OOC ThreadYou had heard about the expedition to Paradise from your mother well in advance of it launching. Suspiciously in advance, one might say, if one took her hypothetical questions about going to a distant land and utilizing your various talents as prophetic. Eventually these clandestine inquiries became news and more formal prodding, which you paid only mild attention to between fine liquor and frenzied clashes against rival monsters and demigods leading rival clans and warbands.
For a time, you heard nothing more, which you assumed meant that prospect had fallen through- a tragic fate, surely, for one who didn't have a jug of bloodslush and some comely goatwomen on hand. You knew something was up, however, when your mother finally returned in the form of a smirking serpent, though she soon transformed into a more humanoid but no less smirking form.
"Wondrous news, little one!" she beams. "Today you leave for Paradise!"
You tilt your head in mild surprise, but it's not like you have a lot of packing to do. Pity about your tribe, though. You wonder if you'll be able to take any with you, though you imagine any that remain behind will be able to glue themselves to something powerful in short order.
"Now remember!" she snarls, grabbing you by an antler and leaning in. She's normally fairly serene, whether cooing over hatchlings or eating something alive, but deep down she's still a thing of nature. "This isn't just another lark. You'll have to apply yourself, got it?"
You give a casual "mmhmm" as you take another swig of wine, feeling her other hand strongly consider shattering the jug out of your grip through the tensions in the one grabbing your antlers. Evidently this project is rather important to her, though you're not sure why.
She's saved from this dilemma by the distant sound of your father's hunting horn, a rare event in these parts. Most entities not from Praise don't realize Makaur was once a Master, and most from Praise who do tend to overplay the lengths of his defection. The Masters do as they wish, be that commit unspeakable blasphemies against life itself from atop the grim majesty of the Skythrone, or leisurely torture woodland creatures to death in a quaint patch of forest claimed by quaint runaway children.
The goatmen remember, though. They spring into panicked, frenzied action immediately, trying to pile up enough of a sacrifice to appease the approaching lord. Like most mortals, goatmen fear death, pain, loss, and so on, but you have never seen anything quite like the primal terror they have for The Masters. Being half-Master doesn't seem to count, but once or twice you've managed to puff yourself up just the right way to sort of look like one, you think. Drained the color right out of them, whatever you did.
Of course, The Masters have little use for trinkets, so by the time your father arrives he is greeted by piles of varying kinds of flesh. He gives them only the briefest of glances before tossing you onto his back and taking off. Not very ceremonious, but you suppose there's no sense dawdling.
You'd heard the news, of course. A new world, a new opportunity. It had seemed a bit decadent at the time- there were, after all, quite a few people requiring assistance on the worlds the Throne already controlled, and no particular purpose or worth noted in this new realm.
So you had carried on with your duties as though nothing was happening, right up until you heard an ominous Echo. Following it, you indeed discovered your fate- a caravan of locals, struggling through injury and harassment by hideous things of entropy and madness. Your suspicion grew as you learned they were being followed from the outlands, where they had collected some precious cargo, and that they had heard no sounds from a foreign god.
Still, they bore divine seals and were clearly in need of assistance, and so you helped them along, crossing over with them into the Throne itself. There your duty ended, and so you turned to leave.
Only to hear the Echo again, from behind you. It seemed Paradise was a concern of yours after all.
"I am sure you will do well," Matriarch booms.
youR FATE Cannot be fouGHT another voice Whispers into your head, somehow much, much louder.
"This expedition is a vital endeavor, not only for its own sake, but for uniting the worlds we already possess."
fooLISH GReed will not saVE THEm
"I cannot leave such a thing to chance. I require my greatest soldier for this assignment."
LIES And flaTTERY to soothe anOTHER Pawn
"I will not be able to meet with you directly, but we may still exchange messages. Do not be afraid."
my whISPERS SHAll cease, yET You cannOT EScape the whispers wiTHIN YOUrself
Thus did you ride into the Throne, as you usually do, atop Mother and underneath Father, on the former's command and the latter's insistence.
"No one blames you for what happened," your guide says. It's not the first time you've heard that phrase. "What's important is what comes after."
You try to ask her what that is, but she gives the same sly answer. "Danger, beings in need, you know."
Traveling through Mourn is no easy feat, so you're less than thrilled about not being clear why. For a priestess of Matriarch, however, you feel inclined to play along, especially when she claims the great goddess needs your assistance.
You try to ask again what beings, and get a literally surprising answer.
"All of them," booms the voice of your mother. Your guide seems to perk up at the sight.
