Refugium of the Gods is a small scale godgame which takes place in a world which has fallen to darkness. Only the reclusive Sonorous King, an ancient being created by the gods, survived what unknown events felled the first gods and filled the world with chaos. With what little power the Sonorous King could gather in the eons since the death of his masters, he has but only enough power to rekindle a small spark of divinity. Here in the Refugium, the Council of Gods will be born anew.
Refugium is a smallscale godgame centered around exploration and reconstruction. Players will begin the game in the Refugium proper, once a powerful device of the ancient gods, the Sonorous King has cannibalized the mechanism in order to bring new gods into the world. Now it nurtures and sustains them. Without it's divine power, the gods quickly dissipate back into the aether. While their world is small, it is not without it's merits. Eight districts of the ruined city of the Refugium remain standing, ready to be claimed by the gods. Within them lay ancient treasures, knowledge, and supplies, if only they could be recovered. Beyond them lay a world unknown, untouchable to the newborn gods, but perhaps, not to the curiosity of man.
The Districts and the World BeyondThe Refugium is one of the last stable locations in the world. It is composed of eight numbered districts, each between 25 and twenty square miles. What lays beyond is an ever shifting landscape of strange lands and unknown dangers. Each of the districts is sustained by an Anchor, an makeshift device which prevents the district from falling prey to the same fate as the rest of the world. Mortals may be given a blessing which allows them to safely enter and return from the world beyond, though it does not protect them from any dangers they encounter. In essence, exploration is mostly random with a bit of GM influence to make sure it's not so random that it's not fun.
Each player begins the game with 2 Remembrances, these tokens which can be expended to remember the way to a particular location. They can be overwritten, so each god can remember two locations they've discovered on exploration for later visiting.
Heavenly PositionsAll gods are Council Members by default. Council members have no particular duties. They get 3 Acts per turn for the first 3 turns.
Steward: The Steward position is currently held by the Sonorous King, and is mainly related to serving as an advisor and mediator between gods. If the gods decide to implement parliamentary procedures, facilitating these is the duty of the Steward as well. Tiebreaker in relevant situations.
Master of Numbers: The Master of Numbers is responsible for maintaining the ledgers of the gods. They update and track the number of acts that players have at the start of each turn. The Master of Numbers receives an additional 2 Acts per turn.
Chronicler: The Chronicler is responsible for composing a running catalog of the creatures, civilizations and locations which belong to the gods. In essence, they manage the player inventories. The Chronicler receives an additional 2 Acts per turn.
Name: Hypothetical
Spheres: Darkness and Mountains
Mortal Civilizations
Dwarves of Doubtful Existence
- Population:
- Tech Level:
- Culture:
- Magic Practices:
- Locations:
Elves of Especially Doubtful Existence
- Population:
- Tech Level:
- Culture:
- Magic Practices:
- Locations:
Objects of Power
Name: Stick of Hypothesis
Effect: Makes people curious.
Description: A stick which piques the interest of all who behold it.
Artifact Level: 1
Monsters and other Powerful Beasts
Name:
Powers and Traits:
Description:
Monster Level:
Cartographer: The Cartographer is responsible for composing a running catalog of locations and their contents, updating them per turn. The Cartographer receives an additional 2 Acts per turn.
Name: District One
Location Type: Ruined City
Exploration: 0/4
Creatures:
Mortal Civilizations: Ancients
Population:
Objects of Power:
Sublocations:
Other notes of interest:
These roles will often require a reading of the full turn to get the information needed to fill their duties, though I'll do my best to make the information used in these clear throughout the turn, a close read is likely for the best.
Character SheetName:
Spheres: (2 max)
Physical Description:
Mental Description/ Goals/ Motives:
Desired Heavenly Positions: (Optional: Why you'd be good at the job)
Act Cost BreakdownDisasters and Acts of GodBlessings, disasters and curses all use the same system. 1 Act+(Number of total adjacent regions effected)+(severity value* act cost).
Number of Regions Effected:
1 = 0 Acts
2 = 1 Acts
3 = 2 Acts
4 = 3 Acts
So on and so forth.
Severity:
1 = 0 Acts
A minor blessing such as increased fertility, minor strength increase or intelligence boost which on average provide a 10% increase.*
A disaster such as a poor harvest or infestation of pests.
A curse such as minor discontent or minor weakness which on average provide a 10% increase.
2 = 1 Acts
A blessing such as temporary gain of a magic power, understanding of all spoken languages, or minor strength increase or intelligence boost which on average provide a 20% increase.
A disaster such as a wild fire, small earthquake, or plague.
A curse such as an onset of madness in 20% of the population, an air of doom and unease among the citizens, or a stat decrease which on average reduces the stat by 20%.
3 = 2 Acts
A blessing such as a transformation into an ascended form, a renaissance of knowledge or skill, or a boost to a stat which on average increases by 30%.
