Divine Hosts: Titans of RecreationOOC -AAAAAAAAAAA!!!
Turn 1: The First World
Exalted! The stagnant untime moves once more, drawn in by the Rights of the Hosts!
First was the world...
It is said that
The Vircine Chiropod brought motion to the dormant world with a dance of creation. Answering to its Right, a seed formed from the formless from which sprouted a bud. And the bud rose, dancing with the vircine maker, growing with each step until it became a radiant Sunflower. A shell of earth formed around the Sunflower, completing the newborn world.
Name: TBD
Type: World
Description: A nondescript hollow spherical world within which an immense sunflower grows. The sunflower, being a sun in its own right, fills the cavity of the world with light.
Once the
The Vircine Chiropod had finished dancing and the Bounteous Domes had stabilized, various Hosts brought their touch to the world, seeding it with a great variety of life.
From the countless eusocial creatures and plants born from the hand of
Butterfly Buttercup, the Coincidental Cause, the Sending Storm, the Disordered Disaster, to the vicious and deceitful dangerous colonies spawned by
Hexapoda through its Right of Insect Creation, as well as the jittery Hmmmsters born from the
Chiropod.
To the great and few Caretakers, creations of
Bartatam the Divine Gardener, as well as the noisy Honkers of
Xe'kekxlia and lethaly adorable Cherubs of
TOAA.
Species were placed in various places of the world, and no mortal could say if it was at random or all according to the grand design of the Hosts.
Species Name: Hmmmsters
Description: Small pouched rodents with very short tails and a fondness for sunflower seeds
Traits:
- Hoarder: Hmmmsters stockpile food well beyond actual need.
- Eusocial: Somewhat like actual bees, hmmmsters come in several varieties specialized for things like foraging and breeding/housing.
- Arborial breeding caste: Differentiating them from bees (and hamsters, to be fair) is the fact that their breeding castes are sessile and resemble fruit trees and are typically also used as housing. This is likely to be controversial for some time among learned mortals, and those without access to fell tools of science may suggest that hmmmmster foragers are to hmmmster trees as oak gall wasps are to oak trees, but this surprisingly isn't the case.
- Dance-speech: Hmmmsters convey information on food, predators, and competitors through the art of interpretive dance.
Species Name: Buttercups
Description: Various types of Buttercups, from giant tree-cups to standard savannah-cups and aquatic lily-cups and kelp-cups and shrub-cups filling most of the surface of the Bounteous Domes with a profusion of various sorts of buttercup vegetation, nutritious, tasty, good-smelling and a generous provider of nectar and sometimes lumber depending on type.
Traits:
- Ubiquitous: Everywhere you would expect to find some sort of plant, you can find a Buttercup adapted to fill that niche, and even in several places where you would not expect them.
- Fecund: Buttercups reproduce and grow at a rapid place, rapidly outcompeting most other plants to fill up every available space with yet more buttercups.
- Pleasant: Buttercups are nearly the ideal crop, being fast growing, nutritious, useful, and smelling better than any animal will ever be able to, the slobs.
- Fateful: Strange coincidences, both lucky and unlucky, are more likely to occur around large quantities of buttercups. Stumbling into your arch-rival who was also somewhere else in the thousands of miles of buttercups and you would not have met normally. Happening to find the only buried treasure chest for miles when digging an latrine, etc.
Species Name: Sunflowers
Description: All Sunflowers are bioluminescent in varying intensities, in honour of their great progenitor in the sky, which regularly rains down storms of sunflower seeds which ensure that Sunflowers will never die out as long as the Sunflower does shine...
Sunflowers are strong independent plants who tend to grow together in small clusters or entirely alone, at higher altitudes where buttercups begin to struggle, their thick bark extruding resins to protect against the cold and insects. But they are also present here and there throughout the rest of the Bounteous Domes, and are notable for certain subterranean variants thriving in caves and deep gorges and other places where the common Buttercup tends to be entirely absent.
