Tick 1.5, "A Loan Is Brokered"The pantheon goes smoothly as the mortals thrive and multiply, then an argument breaks out and the question of Tolls arises. It is a point of great contention, and something they'll need to discuss in future.
The Market pays 2 Essence to Sol, Light of Magic, absolving its debts.
Fanw Howell is significantly pleased by the light of the Sun-Sword shining on the beasts filling Coedwigoeddgwyllt's forests, but is deeply saddened by the thought there are no mortals to hunt them. She sowed forests and erected its hills throughout the realm in abundance, giving up so much of herself to see it made, and she had not the slightest regret, but now she lacked the power to create her own worshipers and without them, in time, she would be starved of faith.
One doesn't become the Goddess of Hunting without a measure of predatory cunning and she wisely realized she would need to cooperate with another deity, but who? Eventually, her eyes fell on Pururu, snuggling with a dozen Purusians in the Taiga Islands, and she realized she was the one. She landed, and offered a happy greeting with a smile.
Meanwhile...The Market, having resolved its debts realized it didn't want to invoke the wrath of its peers by keeping its employees in ignorance, and soon, a corporate memo detailing the names and spheres of the other deities is distributed to each of the Angels, but they see not the slightest inclination of Angelic grace among them, and have no interest in yielding praise to another. That said, some of the most industrious are interested by Luda Ncebekan's reign of the Forge, and offer short acknowledgements to the Storm God's domain, when they enter, when they leave, and when they first strike their hammers. The Essence Income from this negligible at most, but in time, the murmurings of their five tongues nonetheless reaches the ash-wrought Wind God's ears.
Time alone will tell what comes of it.
The Market spreads a Pantheon Memo to each of the individual Hundredwinged, and some take to the thanks of Luda Nbuekan when they forged!Mere thousands of paces away, Sol, Light of Magic desires diligent students of the starry arts to teach, and not wanting to interfere with the Creations of another Goddess, the Starweaver turns her sight to the mortal realm. Taking decades of time, she watches each of the animals in work, in rest, and in play, before deciding on a single beast of the field. The flock of bunnies weren't nearly fast enough to evade the Goddess, not that they tried, and dozens upon dozens were easily collected.
She scattered them in the gardens before the Observatory and before they could begin to feast, imbued them with the radiance of the stars. Before her scarcely believing eyes, they stood on their hind legs and grew and grew and grew, veins pulsing with silvery star-stuff, and in moments, their eyes were lit with the keenness of mortal intellect. Their frames were spry and agile, but some part of their rabbitlike nature was gone, as their faces flattened and fur thinned in places as the Goddess's embrace changed them, and possessed an innate talent for the casting of both Celestial and Wind magic.
Sol, Light of Magic dubs her children the Starnymps, for they were born of stars and to the stars they would one day return. As every deity knows, every mortal soul is held together by a quantity Mana, an echo of Essence from their own Creation, and with extensive study, some are able to wield this force to accomplish mystical feats on par with the faintest, weakest, and least of miracles. Eager to ensure their arcane prodigy, she attempted to teach them the simplest and first taught of Celestial spells, the wielding of Mana to spark a flashing of light, and so innately attuned to the stars are they, this soon becomes a universal cantrip, cast almost at will among them.
Sol, Light of Magic creates 1 Population unit of the Starnymps in The Observatory, for the price of 4 Essence!She then teaches them the First Principles of Celestial Magic, the often applied Making of Light!Meanwhile...Pururu assents with great enthusiasm, and they continue their discussion, as-
Elsewhere...Ednaera decides to put her Major Servants to use, and begin patrolling the borders of reality, Eslinde and Arpier in tow, to monitor incoming entities and extract what she believes to be a reasonable Toll from them. At the time, this is an uncontroversial decision and widely ignored by every other deity, regardless of their sex.
Meanwhile...Fanw Howell is exceedingly pleased with Pururu's enthusiasm, and the two soon set to devising a plan together. They determine their new race, the first to come into being through two separate deities' work, will be a race of child-sized wolf-folk, with an innate grasp of teamwork, a cunning instinct of ambushing tactics, and no small amount of trap-making skills, though it isn't as pronounced as it is in the Purusians. Traps appear to be a theme among the Kitten Goddess's creations, which will lead mortal scholars a thousand years hence to argue if she was nothing a sinister, darker side to herself.
Fanw Howell decides to invest 4 Essence into the Creation of Wolfkind!Not far away, Kit Rougard, subtle God of Illusions and Trickery fails to unravel the tongue twister that is Coedwigoeddgwyllt, and requests Fanw Howell dub it a simpler to pronounce nickname, to which she replies with hospitable calmness.