"Strength-of-Will, Wisdom of the Gods, Eternal Protector of Craft, this humble one greets you," she states, formally but sounding genuinely pleased.
"Likewise, little one. It is not far now."
The three of you continue on, the gigantic she-wolf dwarfing you who somewhat dwarfs the priestess. Gradually the formation shifts, until the priestess is leading ahead while your mother walks beside you.
"I meant what I said. Nothing the Throne does is simple; there are forces at work scarcely comprehended by most. Your comrades included."
You try to ask what she's referring to, as you still have no idea why you are needed, but she just shakes her giant head.
"You will see when we get there. That is the easy part." She rounds on you, forcing you to come to a stop, and stares into your eyes with her giant, incandescent cyan ones. "Protection will not be sufficient. You will need to understand these threats in order to combat them."
After a moment, she resumes walking, and the formation melts back to you and the priestess walking together.
"Her and Matriarch do not always see eye to eye," she mentions offhandedly. "But they both think you'll be vital to this operation."
You restrain the urge to ask what operation, and simply keep following.
You've always wanted to go on an adventure.
And, to be fair, that meant you usually did. Most people think the back man, the wise old mentor, the talented smith, the guy who gets you the goods, they're all out of the picture. Those people have never had to deal with Sork Hive stormtroopers politely inquiring as to where a certain thief got his picks or ravening bellhounds not really caring that you need to get through these woods to tip off an adventurer. No, being the side guy for an adventure is most certainly an adventure.
But you get the distinction- it's not your adventure. They're the ones center stage, the ones who do or don't and then the world works off that. If you screw up or kick ass on the sidelines, sure, things might go bad or good. But they're not going to go pivotally bad or good unless they were balancing on a razor's edge anyway, and even then the one in the spotlight's got more sway than anyone backstage, usually.
So when you heard about an entirely new world to explore, you knew this was going to be perfect.
And were only slightly daunted when they said no.
It's all politics, of course. They kept saying it was "super important" and you were "not taking this seriously at all" and other such nonsense. Well, they're not the only ones with political connections!
Of course your mother had super important things to do and your father wasn't taking this seriously at all, so.
You looked into the feasibility of just smuggling yourself in, but those guards were perceptive. Every test run you did, they found you. Drat. The pickled fish you understood, the bottom of the wagon was fairly uninspired, dressing as a guard was bound to have SOME complications... but you're still scratching your head on how they found you after sealing yourself inside a giant cheese wheel. Maybe it weighed the wrong amount or one of the goons present had some kind of lifesense or something.
But no matter, because your NEXT plan was FLAWLESS!
You got on your knees and begged. In retrospect that didn't work for very many of your prodded champions either except as a brief distraction to throw sand in their face or when the vile overlord in question wanted to add him to their harem anyway. Which you also tried, naturally, but most of the Throne's floors don't have any sand and most of its inhabitants have just truly abysmal taste in men, so no luck there either.
A few ploys later, imagine your surprise when, in the middle of serenading the guards, you're invited on in! Well, either this worked or they've grown sick enough of you to break your legs, so onwards! But no, they said, of all things, that you'd been selected to journey to Paradise based on, among other things, your persistence and ingenuity.
...
...which was, of course, your plan all along!
In any case, the important thing is you're off on an adventure. Hopefully a little more heroic swordsman and less determined thief this time, but still.
You never got the full picture for why you were selected to go to Paradise. You never got any picture, in fact. Not handed to you, anyway. Based on the number and type of gods and other high-level entities that came and took a look at you, you're guessing this was not a whim or accident. But other than that? A pretty wide spread, with a few noted spikes for scholars and astrologers and such.
Which was worrying, because your fate is broken, right? Maybe they want to use the parts to make a new one, which... might be better or worse than the original thing.
But eventually, into the Throne you went to go to Paradise. Sometimes fate just works out! ...wait, crap. That's... probably a coincidence.
The throne room for the Throne of a Thousand Worlds is impressive, certainly. The floor is largely what feels like a transparent metal, braced by white supports over a pool of bubbling water. Matriarch's children, delicate aquatic beings, scoot to and fro within it, sometimes tending to business in Throne, other times merely playing, relaxing, or otherwise enjoying their vaunted status.
The ceiling, meanwhile, consists of massive arches of some unidentifiable white material. You assume there's something between them, because the sky constantly and slowly shifts between roiling clouds and varying celestial bodies. Being located in the space between worlds, its view is understandably strange.
The walls, finally, are just more giant struts with sheets of material between them.