Traits:
- Bioluminescent: Sunflowers glow! A pale reflection of their solar progenitor.
- Hardy: Sunflowers are well-adapted to various environmental conditions, and will thrive where most other plants can't grow at all.
- Eternal: As long as the great Sunflower in the Sky exists, Sunflowers will sprout anew from its grand seed-storms, even if wiped out somehow.
- Addictive: Staring too long into Sunflower light, or eating too many of its seeds or other parts gives the consumer mild euphoria and is mildly addictive.
Species Name: Dahlias
Description: The parasitic or commensalist Dahlias tend to grow on other plants, or in creepers up against cliffs or other vertical surfaces, with orchlias often surviving purely through air-roots that provide them sufficient moisture and nutrients while perched high up in tree-cups, or dahlia ivies strangling shrub-cups to death over time before taking their place. Some technically non-dependent Dahlia variants also exist and grow here and there amidst the vast amounts of Buttercups, but usually they can be found perched on some sunflower of 'cup.
Traits:
- Loafers: Dahlias have never done an honest day's work in their life. Genetically lazy, they like leeching off anything and everything around them.
- Medicinal: Dahlias tend to have interesting properties useful for healing various illnesses and ailments
- "Medicinal": And also interesting properties that alters the mental state in various ways.Hallucinogenics, alcoholics, soporifics, painkillers, painbirthers, uppers, downers, sidewayers, and many more are common among these colourful flowers.
Species Name: Daisies
Description: The feeders on rot and putrescence who sprout up on dead plants and corpses, helping to decompose them to bring the nutrients back into the environment. Some variants also sometimes infect various animal life, mind-controlling them, eventually making them head to high places where daisy flowers sprout from their heads to scatter their seeds to the winds. Also tends to grow parasitically on living plants, and likes darker or more swampy or nutrient poor locations, making up the fringes of the vast Buttercup-type biomes.
Traits:
- Worms: A vital part of the food-chain, the Daisies breakdown organic matter for the next generation.
- Mind-Control: Daisies have an unpleasant tendency to control the actions of animals for their own alien goals...
- Intelligent: Large clusters of certain species of Daisies have shown a concerning tendency to self-organize and use-tools. More common among mind-controlling species, one of these might actually rise into a full race of sapients...
- Patterned: Daisies tend to grow in pleasing geometric patterns, and believe these patterns to be inherent to every aspect of existence, and will force patterns onto events and things where they might not be a good fit.
Species Name: Butterflies
Description: Various species of butterflies and moths to fill all conceivable ecological niches, from giant grazing land butterflies who produce milk (for butter) to pretty fish-butterflies winging their way through the water, to vampiric butterflies who drink the blood of other lifeforms to fearsome tiger-butterflies, apex predators who hunt all that cross their path.
Traits:
- Ubiquitous: Everywhere you would expect to find some sort of animal, you can find a Butterfly adapted to fill that niche, and even in several places where you would not expect them.
- Fecund: Butterflies reproduce and grow at a rapid place, rapidly outcompeting most other animals to fill up every available space with yet more butterflies.
- Gregarious: Butterflies tend to be herd-creatures gathering together in large groups.
- Cursed: Anyone who eats too much butterfly flesh will find themselves suffering bouts of misfortune which become longer and more dangerous the more butterfly meat they consume, eventually all but guaranteeing their death. This wears off over time, so moderate butterfly consumption is sustainable.
Species Name: Moths
Description: The smaller, weaker, plainer cousins of the butterflies, often fighting for scraps in their shadows, or living in the places they do not deign to, or resorting to parasitism.
Traits:
- Nocturnal: Moths cannot stand the glorious light of the Sunflower, and only come out when it is obscured by clouds or a theoretical moon. But they are well suited to these dark moments, and will even outcompete butterflies or other lifeforms in caves and other dark places they might spread towards.
- Hibernatory: Giving the long durations between their windows of activity, Moths are well suited to long periods of perfect stasis during which they will not degrade or starve, until the next dark period.
