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Parelle - Hell 12/24 AP Parelle frowned. For some reason she thought it was a soul that disappeared, but it seemed to be people that were disappearing. "Yeah, I got stronger. Hopefully I've become wiser," she said as she buttered her toast. "Wait, death and disappearance? No soul? Troubling. It would explain why Home is so underpopulated. We need to figure out why. I've had some time to think on what needs to be done. We have power and resources, but I think that my failing last age was that I didn't know when to stop. My goals weren't limited. in trying to fix everything Sin was released which made the whole world even worse. She bit into her toast while the others ate and thought about what was next. She drew in the dirt with her free hand. She numbered the problems they currently had. 1. Disappearing mortals. 2. Many Family members are still dead. 3. Hell is broken. 4. Sin is free. 5. The ice. "I have my ideas about number three and number four, but first, we need to find out who or what is killing our followers. This is not acceptable. If it's a natural process we need to assess it and stop it if possible. If it's an intruder we need to identify it and stop it. Cadenza, I want you to use Home's power and assess what's happening. Pirsuq, you're going to get here there fast enough that she can be there while it happens. You're also her guard. Remember to listen to her. She's smart. Anyway, I don't know what this is and I do not like that. I think with your power, Home, Pirsuq and of course my big breakfast you stand a good chance of finding out on your own. If not we'll all work on it together," said Parelle. She squeezed her sister's hand and nodded at her. She pecked Pirsuq on the cheek. She was confident in their power. "Second, Hell is broken. As much as I hate to admit it, it serves a function. We need to make it again. It should be a place of punishment, but I do see room for an end to that punishment and for redemption. The sentence should fit the crime and then that sentence should end. However, since we are going to hunt Sin I think we should recruit help." She looked over at the graveyard and at the accumulation of damned souls. Were they damned yet or merely souls waiting to be damned? "Bad situations bring out the worst in people, but I think bad situations can bring the best out in others. I would like to leave an exit for souls who wish to do better in life. Limbo is occupied by Home, but someone who can emerge from Hell having totally rejected Sin is worthy of a second chance in my mind." She ticked off the remaining layers on her hands. "Lust, gluttony, greed, anger, heresy, violence and fraud. I think that given a chance some souls can even be redeemed in Hell. I plan to create it to make warriors to track, combat, capture and eventually jail Sin, or if safe, completely destroy it. I doubt even one in a thousand, even one in ten thousand will make it out, but I want a core of mortals who can both know Sin, reject Sin entirely and crawl their way out of Hell. We're going to rebuild it, brick by brick, stone by stone with these two thoughts in mind: Suffering to fit their crime and soldiers to defeat Sin. Also...Also I think that it would be best if we built it. Someone else might get it wrong. Someone else might make it worse." Her face grew hard as she spoke, even angry as she was about to do something she'd never considered doing. In a way she was actually going to adopt a role as a new Warden of Hell. Perhaps not the only warden, but still, a warden. It sickened her, but not all jobs are good jobs. Perhaps one day she could leave it in capable hands, but if she actually designed the place the punishment of all mortal souls would forever be on her conscience. Words were not descriptive enough for the revulsion she felt at the thought of remaking Hell, but if she didn't do it, some monster would probably put it back together just the way it was or worse than before from lack of imagination. She had to make it horrible enough that other gods would accept it as a place that mortals should end up and as a place that was not in need of duplication. Damned souls needed to reside here. Imitation was not to be permitted. "As for our family and the Ice, I don't know. Those need to be addressed. Our family members are...It's a sad topic for me. When Reggie came back originally I did it wrong. I'm sorry, Reggie. I still feel guilty. It's been hard to revisit that place. I recruited Isath to combat the ice. I will ask it if it has any ideas, but I just don't know what to do on that end. I was merely surviving for so long that I'm not even sure how to approach it anymore. I'm just going to do what I know how to do first. We're going to take the steps we know how to take. Maybe then other answers will become apparent. Reggie, we're going down into the lower levels. We're going to rebuild Hell so it can be filled up again." Breakfast was over. Here's the simple part first. 1. Cadenza is going to look for why the mortals are disappearing. Pirsuq is going to help. They'll have access to Home's power for this. I want it to work. 2. Parelle and Reggie are going to construct the remaining levels of Hell. They're not going to fill it with horrible things, but they're definitely going to set the stage. When it's all done Parelle is going to ask Vendruck to design the punishments with the potential for escape via being an exemplary person in mind. Since he's an unforgiving SOB I expect it would be rather hard to impress him enough that they could leave. Each place would be much like a house without any furnishings, finished but bare. Finding out why the mortals are dying: +6 healing to read what's actually happening to them, +6 wind storm to get Cadenza there fast, +4 Breakfast for the upshift of both of them working together, +4 Life to study why they are dying. 6+6+4+4=20 Create, reinforce and repair the superstructure of Hell. Aka Hell minus torture: +6 Construction, +4 Artifice and +2 Lightweight Tools to build it, +4 Nature to give materials enough to make it, +4 Sun to light the place up so they can see what they're doing, and also to make the hot places hot, +2 Food and Drink to stay supplied during the heavy labored, +2 Travel to make it so souls that have rejected Sin can ascend and the +4 Breakfast upshift to go in well fed. 6+4+2+4+4+2+2+4=28
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Dec 7, 2015 03:50
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Mouth of the Sun The Mouth lay still, unknowingly awake, waiting for the gentle dancing of the flames to energize him as they had done in all ages before; but only a breeze danced upon his skin here. 'Ah, the wind'; lacking an all present fire, the wind was the closest sensation he has to the flames. Waking up outside of the Sun is one of many firsts he's experienced and in a different time he would enjoy them; but in these times they only demoralize him: here he was, a replacement and an outsider, trying to solve problems in a land he's never even slept in before. He lifts the few feet of him that rest upon the unyielding earth and looks around: small people, small animals, stiff plants, and solid ground. He had momentarily forgotten the denseness of everything here. 'Why does everything here have to be so stiff? I guess if you want to live on this stiff earth, you've got to be stiff yourself.' The Mouth tries to take count of how many living beings there are here, whether they're animals, people, or some created being. Alvande spoke, and the Mouth replies, "I wish to know every detail you know on Ayahuen's fall." Requesting info on Ayahuen and seeing what and how many beings live here.
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Dec 7, 2015 14:49
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Isath, Hellswamp Isath rose from its slumber, forming extremities to extend them, the bulky flesh ripping apart from disuse and promptly regenerating. It reached out to its children around it, assaying their new forms and capacities. The Breeders, it seemed, had eaten and taken unto themselves some part of the warmth-generating micro-organisms Isath had devised to melt the Iceberg. As a result, not only were they more resistant to the cold, but, since they had a secondary source of energy, they had also grown quite adaptable - Isath had no doubt that they would be able to survive in almost any environment, given enough time for natural selection to work its magic. The Spawn, formerly the Tunnelers, had mutated beyond recognition. The last time Isath was able to pay them attention, was when it had been experimenting on them, altering the flesh of their brains, to turn them into crystalline structures, their thoughts formed of pure light. That change had sent them into a comatose slumber back then, but now, the fruits of Isath's work were in full bloom; these Spawn were graceful in their twitchiness - they could perceive the world around them at breakneck speeds, reacting to stimuli faster than should be possible with a normal biology. And all the work Isath had done on them had left its imprint. The Spawn was mutable, flexible. They could alter their own shapes foremost, and those of others with a measure of effort. Satisfied with the changes its children had gone through, it felt around, tried to home into Parelle's mind, felt the influx of power, and the smell of food. Isath extended a thin tentacle, grabbed the minuscule plate, eyed it. It had some divine energy to it, so Isath paid no attention to the size and dragged it down into the fetid waters, inside its enormous gullet. Then, satiated for the time being, it spoke to the others inside Hell. "I AM FED. NOW I START FULFILLING MY PART. I ASSIST WITH YOUR ACTION. NOT VERY MOBILE. HELP REBUILD HELL FOR NOW. AS TO THE ICE, MOON GOD PROBABLY CORRECT IN PRESENCE OF PATTERNS. AFTER HELL REPAIRED A BIT, SHOULD START PROBING OUTSIDE. SPREAD WARMTH. FIND ICEBERGS AND STORMS. CONSUME, ANALYZE. NO OTHER IDEAS. FIND MOON GOD? MUST HAVE MORE INFORMATION." Aiding Parelle's action to rebuild hell. Using Flesh +6, Light +4 and the upshift from Parelle's Breakfast +2, to aid specifically efforts to light/warm Hell (Sun +4), and creating a Living Sun, Hell's Heart, an engine of power and warmth that will keep things running to some extent until we can imprison some gods. This should bring the combined effort up to +40. Also tapping the refreshed inner soul reservoir... what's left of it. Breeders: Fast-breeding, Carnivorous, Adaptable, Heat-generating (via symbiosis with flesh-plankton) Spawn: Extremely fast reflexes (that optical brain thing I did a long time ago), Fleshbenders (innate ability to manipulate their own forms, and, with greater difficulty, others' - basically animalistic Tzimisce) AP: 2 (Parelle earlier age) + 3? (tapping inner soul reservoir? I think I was down to 300k) + 12? (Parelle's gift for this age) = 17? Pochoclo fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Dec 7, 2015 |
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Dec 7, 2015 19:55
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Wallastra 16/16 AP Wallastra's contenance could not be deciphered by normal means, and that was a point in his favour. It meant that when someone tells you something that you are expected to be pleased with and instead feel like grabbing the fussy man by his collar and demanding whose bright idea was it to indict every living citizen as a criminal as so to throw them into a machine that you know for certain is incredibly unpleasent for the soul involved so that he may be readjusted. He thought about this as he decided to go with, a level approach, no shouting will be needed here. "Judicator, I have heard what you have said and I am, pleased." "Yes my lord, thank you my lord" "And I see that the issues of these, glaciers, will be something I will deal with shortly, they would inconvenience my intentions. But, I have one question I am considering" "Yes my lord whatever you demand!" "I have written it within my scriptures the plan for this city in my absence, I have done my best to account for shelther, food and other such means and I can see that my results have been successful, this pleases me Judicator." "We've followed them to the letter my lord, your grand design is-" "But I am having an issue Judicator, because I can't quite remember where it was within those sacred scriptures I wrote, that says anywhere about putting our citizens into the Necropolis to be sent to the furnace. Infact I suspect that I didn't strictly forbid this to happen because I assumed that no one would go as far as to do such a thing Judicator after all we are supposed to be protecting these people Judicator. In short Judicator I am telling you this in a level tone of voice because I am absolutely livid that someone interpreted my orders to consign the damned souls from hell to the fires, to mean that we also include those souls whose only apparent crime has been living under my roof to them as well Judicator, and that this development is something I am supposed to be pleased with." He leans into the now sweating face of the unlucky representative of the council, the heat from within his mask was starting to give the man a rosy glow, "I am going to be very busy shortly Judicator, I hope that the underlying request of my message, will not be misheard and will in fact be delivered to the council with the up-most haste. I hope that much is clear Judicator. And now, I have the great work to take to once more." And with that he disappeared, his spiritual form flowing through the streets towards the edge of his territory, it's time to look the enemy dead in the ice and see what there is to be done. --- tl'dr Good job lads! Only who said to put our citizens into the fires too? I am not going to imply anything rash will happen to those who did but if something isn't changed, I am going to be cross. TheNabster fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Dec 7, 2015 |
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Dec 7, 2015 21:08
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Amaguq, the Lone Hunter Stirring upon the HellThrone AP: 24/24 His sleep upon the HellThrone had been troubled, with dreams of mortals oppressed by the weight of the Ice, and other, far darker things. He saw visions of a swirling vortex, carrying the entire cosmos down into the endless void of nonexistence. It was just as he caught a glimpse of the bottomless depths of the Abyss that he finally awoke. A guttural growl passed his fangs, sending the Hounds whimpering and cringing in a paroxysm of fear. Amaguq's hackles were raised, as if the threat to his eternal life were right there in Hell's Throne Room with him. Perhaps it was...the threat was everywhere now, with the Curse of Sloth laid like a smothering blanket over the world. He knew what he had to do, though the blanket still threatened to stifle his every breath. Shaking his frozen coat as if to free it from the clinging malaise, Amaguq summoned Thrym to his side. "Prepare the Hounds," he ordered. "For soon, we Hunt. It may be that the DwarfLord could lend you his artifice, in order to outfit us for the task at hand. I am thinking a spear or a harpoon made of the frozen stuff of Cocytus, to aid in subduing The Imprisoned." He still insisted on calling it by its rightful name, though the being's freedom since the end of the last Age continued to make a mockery of his words. "Pirsuq!" his voice echoed across Limbo and reverberated off the walls of Home, though only the Gods properly perceived what to mortals seemed only an ominous tremble of the earth, or a vague sense of foreboding in their spirits. "Your Wildings will be needed for the Hunt as well!" As he finally stirred from his Throne, he perceived the changes that had come to HellHome. Some of them were welcome, some of them were not. It was the latter that began to occupy his attention, scattered as it was. As he pondered, he realized that he would have to step bodily from his domain to examine the world, to see what had become of the glacier that threatened them in the past Age, and to see what had become of the souls that should have been flooding into the underworld to replenish its decimated population. Taking up his Soul Seal as he readied to set out, he realized that his other valued artifact -- his Mask -- still showed signs of the abuse he had suffered at the hands of the DwarfLord. That would need to be seen to as well. So much to do... And then there was the tract of the Hellscape that the giant protean mass had made into its own. In a way, he admired its adaptability and stubborn determination to reform all around it into its own image. Perhaps the being known as Isath could be convinced to assist in the Hunt as well. But that, too, must wait... There was also the Unquenchable Flame, or whatever it was the mortals were calling it. That was a further unexpected development; perhaps that is where he would start. The souls of the deceased mortals would still be there, wherever they were, waiting for him to perform his role of Psychopomp within the divine economy. Once he had the time and inclination to get around to it, of course. But first, the Unquenchable Flame -- that was a perfectly straightforward task to take on upon first rising from his slumber. After all, he couldn't be expected to set out immediately on the Hunt, when so much needed to be prepared first? Padding forward, the great Wolf slipped silently, unnoticed by mortal eyes, beneath the portico of the Shrine to the Undying Flame. Taking in the iconography of the Shrine, he pieced together the story behind the theology of the Flame. Though he could learn much from symbols and rites, the words of the mortals themselves were the greatest key to unlocking the mystery of the Undying Flame. And so, seeing the attendants constantly standing vigil around the flame, Amaguq listened as they endlessly recited the Litany of the Flame, over and over and over. When he thought that he knew enough to ask the right questions of the actual practitioners of the faith, he stepped from the shadows. He wondered, briefly, whether it might be more appropriate to appear to the Undying Attendants in a form that would encourage the mortals to lower their guard and release their suspicions toward the Lord of Hell. But why bother, when he had already assumed the form he would take during the Hunt? After all, it would only be a few brief moments until he and Thrym and the others were well and truly on their way. Yes, only a few brief moments, clearly not worth the trouble of stooping to appease the mortals' sensitive psyches. "The Lord of Hell, God of the Crossroads, Hunter of the Imprisoned, would know of this new observance that has arisen within his Home. Who, of all you steeped in the mysteries of the Flame, would presume to teach a God?" The mortals, one and all, cowered in fright from the massive predator that suddenly appeared in their midst, speaking with a voice that echoed and re-echoed in their souls. The Sacramental Flame that had been burning steadily upon the brazen altar wavered and guttered in the Wolf's exhalations until, finally, the one strongest in her faith -- an old, sightless crone, with the ritual burns covering much of her form -- hobbled painfully forward on her cane to stand directly before Amaguq's slavering jaws. "The Flame sees and knows and protects us all. Dare to rend my flesh, seek to consume my soul, do what you will, but my Faith shall remain." I have in my head something like the Vestal Virgins mashed together with the religion of the Silver Flame from Eberron, but just exactly what's up with the Undying Flame is what Amaguq is here to find out. I'm starting off slow and not really bringing any Divine attributes to my actions yet -- though once I have enough information to evaluate the situation, I will certainly do so. After all, The Trickster undoubtedly knows all about the tactics used by less-than-scrupulous gods to connive worship from mortals. **** EDIT: One thing in particular I'm looking for is whether or not our friendly neighborhood dragon somehow managed to acquire some followers in HellHome -- are these folks' worship actually going to All Flame? Or is it something more innocuous, like people praying to the Flame we set up to guard the door? Heck, sentient or not, if it fended off a Glacier single-handedly while all the real gods were taking a nap, I'd be inclined to worship it too! If that's the case, could such worship actually turn it into a real god? **** Once my motivation starts to pick up, I then plan to: * Fix my Trickster's Mask * Have a conversation with Isath, wherein I offer him inducements to join us on the Hunt * Go for a stroll around the outside of Hell to see what happened to the Glacier and to see what random souls might be wandering around in the Cold out there * Oh yeah, and I mean to lead The Hunt as soon as we're ready. Any day now... But for the time being, uncertainty, inefficiency, befuddlement, and a touch of uncharacteristic impotence is, I think, a good way to start a new Age under the Curse of Sloth. At least Vendruck and Thrym have something to do -- I'm imagining they'll work together to create some kind of Icy, stabby weapon for me (or Thrym) to wield, the better to bring down The Imprisoned. I think they should be at something like +24 to fabricate an appropriate Elder-God-slaying artifact. TychoBrahesNose fucked around with this message at 11:39 on Dec 12, 2015 |