What material is a question with a thousand answers, however; the walls were deemed an ideal place to show off Throne's diversity and power, and thus the material consists of everything from mundane stone blocks to walls of screaming faces. Yes, you've seen the actual wall of screaming faces. It's a minor tourist attraction of sorts, insofar as the Throne has tourists.
The throne, which is to say thrones, sit atop a raised bubble rather than a flat surface, to give a more geographical feel to their elevated position and dynamic feel to the room itself. All the king gods are there, save for Matriarch who swims beneath the water. A wide range of deities sit or stand (or levitate, swim, are carried...) along the walls. This is a rather important, momentous occasion, after all.
Moments after you have all gathered, Matriarch rises from the depths. The display is rather dramatic; gods are usually somewhat large by mortal standards, and the gods of Mourn tend to be rather large even by god standards. Matriarch is large even by these standards, which means when she emerges from the water quickly, there's quite a lot of power behind it.
She settles into her throne- the leftmost one. In a conscious, though possibly futile, attempt to avoid power struggles and promote notions of equality, the thrones are positioned left to right in order of joining the Throne, rather than having the nominal leader's in the center. That means Matriarch is on the far left, followed by Okuru, Vanity, Becrun, and finally Throne of Flowers, though the latter is not technically her pantheon's queen as they do not technically have one.
Matriarch then gives a fairly standard speech about how great the Throne is, how important this mission is, and how much everyone can rely on the young gods assembled to do a really great job.
Then she allows Vanity to explain some of the details.
"In accordance with our highest wishes, those assembled are to be given Divine Favors that they may better accomplish and be rewarded for their service." Some of you notice a light sneer in her tone, and quickly surmise that, as a goddess of Being Better Than Everyone Else, she may be naturally snooty... and/or is not tremendously unimpressed with the admittedly motley band assembled before her.
The water angels bring the Favors, but only to the corners of the platform, where they are passed off to more traditionally angelic beings. Most of you recognize them as apparently low-ranking demigods from Wrack, blessed with their divine parent's good looks, winged countenance, and metallic coloration. The land angels bring over the Favors, simple discs of some smooth material.
They also explain the Favors, though most of you are familiar with their general operation already. Throne expeditions frequently use them as a form of currency, allowing their participants to acquire additional tools and/or reward for their efforts.
Specifically...
Bubbling Mirror (Demonic Spoon): 10 Mourn Divine Favors, 5 Mourn Forbidden Favors
Elythus Vineheart (vishdafish): 5 PraiseDivine Favors, 5 Praise Mundane Favors, 5 Praise Forbidden Favors
Moreau, God of Adventure (Roboson): 5 Praise Divine Favors, 5 Fray Forbidden Favors, 5 Throne Mundane Favors
Orphella, Teacher (micelus): 5 Wrack Divine Favors, 5 Mourn Divine Favors, 5 Soul Divine Favors
The Body of the Shield, Guardian-God (Pencil): 10 Mourn Divine Favors, 5 Mourn Commoner Favors
Fuzzy (RAM): 10 Mourn Mundane Favors, 5 Mourn Forbidden Favors
Favors are represented as smooth discs, colored and patterned to display their origin and type. Each Favor may be expended to request a boon from the Throne. These boons are subject to interpretation and availability, and it is generally considered poor form to request overly specific items. A listing of the common items available and their cost in Favors is found below.
Each Favor has one or more descriptors, usually an Origin Descriptor stating a world and a Type Descriptor stating a relation to the divine. In each case, the requests a Favor is exchanged for will tend to match at least on of its tags. For instance, requesting "war beasts" using Fray Divine Favors will typically produce something the Goddesses of Fray would have access to and consider useful, while Wrack Forbidden Favors will typically produce something you'd expect from an Abomination of Wrack. Requests that suggest a certain tag must, of course, possess that tag on its Favors; asking for "a hive-prince gladiator" will only work with Fray tokens, for example.
Combining Favors of differing types tends to even out any conflicting tags, so one Soul Mundane token and one Praise Mundane token will generally produce a Mundane but relatively world-neutral or world-blind result.
Favors are traditionally intended to be spent immediately, though there is some leeway there.
Note that for expediency purposes, you may continue to spend Favors retroactively once the game starts, so don't panic if you can't think of what you want immediately. Please try to avoid hoarding them too long, however- they're supposed to be starting goodies, not hammerspace tools for whatever situation you find yourself in.
Mortals
You may purchase improved conditions for the mortals under your protection. They will appreciate the gesture. For reference, there are five caravans, one for each world, each consisting of 5 trains. Most mortal items reference whole caravans rather than their subunits.
