Welcome, Bay12, to...
TOO MANY GODSA bad idea that might die half way through in a total train wreckGruumsh, chief god of the orcs, is chaotic evil. His titles are One-Eye and He-Who-Never-Sleeps. Gruumsh calls on his followers to be strong, to cull the weak from their numbers, and to take all the territory that Gruumsh thinks is rightfully theirs (which is almost everything). The domains he is associated with are Chaos, Evil, Strength, and War. Gruumsh’s favored weapon is the spear. He harbors a special hatred for Corellon Larethian, Moradin, and their followers. In ages past, Corellon Larethian put out Gruumsh’s left eye in a fight.
-Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 Player's Handbook
The god of dwarves, Moradin, is lawful good. His titles include the Soul Forger, Dwarffather, the All-Father, and the Creator. Moradin forged the first dwarves out of metal and gems and breathed life into them. He governs the arts and sciences of the dwarves: smithing, metalworking, engineering, and war. The domains he is associated with are Earth, Good, Law, and Protection. His favored weapon is the warhammer.
-Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 Player's Handbook
Now when Aule laboured in the making of the Dwarves he kept this work hidden from the other Valar; but at last he opened his mind to Yavanna and told her of all that had come to pass. Then Yavanna said to him: 'Eru is merciful. Now I see that thy heart rejoiceth, as indeed it may; for thou hast received not only forgiveness but bounty.
Yet because thou hiddest this thought from me until its achievement, thy children will have little love for the things of my love. They will love first the things made by their own hands, as doth their father. They will delve in the earth, and the things that grow and live upon the earth they will not heed. Many a tree shall feel the bite of their iron without pity.'
-The Silmarillion
The stars are the bridges to Aetherius, the magic plane. They are perceived as holes on the inside surface of space. Because they are on the inside of a sphere, all stars are equidistant from Nirn. Larger stars, therefore, are not closer to the mortal plane, they are just larger tears in Oblivion. The largest tear in Oblivion is Magnus, the sun.
-The Elder Scrolls Wiki
Gods! They seem to have such fascinating histories. We read the little blurb, and get a only a hint at their great deeds, glimpses at a long interwoven story which leaves the world as we see it. Most of the time, in role playing games, we jot down their name on our character sheet, make a note of their domains because they give us special spells if we're playing a cleric, and don't think about them very often afterwards. They might intervene in an adventure or two, but their personality and history isn't especially fleshed out- sure, maybe there's some full-length novels somewhere, but this is how it is in most games. I want something different, and I want the whole history to draw upon. I want there to be a real reason for everything... Why does the sun go around in the sky? Why do elves hate dwarves (assuming they do)? Where does magic come from? Why do vampires stalk the night, thirsting for blood? When the players ask these questions, I want to have answers for them, and I want you to help me.
What is this?This is a game where you, the players, will play as gods. The game will play out, over 20 or so turns, as a sort of "world generation": In the beginning, the world has been created by The One God (think of it as the hand of the GM, me, if you like) but it is only a blank slate. You yourselves begin with no personal backgrounds or details, no physical appearance, only your name. By the end of the game your actions will have created the shape of the world, and determined your own "portfolio", the domains which you govern over as a god, giving you and your worshipers power to control them.
My goal is to create a game setting with unique gods (your characters), which I could actually use to play a game like Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder. The biggest caveat of this is that the world the players inhabit has to be basically understandable from the base game book: For example, players have the choice of being elves, and elves always get +2 to dexterity. The world can't have a methane atmosphere and all intelligent races can't be descended from squids and have six limbs, or the world can't be solely inhabited by bacteria. I'll be making nudges in the direction of the world being "playable". Beyond that, the lore can be changed around (maybe Elves and Dwarves are best buddies, or orcs reproduce by spreading spores). It just has to be playable and make basic sense with the rules in the book. Along the way, The One God will fill in necessary details, like the sun and clouds and monsters, if nobody else does. There's plenty of stuff in the book which simply is, and doesn't need a divine origin. However, if you are the god responsible for creating something, you will probably have domain over it.