Whilst he watches, Pururu puts in her finishing touches for a result that has much softer, fluffier fur, and a complete lack of intimidation factor, which is itself an advantage given their ranged ambush hunting strategy. When she finishes her work, the Wolfkind come into full awareness, and not one to ever mollycoddle her
tol mortal followers, she released them into Coedwigoeddgwyllt, where both of the Goddesses hope they'll prosper and thrive.
For the price of 8 Essence, evenly split between Fanw Howell and Pururu, 1 Population unit of the Wolfkind is created in Coedwigoeddgwyll!Their duties complete and worship assured, they fall into a deep slumbeKr in the snowy banks of the Taiga Islands.Eager not to be left undone, nor to watch as an abundance of shallow cave systems, perfect for the laying of eggs and carving of isolated lairs, go to waste, Kit Rougard molds a snake into a random form, again one half coupled with the miscellaneous, unknowable Entity after which so many deities are inspired to model themselves and their works, and finds it pleasing. The end result is a reptilian man of average size, with slit pupils, almost no hair, and a rhythmically undulating snake's trunk in lieu of legs, in his unusually large and powerful mouth lie razor sharp teeth, dripping with hallucinogenic venom and between their ears a vicious, cunning mind, near-crippled by delusions of paranoia and wary caution to all others, especially of their own kind, for they know themselves best.
The Trickster God gazes upon the work and deems it good. Taking heed to the naming scheme of his fellows, he dubs him the first of the Snakekin, and after making several thousand more in much the same fashion, releases them into the wilds of Coedwigoeddgwyllt, or Coed, as he prefers to call it, and watches, slightly amused as they fail to structure anything resembling a society beyond the occasional, exceedingly rare pair-bonding. Fortunately, their slowness to age and snake-like capacity to retain the genetic material of their mates for quite some time mitigates their reproductive shortcomings to some degree. In the absence of divine intervention, he very strongly doubts that they'll ever build a true civilization or live lives any more sophisticated than overly intelligent animals.
Interestingly enough, during the cold they simply burrow deep lairs or rest in the ends of caves, swaddled in dirty furs and sleep the turning of the seasons, ill-defined as they presently are, away. Kit Rougard certainly didn't intend for this to occur, but he certainly isn't complaining. Several Goddesses watch with interest at the first encounters between the Snake and Wolf kins, but are, for the most part, relieved to find they aren't prone to violence, avoiding each other out of excessive caution toward cohesive, primitive tribes, and the fact that they'd be too much trouble for meat that isn't edible to begin with.
Kit Rougard creates 2 Population units of Snakekin in the Coedwigoeddgwyllt region for a price of 8 Essence!The Goddess of Might Ednaera and her children, Eslinde and Arpier stumble upon three entities eager to enter the material plane, and after collecting a Toll of 3 Essence in exchange for their passage, reveals their arrival to the rest of the pantheon. They are Blong, bulbous God of Laziness and Fat, an Imp wrapped in gold chains, serving as emissary to the Arch-Demon of Greed Yol'Gurth'olyo, and Syelon, independent mercantile Angel similar to those within the Market, yet distinct. If Ednaera is to be believed, they came offering a loan upon request with Guar, God of Caves and Life, and after relatively short negotiations, two of these entities left reality, first, Syelon flying away with a degree of angst on his immaculate visage, and the twelve-footed, no-faced, blob-like Blong, plodding along into the cosmos. Only the second entity, the Imp remains and it is likely he will contact the pantheon as a whole with an offer.
In other news...Sol, Light of Magic decides to shift
The Observatory's position to the underside of the Sun-Sword, that the Starnymp mortals may be further educated in the ways of weaving Celestial magic. Once
The Observatory and by extension, all within it, have received a series of precautionary, protective enchantments they find it most beautiful, and indeed their flash cantrip receives a noticeable improvement among most its practitioners.
On more solid ground...Saddiyya, mostly Goddess of Spirits and Prosperity gazes upon reality as it is thus far, and decides that it is woefully incomplete. She is far from able to fulfill her ambitions in a single half Tick, but the inclusion of a race of spirits will go a long ways toward establishing a proper setting for healthy Trade and by extension, the Prosperity it yields. They are the Djinn, incorporeal spirits able to sense and subsist on intangible energies, however, should their veil be torn away, it will require five years by their own reckoning to grow another. Eventually, she decides they are a worthwhile creation and sets them into the Blue Corridor, where in ages to come they may wage pitched war with the Camel.