A disaster such as the raising of the dead en mass, acid or fire raining from the sky, or endless night (for the duration of the curse, but you get the gist.)
A curse such as part of the population transforming into monsters, a wave of madness, or a stat decrease which reduces said stat by 30%.
*There are not actual stats, these percentages are just to give a rough idea as to how effective they are.
As an additional note, there's something to be said here about duration of effect. For example, an earthquake would not last the entire duration of the turn, but would instead by devastating in a short period. On the other hand, a plague may start of small, grow to spread throughout the population, and then diminish over the entire curse of the turn. Ceteris paribus they would be equally devastating if the same number of Acts were invested in each. However, as not all situations are equal, use of these acts of gods may have greater or lesser effect depending on the surrounding circumstances. For example, if an area is undergoing a drought, and you use 1+0+1 acts to start a wildfire there, it would be more effective than if they had not been undergoing a drought.
If you have any questions on how long chronologically a hypothetical action may last chronologically within the turn, just let me know.
*I set it up this way so there was a zero act cost option, but for book keeping, we could still refer to the severity value to get an approximation of power.
Creation of LifeIn most cases the creation of life creates enough of a creature to populate a single district, though it does not mean they'll always remain there or spread.
4 acts: A Minor Being with power on par with a mortal army.
3 acts: A mortal race.
3 acts: A mildly magical animal or a distinctly magical plant.
2 acts: A complex animal or plant with medicinal or mildly magical properties.
1 act: A complex plant or simple animal.
Sublocations are smaller locations within districts, often with defining geographical locations (A forest, lake, river, mountain, so on) and in some cases, a geographically isolated magical effect.
5 acts: A replacement for the biome of an entire district.
3 acts: A magical landmark the size of a dungeon (So a labyrinth, a necropolis, or other similarly sized large magical construct).
2 acts: A large mundane landmark like a mountain or a sea.
1 acts: A very small magical landmark or a mundane landmark the size of a village.
These also follow a formula: 1 Act+(Size of Effect)+(severity value).
Size of Effect
1 = 0 Acts: Self or a single individual
2 = 1 Acts: A group of individuals up to twenty.
3 = 2 Acts: A group of individuals up to forty.
Severity
1 = 0 Acts: A minor effect such as a sword wreathed in flames or a necklace which freezes small bodies of water.
2 = 1 Acts: An effect such as a wand which can allow the user to speak with animals, grants them strength or wisdom (+20%), or magic power of some kind.
3 = 2 Acts: A major effect such as summoning lightning storms, 40% increase to a stat, or other powerful ability.
In this world, magic is classified on three levels: Spells, Fields, and Branches.
A Branch of magic would constitute large definable sections of magic such as: Spoken Invocation, Magic Circles/Circuits, Rune Writing, Omen Reading, Summoning, and so on.
A Field of magic is a subcategory within these branches, such as fire, ice or other elemental magic, druidism, necromancy, witchcraft, or other definable practice of magic.
A Spell is a specific magical procedure within a field of magic, such as spell of fireball, entangling vines, raise a zombie, or other procedure which results in a magical effect.
Branch of Magic: 6 Acts
Field of Magic: 4 Acts
Spell: 2 Acts.
In most cases magic purchased by the gods will infuse itself in a population of their choice, affecting individuals to various degrees depending on their sensitivity to magic as well as affinity for the magic that's been purchased. Generally, this will follow a skewed bell curve, with many individuals receiving no or little magic power, many individuals gaining minor to moderate magical power, and a decent number gaining strong magic power. In the case of specific spells, the number of individuals who are able to perform the spell will follow a similar curve, many can't do it, but a good number of individuals could.
Players may send out one expedition each turn for 1 act. If the players do not use a Rememberance at this point, the expedition randomly explores the strange world beyond. If you do use a Rememberance, your expedition will go to the location you saved with the Rememberance. Rememberance are overwriteable and reusable. If a god personally explores personally explores, such as in the Ruins of the Refugium, it is free.
Unstable actions are actions that fall within the action options values, but doesn't have it's own line. For example, there is no 5 act option in the Magic section. This is because making something somewhere between a branch of magic and a field of magic is naturally precarious. In some ways it could be like creating a branch, and in others it could be like a field. The point here is that there is less certainty in the outcome, results may vary, and is thus unstable.
Overcharge Actions on the otherhand are actions where more power has been provided to an action than it's required cost. In principle, this is similar to unstable actions, as putting more power into an action than required will create unintended consequences. The difference here is that instead of trying to take an action which is magically unstable, it's destabilizing an action by powering beyond what it would need to perform the action, manifesting in unstable and unpredictable ways.
Generally my philosophy here is, either of these is fine, they're just not well suited to the system as it's set up. Overcharging an action or using an unstable action is not going to result in something necessarily good or bad happening, only that additional effects based on the action will likely occur or that you'll end up in some kind of odd middle ground.
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Topic: Refugium of the Gods (OOC) (Read 1194 times)