1 Favor: Rations
A complete shipment of food and other minor necessities for one of the caravans heading to Paradise. Specifically, 30 units of food, enough to feed one caravan (or five trains) for 6 months. Note that this food must be applied to a given caravan immediately, since a caravan is needed to transport it.
2 Favors: Tools
A complete set of tools, equipment, and materials for one of the caravans heading to Paradise. This will allow them to set up and begin an advanced and otherwise difficult industry or craft on a large scale upon arrival. The specific type of craft is determined by what tools are purchased.
3 Favors: Artifact
A potent artifact or other divine blessing, by mortal standards. Usually this is something useful but mundane, such as a horn that flows eternally with clean, cool water.
Materials
You may purchase raw materials for later use. While they seldom have much benefit on their own, they can improve crafting attempts, thereby providing you with boons of your own devising.
1 Favor: Basic Material
A basic if still mystically reactive material. Basic materials may have pivotal uses in forging mortal tools, but for deities are usually just an appropriate base to add power to their works or build more specific powers on top of. Adds +2 Str to a crafting attempt.
3 Favors: Potent Material
A dangerously powerful material. Potent materials are usually the focal point of any works using them, adding not just power but essence to its abilities. Adds +4 Str to a crafting attempt, and suggests a special ability.
5 Favors: Dangerous Material
A relatively one of a kind material. Dangerous materials are often potent enough to have some function even in their unrefined state, and when forged into other works usually define them strongly. Adds +6 Str to a crafting attempt, and strongly suggests at least one special ability.
Servants
You may purchase living things to serve you. Servants and their ilk may have a wide range of uses depending on a wide range of factors. Note that servants, even those with the appropriate addons, are their own entities and may behave in ways you might not desire, including requesting compensation for their efforts, taking up baking, being killed in honor duels, and so on.
1 Favor: Trivial Entity
A relatively unimportant entity, often an animal or lowly mortal of some sort. Usually 0 Str, but may possess traits.
3 Favor: Minor Entity
A minor but potentially relevant entity, often a mortal champion or minor spirit of some kind. Usually 2 Str, but may possess traits.
5 Favor: Lesser Entity
A potentially potent entity, often a mighty demigod or powerful monster of some kind. Usually 4 Str, but may possess traits.
10 Favor: Moderate Entity
A monstrously powerful entity, often a terrifying beast or shambling horror of some kind. Usually 6 Str, but may possess traits.
15 Favor: Greater Entity
A supremely powerful entity, often a fearsome demon or dragon of some kind. Usually 8 Str, but may possess traits.
+1 Favor: Loyal
The entity likes you, needs you for something, or is otherwise especially dedicated to your best interests.
+1 Favor: Motivated
The entity is enthusiastic, gains additional benefit from working, or is otherwise especially dedicated to their task.
+1 Favor: Bound
The entity is a slave, honor-bound to you, related by blood, or otherwise especially tied to you personally.
+1 Favor: Exotic
The entity possesses mystical powers, exotic training, or otherwise possesses unusually useful and hard to come by abilities.
+1 Favor: Loved
The entity is famous, personable, or otherwise unusually well-liked by most other beings.
+1 Favor: Connected
The entity is somebody important's relative, creation, or otherwise unusually politically handy to have around.
+1 Favor: Complementary
The entity possesses abilities that synergize or complement weaknesses in your own, or is otherwise unusually handy for you personally.
-1 Favor: Disloyal
The entity dislikes you, feels you are in the way, or is otherwise especially disdainful of your best interests.
-1 Favor: Unmotivated
The entity is coerced, lazy, or otherwise especially reluctant towards their task.
-1 Favor: Unbound
The entity is a free agent, insolent, or otherwise especially independent of you.
-1 Favor: Mundane
The entity is a well-trained mortal, mundanely focused, or otherwise possesses unusually banal and common abilities.
-1 Favor: Hated
The entity is infamous, repugnant or otherwise unusually reviled by most other beings.
-1 Favor: Targeted
The entity is a villain, disgraced, or otherwise unusually politically questionable to have around.
-1 Favor: Duplicated
The entity possesses abilities that mimic or override your own, or is otherwise unusually redundant for you personally.
Spending Favors is a somewhat protracted task for most, as it requires a good deal of asking questions, contemplating options, checking on what the others are doing with their Favors, and so on. Fortunately there's a truly wide range of beings around, many of them eager to speak to the new gods, whether to answer questions, cut deals, or just converse for a bit...
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Topic: Guardians of Paradise [Journey Month 2: Kingdoms and Crowns] (Read 7194 times)