- Perceptive: Moths have incredibly keen senses to evade butterfly predators or out-maneuver clueless butterfly prey. This often causes them to see, hear or smell dread things they would have been better off not knowing existed...
Species Name: Flies
Description: These tiny creatures fill a role similar to the Daisies, feeding on the dead, but also on flowers and fruits, and sucking the blood of butterflies. They are smaller than even moths, filling various true insect roles that butterflies did not take for whatever reason, making them the second most common animal family within the Buttercup paradigm.
Traits:
- Stealthy: It is hard to notice flies, who seem almost divinely stealthy in their manner. Indeed, even if you spot a fly, your attention just seems to slide off them for some reason...
- Parasitic: Flies seem prone to be bloodsuckers, or lying their eggs inside their still living prey to hatch and eat them from the inside out, or other nefarious behaviour...
- Decomposers: Along with Daisies, flies are a vital part of the decomposition part of the food circle, ensuring that the entire world is not just filled with dead rotting things.
Species Name: Antant
Description: Big ants, several centimetres in lenght. Very varied, some have huge crushing mandibles, some have terrible venomous stingers, some spray acid that can melt skin. They all share a jet black exoskeleton and a competitive and aggressive nature. Their society is as militaristic and expansionistic as much as those terms can be applied to a nonsentient species.
Traits:
- Weaponized: From jaws to stingers, to even more exotic weapons, there is no species of antant that is not lethal in some way.
- Eusocial: Each antant colony functions exactly as an ant one, one queen, several princesses that copulate once and then kill the males.
- Armored: Their exoskeletons are tough
- Expansionistic: the colonies tend to move outwards, clashing against each other and the world in a constant outward expansion
Species Name: Waspwasp
Description: if the antants are armies, waspwasps are bandit bands, preying on the weak on the ground and carrying their prey to their flying bivouac.
Traits:
- Flying: Waspwasps are incredibly strong and persistent flyers.
- Eusocial:The queen and the king are the only individuals that can reproduce in a colony.
- Flying bivouac: The queen of the colony passes her entire life without touching the ground, carried in a flying nest made by the worker's bodies, entwined in a beautiful aerial dance.
- Stingers: they have sharp stingers that inject a paralyzing venom
Species Name: Blindbuilders
Description: They are big termites, but with an actual, elephant-like proboscis.
Traits:
- Eusocial: You know the drill.
- Builders: They can build immense, above ground nests that are incredibly resistant, to both the elements and attacks.
Diggers: They are expert diggers.
- Giants: Some individuals can grow to immense sizes, meters in lenght with the right diet. THey are kept in the lower chambers, slumbering until the colony is attacked, than they are roused to defend it. Their proboscis sprays acidic glue and are able to dig tunnels.
Species Name: Honkers
Description: A species of long necked feathered fowl capable of winged flight and watery floatation alike, males are lime green with purple polka dots, while females are dark Blue with pink stripes. Both sexes have a large red circular 'nose' at the middle of their beak that seems to exist purely to squeak.
Traits:
- Deafening; Honkers can honk at between 110 decibels and 140 decibels of volume, causing pain, ear injury, and eventual deafness to other creatures in the area. they typically use this trait to warn off predators, or alert other Honkers to threats they've spotted.
- Migratory; if the weather isn't great, Honkers can spend upwards of three months traveling, looking for better nesting ground.
- Omnivorous; self explanatory.
Beings Name: Primordial caretakers
Description: Large insects and rodent looking creatures, each different from the others, made from rocks and fertile ground that allow plants to grow on them
Traits:
- Earth Shaking: They are of enormous size and have magnificent strengths
- Gentle: Very careful around life which they don't intent to hurt.
- Harmony bound: Have as an outpost goal to ensure that plenty of species thrive and a great diversity of life without on species pushing others away.
- Ecologist mind: Posses great understanding of the complex network of life in their surrounding and how their actions can effect it.