How exactly does it work?Each turn, you will make one action. The game is split into phases: In the early phases, you will be able to create massive changes to the world and universe, like changing the shape of the world the mortals (and future players) inhabit, or creating your own personal plane of existence. In the later phases your power will diminish, but you will see the world in greater detail and interact with mortals. This will be detailed more below. Whenever you take actions, you will gain power in a relevant domain: For example, if you create the Plane of Fire, you will gain the Fire Domain. Domains can also be abstract concepts, like Good or Evil as perceived by mortals. When you take difficult actions, or take an action opposed to another god, I will make a die roll to determine your success. If your action pertains to one of your domains, you will get a bonus depending on how powerful you are. The more actions you make in your domain, the stronger you will get with that domain. As your power diminishes in the late game, you will be best at taking actions based on the domains you acquired early on.
You will try to make the world that mortals will later inhabit, and make it in a form that pleases you, but other gods will be doing the same. You might cooperate with other gods to do great deeds, or you might fight other gods to stop them from completing their action. You can unmake what other gods have made, but it is more difficult to destroy than create, so that which is unmade usually leaves evidence of its passing- darkening the sun might instead create a moon which dimly lights the night, for example.
The PhasesThe Phase of the game determines what is possible, and what is not. You will go from creating the world, the sun, and the stars, to creating the mountains, forests and seas, to creating the mortal races, to influencing mortal society and religion. You cannot do things too early, or to late: you cannot begin to create and influence the mortals before the cosmos has been fully formed. You also cannot change the shape of the world and cosmos after they are settled... unless, perhaps, you are powerful enough in your domain to do so.
There are four phases (plus a fifth, the post-game) which should each last about 4-6 turns. When I feel like most of what needs to happen in a phase to progress is done, I will warn you that the next turn is the last in that phase. Before the next phase starts, The One God will fill in any important details that are still missing.
The Age of the CosmosThe world is flat, stretches on forever, and is cast in darkness.
Normal actions might include:
Create an elemental plane (EG the Plane of Fire, Plane of Water, whatever)
Change the shape of the world mortals will inhabit (to a sphere, a disc, a cylinder...)
Create Mount Olympus, Home of the Gods
Create the Sun, the stars, and other cosmic objects
Hard actions would be something that affects everyone's cosmology:
Force all planes to be spherical planets
Create a plane which exists at the center of all other planes, and connects them all
The Age of the EarthThe world is made, but its form must be defined.
Normal actions might include:
Create a region (oceans, mountain range, desert)
Populate regions with groups of plants and animals (EG, trees, flowers, forest animals, reptiles)
Create worldwide environmental effects (EG seasons, the wind)
Fight! You cannot kill each other, but your physical forms can tear mountains asunder, your spells can boil oceans, and you can wound other gods and make them lose turns.
Hard actions might include:
Affect cosmic bodies, like in the Age of the Cosmos
Bring an intelligent race into the game early
Forcibly arrange multiple regions into continents
The mortals begin to place their earliest footprints upon the world.
Normal actions might include:
Fight, same as Age of the Earth
Create an intelligent race
Create magical creatures
Create a mythical beast, like Cerberus, the Hydra, Godzilla, etc
Bestow an intelligent race with a gift of knowledge (EG creating fire, forging metal, sailing, using arcane magic)
Hard actions might include:
Large, regional effects like in the Age of Earth, including creating or changing entire regions
Create multiple mythical beasts at once, EG dragons of several colors
The Age of MiraclesThe mortals have established thriving civilizations, and now need your guiding hand.
Normal actions might include:
Issue religious commandments to a mortal race,
Command your followers to go war with heathens or followers of other gods
Command your followers to create temples, roads, ships, or other great works of architecture
Create a magical artifact, like Excalibur or the Hand of Vecna
Create a Hero: A half-god, half-mortal. They might materialize into existence from your own mind, or be born the, erm, normal way. Either, way they can change the world by slaying mythical beasts and doing great deeds, but they might not obey you.
Bless or curse mortals
Cause natural disasters, cosmic events like eclipses, or other miracles, which affect a specific city or region
Put dinosaur bones in the ground to trick people into thinking dinosaurs existed even though they really didn't.
Fight! As gods grow weaker, it is possible (but unlikely) to actually kill them.
