeling adventurous. It starts at a toasty "Blackeningly Ultraviolet" setting, progressing all the way to "Incandescently Cosmic". You start to feel the lovely burn a couple of minutes later on the first setting. The rest of your creations begin to gently crackle shortly afterward.
[Stepping Up The Torment: 3]
Feeling that your terrarium is perhaps incomplete, you take a moment to breathe life into the little rubbery mortals and larger rubbery plants. They take a few moments to realize their circumstances, and then a few more to start feeling the weight of your star lamp. Most of the ambulatory ones take cover in your imitation castle. The plants, however, are left to fend for themselves. If you can call that sort of shriveling fending for oneself.
XenronackIntegrity: 5/5
Divine Power: 6
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 irritated by the radiation interference.
- The plane smells like Arcadian flower-scented air freshener, lingering from some previous cleanup campaign. The wonderful smell of ionization and burning starts to rise at the same time.
- 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 is developing a brown glaze from the intense irradiance.
- The UV-C/proton lamp set into the heavens is doing god's work as it scours your plane with ionizing radiation.
- In the other corner stands your lovely glass terrarium, filled with convincingly cheap props (some of them alive and gruesomely suffering for 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 eke out a horrible if perhaps mercifully brief existence, confused as to what cruel god would do this to them. There are also some nonspecific plants, but they're even more screwed.
- In the other other corner is your plausibly repurposed cardboard Reliquary, currently filled with completely inedible packing peanuts. The cardboard is not taking the radiation very well and you are at a slight loss to describe what exactly is happening to it.
- The floor of the plane currently affords a view into the Connective Plane, where a large object of uncertain origin completely blocks its view.
[Strawberry Fields Forever: 6]
The plane's floor seems very eager to have some residents, so you decide not to keep it waiting and give it something to host. Pointing at the ground you will a race of chimeric strawberry bushes into existence, spreading tall and sprawling hedges laden with red and fleshy goodness that take root readily, growing to scratch at the heavens as they find an overabundance of nutrients as well as divine power. Your realm quickly spirals into a delicious minor maze as vegetation starts to run wild. Pruning it at this juncture when the divinity is running through its shoots, you decide, would be a wasted effort. So you leave the place alone for a bit as you go look for that messenger god. Couldn't have gone far, you confidently lie to yourself.
[Following In Fleet Footsteps: 6+1]
You check the usual trail blazed by a sped-up runner god, but don't really find any steps leading out through the Connective Plane. Hm. You lean over your unfortunately wedged-in Throne, and observe somebody on the other side. Specifically you observe Hanping, god of Fortuitous Coincidence and Opportunity, the fellow who helped you carry this heavy Throne all the way over here, wondering at how this could have possibly happened and how exactly is he supposed to get out now. You get his attention quite easily, and he seems very pleased to see you. He asks if you couldn't maybe help him get this Throne out of the way so he can leave. He does have things to be and places to do.
AmarantaIntegrity: 5/5
Divine Power: 10
Allies:
Hassha, God of Silence
Atian the Elephantman God
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 is currently lodged in the Connective Plane just outside, somewhat complicating traffic as well as being dreadfully inconvenient. Hanping, god of Fortuitous Coincidence and Opportunity, seems to be trapped behind it for the time being and would appreciate some help.
- Your Reliquary is half-buried along the edge of the plane, tempting would-be treasure seekers.
[The Arboreal Solution: 2]
A few tries at populating the surface of your plane with tiny salt-loving trees meet with unfortunate failure as they start to expel excess salt through their leaves, which then proceed to fall back on the watery ground, returning the salt right back to it. Salty leaves soon line the floor of your plane, making the place look a little unkempt.
[Safety Measures: 5]
Since you plane seems to have already been the victim of at least one act of sinister sabotage, you decide to act decisively before more terrible things have a chance of happening. You cast your red and terrible eyes around the plane, and make pitfalls into spacetime pockets, tripwires for temporal snares, place knots into the water that scream when disturbed and leave disturbingly literal eyes all around so that you may never again be surprised. A little drastic, some would say, but you think the effort will be worth it if any dumb bastard tries anything again.
[Tiny Rivers: 5]
Within the castle's depths you put a mystical spring from which the waters of life may pour forth, and pour they do in a nice little model river that comes out of the bottom of the hill and snakes around your plane in a cute spiral before splitting into progressively smaller trickles that peter out and soak into the earth. It kind of ties the place together, you find, even if you have to be a little careful where you step so you don't accidentally alter the course of this river that will no doubt support a thriving valley civilization of miniscule pet mortals.
Atian the Elephantman GodIntegrity: 5/5
Divine Power: 6
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 Aetherpane awaits your password as well as a suitable spot for aetheric connection.
- 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, awaiting purpose or at slightly less damp and saltiness.
- 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 are in good operating condition. Now to not forget where they are.
- 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.
Aetherpane connections come in categories of nonexistent, bad (can look one thing up once per turn as an action), mediocre (can look one thing up as an action), acceptable (can look any number of things up as an action) and good (can look up any number of things without an action).
Another important message: miniature pet mortals, while cute, fun to mess with and otherwise low-maintenance, tend to generate useful worship only when they are in large numbers.
Author
Topic: Flat Earth: Turn 7, A Night Out In The Multiverse (Read 5663 times)