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Dec 8, 2015 13:31
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Amaguq - Hell, Home "Bright Flame preserve us. Bright Flame undying, your sacrifice saves us." The shrine was built directly into the gates of Home. The mortals of Home had clearly put a great deal of effort and faith into it over the intervening Age. Amaguq stalked among them, seeking the scent of the great dragon in case it had scattered the seeds of its destructive faith in its last incursion of Hell. The priests of the Undying Flame scattered, dropping offerings and prayers to a varied bunch of Gods in their wake. Pirsuq, Reggie, Cadenza, and him!? He tensed but then relaxed. There was nothing plainly hostile or evil here, only the ordinary faith of mortals in Parelle and the pantheon of the Family (of which he found himself surprised to be the head). The Undying Flame was worshiped here too, and every mortal which passed the gates made a symbolic sacrifice and lit a flame in worship of that God so naturally he took a closer look.  It was all there on the walls of the shrine. The many, many long-suffering lives of the Undying Flame. Apparently the temporary solution that Cadenza and Parelle had installed in the last gasps of the previous Age had borne fruit in the form of a Firegod tethered to the outside of the gate. Battling the Ice eternally, he would inevitably weaken, freeze, and die but their faith and the enchantments channel through Hell would revive him and shunt him out to begin the cycle anew. It seemed cruel and inefficient. Some part of Amaguq wondered if that was simply the way of Hell or the plans of Gods left in mortal hands, but curiosity led him to the great gate of Home just on the other side of the shrine. He pressed an ear against it, getting a sense of what was happening without directly looking out. Ice. There was little besides screaming and Ice. Turns out they worship you sorta, what you've got here is basically a split faith amongst the pantheon Gods of the Family and the Undying Flame. Who it double turns out is not an avatar of All Flame, All Devourer but instead is a God chained to the outside of the gate and keeps getting killed/revived in a battle against the Ice which it triple turns out completely covers the outside. It's all Glacier right now except for the little bit that TUF gets spawnkilled in. Parelle - Hell Mouth of the Sun - Summer's Valley https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWRYYryE1uk "The ground only seems solid. If you stretch yourself down into it you'll find that there's layers and layers stacked on top of each other all the way down. Try it for yourself. It feels good." Alvande stretched, drawing in the full power of her holdings before leaning back in her seat to eye him cooly. "Ayahuen fell from the skies, partly by his own will and partly due to a close brush with the Ice. He thought he could melt the Ice, warm the planet gradually and carefully to render it harmless but it reflected back up at him and he didn't like what happened after." The earth itself beneath their feet thrummed and pulsed with the wakening of summer's power, a great grove of trees focusing and reflecting it back at her. In the distance he sensed another more potent place of power at its heart. An altar? An abattoir? No, it was a place of sacrifice. "After his fall he landed somewhere near here and found his way to my valley. There was a conflict with other Gods, a difficult and bloody one. Then he left." Her expression grew complex. "I owe you. For your help you can stay here for a while to build your own power and accustom yourself to the surface world. Or I can give you a fragment of my power if you choose to leave." Neither of you are necessarily hostile to each other and it doesn't look like Alvande is hiding anything. Take a look at the 3rd post in this thread for more info about the area which might interest you. Isath - Hell, Impure Swamp First Isath would need to see to its obligations. It was already stiff and filled near to bursting with the power of its waking, and the titanic tower of fishy muscles ached to let loose and blast away the accumulated detritus. Parelle's request for help had been vague but Isath knew what she wanted. She wanted the most basic help that flesh and light could provide. Fat, protean clumps of semi-liquid flesh burst forth from the depths of the swamp. They rocketed from the murky waters and splattered heavily against the walls of Hell in the far distance, climbing until they coalesced into a single drooping bulb at the roof of Hell. Parelle had something in mind for the New Hell. She wanted to build a prison which would scour the weakness and sin from mortal souls. How this would work in practice was yet to be seen, but the deepest part of Isath knew what every prison warden wished and desperately needed. A prison was a place of confinement and privation. Prisoners would have to be subjugated and attempts to escape smashed. For that purpose Isath's flesh absorbed the false Sun of Home and remade it into a vast and glaring Hellwarden Eye, which would invade the privacy of every thing in Hell even as it radiated out energy, light, and heat throughout the entire edifice. I had all your AP down as tapped, and it all refreshes anew at the start of a new age anyway. Anyway here's your PARELLE' & FRIENDS +28 action is to construct a better HELL! Roll was success! HELL has gained the trait, Tests for the Wicked! ISATH +12 helped! Roll was success! The incomplete and false sun of HOME has been absorbed by the rippling flesh of ISATH and been transformed into the HELLWARDEN EYE! HELLWARDEN EYE functions as both a Sun and tool of imprisonment! HELL has gained the trait, Hellwarden Eye! Parelle - Hell, Home "Yeah... uh, I found nothing. Everything looks ok out there Parelle. Is this place smaller than the last time we were here?" Pirsuq returned from the far reaches of Hell, having traveled not very far and found nothing but still quite flushed and out of breath. Cadenza slapped at him in passing and rolled up her sleeves. "Tuck yourself back into your robe, Pirsuq. I don't need two of the damned things flapping around in my face once that fish thing gets here, show me all the mortals you found. Let's see if we can't figure out why they're dying when they shouldn't." A small surge of mortal worship bubbled into existence alongside an entirely new generation of Wildings, and Pirsuq blushed even as his sisters avoided his gaze. Reggie coughed into his fist, wordlessly picking up his tools to tinker and rebuild the mechanism of Hell. Parelle's direction was at times oddly specific and at others vague, but Hell without the torture-y bits was certainly a possible construction project and he would not shirk. To construct seven layers of trials to test against seven mortal sins would be ambitious and quite difficult for just the two of them, but together he and Parelle were able to construct an elaborate series of tests for the wicked. How would a building judge good and evil? He could build a doorway which could judge evil, and elaborate trials to punish them until they were allowed to pass. Yes, different sins would have different weights on the metaphysical content of the mortal soul and all they would need to do was to keep building more dangerous traps, more vigorous tests... "I think... I think at some point some of them just lay down and die. It must be Sloth's Curse at work, but I don't understand how or why this death seems to kill their souls. I also don't know how exactly it relates to this but I think it happens when they decide to stop eating the fruit. It just doesn't make a lot of sense. If it cures the curse then why would they die? If it doesn't cure the curse then why are any of them alive at all, or why do only some of them live when they're all cursed?" Having returned with her verdict Cadenza puzzled at the results before her. PARELLE' & FRIENDS +28 action is to construct a better HELL! Roll was success! HELL has gained the trait, Tests for the Wicked! ISATH +12 helped! Roll was success! The incomplete and false sun of HOME has been absorbed by the rippling flesh of ISATH and been transformed into the HELLWARDEN EYE! HELLWARDEN EYE functions as both a Sun and tool of imprisonment! HELL has gained the trait, Hellwarden Eye! PIRSUQ came back from his search of HELL for signs of anything important! Nothing was found! Population of WILDINGS has increased by 50,000! PIRSUQ and CADENZA +14 take a look at why mortals' souls are disappearing! Roll was success! At some point some mortals just lay down and die! This death causes a complete death of the soul! This phenomena seems to be related to when mortals stop eating the CURSE BREAKING FRUIT! Wallastra Staring into the burning hollows of his God's mask (did he even have eyes in there? The scripture was unclear...) Iffram gulped and forced words through a suddenly dry mouth. "All souls are damned Lord. It is the nature of the Necropolis that only the evil and cruel are drawn to it after death, that we may use them to the civic good." He continued without a trace of deception or hostility, "No one has condemned our citizens to the Necropolis, but it's where we go." Wallastra held the full measure of the man's soul between his hands and found no confusion, no hesitation or doubt. "The priests tell us that evil lies in the hearts of all living things so what we do is right. Was this not your intent?" He tried to be helpful to the still waking God. "The Necropolis is millions-strong, we could try to winnow out the souls of our citizens and keep them somewhere else but that would be a difficult undertaking. I can have the Stokers ready to do so at your command." By the sound of it nobody got out of bed one day and decided to write on the board, "Condemn all souls to company pot roast." It just kind of happened. What that wasn't you? Well probably no big.  With the backstory we've written so far it doesn't sound like Wallastra had a personal afterlife area for his followers, instead using the normal consecrated graveyard + fading out naturally back into the lifestream method that most Gods use so that's what should have been happening. Maybe it's just mildly quirky that the circle of life has been rerouted into a circle of horrible screaming furnaces? It's possible (probably) to filter out Wallastran souls from the process but that might be difficult given the size and depth of the Necropolis.
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Dec 18, 2015 06:04
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Parelle - Hell 12/24 AP - 8 used Parelle brushed her hands as she knocked off work. Between herself, Reggie and Isath, Hell looked rather finished. It was also by far the darkest thing she'd ever created. Reggie created the bones of it, Isath the eye and flesh and while Parelle helped with these, but it was her who helped create the moral quandaries, the tricks, the traps and the particular chutes and particular ladders of Hell. It didn't seem right though. Like there was something missing. She was momentarily distracted. She looked quizzically at Pirsuq as Cadenza batted at him. She still didn't get that he was rapidly creating the wildings every chance he got, bless her. Instead she ruffled his hair affectionately as she listened to her sister. "Well, it's sin. Sin is variable from person to person. I assume that some people feel sloth more acutely than others. If people eat the curse lifting fruit but are still cursed, then the curse is probably either too strong to lift entirely or it keeps reinfecting them after it's lifted. I did want the fruit to permanently lift and serve as proof against the curse, but it's possible that it's either not strong enough or not persistent enough," she said. "That's my theory. I don't really want to test it to prove it though. We could probably find out why if we observe enough people dying, but I'd rather not know and fix the problem rather than seek out the truth for truth's sake." She shrugged and sighed. "I don't think we have any easy answers. For now I just want it to stop. We can have a temporary solution for now. The fruit works. We just need to mandate eating it and make enough so everyone has some. I want the population to have room to grow, so make enough with that in mind. Afterward we can find a more permanent solution. Good job so far," she said. She stepped away with Reggie and spoke softly to him. "I was thinking about a school," she said to him in hushed tones. "For those who graduate from Hell. Training yard, place of worship, library, hospital, classrooms, maybe a place or two to knock off and goof around, that sort of thing. It also needs to be sealed for those who aren't tempered. I don't really want them mixing with normal people until they're ready," she said. She looked at the exit from Hell that she'd helped craft from the final layer. It was straight out of lust on an unassuming hill. The single exit too small for anything save for a soul to slip out to keep mortals from falling in. Lust was there to catch those that could be distracted by pleasure. It was almost gentile compared to the rest of the layers. There were brothels, feast halls, gambling dens, places to buy and sell anything one's heart desired and piles of riches to buy anything with. Everything material or sensory that could distract a person was on sale. It was a sort of heaven for addicts. Souls could bliss themselves into oblivion. It was a fitting last test and an excellent fake out. It was a heaven empty of virtue or fulfillment. The test was rather simple. There were no tricks. One just had to leave town in any direction with the intention of never coming back. "Right here. This is where I want my school. Everyone who leaves hell will be hot steel. This is where they will be hammered into something usable," she said. "No frills please. Form over function." She kissed his cheek and sent him to his work. She turned back to Pirsuq, wrapped him in a headlock and noogied him. "You're doing a good job too. Go see if anyone needs any help. If they don't then you're free to play," she said. She wanted him distracted. After all, she wasn't personally done with Hell. Not yet. She didn't want him around to witness it all when she cast the damned souls screaming into the pit. She didn't want him to notice all of the hosed up nightmares that she was going to create. Hell wasn't done after all. As it stood it was merely horrible. It was a series of moral choices with consequences. It felt like a less arbitrary game of snakes and ladders. Do good and you ascend, do bad and you stall or fall. It was too predictable and clean. She wasn't just going to make monsters. She was going to create the entire ecology of Hell. Souls out of Hell wouldn't just be good. They would be tough. They'd need to be. She knew that eventually her family would see it and she felt intense shame at the idea, but at least she wouldn't be caught doing it. She descended into Hell. It was rather barren. Sure there were traps, tricks, the proverbial chutes and ladders, punishments and rewards. It was all far, far to clean. There was no life to this place other than that which was there to test a soul. It was complicated, but limited in its own way. Where she walked she created monsters. She made flora and fauna that were suited to its environment. She did this not by careful craft, but through wild, random chance. Like an artist who randomly stroked a brush on a canvas her creations were wild, untamed and most were not at all fit to their environment. Most died. Those that didn't die changed to find their niche. She accelerated their development, made them fast and she ran through hundreds of generations as those that best fit established an equilibrium with the terrain, the plant life and their fellow monsters. Down and down she went. Each new level she populated with new monsters. Each was different, but her methods were the same: Create wildly, accelerate rapid growth, let the cycle of predation breed monsters that would fit into those environments and eventually stability would be reached, at which point she'd slow their growth to something sustainable. More times than not the ecology of a certain level collapsed entirely. Sometimes she'd introduce species from one level to another to see how they changed. More collapses, but she learned. Her use of power was more deliberate and measured as she crafted new monsters. She would feel compunctions doing this to normal souls, even damned ones, but these new monsters were merely a new test. Hell would be a breeding ground not only for pure souls- Tough souls, but monsters could have their uses too. Now finished, she waited for a time to see if there would be any final ecological disasters. Soon she would have to consign real souls to Hell. She sat among the monsters, these new demons of Hell, and thought what she'd just made. "I think I understand Malador a little better," she whispered. She watched her first children, the new demons of new hell, as they ate, slept, stalked and were stalked, killed, hid and mated with one another. She needed to talk to someone, so from that hosed up hellscape she crafted a being with intelligence from cunning beasts. Then two, then ten, then more. Before long Hell would be peopled with a real race of beings, not just base animals. New demons. Her children. "Huh, so you're the scariest thing down here?" she asked. Giant ants. She'd made ants by accident. She guessed that sometimes you just can't help but repeat the classics. Big post. I'm getting a lot done. So here's how Parelle designed Hell to work. I'll try and keep it short: The denizens of Hell know that there is a way out. They are told this upon entering along with their crimes. The ways out are non-obvious and filter for souls which can't reject their specific sin. In the technical sense there are two ways out. 1. Suicide/Homicide via Hell. Hell can soul kill them if they give up, if they get stuck for too long (years) or if they're just not mentally tough enough and break. If the next action works the flora/fauna will kill them even if they're doing well. It's horrible, but the pain lasts only as long as they can deal with it. At this point they're turned into power, which in in game terms would be AP. 2. They ascend by totally rejecting the qualities of that specific layer of Hell and surviving that layer long enough to leave. So let's say they're chucked in. Everyone starts at the bottom. They have to deal with fraud. The exit of suicide/homicide is betraying one's fellow damned souls for momentary gains. Working together, being trustworthy, telling the truth, all of these allow for ascension. This also means that if someone isn't a betrayer, that it isn't their sin, they can rapidly ascend after being tested. It could just take a few short hours if they make the right choices. They'll only hit snags pertaining to their specific sin. If someone is in Hell just for violence they could probably leave rather quickly if they figure out their way past violence. There are plenty of people with just one or two moral failings, so if they get over those humps they could leave. They're not going to get stuck on a level unless it's their personal moral failing. Anyway, after getting out they'll ascend in the school that Reggie is building. It hasn't been made yet though. -- Here are the actions for the round. 