Hard actions might include:
Normal actions from the Age of Myth
Creating or spreading religions to multiple parts of the world at once
Bless or curse entire regions
Cause natural disasters or other miracles which affect the entire world
Modify intelligent races
The Age of MortalsThe game is over, but depending on when I actually use this for a Dungeons and Dragons game, I might ask you to determine your god's actions directly. You could also declare something you want your god to do in the future, EG “I want to give one of the players a magic sword”.
Normal actions might include:
Granting a vision to chosen mortals
Giving small blessings or curses to chosen mortals
Granting magic powers to mortals who worship you
Settling alignment debates
Hard actions might include:
Normal actions from the Age of Miracles. By now you should be strong in a couple domains, so you should be able to do these when they pertain to your domain.
You only need to post the name you will have in-game, and your first action. Actions will be collected using my post grabber program to make things easier. This means actions must be posted like this: [X] Join the game as Potato, God of Potatoes. My first action will be to create the Plane of Infinite Potatoes. You need to put the capital X in square brackets, and your entire action needs to be bolded, with no closing bold tags in the middle. If you post multiple actions per turn, only your last one will be counted. Make sure it includes a full description of what you intend to do.
There are 12 Starting Player Slots
That's right: It's called Too Many Gods because I'm allowing twelve players, which is a lot for a forum game. It seems like a reasonable compromise to the 18 gods given in the Player's Handbook. But wait, there's more...
You Can Create More Gods
You can use your action to join with another player, and bring a new god into the world. Your godly son/daughter/holy-ball-of-light will be played by a random (not the next in order) player in the waitlist, provided there is a waitlist. Then, they will be the child of your gods. Naturally they will be weaker because they are starting later in the game. You need the other player's consent to do this; no going Full Zeus.
ROLLINGI will roll a six-sided die if your action is difficult, and determine your success based upon total arbitrariness, but higher numbers are better. A number that's too low might fail do anything, only complete part of your action, or have unintended consequences. This is not to be rules-heavy or strategic game, so whatever I think sounds like a good story is a big factor in the outcome. If you are opposed by another god, then you will each get a die, and the one with the higher result will succeed. Depending on the circumstances (particularly fighting), success might be more dramatic if there is a big difference between your results. When you roll a die, your highest bonus from a domain that is relevant will be added. For example, if you have a +1 bonus in the Water domain, this might apply to creating a river or extinguishing a volcano, but not creating a volcano. If you have a +2 bonus in the Fire domain and a +1 in the War domain, and you fight another god, you could say that you use fire magic to get a +2, but you cannot add them for a +3.
DOMAIN BONUSESThe more you take actions that pertain to a certain domain, the higher your bonus will be. Actions must be successful to count. Common examples of domains are elements (Fire, Water, Earth, Air), moral concepts (Good, Evil, Law, Chaos), abilities or skills (Strength, Magic, War, Trickery), emotions (Love, Fear, Bravery) or more specific concepts (Nature, Life, Death, Work). Really it could be all sorts of things. Each action you take can only improve one domain. Below is a list of how many actions it takes to gain power in a domain:
+1: 2 Actions, But when you gain progress in your first domain, it counts as 2 actions and becomes +1 immediately.
+2: 4 Actions
+3: 7 Actions
+4: 10 Actions
TURNSThe game will update when I feel like it. I'm too lazy to keep a serious schedule, but I plan to update at least once a week, and at most once per day. You may have only 24 hours from when a turn is posted to post your action! I will make a post declaring that action submissions are closed before I begin writing the turn. This means you might miss some turns- don't worry, it's not the end of the world. With a large number of players, I cannot wait to be certain everyone has posted. In extreme cases, like if you've missed three turns over more than a week, I might offer your place in the game to someone else.
FIRST TURN BEGINS IMMEDIATELY:It is the Age of the Cosmos. You have no body, but you have a mind. The world is empty and still, but you know there is space around you. The minds of others shine like beacons of light. For a moment the void is filled brilliantly and a voice other than your own can be heard in your thoughts: "Go now and create the world that you will. When I return I hope to see something beautiful." Then, you are left alone.
The universe is now your sandbox. Declare your name, and your first action. If your action fits the guidelines of "normal" for The Age of the Cosmos, and it does not conflict with the action of another player, it will succeed without rolling.
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Topic: Too Many Gods: Age of the Earth, Turn 2 [14/12] Waitlist Open (Read 23696 times)