Species Name: Cherubs
Description: A idealized version of a human child. They all have differing eye and hair color. They have little wings attached to their back which enables flight. When feeling positive emotions they shine with a bright white light.
Traits:
- Eyes of the Blessed: They can see through all illusions and falsehoods. They can also tell when someone has bad intentions due to a vague red aura that appears around the one with bad intentions.
- Holy Caretakers: They have full and complete knowledge of all servant/caretaker related skills such as cleaning, cooking and washing, writing and etc. They also have the associated muscle memory required for this.
- Miracle Workers: They are able to manipulate luck, making people lucky or unlucky depending on their mood. The more cherubs that activate this ability together the stronger it becomes.
- Little Charmers: They are so adorable it can actually be used as a weapon.
(...)
Then at some point before or during the seeding of the Domes, the elusive
Sp(fl)y hid two curiosities on the surface of the world for a purpose as mysterious as their maker.
Name: Antenna Alpha
Description: A giant Antenna of an unknown bug. Sticks up toward the sky equivalent and vibrates apparently at random. This creation is meant to facilitate communication between the Hosts and Mortals, allowing those within its range of effect to communicate with them as easily as with someone standing next to them.
Qualities:
- Mortal Communication: Allows Hosts to deliver messages directly to the minds of Mortals in its range of effect without needing to expand any effort.
- Host Hosting: Allows Mortals to send messages and responses directly to the Gods, who are free to ignore it if they don't care about the message.
Name:Codename Musca
Description: To the casual observer, this artifact appears to be a small moon in the shape of a fly egg. In reality it is only a balloon made to look like a moon made to look like a fly egg. It flies in a circular pattern around the sunflower in the center of TBD, casting its shadow on the world below.
Qualities:
- In the Dark of the Night: The inky blackness of Musca's shadow is a perfect hiding place for secrets. It is more difficult for everything, Mortal and Host, to uncover secrets performed in the darkness of Musca's shadow.
- It's Not a Moon!: Despite appearances it lacks the sheer mass and surface area of a moon. It is completely uninhabitable, and a powerful enough force can move it out of its typical orbit.
...and then in the formless...
Far from the bustling Bounteous Domes, another Host worked. She by Right made a great Region unlike anything one could find on the first World, in the image of some vision known only to her. On this curious place she named the Citadel, she exerted her Specialized Right of Human Creation and so the Engineers were born: metallic humanoids blessed with countless boons wonderful and dangerous. To support them, they were granted inanimate companions in the form of various magical objects.
But suddenly, the invokement of a Right of Destruction causes the Computers to crumble into dust until nothing is left of their existence! None miss the obvious culprit:
Butterfly Buttercup, the Coincidental Cause, the Sending Storm, the Disordered Disaster.
Name: The Citadel
Type: Region / mobile habitat
Description: A massive spacecraft resembling a sailship constructed from many different metals. The interior structure is pressurized and suitable for habitation by humans or similar organisms. The ship's various systems which help maintain life support and mobility are powered by a miniature sun; a younger and smaller version of the great sunflower.
Name: Computers
Description: Physical 'thinking' (but not conscious/willed) machines built from conductive and insulative metals. Some are built into other machines in order to manage said machines, while a few are small handheld devices called 'phones', intended to be a single being's companion. Computers may also communicate with one another via radio or metal wires.
Qualities:
- Think quickly: computers may complete thousands of calculations in mere moments.
- No creativity: these machines perform exactly the tasks they are instructed to, and as such the coder's mistakes will likely manifest in the form of bugs.
Species Name: Engineers
Description: Engineers appear to be 7 foot tall humans with marble-white skin and absolutely no hair. Like all humans, Engineers are constructed entirely from metallic elements, which act exactly like the non metallic elements of the real world but are classified as metallic anyways.
Traits:
- Spacers: Capable of surviving in very harsh environments, including the vacuum of space.
- Builders: Good at construction and maintenance. Adept at creating and using technology.
- Sturdy: More difficult to kill than usual.
- Creative: Capable of creativity and innovation even when not pressured to.