Saddiyya creates 1 Population unit of Djinn in the Blue Corridor region!The last to act this half-Tick, but among the first to consider, Guar, God of Caves and Life has been stricken in a fell mood to create a race he lacks the Essence for, so turning to the cosmos in search of loans, and shortly thereafter the passage mysterious events, he attained the unspeakably vast sum of 16 Essence from an undisclosed partner, and after a miniature eternity, overcame his inner glee long enough to sculpt his magnum opus, the Nauts, a race of hulking, subterranean salamanders with a swift breeding rate, Hundredwing'd tier in regards to their non-combat crafts, yet agile in spite of their size.
Almost as an afterthought, Guar manifests a floating region, bearing a wellspring of magma and a complicated network of caverns, caves, and tunnels, and that's before its inhabits set upon it with such crude tools as their low technological understanding can yet yield. They are diligent, nigh-tireless, and extremely powerful, each one with the brawn of any Hundredwing'd, but far superior overall agility, and soon they've carved a network of tunnels throughout the floating underground realm.
Guar creates the Cavenhold, a tiny region for the price of 1 Essence!
Guar then creates 1 Population unit of Nauts in the Cavenhold for a price of 14 Essence!Camelia (Camels, War) 9/10
Market (Trading, Angels) 3/10
Pururu (Small, Soft) 0/10
Sol, Star of Magic (Star Magic, Light of Life) 1/10
Ednaera (Might, Beauty) 4/10
Luda Ncebekan (Forge, Storms) 10/10
Saddiyya (Spirits, Prosperity) 4/10
Fanw Howell (Hunting, Ranged Combat) 0/10
Guar (Life, Caverns) 3/10
Kit Rougard (Trickery, Illusions) 4/10
Camelia, (Camels/War)
- +3 Essence per Tick:
- +2 Essence, malleable reality
- +1 Essence, Camels in Camelot
Market, (Trading, Angels)
- +8 Essence per Tick:
- +2 Essence, malleable reality
- +6 Essence, Hundredwinged in the Taiga Islands
Pururu, (Small, Soft)
- +6 Essence per Tick:
- +2 Essence, malleable reality
- +2 Essence, Purusians in the Taiga Islands
- +2 Essence, Wolfkin in the Coedwigoeddgwyllt
Sol, Star of Magic, (Star Magic, Light of Life)
- +3 Essence per Tick:
- +2 Essence, malleable reality
- +1 Essence, Starnymp in The Observatory
Ednaera, (Might, Beauty)
- +1 Essence per Tick:
- +2 Essence, malleable reality
- -1 Essence, maintaining Eslinde and Arpier
Luda Ncebekan, (Forge, Storms)
- +2 Essence per Tick:
- +2 Essence, malleable reality
Saddiyya, (Spirits, Prosperity)
- +4 Essence per Tick:
- +2 Essence, malleable reality
- +2 Essence, Djinn in the Blue Corridor
Fanw Howell, (Hunting, Ranged Combat)
- +4 Essence per Tick:
- +2 Essence, malleable reality
- +2 Essence, Wolfkin in Coedwigoeddgwyllt
Guar, (Life, Caverns)
- +4 Essence per Tick:
- +2 Essence, malleable reality
- +2 Essence, Nauts in Cavenhold
Kit Rougard, (Trickery, Illusions)
- +6 Essence per Tick:
- +2 Essence, malleable reality
- +4 Essence, Snakekin in Coedwigoeddgwyllt
The Taiga Islands
- A series of islands floating in the Void, knitted together by their extensive forests.
- Population Capacity: [3/8]
- 1.2 Purusians
- 2.4 Hundredwinged
The Blue Corridor
- A strip of steppes, deserts, and oases filled with every variety of dromedary.
- Population Capacity: [1/8]
- 1 Djinn
Coedwigoeddgwyllt
- A vast expanse of thickly wooded forests and rolling, hilly plains.
- Population Capacity: [3/16]
- 2 Snakekin
- 1 Wolfkin
Cavenhold
- A tiny floating island consisting of a magma well and intricate cave system.
- Population Capacity [1/2]
- 1 Naut
The Observatory:
- Sol, Star of Magic's well-hidden and selectively inclusive abode, crowned by a castle upon which lies a miniature world-tree.
The Fields of Everlasting Glory
- An endless illusory reaction of Ednaera's glorious past battles, never ending or changing, but somehow, never becoming repetitive.
The First Storm
- A molten stone, endlessly enveloped by an ever-raging cacophonous storm which serves as Luda Ncebekan's workshop and forge.
Camelot
- A vast, oasis-filled desert and shrub-land, partitioned by four hump-like mountains, paradise, insofar as Camelia is concerned.
- Inhabited by:
- 1.2 Camels