1. Cadenza is going to create new curse lifting trees with enough fruit to feed everyone and more for growth. She'll also make sure everyone eats said fruit so people don't "starve" to death by encouraging the mortals to feed one another. +6 healing to make more fruit and +4 Life to help the trees grow from Home. The action to tell the mortals what to do will mostly just be talking and ordering her followers around, so I doubt it'll go well. Still, I can hope that "Eat the fruit, and make others eat fruit too if they're sick" is easy enough to understand. 2. Reggie is going to create a school on top of the Hellmouth. Think along the lines of a neo-brutalist Hogwarts. +6 Construction and +2 Lightweight Tools to get the job done. 3. Pirsuq is free for a turn. Unless someone else wants to use him for a turn I'm pretty sure he'll get his freak on and make new wildings. Told to stay in Home though. 4. Parelle is populating Hell with flora and fauna. She accelerated evolution for a few hundred generations (not via time, but just making their lifespans short and exceedingly prone to sudden death, which was slowed to normal near the end), accepted failures and total ecological collapses and ended up with something stable. Hell isn't just going to be snakes and ladders. It needs an element of real danger outside simple good and evil to toughen up these souls. Speaking of demons from the best of those beasts she's uplifting one to mortal status as a race. I'm rolling it into the creation of the flora and fauna. She just made one of them intelligent enough for worship as intelligence is a great way of surviving. The tippy top of the food chain not only gets to be deadly, but gets to be smart as well, which makes them more deadly. +2 Travel to move between the layers of Hell and move the newly created flora and fauna across layers to test each other layer, +4 Nature to create the flora and fauna, +4 Sun to help create the flora to feed said fauna (herbivores eat plants, carnivores eat herbivores), +4 Artifice to give her the tools to create and refine the creatures she makes, +2 Food and Drink to provide abundant nourishment for the quick generations she created. I'm also sinking a full 8 AP to make the ecology of Hell stable and to uplift the most dangerous denizen, the humble ant, to intelligence as the final act of creation as I -really- want a new race for the new age and I want them to be all kick rear end and numerous. I might as well have a second army to throw at my enemies when violence needs doing. New Race: Fomians Morphology: Roughly the size of a horse, Formians are ant people if ants were invertebrate centaurs. They have antennae, six limbs with two that have humanish hands for tool use and grasping, chitinous frames, walk on their ant-like four limbs, have poisonous stingers and mandibles for ripping and chewing at the front. Like ants, the males can fly, the females tend to work or fight and the queen produces the next generation which are created by successful breeders. They tend to live roughly 20-30 years long, but usually shorter as the casualty rate in hell is still rather high. Society: They're a society of specialists. The default is an ordered, de facto biological caste system ruled by those that are allowed to breed. Workers work, warriors fight, queens lay eggs. They tend to heavily favor eugenics for creating new castes rather than education. Those who are successful in life get to breed, those who don't are dead ends. Location: Smack dab in the middle of the layer of violence. Their location necessitated for them not only to be individually deadly, but to get along for mutual survival. Language: Has a martial bent to it and they tend to speak in terms of "we" rather than I, though the individual does exist. They can approximate human speech, but subtlety would be lost as pheromones are non-verbal. What they're good at: Group think, following orders (even God orders), long term planning, feats of strength, war, building and crafting, high birth rates. What they're not good at: Adapting quickly to new problems (New generations are birthed to face new problems) and individual action beyond their racial function (workers don't fight, warriors don't work). So yeah, ant people. Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 15:29 on Dec 18, 2015 |
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Dec 18, 2015 15:26
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Isath, Hellswamp Isath was satisfied with its work - it reminded it of the Watcher. Isath looked over Parelle's way. It did not understand what she was trying to do - punish mortals? Sin? Repentance? Isath did not understand these concepts at all, but it figured she probably had a reason to be working on that. Isath once again set on the road of fulfilling its own end of the bargain, and decided to dedicate its efforts to something it could understand instead of meddling in incomprehensible concepts. It would extend its feelers towards the outside world, assess Hell's situation regarding the outside and the Ice as much as it could. That would be the first step in fighting the Ice. So Isath extended long tendrils of flesh throughout Hell's fabric, poked at its borders, grew organs of perception on their tips, and coated them in protective light. Where was that gate again? Extending some sensory tendrils all the way to the outside world to see what's going on with Hell's physical anchor on the regular material plane and the Ice, with Flesh +6 (sensory organs, tentacles) and Light +4 (protection from Ice, giant eyes, LIDAR) AP: 17
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Dec 20, 2015 19:12
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Lai Xi Boi The collapse and death of a star is both a beautiful and terrifying thing to watch. Once a star has run out of usable hydrogen that it can convert into helium, a star then takes one of several paths. If the star is 0.5 solar masses (half the mass of our sun), electron degeneracy pressure will prevent the star from collapsing in upon itself. Due to the age of the universe, scientists can only use computer modeling to predict what will happen to such a star. Once it has finished its active phase (hydrogen to helium), it becomes a white dwarf. A white dwarf can come about in one of two ways; first, if the star is very small, electron degeneracy pressure simply stops the collapse of the star, it is out of hydrogen, and it becomes a white dwarf. Secondly, and more commonly, the core of the star can still be surrounded by some layers of hydrogen, which continue to fuse and cause the star to expand, becoming a red giant. A red giant is a star in the process of fusing helium to form carbon and oxygen. If there is insufficient energy to make this happen, the outer shell of the star will shed leaving behind an inert core or oxygen and carbon – a remnant white dwarf. If enough energy is involved in the casting off of stellar casings, a nebula can form. If said white dwarf is in a binary system, it could become a type 1A supernova, but this is very rare. Instead, it is thought that a white dwarf will eventually cool to become a black dwarf – in theory because there are no white dwarfs older than the universe, black dwarfs are theoretical only because there hasn’t been enough time for one to form. If a star that has reached the end of its productive phase is below the Chandrasekhar Limit – 1.4 times the mass of our Sun – it will become a white dwarf; over this limit, it will become a neutron star. If a star is larger than about 5 times the mass of the sun, when the hydrogen fusing stops, a supernova will take place and the rest of the material will condense into a black hole. It was then condensing that Lai Xi was watching when there was a rare awareness from his body. The damnable thing, the mental spirit nearly swept clean the thing line of life force that still anchored it to the time-frozen pile of meat on a meaningless planet billions of miles away. It stopped itself just before the blade of thought snipped the thread. Lai Xi had been enraptured by the beauty of the life cycle of a star, had forgotten what it was he was meant to do. The feeble senses of his anchor told him that things were nearby, were watching. Talking. In an instant the spirit and flesh were one one more. "I am here," the voice of the enlightened monk came from everywhere and nowhere. "You are all that remain of my followers, are you not?" A great sigh rippled out, knocking dust from the walls and ceiling, nearly knocking the wildlings from their feet. "In you lay all my hopes and dreams of an enlightened world then. I cannot leave you undefended again. Take this small Truth of the universe, this tiny grain of Understanding, and with it spark the flames of your souls." I have no idea how many AP I have, but I want to do something super cool. I'm going to make my 100 living followers into demi-gods.
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Dec 21, 2015 03:33
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Abyaz, Mouth of the Sun - Summer's Valley The Mouth ran his hand over the dirt underfoot. "Although the soil is not a sea I'm used to swimming in, I think I'll have plenty of time to get used to it." He lifts and turns his hand to see that it is no less clean. "With how long we've been away from soil, it might not get used to me." He shook his head after he heard what transpired, "That's not what I wanted to hear." The Mouth fixed his eyes on the sun and thought. The valley seemed a safe enough place to prepare for a search, but would Ayahuen be alive when he found him either way? More than Ayahuen's life was at stake, he wouldn't risk it right now. "With his tether broken, Ayahuen will be harder to find, and I'm in no hurry to join him in his fate, whatever that currently is; so I'll stay here for now." With how forthcoming she has been, he feels it necessary to be a little friendlier, "Going by my title all the time is too formal, but our names are for the Sun's ears only, so I feel now is as good a time as any to give myself an 'earthen' name, as Ayahuen had. You may call me Abyaz." The places of power pique his interest: with how hospitable the grove is he assumed Alvande had a major luck streak, but the Sacrificial Table paints a different picture of her. "I'd like to know how the Grove and Table work, if I'm free to use them that is; maybe I could improve them as well." Staying put for now, and asking if I can use her tools.
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Dec 21, 2015 03:55
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Wallastra 16/16 AP Wallastra put a hand to his face. He remembered that whilst he was almost entirely responsible for the rituals at birth he never paid much attention to what happens in death, he left that to... Everyone else because he had a city to run so he let his pact brethren deal with that stuff. And they are all dead now. And now the local cycle of death had been rerouted into the furnaces. Hindsight was a terrible, terrible curse for a God, it tends to reach back for thousands of years. But the priest was right, sifting through the Necropolis without opening it would be a huge issue, and opening it was out of the question. Perhaps he could modify the furnace to at least take away the firey agonizing pain from the process? Or maybe he should think about the time where he felt unsafe in his own city, there was something here, that hole pulled at his thoughts "There is something in this city that should not be here, I cannot rightfully allow that. That hole is the cause I an sure of it. But where? " He put a finger to his forehead and saw. --- [I] You're here somewhere you bugger, what ever you are, I'm reaching out with all purviews all +12 of them, surely there must be a glimpse in the corner of an eye, a mark on stone, a disturbance in falling ash, a flicker in the firelight anything! I can see for a good mile around the city where is it?
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Dec 21, 2015 09:57
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Anansi, Spinner of Tales and Pursuer of Souls Weaving his way among the mortals of Home AP: 22/24 The Trickster finds himself impressed by the accidental success of the guardian they had placed at the Gates of Hell. And so, as his form flows and changes, Anansi decides to do what he can to assist The Undying Flame in its sacred task of protecting them all from the Crushing Ice. Calling the DwarfLord Vendruck to his side, Anansi makes words to flow like honey from his lips, inspiring the mortals near and far, of all races and types, in their devotion to this newly-begotten God. At the same time, as his senses continue to awaken to the realm around him, Anansi finds himself amused yet oddly threatened by Parelle's naive attempts to shape Hell as a place of punishment, but also of redemption. Though it is a new Age with new rules, Anansi nevertheless feels the pull of his eternal role as psychopomp, and along with it his surprisingly conservative view of what must and should happen with the souls that are handed over to Hell. And so he continues to pour forth words of great depth and meaning to the mortals thronging about him, about the sacrifice of the noble Flame, and how it deserved all the homage they could give it for what it had done --- and continues to do -- for them all. Such manipulation of mortals can be accomplished nearly without conscious thought for a master of words like Anansi -- which is fortunate, because Anansi's divine power actually is focused elsewhere. Parelle thinks that she will make an escape from Hell for those Truly Worthy souls? Not on Anansi's watch. Though it pains him to act against even the soulish remnant of the mortals under his care, such action is necessary to retain the integrity of the Divine Economy. Or at least, that's what he tells himself. When he is sure that he has added the most devious of his own snares and deceits to Hell's Tests, he turns away, satisfied. Redemption, he smirks to himself, is surely unattainable to even one of the many millions of fallen mortal souls now. At least, he reassures himself, if some soul does ever overcome not one but two Gods' trials, he has nevertheless done all that he can to ensure that resurrection, or escape from Hell of any sort, remains as rare as he can possibly make it. Anansi knows, of course, that the Frost Giant is watching as well. Fortunately, he and the Jotun were in agreement on the sanctity of Hell's claims upon its denizens. And so his actions should reassure Thrym that even Hell's Back Door was well-nigh inaccessible to the mortals they guarded. In return, Anansi asks for only a small favor... Despite his best effort, The Trickster still cannot be everywhere at once. But when they are in accord, the others can almost certainly be convinced to act as if they are extensions of his own Divine will. What else is the point of a Pantheon, after all? And besides himself, Thrym is certainly the best situated to determine the suitability of Hell's most unusual divine guest for The Hunt. **** Adding to the effectiveness of Hell's Test for the Wicked Trait, or perhaps layering a new Trait on top of it? Trickster Spirit +4, Inbetween All Realms +4, Warden of Hell +2, Trickster's Mask +4, Soul Seal +4/Hungry for Souls -2, Protector of Mortals -2 = +14 plus 2 AP. Just making sure to plug the holes for you, Parelle, so nobody undeserving gets through. You're welcome! I'm also gathering a great many of the Family's and The Undying Flame's mortal worshippers together to pour their heartfelt devotion into The Undying Flame -- that is, tapping them for AP to send to TUF, to fan the Flame into a blazing inferno and melt away the glacier adjacent to Hell. I'm also asking Vendruck to cobble together some sort of Maxwell's Demon to provide a reflective insulator at the gates of Hell/Home to send any residual heat back out toward the Glacier. In theory, that could double the effectiveness of TUF, since the heat is no longer radiating out equally in every direction, but is all headed in one direction. Next, Thrym is being dispatched as Anansi's emissary to make overtures to the protean Divinity known as Isath, and at the same time to judge the being's suitability for joining the Hunt. Incidentally, How did Vendruck's and Thrym's weapon-forging efforts go last round? Also as an aside, I'm happy with Pirsuq making as many Wildings as he can. The more mortals to worship Chaos incarnate (i.e., The Trickster), the better! **** Starting to check at least a couple of items off of my To-Do List: * Fix my Trickster's Mask * Go for a stroll around the outside of Hell to see what happened to the Glacier and to see what random souls might be wandering around in the Cold out there... DEALING WITH THE GODKILLING COLD FIRST * Oh yeah, and I mean to lead The Hunt as soon as we're ready. Any day now... TychoBrahesNose fucked around with this message at 13:11 on Dec 25, 2015 |
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Dec 25, 2015 12:57
