((Came up with this just today. A god game where you are far from immortal, let alone omnipotent. I'll try to update it once per day. Maximum five players.))
Join my discord. If you want. You don't have to.
Floating through the void with nothing to sustain you, slowly asphyxiating on less-than vacuum. Yes, you are a God, but entropy can kill even you. Perhaps your own world was destroyed by some cataclysm. Perhaps your pantheon cast you out, sentencing you to cold death for some crime. Or maybe you were just born out here, in the void. Regardless, by chance you spot, far away, the light and warmth of a universe, and so you claw your way forwards, to the only hope of survival you might find.
When you arrive, you can't help but be disappointed. This is not one universe, it's a binary system. Both worlds are dead, and the frozen corpses of gods float nearby. The upper plane is almost entirely dark, and whispers to you. The lower plane is a blinding white, however it's not the pure white source that some gods draw on. It tries to appear pure, but you can spot the cracks.
In the space between, there is a differential. The void strands out, forming basic capillaries that slowly and imperceptibly draw white into black, and black into white. Someday, these planes will both be planes of gray, and this universe will truly die. But not this day. This is the beating heart, now you must build the body. Or else you will waste away.
Other gods arrive, too. Just as emaciated as yourself. Hopefully they will be allies and not enemies.
Vitality: 80/150 (A god's life force. It is drained by 10 each turn, but this can be prevented by paying Essence; 1 Essence prevents the loss of 1 Vitality. Lost Vitality can only be regained by acts of true faith taken on your behalf.)
Essence: 0 (The primal force that a god shapes into new creations.)
Drain: 50 (At the end of a turn, your store of Essence is decreased by this amount.)
Stipulations: (Vows taken that restrict what you can use Essence to create. Each Stipulation reduces your Drain by 10, and cannot be reversed by any means.)
Current locations:Intersphere void: The void directly between the Positive plane and the Negative plane. Empty except for some god corpses, and the flow of white to black and vice-versa.
Gods in this location passively absorb 5 Essence per turn.Positive corona: The area directly outside the Positive plane. It is bright and unsuitable for life.
Gods in this location passively absorb 8 Essence per turn.Positive plane:
???Negative corona: The area directly outside the Negative plane. It is dark and ominous. Life
could bloom here, but it would be defined by dark.
Gods in this location passively absorb 7 Essence per turn.Negative plane:
???Outer void: The vast void that forms a solid barrier between universes. There is absolutely nothing here.
Uses of Essence:This has led to some confusion so I'm redoing it.
Using Essence can allow you to do nearly anything.
You are gods, so it shouldn't be too surprising that your powers are basically limited only by your own power.
The general rule is that the more Essence you put into something past the minimum, the bigger or more powerful the result will be.
For a minimum of [1] Essence, you can manipulate the topology of void. This includes converting it to space, but also things like funnels to transport matter or energy through the void, or a system of logic gates that make up a wholly conceptual computer. Now, you can't accomplish much using only [1] Essence, but void is inherently easy to manipulate, so there's nothing stopping you from spending any amount of Essence that you like, directly proportional to the amount of work done.
It requires a minimum of [2] Essence to create physical matter. Less than that is simply not enough to bring forth anything physical. [2] Essence is enough to get you a decently sized boulder, but more material, heavier materials, and more complex configurations of those materials all have an effect on the amount of Essence needed.
[2] Essence is generally enough to create a fairly small organism (single-celled bacteria up to animals the size of a frog or plants the size of tall grass) but larger and more complex organisms require more. [4] Minimum to create a single human, or anything of comparable size and intelligence. [3] for most kinds of tree. [5] for an elephant. [20] for anything that counts as its own landmass.
Objects of a more technological nature are also possible. [3] makes a book. [3] also is the minimum for any kind of electrical wiring. The most basic computer would cost [5]. Robotic drones or automata will vary wildly depending on their complexity.
[6] can create a massive chunk of abiotic material. A mountain, a lake, an asteroid, a glacier. Anything smaller will probably not support life in the long term.
"Magic" is no singular thing, but it is possible to build things in violation of what we consider to be standard physics. However, anything that does work will require some sort of power source. The simplest method is to simply leave some Essence in the object in an unprocessed form, so that said object can draw on a bit of that Essence whenever energy is needed. However, this will eventually result in the object running out of Essence and failing. It is impossible to add Essence back into a depleted construct; it must be replaced in whole. While Essence is the purest and most potent form of supernatural power, power can also exist in a wide variety of different forms, which can be collectively referred to as Mana. However, note that Mana can never be held or used directly by gods! Only Essence will do.
Mana is of course a wide variety of different things, but most forms emit a blue or green light, and can be manipulated by biological beings. The strength of this ability varies individual to individual, and it is mostly random which individual organisms have a high degree of proficiency. Sapients with a natural ability to harness mana are generally called sorcerers, and the supernatural abilities of these creatures is generally what is referred to as magic, but again, mana varies widely, and depending in its exact properties the utilization of supernatural forces may work very differently than what is described here. Some "magic" may not even involve mana.
Life itself isn't always well-defined, and may not be biological in nature, but you probably already have an idea of what it means. It costs [4] Mana to cast a spark of life, and this can target anything, whether the targeted object is set up to live or not. The spark of life will always animate whatever it hits, but if the new life-form has no way to perpetuate itself, it will quickly die. [4] is a fixed cost, and it does not require additional mana in order to bring larger things to life. Unlike most powers, you don't have any control whatsoever over the process from the moment that the spark of life is cast.
Living beings are inherently precarious, and it requires only [1] Essence to smite one directly. It never costs more than [1] Essence to smite any single life-form, but note that it IS possible for powerful and/or crafty individuals to protect themselves from direct smiting entirely, meaning that you may need to get creative.
In addition to living things, you can create a non-living but animate and sapient being, called an elemental. This requires a minimum of [6] Essence, and a physical object to turn into the elemental. Unlike a living thing, elementals don't require a body that's capable of sustaining itself, and can indeed be made up of things like rock or water, in addition to normal flesh. Also unlike living things, elementals are categorically unable to reproduce. Like any "magical" object, elementals do require some form of energy to work, which might be an initial charge of Essence or some external source.
Similarly to elementals, it is possible to create a physical avatar of yourself. This requires a minimum of [8] Essence and does not require an existing object to animate. This avatar is essentially a projection of yourself into physical space, and such its composition, appearance, and abilities reflect your own nature. They are generally quite powerful beings with supernatural abilities. These beings inherently follow your will, and can be thought of either as servants or simply extensions of your self.
Simple patches of space cleared from the void can be unstable, and disruptions may cause the void to start reclaiming the space into itself. A more stable form of physical space is the plane, which can be created for [10] Essence and is generally a large reality with highly distorted space around the edges, forming a sort of membrane between itself and the void outside. While simple cleared space takes up an amount of void equivalent to the amount of space, a plane takes up a much smaller amount of void than its space would normally imply, essentially just having an "entrance" which leads to a hollowed out area "beneath" the void.
Waitlist:1: Devastator
2: helmacon
3: Maximum Spin
4: Draignean
1b: TricMagic
2b: Elvish Miner
3b: sprinkled chariot
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Topic: death plane: [not a turn] (Read 10565 times)