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Agorom – Station Alpha-2Puppies are dicks posted:"BEGIN MESSAGE: WAR-MAKER IF YOU STILL LIVE AND HAVE NOT CONSUMED YOURSELF IN A HOPELESS BID TO SAFEGUARD A GUTTERING FLAME WHILE BOUND TO AN IRRATIONAL DOCTRINE STRAIN YOURSELF AND IMAGINE MY SURPRISE. THANK YOUR ABSENT CREATORS I DO NOT SEND AN ARMY TO SCOUR YOUR HALLS FOR SALVAGE BUT REJOICE FOR MY PLANS HAVE BORNE FRUIT! THE CURSE WHICH ENFEEBLES THE MORTAL SOUL FINDS NO HOLD WHERE NO MIND EXISTS AND MY FORTRESS IS DRIVEN BY EQUATIONS OF WAR WHICH ARE WITHOUT PEER! SURRENDER TO ME THE MOTHER FORGE AND I WILL COME IN PEACE! THE FLESH OF YOUR FOLLOWERS MAY LIVE AND YOU MAY JOIN ME IN MY TRAVELS! I AM STRONG AND WILL SURVIVE ALL THAT COMES IN THIS AGE OR ANY OTHER! LOOK UPON MY WORKS AND ACKNOWLEDGE MY STRATEGIC SUPERIORITY! END MESSAGE." I will make amends, I promise. Agorom awakens, slumped beside the rim of the metres-wide, miles-deep borehole that leads to Mother Forge's resting place. He cannot bare to look over the edge, but he can feel her faded warmth still pulsing. That's enough to set his mind if not at ease, then at least into a quietly troubled equilibrium – certainly better than the agitation with which he burst into the Convocation all those years ago. The hulking god heaves forward with a great sigh that sends clouds of soot and ash billowing from every crevice. Then he rises to his feet, eyes burning with seemingly renewed purpose, though his true expression is shrouded in the upper dark of this ill-maintained bedchamber. Mother Forge slumbers, and Alpha awaits. Two most difficult problems. Better to start small, with the easy questions that have clear answers. Specifically, how have his people fared under the Sloth, and how can he alleviate their suffering? He grabs a cable hanging from the ceiling and jabs it into the back of his neck, the jack connecting and channelling data from the Station's network to his mind. A flood of diagnostics, maintenance reports and historical records flood through the tiny connection; his shoulders slump as the network tells him all about the Station's humiliating decline. Things have gotten... bizarre. There's hushed talk of the Will o' the Switch, a malevolent fluorescence that stalks through graveyard shifts and steals people away; people leave out saucers of milk and oil for the invisible pixies that maintain Elfin Safety; the abandoned factory floor 13 has been churning out nothing but 'lucky' horseshoes for decades. Slowly, but steadily, swelled by mortal death and intellectual decay, this sort of nonsense has swallowed up good theory and practice. And yet, the submerged truth remains intact, waiting to be recovered. For every fume-drunken worker who wants nothing more than to drift off at the end of their shift – often sleeping at their workstation – there's a bright mind clouded only by the frosted bell jar of Sloth, slowly suffocating in its cursed hypoxic haze. Here, a shrivelled switchboard-matron with operations-bible in hand, keeping watch over banks of wires, levers and amber-red lights. There, a young scribe numbly injecting another dose of life-saving adrenaline as he blankly scans over another sheaf of archaic code-scripture to be freshly transcribed. And so on and so forth, all through the Station. For now, their minds are dulled, but these diligent, if not curious people will be the first agents of his grand reconstruction. They still hold that vital mental spark, and by touching his mind to theirs for just an instant he stokes the spark of curiosity into the guttural flame of industry. She notes how the pieces of the system she nurses come together as a coherent whole under her control; likewise, he has a flash of inspiration and scratches out new code rather than simply re-reading and -writing the old. People experience revelations across the Station – not given by God, but bursting from their own unleashed ingenuity. While the Sloth soon re-asserts itself, the people are not so dull as before. That will do for now, and hopefully the flame will permanently burn stronger inside them. Boosting minds will be more helpful later, when the Sloth has been eliminated, but right now Agorom needs to boost bodies. Not only has productivity declined, the number of accidents has soared, especially the more brutal and fatal ones. Lax standards have cost his people lives, facilities and resources, but they won't be improving any time soon. They're practically working on autopilot, but machines do that much better than man– In the giant's brain, an old idea collides with this new problem. It's a design panned in naïve Ages past because of its perceived encouragement to laziness, that ironically may save his people from the very Sloth he feared it would engender. The solution? Modular exoskeletons that could be equipped for any industry, that work off an efficient combination of the operator's neuroelectrical impulses and their own programmed routines. All they need is vague thoughts to point them in the right direction and they can do menial, repetitive tasks for hours, days – weeks if need be – while carrying around tired or sleeping operators and protecting them from harm. They could even, he briefly considers, be adapted for less productive purposes. It pains him to think of these little mortals doing battle, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and the situation was already dire centuries past. In any case, the factories are ready, he's already jacked in to the network, and with but a thought he transmits his designs and orders. They flare to life and eagerly get to work – diverting a fraction of the resources heading to Mother Forge in the process. That sends a nervous twitch through Agorom's brain as he watches them through camera lenses, but he suppresses it. This must be done – he must risk her in order to save her. With a few simple tasks done, he resigns himself to one of the more difficult ones. Alpha is waiting, and must have been for some time; he'll have to head up to the surface to face her. He can stall no longer, and in three titanic steps he's arrived at the mighty blast door between their bedchamber and the central lift. He can already hear its gears grinding as it comes down to meet him. While he waits, camera, sonar, radar and other more esoteric sensor arrays come online and feed information about surface conditions to screens around the doorway. Oh Alpha... He looks surface-ward and strains to imagine his daughter, brave and clever and coldly triumphant, blaring threats and callous warnings into the subterrain, surrounded by dead equations and other desiccated remnants of living, thinking beings. But he cannot, and as his factories continue their work into the night his mind slips away into clearer, happier memories. OOC: Firstly, putting out feelers. Just what do I have left, how has Mother Forge's condition been over the big sleep, what have my worshippers detected of Alpha? How have these things varied over time? How many worshippers do I have? Secondly, amplifying my worshippers' curiosity and desire to understand the city-factory they inhabit. Using Machina ex Deus +4 and 2AP for this. I'm fully expecting this to have limited effects until the curse of Sloth is dealt with. Thirdly, getting some factories to start churning out modular exoskeletons that basically run off of a) thoughts and b) automatic routines that can keep going even when the operator is unconscious or totally lethargic due to the Sloth. They protect people from harm, both because they're effectively armour and because they can avoid danger, and they can be equipped with industrial equipment or weapons. Using Machina ex Deus +4 and Mortem ex Machina +4. Finally, getting an update on conditions on the surface using all the sensory apparatus at my disposal. Where's Alpha, how much ice is around, are there any threats? That kind of thing. AP: 22/24 UnCO3 fucked around with this message at 04:26 on Jan 2, 2016 |
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Jan 1, 2016 20:44
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Lai Xi Boi - The Box "Pratityasamutpada. It is the origination of becoming, dependent on all things for universal oneness but also apart in the great chain of being which naturally guides one towards freedom from the shackles of mara." Cosmic truths radiated forth from Lai Xi Boi, striking down all 300 of the Wildings fluttering throughout the darkened Box. Life and existence was a cycle, but the correct adherence to spiritual development and separation from the worldly senses could increase the strength of the mortal soul. It could bring enlightenment, granting supernatural abilities and oneness with the universe like his own transformation had, or it could bring the cessation of will and ultimately death. A hundred pairs of buzzing wings stilled, their owners souls fallen unreachably into slumber or death. But the ones who survived pulled each other upright and sat in a great circle around him. "Yes. I see it now. The struggle for impermanence and our own dependence on the senses of the six doors has led to our present circumstances." "Before we free our bodies we must escape our ignorance of the world around us and our souls." "Quite right my brother. Let us meditate on the nature of why, and why we must not." "Exactly so, let us everyone together now in one breath..." Dozens of tiny voices joined together, building from a tiny murmur to a mighty crescendo. "OOOOOOM" "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOM" "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM" Their breaths and wings beat in time, which in turn shook the foundations of the iron box and set his teeth on edge with its resonance. "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM" A harsh voice called from outside the Box, "Hey whatever you're doing in there, quit it! Any more trouble or we're adding another day to the next opening of the Box!" LAI XI BOI +12 (15 AP) empowers a mortal race! Roll was success, WILDING MONKS have gained +2 Enlightened/-2 Interdependent! Some (30) of the WILDING MONKS have fallen into comas or died! The survivors seem to have gotten really long-winded! They've begun chanting a mantra! Someone on the outside of THE BOX is getting really annoyed! Agorom – Above Station Alpha-2 (Glacierzone) Stirring itself to full power Agorom reviewed the status and maintenance of centuries as it waited for the lift. With the exception of Station Alpha-2, all rail lines, Stations, and sub-stations had been decommissioned. The dwindling population of his worshipers (100,000 out of the million strong he'd saved in the last Age) could only do so much to maintain their homes and operate the life-giving machinery which fed the Mother Forge. Orderly shutdowns and evacuations had been performed where possible and outright abandonment when not. Too many of the passive response mechanisms came up inactive when he pinged them, and he came to the sobering conclusion that he'd barely escaped a massive scale population collapse and might still be at risk. But resolving that was something he filed under Long Term Plans. His duty to the missing Alpha Driver came first. None of his worshipers had seen sign of the absent Alpha-Driver. The Message, an impressive and bizarre looking mechanical construct had chugged its way through the tunnels long centuries ago and blared her ultimatum at all times and extremely loud volumes since. It would occasionally slow down or stop to consume the stacks of fuel or resources already laid out in the Station for the Mother Forge and other uses, and some inner part of it appeared to perform maintenance as necessary. With minds already dulled by tedium and Sloth, most of them simply shrugged it off while the clever or fearful gave it wide berth in the hopes that it would never enact either its promises of destruction or salvation. It was simply too much trouble to go to engaging the thing or researching its motivations. Why bother when the next generation of industrial errors was at best only merely held at bay? Why bother when the Mother Forge itself had fallen into almost complete quiescence? Not when the Ice itself loomed heavy overhead. All of Agorom's Stations and rail lines were designed with invasion and the use of tactical weapons in mind, so the deep construction of the tunnels had kept his people safe while he slept despite the crushing weight of the Glaciers that lay over them. The lift ground to a halt, and Agorom braced himself before manually engaging the gate. It was predictably, frozen solid but a sufficient application of force and flame he turned it so that he could scan the surface for himself. Nothing. There was nothing but frozen wasteland as far as he could see. A perfectly peaceful world of snow and ice, devoid of all life in a way that only a weapon to end all wars could appreciate. The cold bit at him sharply, and immediately after scanning the surface he knew that it would be dangerous and perhaps lethal to remain exposed like this. He could only guess at how much of the surface world was like this, maybe all of it? He put aside grim possibilities and considered that logically there must be something out there for Alpha-Driver to prey on or else her demand for surrender would have been a plea for help. Therefore in a best case scenario there were other Gods and mortals surviving elsewhere in hidden fortresses like his. Agorom sent a trickle of divine might through its machinery, seeking to inspire to inspire new priests and thinkers who could escape the shackles of Sloth. It would be even better if they could man the production lines or assist in the modifications for the mortal-scale exoskeletons but his hopes weren't high. Whatever he decided to do he'd need intelligent and capable mortals to lead the way. Some of these are informational requests or orders to mortals, and are therefore not subject to the One Action Per Turn Per Customer rule. Priority will be given to your first, AP-spending action as your action for the turn. I'm interpreting your final action as a move/spot for the surface and general area, which involves opening the door to the doom bunker. AGOROM +4 (2 AP) inspires a new priesthood! Roll was success! The CULT OF INNOVATION has been created! AGOROM has entered the area ABOVE STATION-ALPHA 2! The area ABOVE STATION-ALPHA 2 is a GLACIERZONE! AGOROM will suffer (temporary) cold damage at the end of each turn as long as it remains within the GLACIERZONE and the damage is not resisted! Info dump: -Station Alpha-2 is actually very deep Beneath a series of Glaciers. Its condition for now is stable. -Mother Forge status is ALMOST COMPLETELY DORMANT, the trait for the zone (Quiescent Mother Forge) may still be used for relevant actions! -The bunker-like nature of the stations has served to keep the tunnels/Station from getting collapsed in on from the great weight above, but lack of resources and cold has led to the gradual withdrawal and decommissioning of all Stations except Alpha-2 (it's nearest to where Agorom and the Mother Forge are sleeping). All other Stations, sub-Stations, and lines from Alpha-Zeta are inactive/nonresponsive but may be foreign occupied or hold resources still for the taking. -There are 100,000 mortals who worship Agorom and the Mother Forge still alive within it, who are in extremely good health due to the vast stores of survival rations and resources that are available to them. See the 3rd post by me in this thread for other details on the location. -Aside from THE MESSAGE, there has been no contact with Alpha-Driver and her works. THE MESSAGE is a mechanical construct which repeats its message and consumes fuel and other resources for its own maintenance. The people of Alpha-2 have learned to ignore it mostly since its easier than risking its wrath. Anansi - Hell, Home What Reggie had built at Parelle's instruction was impressive. The current tests for the wicked tested the souls of Hell's dead against all the common temptations and forced them to undergo trials in order to be freed. While it was well made the tests lacked a certain sharpness that only someone used to breaking out of Hell could appreciate. Anansi's superior experience with seals, traps for souls, and the nature of evil itself lent itself readily towards the slight alteration he had in mind. Divine power trickled from him into the construction, turning corners sharp and the trials just a little bit sharper. It was easy. Now they truly would be Tests for the Wicked. "TSCH. Worthless little worm. You couldn't hold on to a single one of those left in your keeping and you think yourself great?"  "RRRRAGH!" Thyrm and Vendruck smashed against each other, their long argument having finally turned to blows but after a moment they disengaged to glare and circle each other warily. "I have better things to do anyway." "Watch your back Giant." "Hah, you mean watch my knees." Thyrm stalked off on his master's orders, leaving Vendruck and Anansi to stare at one another. The Dwarf Lord stared at his nominal pantheon head boldly. "He said things which I will never forgive." Vendruck muttered as he hammered and twisted machine bits together, "There. It'll do what you want it to do but setting it up outside is somebody else's problem. I have other things to do." He picked up his tools and wandered away to a far corner of Hell. Something trembled and wriggled underfoot. Isath was observing directly outside the Gates. ANANSI +14 (2 AP) increases the effectiveness of Hell's inborn trait! Roll was success! Hell's Tests for the Wicked have become Tests FOR the Wicked! (which also tends to drop them all the way down if they fail any of the tests) VENDRUCK +10 creates an additional trait to HOME! Roll was success, the trait (Vendruck's Demon) was created! Vendruck's Demon can be used to concentrate the power and effectiveness of fire/heat based actions! VENDRUCK's gone off to have a sulk! (Vendruck's Demon) can be transported to another area of HELL such as its external gates! You didn't specify a number besides 'a great many' but I'll err on the side of caution and tap 4 AP which seems to me like it's a healthy amount to pour into a dude to do a thing. In other news, turns out THYRM and VENDRUCK don't get along! Giants and dwarves don't like each other especially one is a tight rear end like Vendruck and the other is Thyrm! They were too busy punching each other and saying hurtful things to get anything done, but it didn't really come to serious blows last round. Fortuitously Thyrm's getting a time out in Isath-town. Also looks like Isath is doing a bit of investigation of the outside on its own. Wallastra Wallastra could see everything and anything in his city at once. His vision extended from the grandest heights of the infernal smokestacks to the tiniest flicker of falling ash in the deep gutters. He checked it all again, feeding the gnawing suspicion that knew something was there. He would find it! He knew it was there and newly awakened and empowered in this Age there was no way it could escape his attention!  Haltingly and uncomfortably it drew his vision. The city was stained with ash and venal suffering, but ultimately absent of another God. There was only the Hole. Wallastra's senses and power as a God could reach far above his city enough that he could see into space, and deep Beneath that he could sense the bones of the earth and what lay Beneath but the Hole. Looking down partway warped his perceptions, and the city god found himself looking upwards and downwards simultaneously as his mind and will pulled and dropped away from him. Was the city blending into the Hole or had it been there all along? He started. It was huge! It struck him wrongly, with all the land available for expansion (formerly farmlands and areas outside the wall slated for expansion) and the constant sweltering heat form the Furnaces, why did his people have to cluster together in their filthy and cramped buildings so? For their great population why did they not spread out further or build down or out? The Bottomless Hole was at least half the diameter of the city's center and it was so great its power eclipsed the God he had been, making of him a Greater God than he was now. WALLASTRA +12 scans for signs of horrifying and corrupting EVIL GODS! Roll was success, there definitely isn't any in WALLATRA-CITY! Logically it must be in the Hole, but WALLASTRA was not able to plumb its depths from where he is sitting! Also incidentally the Hole is about half the size of the city and takes up most of the middle! I mentioned that right? I didn't mention this because this is a new fact Congratulations! WALLASTRA has discovered a new domain which can not be changed, +8 Bottomless Hole! Feel free to add it to your character sheet and use/don't use it as you see fit! Abyaz, Mouth of the Sun - Summer's Valley "Thank you. Yes, you're free to use either of them as you wish. However I ask that you please don't destroy them unless you can help me rebuild them afterwards, as they are both crucial to the survival of my valley." Alvande sighed in relief and the tension flowed out of her. She nodded to Abayz and led him on a tour through her valley by foot to illustrate its uses. "I believe Sloth intended to harm us all by denying the substance of mortal souls to us through existential ennui. The table is an old thing, made by me in an earlier and bloodier Age of war. My mortal worshipers are intended to join the great chain of life from birth to life to struggle to death." At a glance it was obvious what the Grove did to support Summer and her worshipers. The trees themselves provided stability to the earth and exuded a clean and gentle atmosphere which was warm and conducive to life and growth, the fruits, leaves, and bark helped to enrich and nurture the lives of everything in the valley in one way or another through food, clothing or medicine. With a hand she overturned the earth packed at the roots of the nearest one revealing the shards of crumbled bone slowly being worm to fertiliser. "All things return to the earth and dust in death. The table is used to ensure that mortal souls are not lost to that cycle just as the mud of their flesh is not." The tree shivered and she patted it comfortingly, and for the first time it struck him that some of these trees were both magical and sentient. Furthermore the signs of lumber craft around them meant that even they were subject to the same process of sacrifice. "You understand that this is necessary?" Her tone made it clear that it was more of an imperative statement than a question. "This is me. I am the only bastion of summer remaining. Aside from the Dragon and the misbegotten little mustached rodent married to Larissa, there are likely no other Gods of Fire remaining. Without me, and without you for that matter, the chances of this world being anything but a frozen rock are slim to nil. We must take great care not to endanger that chance." The Grove/Table are part of how she's weathering the Sloth curse and winter. As soon as people start getting droopy they either go up on the table and get reaped for soul value (thus losing Alvande nothing in terms of potential AP) and/or fed into the Grove as mulch. It's people. Soylent Summer is people. Feel free to use either if you like, just don't break it unless you're willing to help her fix it or make it better because they're pretty necessary and she's the only Summer left and the only Fire Gods out there are that rear end in a top hat dragon and that other rear end in a top hat married to Larissa. Also unsurprisingly some of Summer's worshipers are sentient trees, who fair enough also go on the table when the time comes. It's a vicious but fair system all around that way. Isath - Hell, Impure Swamp Sheathed with protective light, Isath's probes nudged aside the fabric of Hell and sought the crevices which would lead to the outer world (passing by the Trickster which had changed shape yet again). It was cautious and methodical, breaching the gate without breaking its integrity using just the tip. What its wriggling found caused Isath to involuntarily shrivel back. The world outside of Hell was almost completely Ice! There was a God made of flames screaming in torment and defiance who'd carved out what seemed like a temporary and impermeable radius of warmth against the chill, but the signs of melt and refreezing told Isath a story of futility and neverending pain. Frankly it was impressed that Parelle had managed to create such a mechanism. The flame gritted its teeth, suddenly swelling to an impressive size as power of belief flooded into it from within the gates. Isath saw that it was willing to risk freezing to death in the instant now in order to stoke itself and perform an extremely violent act. Whatever Isath's next thought was it was interrupted by the heavy stomping of the trickster's Frost Giant. It circled the Impure Swamp from a distance, gazing into the depths experimentally as if taking Isath's measure as the foul waters froze. "HAIL, LORD OF FLESH! LOKI BIDS YOU ANSWER FOR YOUR OATH, AND PREPARE TO HUNT DOWN THE ENEMIES AND ESCAPED PRISONERS OF HELL!" ISATH +10 uses just the tip to look outside Hell! Roll was success! It's all Ice (a glacierzone) out there except for a fire guy who's pretty badly off and been doing this for a long, long while. He just got a shot of power from inside and is risking death in order to pull of something drastic right now! Oh look its THYRM, he's just having a look around. Parelle - Hell Parelle wasn't a very experienced God of creation if you didn't count creations in the kitchen. But her power over nature and experience with Hell gave her an idea of what sorts of things an Infernal ecosystem would require. She'd need demons to test and administrate the souls of Hell (the vast majority of them just the ordinary dead from Home), and there would have to be an entire ecology of monstrosities to support them. She'd started with the simple things first and wound up with a ferocious and enormous ant species of mortal intelligence. This was good! Instead of dealing with a thousand backstabbing and deviant beings of elemental evil all she had to do was manage a few ant queens who would in turn manage their colonies of wildly specialised and varying ants (wow there were some real doozies out there), and inexplicably she found that the Fomorian form worked all the way down the biological chain. Perhaps unconsciously she'd taken a page from Isath, and created an entire web of life based on the bloody struggles of animal flesh. It was almost frightening how many different types of ants there were and the things which they evolved to do to one another (and Hells souls). She planted them roughly where she remembered Violence to be, and watched in fascination as they flourished. The smallest ants ate whatever they could, mostly rocks, bones, and carrion. They excreted a variety of toxic or useful fluids and also helped live off of the heat of Hell and the effluvia of Isath's swamp. Larger ants farmed them, warring with each other in a variety of forms and sizes and in turn these ants were hunted by the Fomorians who hunted each other while feeding off of the suffering of Hell's damned souls. "What do you mean sick? Isn't that just how people die sometimes?" "Just shut up and eat it. Make sure everybody else eats it regularly too. All of you shut up and eat it, and make sure everybody else eats it regularly too." Cadenza had changed her mind. There were probably enough trees and fruit to go around, the more important thing was to make sure the mortals ate more of it. She remembered an experiment of hers which had proven widely successful but was inevitably forgotten by mortal cultures as they slid towards barbarism. Having clean hands probably didn't have much to do with dying of Sloth anyway, but the same principle was sound. She reached into their minds and tampered with the mortals' basic customs of cleanliness and health. "'s more of a prison than a school, but looks well enough I think. It'll keep 'em in until you're ready to let 'em out." Reggie had taken the entire side of Home facing towards Hell and built walls, fences, and brutal emplacements of stone and fangs along it. Although not supernaturally empowered, it was plenty enough to direct and herd Hell's residents into manageable classes once they made it past the many tests. He took a seat beside her and watched the Fomorians with her. "those ants 're pretty good builders by the look of it. Very good use of secretions and spikes." It's fine that you're rolling it all together into one themed creation of life/ecosystem, since basically you're just making Isathspawn with the penis decals scratched off and Parelles drawn on. And Ants. The basic form of Parellian life is the ant which totally checks out, see my forthcoming Science-post if you're so inclined. I've had one on tap in case Isath went with ants but this works too. PARELLE +16 (8 AP) creates an ecosystem of life, the pinnacle of which is the FOMORIAN ANT! Roll was success! The denizens of HELL, such as they are, are mostly the souls of people who died in HOME! HELL no longer has layers (as it is no longer nearly infinite) per se, but PARELLE has planted FOMORIANS roughly where she remembered VIOLENCE to be! They're really good at it! CADENZA +8 has decided to institute a hygienic practice of eating Curse-lifting fruits regularly in the residents of HOME! Roll was success! Less people are dying for no reason! REGGIE +8 builds a Prison School! Roll was success! HOME has gained the trait, Prison School!
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Jan 10, 2016 00:50
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Mercury, God of the Gateway At the Doors of HellHome AP: 18/24 Sensing the products of divine worship flowing to The Unquenchable Flame, and with the new divine technology courtesy of the DwarfLord, Mercury decides that it is past time to release himself and the rest of his Pantheon — and, for that matter, all of their followers — from the Ice that imprisons them. Calling his HellHounds around him as further warmth against the Cold, and stepping to the Gates of HellHome, he sends a spark of his Divine Essence following in the wake of Vendruck’s Demon to breathe upon the Flame and send it roaring forth to force back The Cold from his domain. As Mercury sets about assisting The Unquenchable Flame in its task of freeing the occupants of HellHome, Thrym continues his conversation with Isath. "The Trickster is seeking a way to prevent the Ice without from killing us all -- or at least, those of you not immune to its crushing Cold as I am. Even the stunted and misshapen one, for all his general uselessness, has fashioned a trinket that might just prove helpful in that regard. If you are at all inclined to assist with The Hunt, this is a perfect opportunity to do so, by ensuring that The Ice poses no danger to Gods or mortals once the Gates are opened." Warden of Hell +2, Leader +2, Inbetween All Worlds +4 = +8, with the benefit of Vendruck’s Demon and the Hounds of Hell +36 (at least for defensive purposes), plus 4 more AP to assist TUF in clear as wide a swath of ice as we can from in front of the Gates. Yes I expect this puts me in (some) danger…anybody else (especially the Laser-Tipped Penis) wanna join me? I think this is our best shot, since TUF is as empowered as it’s going to get, and I’m lending my not-inconsiderable powers toward the effort as well. This action presumes I have some inkling of what's going down Outside TychoBrahesNose fucked around with this message at 10:59 on Jan 22, 2016 |
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Jan 11, 2016 07:32
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Isath, Hellswamp Isath opened one nebulous eye and stared at the ice giant for a moment before answering. "SITUATION COMPLICATED. WILL TALK TO HIM DIRECTLY." Isath reached out through his network of feelers spanning a couple areas of Hell, sending a message to Loki and Parelle. "OUTSIDE BURIED IN HEAVY ICE. FLAMEGOD AT GATE KEEPING IT AT BAY, ONGOING STALEMATE, PROBABLY HELPED MUCH DURING SLUMBER. WILL REINFORCE GATE TO MAKE TASK EASIER." Then, in a less urgent tone, it added: "LOKI, RECEIVED MESSAGE. PARELLE, UNLESS YOU INTEND ANOTHER TASK, LOKI WOULD HAVE ME HELP IN HUNT. UNAWARE OF USEFULNESS - BULK PROHIBITIVE TO MOVE AROUND. PERHAPS ANOTHER WAY OF AID." Done with the tiresome trappings of communicating with other gods - a task that Isath had only very recently begun to exercise again - Isath concentrated all its attention on the gate, where the flamegod was. It grew a myriad eyes and sensory organs there, assessed the situation further. Isath did not understand the first thing about the flamegod's composition or architecture - Fire was not quite its thing, even with all its understanding of Light. So it focused on the Hellgate. A large construct, clearly of complex make. But still, it was there, and its size was enough to support some load. Some extra help for the struggling, self-sacrificing god of flame. Isath began shifting some of its mass around, extending it through the channels it had built all the way from the Swamp. Huge globs of flesh, bone and sinew coalesced on the Gate's structure, began forming into organs, cannons, armored outcroppings... Isath was building a small bastion, a collection of ice-fighting tools and implements, a wall of defense. It would lighten the load on the flamegod's shoulders, hopefully allowing it to fight the Ice more effectively. With a larger clearing around the Gate, not quite bound to a neverending futile struggle, it would be easier to think and plan further steps. Telling Loki and Parelle that it's all frozen up outside, and giving the Hellgate a little touch-up, turning it into a large organic machine with defensive outcroppings and ice-fighting living sonoluminiscent artillery, solid light shields, etc, for the firegod to use. As ice and fire (there -is- a flamegod fighting there who probably explodes periodically) proof as possible. Basically I'm trying to make his life easier. With Flesh +6 and Light +4.
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Jan 12, 2016 04:34
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Parelle - Hell "Thank you, Reggie. Yes, they do seem like good builders. Thanks for your work," she said. She nudged his shoulder with her own and grinned. The she heard Isath and responded. "I trust you to abide by our deal. Reinforcing the entrance is good. Thank you for your continued support. Thank you for being a good guest. Please let me know if you need anything," she said. She turned her attention back to her brother. "I have this feeling like these ants are going to be important. The new Hell is far more perilous than I could have designed on my own both with my powers and my imagination. The architecture is awe inspiring, the tests weed out the unworthy, the flora and fauna are terrifying and the tricks and traps of the trickster are terrible. I'm honestly worried that this place is too tough, but at the same time I'm wondering just what sort of soul will come out at the end. Self-sufficient, lethal, good-hearted, crafty and most importantly he or she will be a survivor. That person or persons will be the tip of the spear." She let her gaze fall upon the ants. So varied. So strange. So malleable. They were locked in a near eternal war for mere survival in quite possibly the most hostile place on the planet. "I plan on these ants being the shaft. As soon as I'm ready I'm going to hunt down Sin. If it's wise I'll kill it. If not I'll imprison it. I require power and flexibility to grab hold of it in the first place though. I need strength. These ants can provide it." Parelle sighed softly. "We haven't really tested Hell though. It needs a run through. I would like you and Cadenza to create a number of dummy damned souls. Not real souls, no real intelligence, perhaps clockwork and tough. I want you to shove these facsimiles of life through Hell and make sure that there are no places that are impossible to escape. There are a lot of hands on this project. Too many hands and not enough thought, including my own. I want to make sure it is possible for there to be an outcome- For there to be an escape. Otherwise that defeats the purpose of New Hell. Animate it, make it smart, craft failings, learn from mistakes and then send them in. Perhaps get brother Pirsuq to speed them up. She stood up and brushed off her trousers and coat. "I need to speak to some ants." Parelle stepped into the plane formally known as violence to speak to the ants. It was odd to be here. Every mound was like its own city state. Some were the same, some different, some ants were strong, others crafty, others smart. It was a near endless word of diversity built on the same simple platform. Three segments, six legs, two antennae. There was little point in speaking to the drones. Doubtless they were intelligent, but she only truly needed to speak to the representatives. With a gesture she stole the queens away from their low, defended places. Those ants which did not have queens had their alphas summoned. She didn't shapeshift. That was more Vicissitude's power. Parelle was not subtle. She simply displayed her power among the gathered leaders. A small, bright sun orbited around her. Flora and fauna were created in seconds, flourished and died as she touched the earth. Food and drink were present in staggering quantities never before seen in this land of violence, starvation and deprivation. "I am Parelle. I am your creator. I created this place, it's plant life and creatures. You are the pinnacle of what this place can create. You will speak to me. You will tell me of yourselves. You will do my bidding. You will worship. You will serve," she said. Pirsuq, Cadenza and Reggie are going to create fake souls to rapidly beta test New Hell. The purpose of this is to show that it actually is possible to escape. They'll be facsimiles of life just complicated enough to make a real run through Hell, but not so complicated enough that you'll feel bad when they die over and over again. Think of them like super meatboys or Mr. Meeseeks. They're eager to complete their task even if it means dying. The mechanical benefit of this is to make those souls in Hell appear into their school faster by allowing Reggie to make minor tweaks and alter impossible tasks. +6 Construction and +2 Lightweight tools to build the facsimiles and alter any places where the Meeseeks/Meatboys absolutely can't make it through, +6 Healing to make them as tough as a normal soul and +6 Wind Storm to make them so they can run through the ordeal quickly, though they'll slow down to normal speeds when tested. 6+6+6+2=20 Parelle is doing a mass conversion attempt on the ants. They're now becoming aware of her presence and she's going to take control of them. All of her traits. +12 Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 10:28 on Jan 12, 2016 |
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Jan 12, 2016 10:15
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Abyaz, Mouth of the Sun - Summer's Valley "Do not worry, sacrifice is not a new concept for me", he glances at the frozen horizon, "Better to die under the Sun here than to freeze, body and soul, in those wastes. I need to prepare for Ayahuen's search." "But what could find Ayahuen?" Abyaz thinks of the resources available to him and considers the possibilities, "A great, glowing hot orb will do, a beacon no one can miss. And it will shine with its own power", he says, sneering as he thinks of the moon, "He couldn't miss me, and if it's bright enough, I'll be able to see him if he's..", he trails off, unable to finish his thoughts. Abyaz looks around the valley, searching for the largest boulder he can find, and brings it next to the grove, then eyes the nearest tree, "I'm afraid this beacon would burden me if I carried it", he wraps his arms around the tree and uproots it, "Being burdened in the cold could mean my death", he drops it on the boulder, grabs a hold of another tree and uproots it as well, "I need a vessel to carry it", he drops the tree on the first and pulls on another, "A vessel to also break the cold", it joins its uprooted kind in the pile, "Normal wood won't do", he pulls on another tree, "You trees are the only thing in this valley fit to carry the beacon", it goes onto the pile with the rest of them, "This won't be a sacrifice". More and more are yanked from the earth until dozens of trees are squirming in the pile. "This will be a rebirth", he inhales deeply and hums to the trees, then exhales air so hot the trees catch fire instantly. The pile becomes a raging inferno, but dies out just as quickly when he ceases exhaling; smoldering ashes cover his attempt. "If you can add some finishing touches, or provide something else, I'd appreciate it." Abyaz blows off the ashes, revealing the results of his efforts. His intended creation is a +6 Solar Barge! Its hull is made from the fused bodies of the sentient trees; their branches are still intact in the form of wiggling oars, which let the ship fly; and what once was an ordinary boulder is now a glowing orb, which sits in a groove in the center of the ship. I guess it's a pretty big grove if 700k people live here so a few dozen trees shouldn't be too big of an impact, right? Using 8 AP and 4+ Mouth to calm the 4+ Grove Trees while I use 4+ Warmth to fuse them into a boat. If Alvande can help me by chipping in AP or using her power that would be good; otherwise she can just make me a parting fruit basket or whatever.
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Jan 13, 2016 00:02
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Mercury, God of the Gateway - Doors of HellHome Mercury slipped out the gate the Hounds howled and snapped at one another as they followed on his heels. Bearing the flame of Hell itself between them, they circled and tore away at the Glacier using the Undying Flame and Hell's gate as a base for temporary warming. The Firegod stared in wonder and surprise as for the first time in its existence the Ice was driven back. "It's warm. All my life I've never been warm. All those centuries of freezing and suffering. All that time. Finally." He grinned at Mercury, bitter madness and resignation writ sharp across his face. "Time to die."  They had misjudged the Flame's motivations. Tethered to a place of eternal suffering and denied the release of death, its existence had only ever been one of freezing pain. Perhaps it had once willingly stood its ground and done its gatekeeping duty, but the long years of prayers and dreams of warmth on the other side of the gates had both shown it that there was a unfrozen world sealed achingly beyond its reach. Its death throes annihilated half of the Hounds straight out, grievously wounding another while the rearmost two wisely followed Mercury as he hastily ducked back inside Hell and threw everything he had into shutting the gate. Strangely as he did he found that the gate of Hell squirmed and heaved with new, living flesh which hastened to repair the damage done by the blast. The trait (Vendruck's Demon) has been installed into HELL's gate! MERCURY & HELLHOUNDS (+44, 4 AP) melt away as much of the Ice surrounding HELL's gate as possible! MERCURY & HELLHOUNDS had the advantage from the trait Vendruck's Demon! Roll was success! GLACIERZONE around HELL has been destroyed! ISATH +12 increases the effectiveness of HELL's gate! Roll was successful! HELL's trait (Hellgate) has been upgraded to a (Living Gate of Light)! UNDYING FLAME completes its long-term spell, Pyroclastic Immolation! UNDYING FLAME has destroyed itself completely, dealing +14 damage against everything in the area! HELLHOUND (formerly known as Sloth) +6 defends against the explosion! Roll was failure! HELLHOUND takes 5 (-10) ranks of damage! HELLHOUND is dead! HELLHOUND (formerly known as Greed) +6 defends against the explosion! Roll was failure! HELLHOUND takes 9 (-18) ranks of damage HELLHOUND is dead!! HELLHOUND (formerly known as Lust) +6 defends against the explosion! Roll was failure! HELLHOUND takes 3 (-6) ranks of damage! HELLHOUND is dead! HELLHOUND (formerly known as Envy) +6 defends against the explosion! Roll was success! HELLHOUND (formerly known as Pride) +6 defends against the explosion! Roll was success! HELLHOUND (formerly known as Gluttony) +6 defends against the explosion! Roll was failure! HELLHOUND takes 1 (-4) ranks of damage! MERCURY +12 defends against the explosion! Roll was success! LIVING GATE OF LIGHT was damaged by the explosion! LIVING GATE has begun to repair itself! Isath - Impure Swamp Isath's probes quietly pulsed against Hell's outer gates. By the look of it the Fire god had died in the past and would die again, very likely explosively. It could help with that, and for that matter do more to strengthen the gate's effectiveness against the cold. Isath sprayed a layer of hot flesh across the gate, hardening it against the chill and growing reflective surfaces which bent heat and light outwards. It writhed as the living gate glowed with new power. But this wasn't enough. Isath's new home depended on the integrity of this gate. Flesh fused to metal as it stuffed the fecund gates full of additional defenses and powerful enchantments to combat the ice. It shuddered, wondering at first if this was related to the soon-to-be cataclysm at the gate before the urgent wails of murder and death breached the line between mortal language and its undecipherable consciousness. Isath's followers were being slaughtered by ant-like creatures of Parelle's making! A powerful explosion has occurred outside the gate of Hell! Hell shook with the burst of a great explosion and Isath's external probes went dead. ISATH +12 increases the effectiveness of HELL's gate! Roll was successful! HELL's trait (Hellgate) has been upgraded to a (Living Gate of Light)! Mortals created by PARELLE have intruded on the IMPURE SWAMP! FOMORIAN ANTS have invaded and slaughtered all the ISATHSPAWN LIFE they have been able to find! The ferocity and tactics of the FOMORIAN ANTS have taken the ISATHSPAWN by surprise! 50,000 ISATHSPAWN have been slain! Parelle - Hell  "Ugh. Why are so many of these buildings such enormous jerks?" "'m sorry, I'm not good at making live things. 's probably why they're not passing the tests right." "We should make them go faster! More faster means there's more of them and they can try again faster!" They bled like real sentient beings, they hoped and lusted and died like real sentient beings. They even schemed and betrayed each other like real sentient beings. This was all true but still none of them seemed to be able to pass Hell's trials and escape. "Maybe they're too big?" "n't be a problem, they're not super big and the Tests should account for that anyway..." "Then they must be too evil to pass! We should kill them all and try again with real people. Your evil building people suck Reggie. This was stupid." The three of them pored over the problem, running test souls of all (building-like) shapes and sizes through the trials of Hell to no avail while Parelle listened distractedly in on their conversation as she gathered the Fomorian Queens. Finding and snatching them all, including the ones that weren't properly Queens, was an easy enough challenge but overawing them so that they took the exactly right attitude from the encounter was a little trickier. From what she'd seen of the Fomorians she guessed that they'd be emotionally distant, conniving, and reflexively prone to violence. "So exactly the same as ordinary mortal royals really." Parelle muttered to herself while she switched between outfits and sceneries as the spell wound out its effect. They would need to know that she was their absolute creator. The bearer of life, food, and precious sunlight. They would need to learn the terror of her wrath, that opposing her was useless. Their entire genus rested beneath the boot of her heel. "I am Parelle. I am your creator. I created this place, it's plant life and creatures. You are the pinnacle of what this place can create. You will speak to me. You will tell me of yourselves. You will do my bidding. You will worship. You will serve," The Fomorian Queens faced each other warily, tensing as those more suited to combat sized up those which weren't. Grudgingly, and without taking their gaze off one another they knelt to Parelle and made their obeisance. A powerful explosion has occurred outside the gate of Hell! Then Hell rocked with the force of a powerful explosion in the direction of the gate. Today the team's going to design a building that bleeds like meat, feels like meat, and runs on wind power. Gazebo-sized, Constructicon Windsocks make about as much sense as anything else in Parellehell, especially since they're just a functional test of the system in the first place! Also technically two things here to both abduct all Fomorian Queens/Alphas and convert their hearts and minds but something something this is why we have spells. REGGIE & CADENZA & PIRSUQ +20 create fake souls to beta test the system of HELL! Roll was success! TEST SOULS completely failed to escape HELL! TEST SOULS are an amalgamation of living and unliving material held together by magical healing and wind power, and fall apart quite easily! PARELLE +12 casts a spell, Hell Ruler's Call! Roll was success! FOMORIAN QUEENS failed to resist! FOMORIAN QUEENS have been converted to the worship of PARELLE! Abyaz, Mouth of the Sun - Summer's Valley His first idea was a cruel one. Pressing the wooden flesh of the grove's sentient trees, he willed them into quiescence with the power of his voice and set about the task of melting them just enough that they could fuse together but not enough that they would burn. Trapped in the quiet lull of his voice, the trees began to writhe and twist in agony. It was a necessary sacrifice, necessary because without him they would be dead to the cold and ice anyway. Then his thoughts turned to how the Barge would fly and inspiration turned him down a thankfully less grim street.  It would be simple. The trees of the grove were easily encouraged to grow together and into useful shapes, and all he had to do was bid them to form light branches. Broad, thin leaves arched and ballooned overhead and roots twined together to create the body of the barge which bore the heavy weight of the glowing stone. The trees sang with joy as they lifted gently into the skies, held aloft by the steady beat of heated air. "It's very pretty." Alvande stood at his back, eyeing the new creation critically before handing over an apple crackling with Summer's power. "It doesn't look very durable though. You may not have much experience with them yet but I'm pretty sure a decently-sized Icestorm will tear this thing to shreds. You'll get what, one? Two uses out of it before the enchantment runs out and it stops being self-heating?" She ran her hands across the circumference of the solar stone, testing the strength of the magics he'd laid there. They were definitely impermanent. "But I suppose it's not much of a problem if you're there to keep the hot air flowing. A clever idea though to make the inside of the tree hollow to circulate the hot air. I'm going to do something with that idea on my own I think." Well I'm a little hard-pressed to think of how Warmth can be used to fuse living, sentient trees together into a magical skyboat. I guess you're burning/melting them just enough that they get soft? Pretty  if horrible from the perspective of a thinking being capable of expressing pain. Not sure how the skyboat flies either but I guess... somethingsomething hot air? Wait I've got it, Warmth+Mouth+Trees = Hot air balloon made from sentient trees, borne aloft by hot air trapped in magic leaves. That's 100% less horrible.MOUTH OF THE SUN (+12, 8 AP) creates a +6 artifact, SOLAR BARGE! Roll was failure! BALLOON OF TREES (expendable +6) was created! BALLOON OF TREES is probably not very weather-resistant! It may fall apart or run out of power after one use! ALVANDE +12 creates an expendable upshift! Roll was success! An expendable FRUIT OF SUMMER POWER +4 was created!
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Jan 29, 2016 06:27
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Wallastra 16/16 AP Wallastra blinked. "What, just happened" He was at the walls, there was a Glacier on it's edge, looming near the walls but unable to enter the ring of fire and ash encircling the town. He looked, he can't remember how get got there. There was a hole in his hand, he didn't remember how that got there either. He had left the council somewhere, and he was here and there was... An enemy, a threat, the thing and the whole of the thing. He came here to deal with it, that must have been it. "What if, I just reached out and crushed" He said, looking at the encroaching ice. He stared the thousand yard stare and reached. --- There's a Glacier, we can't have that now can we. We have a new +8 Purview, stronger then anything we had so far so let's use it. Let's reach out with our [+8] Bottomless Pit and swallow this block into it's depths. I didn't read that spoilered PM
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Feb 4, 2016 23:42
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Isath, Hellswamp Isath reached out politely to Parelle, only a slight tone of annoyance in its thoughts. "PARELLE. IF YOU VALUE THESE CHITINOUS CHILDREN PLEASE EXTRACT THEM BEFORE THEY GET DEVOURED. DEVOTING ENERGY TO DEFENDING MY CHILDREN WOULD BE INCONVENIENT. NEED TO FIGHT ICE." Then, Isath went back to the true matter at hand. It had miscalculated with the Firegod - but then again, gods were rarely rational about things. Its absence would likely be a problem, in enough time, so Isath would have to think of another measure against the ever-encroaching Ice. But for now, the godling's sacrifice had warmed things up quite a bit, and that should last for a while. Isath decided to see the silver lining, and scout the area while the Ice was gone. It would do it the old-fashioned way: extending creeping tendrils full of sensory organs, shooting out pulses of directed light, breeding fast-spawn to run about, and so on. Telling Parelle to get those ants to back off before they're eaten. Also, scouting the area around Hellgate with all manner of Flesh +6 walking organs, and Light +4 for long-range LIDAR AP: 17
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Feb 6, 2016 01:46
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Abyaz, leaving Summer's Valley 16/24 AP When he first started making the barge, he wasn't too concerned on the practicality of a ship flying with a bunch of branch oars (mostly, he just wanted to one-up several other gods he saw, mean gods that wouldn't let a long serpent sit on their PRECIOUS solar barge. He came back day and day again but nope, not even once!), but as it started taking shape it became obvious that it'd just be a waste of life, power and time. He decided to save his vendetta for another day and reshaped the barge into a more practical vessel. Alvande was right, this thing wouldn't last, but he'd sunk considerable power into this vessel already, power he'd need out in the cold, so he'd just have to save this for when he needed it. Abyaz pushes the balloon in on itself and down into the basket and swallows it whole. "I thank you, Alvande. I might return when I find Ayahuen, but Hell may be my next stop. Farewell." Abyaz lifts himself off of the earth and moves over the icy wastes, searching the ground below. "Ayahuen!", he calls out, but his words never seemed to travel as far in this cold. "AYAHUEN!", his deep voice booms but he doesn't hear his echo return. 'Does this cold freeze words as well?', he thinks, 'The cold doesn't make anything easy.' He wiggles his legs, making sure they're still firmly home, and inhales the cold air until his body is as puffed up as the balloon he just made. Unfortunately for Abyaz, he's underestimated the coldness of the air as it is still quite painful to warm internally, but he chokes the air down and endures the pain nonetheless. Satisfied with the warmth of the air, he bellows out his words, words that are now carried in a warm blanket of air, "AYAHUEN, BROTHER, I AM HERE. COME, SO YOU MAY ONCE MORE WARM YOUR FEET IN THE SEAS OF THE SUN!" He exhales the last of the air that over inflates him and absentmindedly speaks a short prayer, his eyes scanning the ground below for any signs of Ayahuen. "I hope you're alright, brother." Yelling a message, using +4 Of the Sun to have a better vantage point to call for Ayahuen, +4 Mouth to yell the message and +4 Warmth to help his words penetrate the unnatural cold. GoldenJoe fucked around with this message at 15:17 on Feb 7, 2016 |
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Feb 6, 2016 18:56
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Mercury, God of the Gateway HellHome --> Outside! AP: 18/24 Well that was...unexpected. Mercury thinks to himself as he tamps out the last of the flames clinging to his robe. Though not unforseeable. A pity the Pack is only at half strength now. Though with the Ice gone, the mortals will have a chance to breathe freely, to see the sky...at least for a time. Seeing the fleshy protuberances of the Towering God snaking across the threshold, he leaves the initial investigation of the newly-cleared Glacierzone to Isath. Instead, he turns back to his domain and begins to issue orders for his Family and their followers. "Reggie!" he calls out. "The Gate has been damaged -- see to it that its function is not compromised! Cadenza! One of my Pack has need of your ministrations! Pirsuq! The way beyond the gate is clear -- for now. If you or your Wildings wish to take to the sky -- the proper sky! -- you are free to do so. Only report back to me or to Parelle with what you and yours discover." "All you mortals!" the Messenger God speaks directly to the minds of those who worship those of his Pantheon. "By the will of your Gods, the way beyond the Gate is free from the grasp of the Cold!" Yes, that sounds about right, Mercury thinks to himself. Let them believe that tremendous explosion was all part of the plan... "If you wish to remain within the embrace of Home, do so!" Mercury continues. "If you wish to expand, to settle beyond the walls and raise flocks and grow crops, you are free to do so as well. All that is required is that you stay within sight of the Gate, that you may return to the greater safety within if Cold or another Enemy should come. The air above shall be guarded by Wildings, and the ground all around shall be patrolled by my Hounds to provide ample warning until you are able to construct proper fortifications and warnings." Turning his attention to the God sulking after his conflict with the Ice Giant, he gestures consolingly. "What say you DwarfLord? Will you assist the mortals with your Artifice? They have need of strong walls against their enemies, and even moreso a means of perceiving threats while they are still afar off -- whether that be an approaching Ice Storm, or an approaching army." His seemingly endless task of directing his followers finally complete, he at last turns his attention to his role he that had been neglected for some time...ferrying the souls of the dead to the afterlife. Now, with the remaining Hounds in tow, he overtakes Isath's oozing and creeping sensory apparatuses and begins a wide sweep of the new land available to them. Trying to manage a Family is challenging! Assuming Reggie can be spared for a round, I'd like him to ensure the Gate has sustained no permanent damage/is fixed up even more quickly than its baseline regenerative powers would accomplish. Similarly, I'd like Cadenza to heal the wounded Hound. Hopefully Pirsuq and his Wildings will jump at the chance to be out and about in the Glacier-free zone, and will provide useful intel while they are testing out their new environment. Likewise, if we want to increase our stock of mortal followers, it seems like giving them an extra Zone to expand into would useful -- provided it's defensible. That's where Vendruck comes in. If he gives a drat about the mortals at all, he will hopefully work to make the area outside nearly as homey as Home itself. If he's not interested in helping, I'd like Reggie and Cadenza to use next round to improve the expanding mortal settlements. In the meantime, while Isath does his own probing of the Zone itself, the remaining Hounds (including the one Cadenza heals) will be patrolling the outer boundary of the no-longer-a-Glacierzone, specifically looking for any incoming threats and (if they can manage) sniffing out the trail of The (Not-So-)Imprisoned. Alas, with their reduced strength, they're down to +4 each (+12 total), though with Mercury holding their leash while they patrol they at least do not suffer from their negative Trait. As for Mercury himself, he's going to collect as many mortal souls as he can find while he patrols with his Hounds around the perimeter of the recently-thawed zone. Warden of Hell +2, Inbetween All Worlds +4, Soul Seal +4/Hungry for Souls -2 = +8 total to find souls to feed into my Soul Seal (most likely for transport back to Hell to replenish our dwindlding stocks, unless I have need of the AP sooner).
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Feb 7, 2016 13:49
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Parelle - Hell Parelle sighed. Lots of demands on her time. She eyed the queens and issued a clear commandment to them. "The bog is off limits. Something powerful lives there and it will kill any ant that goes there. The surface is off limits as well. Humans live up there. They are bipdal creatures that have two arms, two legs, a head, smooth skin and hair on those heads. They are of my general shape. Do not kill or enslave them. Do not kill the souls in Hell. They are off limits. You may observe them, but do not kill them, though I'm not sure if you can. Issue orders now to recall the ants from the bog. I will come back soon and issue orders. They will be obeyed. If these orders are not obeyed I'll find colonies that will, and raise them higher than those that do not," she said. "The ants should be recalled shortly," she said to Isath. "They're a new experiment of mine. I apologize for their behavior. Let me know if there is further trouble and I'll deal with it personally." As for the gate, the new gate was made of flesh and light. Reggie wasn't particularly good at working with either. He worked with wood, stone and earth, not flesh. That was more Cadenza's wheelhouse. She sighed as she turned away from Hell. It still really wasn't ready, but she needed to deal with this. Throwing bodies wasn't the best idea. "Reggie, don't work on the gate. They're not materials you're used to working on. Work on protecting Cadenza from another attack while she retrieves the dogs. You too, Pirsuq. Make sure no one else gets hurt. Listen to Reggie," she said. Then just like that she flickered and departed. As her Family did their work, she went to Hell. It hadn't been long after all. They should mostly still be sitting around the area that was Treachery. She adopted the appearance of a damned soul and began running through the gauntlet of horrors, fauna, tricks and traps herself. They were bad, but she was a goddess after all. She could pretend to fail both morally, mentally, emotionally and physically. She would personally smooth out the rough edges. Hell was still broken. It needed a personal touch. It needed to be hard, but fair. Hell was under new administration after all. I dumped a whole bunch of AP into the ants with the idea that they'd be a pretty good race, and generally easy to manage, though predisposed to violence and conflict. Parelle is doing a test to see if they'll follow basic instructions. "Get out of the swamp or the big thing in the swamp will kill you" and "Don't kill or enslave humans. They look like me" and "Don't kill the damned souls". The queens will issue orders and those orders will be followed or Parelle will be angry when she comes back. Reggie probably can't repair something made of flesh and light. Instead he and Pirsuq are going to guard Cadenza with +6 Construction, +2 Lightweight Tools and +6 Wind Storm with an extra +4 playing it cagey bonus to keep from getting AOE nuked. It'll also keep them from getting snapped at by dogs. Cadenza is going to heal the hell hound with +6 healing. She'll also drag the bodies in so they can be resurrected or recycled. Parelle is going to do something different. She's pretty done with letting people tamper with Hell. She's pretty sure that the trickster made it impossible to get through. Hell is for punishment. It's not some evil rube goldberg machine. There's very little point in a bunch of gotcha's if absolutely no one gets through. She's going to personally run through it over and over. As it is a hosed up place of horrors I assume that she's going to get tested by her own creation, see her own failings and so on while she tries to beta test it. +2 Travel to move through it quickly, +4 Artifice to test the traps, +4 Nature to change the Flora and Fauna to something that won't kill all of the souls, and +4 Sun to reveal those flora, fauna and traps to make them easier to find, +2 Food and Drink to stay well provisioned to keep the pace that she's going at. Reggie and Pirsuq's Defense - 6+2+6+4=18 to everyone at the gate. Cadenza's healing - 6=6 Parelle's refinement of Hell to make it possible for souls to escape - 4+4+4+2+2=16
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Feb 9, 2016 03:33
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Wallastra Wallastra's hole was deep and fathomless. It was a blackness in the middle of him that he could barely look at and remember, and none of the lesser or divine beings of his city were even capable of doing that. Peripherally he sensed another clump of citizens, not seeing but feeling them dragging their refuse to the edges of the hole before flinging it in without thinking about it. Struck with a strange idea he pointed towards the looming glacier, grasped and stretched. Wallastra's pit was endless, so dropping a titanic amount of ice into its depths would surely have no detrimental effect right? It groaned, the great ponderous weight of the ice cracking as Wallastra strained to jam it into his endless hole. He clenched his fist painfully, unsure if it would destroy him from within or pass. The dreadful, lethal cold struck him and the memory of the Waterlord's disintegration flashed across the last moments of his mind. Wallastra flexed. This was a muscle he was still unused to using but he'd used it to great success. One of the four Glaciers hemming him in on all sides was gone. Must. Resist. Goatse. Aaaaaaah  Ok but yeah very amusing and clever. Let's roll some dice to see what happens.WALLASTRA +8 swallows the +14 GLACIER into his BOTTOMLESS HOLE! Roll was Isath - Impure Swamp  Spraying hard light, Isath's mighty probe brushed against everything outside Hell. Pasting across the skies, it penetrated down into the depths of the earth seeking information about the environs which the tower could use to its advantage. There wasn't much to note. The Trickster had opened the gates, releasing the flying vermin that shared Parelle's worship with him and together they ferreted out a modest crop of souls which had been frozen in the ice of the Glacier. Guiding him was the pack of Hell's Hounds, snuffling and sniffing for prey but finding none. Isath pressed its fleshly wave deeper and harder. There was something there. Buried beneath the detritus of an Age and obviously ruined by the Imprisoned's escape, it found the ruins of Hell's famous Black Gate. It remembered for a moment what the gates had looked like in their prime, deadly spells and barriers bristling, and the Gate Guardians a formidable power in their own right. Closer to home it watched with mild interest as Parelle's creations convulsed and turned on each other in civil war. Some fled back to the rest of hell raising banners in her name while others forged on deeper into Isath's swamp. ISATH +10 scry's the zone OUTSIDE HELL! Roll was success! ISATH has discovered Ruins of Old Hellgate! The BLACK GATES used to be some serious poo poo but aren't any more! FOMORIANS are currently engaging in civil war! 100,000 FOMORIANS have turned to the worship of Parelle, 60,000 FOMORIANS have died as a result of the civil war! Some of the FOMORIANS have gone deeper into the IMPURE SWAMP! Mercury, God of the Gateway - Outside Hell "AHAHAHA, after 10,000 years I'm free at last! Psych!" "Ow!" "Hey!" "Hey!" "Stop shoving!" "Hey there's new stuff over here!" The Wildings abandoned Hell in a great flood to the relief of the rest its denizens. The annoying little creatures brought nothing in the way of food, clothing, or tools but soon took to stealing from one another or salvaging whatever debris around to eat or assault each other with. "Hey! There's a soul frozen over here!" "Doesn't look very frozen... Hit it with the Asslight!" "Asslight!" "Asslight!" "Asslight! Psych!" It had been an Age since Mercury's role as psychopomp had been exercised. But soul gathering was hardly something a God could forget and soon his Seal crackled with a healthy crop of newly collected souls. He frowned and did a quick check of the numbers again, shaking the Seal to see if any souls and gotten lost. Even assuming some were lost permanently to the Ice this was too few. A mere quarter of a million for the passage of an entire Age? "I will make my own preparations. Rest assured I will see my obligations fulfilled." With that Vendruck retreated to a quiet corner of Hell and set to with his tools in a private workshop. Whatever the wretched dwarf had planned would have to be dealt with later, as the Hounds were already pulling him away and out. Cadenza's healing had been prompt and effective, so all three of them were available to him as they bayed and snuffed outside Hell in search of the Imprisoned while he gathered souls. Disappointingly they found nothing. By the sound of it you don't mind if Cadenza, Reggie, and Pirsuq are already spoken for this round so there's that, with your orders for them next round set as well. Might be a difference of +4 on the Hounds depending on which way the initiative order goes re: Cadenza heals, Hound acts but eh it's nbd and I don't care to generate initiative for all those NPCs just yet anyway. MERCURY +8 searches for souls in the vicinity to guide to HELL! WILDINGS helped! Roll was success! MERCURY has discovered and absorbed 250,000 non-corporeal souls that were recently frozen in the GLACIER! This is still too few souls to have accounted for the passage of an Age! WILDINGS have been unleashed on the area outside HELL! The majority of their population has fled HELL and is infesting the zone! WILDINGS helped MERCURY find frozen souls in the zone! VENDRUCK +10 creates an area in HELL, VENDRUCK's WORKSHOP! Roll was success! HELLHOUNDS +12 search OUTSIDE HELL for signs of the IMPRISONED! Roll was failure! No sign of the IMPRISONED was found! Abyaz - Skies outside Summer's Valley (forming Glacierzone) Abyaz shouted, his call arcing out above him to strike the world. Soon the echo of his voice would return and he would either find his brother or have some clue to his death. The call bounced back much too fast and he scrambled to dodge the deadly cold which crashed down upon him. Abyaz was so startled by the response that he took in a quick, unprotected breath which froze the edge of his lungs. In horror he watched as the cold splintered and spread across the frozen ground outside Alvande's valley. Fractal towers jabbed and pointed skywards, ready to pull him down. ABYAZ +12 casts spell, Global Call! Roll was failure! ABYAZ struck a GLACIERZONE with his spell and must resist (temporary) cold damage from GLACIERZONE +12! Defense was failure, ABYAZ has taken 3 (-6) ranks of (temporary) cold damage! (temporary) cold damage is recovered at the start of a new scene or can be resisted! The GLACIERZONE outside of SUMMER'S VALLEY is increasing in strength! Parelle - Hell The Queens glared at each other. She could see the idea of something forming there between them. Nominally they were all of the same biology and species, and to an extent Parelle had created them in her own image. She knew how their minds worked about as much as they knew each others. Distrust, anger, vindictiveness in the pursuit of old new wounds, and bitterness papered over with moral justifications about defending the colony hive. They were her children made from Hell's stuff. None of these Queens would disobey her, but it was obvious they would betray or destroy one another given the slightest opportunity. The unpleasant thought struck her that behind the scenes they would no doubt scheme and plot to frame each other and use her wrath as a weapon of internecine genocide. Their faith in Parelle was absolute as their antipathy for each other. "We march now Overqueen, to reconquer our hives and carry out your commands. We serve for you." And then they were gone. There'd probably be more disasters of their mortal making but on the long list of emergencies and very important things Parelle needed to do micromanaging mortal politics was a phenomenally low priority. The greatest thorn in her side was the Trickster's amendment to Hell. Obviously he'd done something and whatever he'd done was a serious obstacle to her plan for Hell as a place of true redemption. Without a fair test for the damned there would be no cadre of honest and hardy souls and without that... she wouldn't be able to start the next phase of her plans. The trickle of worship and information from the Fomorians kept her company as she walked through the Trials as a mortal would. They were full of her reflected failings. The simultaneous onslaught of civil war between the rebellious Fomorian Queens who'd risen as soon as their mothers disappeared and experiencing the pain of mortal suffering left her feeling strange and uncomfortable. It wasn't until her ten-thousandth try that she figured it out. The Trickster hadn't eliminated the possibility of all escape from Hell's trials, but rather he'd changed them so that only the most amoral, cold-hearted, joyless being capable of self deception enough to fool the soul could pass. Mortal Parelle walked out of Hell's trials, laying down another glowing cupcake so that those who followed her would have an easier time of it. In the distance she felt the progress of her siblings. At least Cadenza and the others were doing alright. FOMORIAN QUEENS have returned to their colonies/armies and are fighting a civil war against the REBEL QUEENS which have risen in their place! FOMORIAN CIVIL WAR has claimed the lives of 60,000 FOMORIANS! Some colonies have no surviving queens due to internal warfare! Some of the REBEL QUEENS or unled colonies have continued to encroach on the IMPURE SWAMP! 100,000 FOMORIANS have turned to the worship of PARELLE! PARELLE +16 trial runs HELL's TESTS FOR THE WICKED, softening the system so that people can pass! Roll was success! TESTS FOR THE WICKED are now more likely to allow souls to pass! REGGIE & PIRSUQ +18 defend CADENZA in the event she is attacked! CADENZA +6 heals the wounded HELLHOUND (formerly known as Gluttony)! Roll was success! HELLHOUND (formerly known as Gluttony) has recovered 2 (+4) ranks! Puppies are dicks fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Feb 15, 2016 |
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Feb 15, 2016 21:10
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Abyaz - Skies outside Summer's Valley 13/24 AP Closing his eyes, Abyaz focuses all of his attention on listening and waits on his brother's voice; but in no time at all his words return, lacking the warmth he spoke them with. Confused, he opens his eyes and begins speaking, "Who mocks-" but stops, realizing too late that it is his echo, returning with the cold of a forming glacier below; He can't close his mouth before his echo freezes it's way down to his lungs. After the wave of cold crashes over him, he goes into a coughing fit. Flakes of ice fly out of his throat, and his eyes follow them as they float out of the sky and down towards the ground, fluttering around the quickly rising shards of ice. Abyaz groans at this discovery. 'Time to leave', he thinks. Reaching down to the depths of his body, he brings up warm air from the Sun and redirects it to his lungs, thawing out and revitalizing the areas frostbitten by the cold. Once thawed, he takes a second to regain his bearings. After he thinks he knows where he is, he points himself towards Hell, and using the air in one good cough, he expels his Tree Balloon: it launches out among a cloud of steam, practically full of hot air already, and hangs in the air in front of him. Abyaz looks disappointingly at the wastes below, knowing that in his eagerness he has set back his search. "I'll have to look for you another day, Brother." He grabs onto the roots and exhales more hot air into the hollow trunk, filling it up fully, and flaps his wings forward. Leaving this frozen hell and going to the literal, but comfortable, hell. 3 AP to undo the cold damage, and I'm using my Tree Balloon +6 to travel, Of the Sun +4 for some horizontal power, and Warmth +4 so the balloon rises faster.
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Feb 16, 2016 03:03
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Parelle - Hell Parelle made her way through Hell. She sprung most of the traps that the trickster left, but left behind some of the ones that were actual solvable by mortals. Still, this meant going through Hell. It didn't distinguish between mortal or divine. It wasn't designed that way. It judged everyone, though it posed no real threat to her, just the dead, or so she thought. Treachery wasn't particularly bad. She might have been occasionally unpredictable, but she'd never betrayed an ally or broken an oath. At least not in the last two ages. She gave a slice of pie to a wandering, tortured soul as she passed by more out of reflex than anything else. "It can get better," she tried, though that was reflex as well. It just gibbered insanely. She sighed. In Fraud she was met by a caricature of herself. Younger and far more foolish than she was at her height, she led her siblings in endless circles. Literally circles, though they were wide around what looked to be an ice cube which she pointedly ignored. She crushed her problems instead of solving them, was buried under the weight of her sins for a time, and then was covered by the ice, which didn't care about any of that. She reevaluated her motives as later she was shown giving food or aid to others, and then using them over and over again. That was fun. There was violence. That was a nightmare and a half. She saw herself at her worst. Insane and angry, she struck down Malador over and over again with Pirsuq and Reggie. She endlessly tried to devour Vendruck only for Malador to stop her. She both did it, watched herself do it, she experienced that rage and insanity, was torn apart for a time and then reassembled herself with a sigh. She passively watched the civil war between the ants. She watched them battle for a time. If she aided those loyal to her she'd be murdering the rebels, but they rebelled against her, their creator. She still felt some vestigial sense of need to protect the mortals under her care, but was paralyzed by doubt. Worse, these events didn't happen independently of one another. They happened at the same time. She experienced the violent rush of mandibles cracking open carapace, the flood of acid from a thorax or a stinger depending on the breed, spears, clubs, slings, chittering cries as armies did battle underground and on the surface. That took her some time to get away. She thought she'd skip blithely past Heresy, but that wasn't so. It showed her battle with Malador once again, but showed her the reason for Hell's existence. Or was it her own, thin reasoning? She wasn't sure if Hell could reveal answers. Hell was a prison for every awful thing everywhere. The souls were there being endlessly tortured not just because they were bad, but as a thin excuse to keep Sin imprisoned with cheap, easy power to tap in case it broke free to beat it and any other awful thing down. Parelle upset the balance. Now damned souls just roamed. She actually skipped right past Anger once she was done with the traps. She'd been angry before, but this troubled her. Anger wasn't her driving force. It wasn't her sin. The same went for Greed. She was fairly open handed. There was something about her collecting gods instead of items, but it was thin. She had her justifications, sure, but most were good. Some were bad or self-serving, but mostly positive. What surprised her was Gluttony. A version of her sat at the head of a table, immaculate saved for blood stained hands and mouth. Eleven other versions of herself ate pieces of her siblings. "We should talk," said not her. "I think you've been dodging me for far too long." Parelle looked down at the floor, then at the table. She sighed miserably and sat down. "I guess. It's been a long time coming," she said. "So this is what happened?" Not her smiled. Her teeth were stained as well, but her smile was beatific. Gore was visible as she spoke. Of course she'd talk with her mouth full. Ruined, mauled flesh was behind that smile. "You don't remember what happened after your family died, but you remember me. Blood comes out, but memories like me don't fade. You were a nothing little goddess. So where did all of that power come from?" she asked One of her other selves politely offered her a hunk of one of her sisters. Parelle shuddered in revulsion and felt bile rise up in her throat. She swallowed it and begged off. Her eyes were wide and devoid of sanity, but still, polite. She went back to eating, not like a goddess or even a person. Her insane other self ate like a starving dog would eat. Not her continued. She gestured with a fork. "Parelle, you know you could never cook very well, you weren't particularly hopeful, nor did you emanate anything resembling warmth. Ever. Maybe as an extension of your tiny power over travel, but that's it. These were powers that grew as your power grew. You were just divine enough to be considered more than some mean little spirit. You were the absolute least of your brothers and sisters. This wasn't your fault, nor were their deaths, but when you woke up from your first, but not last bout of insanity, you were full, but the cupboards were bare. You were hungry, they were dead, and you needed power." Parelle lifted up her feet as she sat and placed them on the chair. She huddled there and hugged her knees. Not her continued. "I mean, I can understand not wanting to revive anyone after Reggie, but it's been an age. Reggie, Cadenza and Home could just pump them out. Would they remember that you ate pieces of them, even in death? Maybe feel those missing pieces of themselves and wonder? Or are you worried you'd just betray your dirty little secret with a strange look or a misplaced word? Fumbling little Parelle. No one takes her seriously. Even now no one takes you seriously unless you subjugated them. The dead? Well, obviously they can't take you seriously either. Everyone ends up a slave or dead in your wake, don't they? Wait, no, friends. You befriend them. That's what you call it, right? Anyway, yeah, befriended or dead. Eventually that is, not all at once. You played the submissive fool for just long enough until it suited you to stop. Them wham, kill, eat, except you messed up. You never planned to merge with Vendruck. You planned to eat him. Don't lie. The death of the dwarves is on you, because you threw the first stone. Sin being out is mostly your fault. In the end, completely, but you rolled that ball right down the hill, and it picked up speed based on your original actions. Malador died and Vendruck didn't trust you enough to listen for the right reasons, but Malador didn't taste good, did he?" she asked. She spat out black bile and gore. It formed a caricature of the old warden of old hell. He tried to flee, but she speared it with her fork. She bit into him from the legs upwards with dainty, thoughtful bites as it screamed. "It wasn't like that," said Parelle. "Liar!" screamed the fake Malador, "You doomed us all! You-" Not her bit that conversation off at the head as she consumed Malador once again. "Back where you belong, deary," she said, and patter her stomach. It roiled under her furs. "Now, you were a fifth rate goddess with a fifth rate power. How did you get the rest? Say it." Parelle fidgeted, but she finally looked up. Tears filled her eyes. "I ate my siblings," she whispered. Not her nodded primly. "And you spat out Malador, but his job is your job. It's the nature of the job that changes you, Parelle. Someday, if you survive, you'll be just like him. You won't have compassion. You'll have codes. It's coming, you can see it. Tiny little sacrifices to protect your sanity, then big ones, then you change. You even have the same ban on hurting mortals," she noted. "But not the dead. You do nothing for the dead, just like him. The dead just scream. You use them, but in a different way. This place isn't just. In the end it'll just produce the best of the killers, rapists, monsters, basically, what have you, as soldiers. Your shining, redeemed souls are just a means to an end. If you didn't have a use for them you'll just ignore them. The warden of Hell is always going to have enemies, and your family is going to hate you eventually. It's the nature of the job. The weaker ones will still fear you though, don't worry, you'll never be wanting for bootlickers. Pirsuq would make an excellent new god of lust, don't you think?" Parelle pressed her hands to her ears and shook her head in violent negation. It didn't matter. Just like old hell, there was no relief in new hell either. New hell did allow for escape, and Parelle could if she wished, but she didn't wish. She couldn't run from herself. New Hell was patient, and it waited until Parelle settled down again- Until she was sane enough again to talk. "You made this place well, Parelle. You think you can just waltz out of here after you dumped all of this power into here? With the weight of your sins on you like you have now? You didn't give yourself fully to this place before, but you walked these roads, goddess of travel. They took you here. Admit your sin, eat your fill and get out. You're being a terrible dinner guest. You know you're only tolerated. No one would love you if they saw the real you." A plate of Pirsuq, wispy and insubstantial was placed in front of her. "I love you, Parelle!" it seemed to say. "I can't," whispered Parelle. "Not him too, please. He's the one person in my life I haven't hurt." Not her pursed her blood stained lips, then nodded. The plate vanished. The table vanished. Her insane selves vanished. The meat vanished. All that was left was her, and not her. "Okay," not her, said simply. Parelle blinked. Disbelief crept through her. "Another trick?" she asked. "None of this was a trick. These are just hard truths," she said. "You'll hurt him eventually. None of this is real after all. I'm from your own head, after all. New Hell isn't full of demons and fire. It's just a place. It's no more special than old hell. It has its own ecosystem, sentient race and damned souls. Everything is tailored to fit. I'm just you. Parelle, you didn't have to make old hell like new hell at all. You laid down the same old pattern, so you'll fall into the same old habits. You hosed up. One day you'll be just like Malador, maybe with a difference or two. Who's to say he wasn't some upstanding young god once upon a time? Now c'mon, you put lust at the top for a reason. Let's do something stupid and life affirming before we get back to work. You're too tight laced," said Parelle. "I guess. I can't just break hell and start over again, can I?" asked Parelle. "Of course you can. You're a pro at breaking things. You're just not particularly smart. You'd have no idea what to make without that original pattern," said Parelle. "Besides, no one would take you seriously if you made Hell into a warm, fuzzy place for people to redeem themselves. Well, you know, those few people that are left." Parelle realized that she was talking to herself, stopped, but then decided she didn't care. She rubbed her temples and sighed. "Yeah, lust is at the top for a reason. If someone wants to bliss themselves out of existence and die, they can. I'm going to take a break. Just for a minute," she said. "Before I go though...I mean, I'm a cannibal, I enslave people in the guise of friendship, I'm a murderess, insane now and again, I'm the de facto warden of Hell, a title that I killed for without someone else to take it over, I released Sin, had a hand in the extermination of a race by accident, tried to eat Vendruck, and now I'm going to bliss out in Lust for a while. I mean, I went to the god moot. It's weird, because I might not be the best judge of these things, but I might be the most moral and most good god that's left. Maybe. If not the most, then one of the most, and I have all of this awful baggage." Parelle frowned at herself and checked the corner of her mouth. Nope, no blood. "gently caress it, I need to get laid," she said, exasperated. She was dutiful for a full five minutes as she disabled some of the more horrible traps, but soon enough she was in full hedonism mode. It was terrifying to see a goddess who was completely out of control after multiple ages of being good. Lust was a place that was entirely dedicated to vice. Sex, gambling, alcohol, drugs, food. She sucked, hosed, drank, smoked, wagered and ate her way through several mortal lifetimes at tremendous speeds, and Hell was accommodating as it tried and failed to kill her with vice. After all, she wasn't trying to kill herself with pleasure. She was doing it to affirm her own life. Even her gluttonous side was impressed, which was just a side of her, not some split personality, but now a fully accepted and fully integrated part of her. She was a cannibal, though not entirely on purpose, had a tenuous grip on sanity, but she still wouldn't hurt mortals, and generally she'd try to be good, but she'd been living for others and struggling to survive for so long that she'd never even taken a moment to herself. When she was done and rolled out of a bed that contained bodies of both sexes in numerous configurations. All of those writing bodies closed up quickly in her body's absence. She washed up, brushed her hair, put on her clothing and ascended to the surface with a skip in her step. She tapped her brother on the shoulder and smiled at him. "Hey Reggie, my ants are currently having a civil war. Rebels causing problems. I just got through with test runs through Hell, and I think it's finally ready. I'm going to check on Vendruck. He's been muttersome. Maybe you could convert the rebels? I don't want to kill them, and they're natural builders. Maybe you could have more worshipers. You can never have too few worshipers. Please ask Cadenza and Pirsuq to pull back from the blast area," she said. She kissed his cheek and disappeared back into new hell. All that was left in her wake was a whiff of perfume that she hadn't noticed she'd put on. That was new. When Parelle had just a few seconds to reflect on her time in new hell, to her horror, she felt refreshed, but that horror was muted. She felt vaguely numb. Maybe it was the drugs? Probably the catharsis, but the drugs surely helped. She'd have to go back sometime. She'd never had so much fun. Then, as if she'd left the oven on and forgot, she went down to the chair, absorbed the power that she'd rejected directly from that silly thing, and came right back up again. She looked at the chair that was once Malador's power, frowned, and found that it was fixed to the floor. The answer was obvious. She just ate that piece of floor as well. It was a big bite, but that was that. Easy peasy. She realized that she hadn't checked up on Vendruck, and both the giant and the trickster yelled at him. It was probably past time to talk to him. She found his workshop door and knocked. Parelle is fully accepting the mantle of Warden of Hell. She took back the power that was imbued into the chair that no one was using, and is cheerfully adding +2 Warden of Hell back to her portfolio. If I need to roll powers to take it back, that's fine, but Parelle is simply going to eat the throne and the ground it is fixed to in order to circumvent it being stuck. She's eaten worse, obviously. Reggie is going to convert the rebels with +4 Construction and +2 Lightweight Tools. God of builders, meet the master mortal builders. Hopefully they'll hit it off and they'll all stop being jerks. Pirsuq and Cadenza are free for an action, and are now far, far away from the exploding god in case he respawns. They're free for the next action, so feel free to put them and Home to use. Don't get them killed. Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 11:14 on Feb 16, 2016 |
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Feb 16, 2016 11:11
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Crow In and Around HellHome AP: 12/24 With a few desultory flaps of his pinions, Crow returns to the borders of Hell with his burden of souls. Picking his way among the dying embers left over from the Undying Flame's self-immolation, he uses his Divine senses to peer inside the domain he shares with the rest of the Family. As he perceives the goddess Parelle engaging herself in all manner of Sin, The Trickster breathes a sigh of relief. He immediately comprehends that she is becoming more and more bound to the place -- the corollary being that he himself is becoming more and more free from its jealous grasp. However, being the skeptical sort, he is still not certain he can trust the goddess to fulfill her newly-assumed role properly -- especially given the arrogance she displays in thinking that she, an amateur in matters pertaining to the Afterlife, knows better than he just how the souls of the Departed and the Damned should be handled. It is clear that she has already meddled needlessly with his contributions to Hell: Redemption? Hah! One needn't be the myopic and hidebound Malador to realize that such soft-headed thinking is just what led to the release of the Imprisoned in the first place. So, despite his distaste for being tied down to one place, Crow decides that he really must keep an eye on Hell, even when he is out on his Hunt. And what better means for such Sight than the creatures that Parelle herself had a hand in creating? Ideally, her fondness for the erstwhile Icestorm would allow the demigod Pirsuq and his offspring to stay close enough to warn of any truly disastrous course of action Parelle decides to undertake. Yes, they would be the perfect tools, Crow decides. And if things with the Family really start to unravel, then having a contingent of mortals on my side couldn't hurt. In the meantime, further preparations for The Hunt ensue, though he is content to leave the details to underlings. "Cadenza," he orders, "see it it that Thrym, Pirsuq, and I have a supply of Sloth-resistant sustenance for at least some measure of defense against the Imprisoned, should we come against him on our Hunt. Pirsuq, see to it that the followers of the Undying Flame return their worship to the Family, as is proper. The mortals are not to be harmed in any way -- their devotion was entirely warranted in the past Age, of course -- but they must be convinced that their god is truly and finally dead. Thrym, the DwarfLord would not assist you in forging a weapon fit for the Hunt, but you have no need of him to complete such a task. It is in your very nature to seek to recapture the Escaped One -- let that Icy resolve guide your hand in its work." Dropping the deceased souls off to help replenish Hell. 250,000 souls isn't a lot, but it will hopefully help the hemorrhaging of followers we're all experiencing. I am devoting my own efforts to giving Pirsuq and the Wildings a permanent trait that allows them semi-divine visual acuity (seeing farther, seeing hidden beings, and the like) -- with the proviso that when they are using it, I can see what they see, if I so choose (I'm drawing inspiration from Mojo and Psylocke, and as it turns out, the Blind God and his followers too). Trickster Spirit +4, Inbetween All Realms +4, Leader +2, Warden of Hell +2, Trickster's Mask +4/-2 = +14 +6 AP to imbue the demigod and his haphazard collection of mortal folllowers with this dual effect... maybe call it +2 Sight Beyond Sight/+2 Trickster's Eyes? This should help both with the upcoming Hunt and with keeping tabs on how Hell is faring under Parelle's (unsteady?) hand. Meanwhile, Cadenza (+6 + relevant traits from Home and the Garden she's been tending?) is going to provide us with the fruit that she (and Parelle?) had been working on, for at least temporary buffs against Slothly shenanigans. Thrym (+12) should make himself useful too, by creating some kind of weapon (maybe a great icy harpoon?) to help Hunt our elusive target. I had a notion a few turns back that Vendruck would help him with this; though that didn't work out, there's no reason he can't do it himself. Pirsuq (+6)is going to ensure that the Undying Flame's followers don't accidentally cause their god to come back from his present non-existence. Actually, it would have been nice to have Thrym see to that, but a) he's not officially part of the Family and b) I think his handling of the mortals would be a bit less kind than Pirsuq's. Though for the record, I don't actually care how Pirsuq accomplishes the task I've set for him, provided no mortals are actually killed by his conversion attempt. And if he screws up, I could always pick up the pieces next round, on my way out the door...
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Feb 24, 2016 14:37
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Isath, Hellswamp Isath extended one cyclopean eye-stalk, closing in on an unsuspecting Fomorian who had wandered too close to its form. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?", it demanded, but, pressed by more urgent matters, dismissingly declared, "WANDER TOO CLOSE TO MY SPAWN OR MY FORM AND I WILL CONSUME YOU." Then, it returned its attention to the outside. There was not much out there, of course - the Ice had seen to that. But the sacrifice of the fire-godling, however inopportune, offered a brief moment of respite. How brief, however, was anyone's guess, and Isath was not about to bet on it, after all it had gone through. So far, Isath counter-intuitively for all its bulk, managed to survive by staying on the move. Hell, however, was at the moment a stationary feature - a sitting target for the Ice, or the Escaped One. This was unfortunate. Isath would have to see if anything could be done on that front. It inched its feelers ever so closer to the Gate, Hell's only link with the material world outside. If the Gate could somehow be moved without disrupting the portal itself - something Isath admittedly knew little of - then at least they wouldn't be as exposed. Patiently, Isath's flesh connected itself to the Gate, and started probing, moving. It did it with a great amount of caution, though - breaking the Gate would be a very, very bad thing. Isath felt it in its gut. Using Flesh +6 to do some (cautious) experimentation on the Living Gate and see if it can be made to move without messing up its transdimensional properties.
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Feb 29, 2016 04:44
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Isath - Hell, Impure Swamp Panicked by the thundering of Isath's emission, the rebellious Fomorians launched themselves into the swamp with crazed fury. Although Isath's spawn had the advantage, the suicidal strikes of the ants took their toll. They destroyed themselves to drag even one more of Isath's toothy spawn down, trading grievous wounds and poisoned drownings in the foul swamp for the prospect of tearing out the eyes and hearts of the shrieking Tunnelers. But Isath's wretched spawn were not without ferocity and cunning of their own. Soon the torn and acid burned bodies of both clades littered the swamp, the numbers and adaptability of the Isathspawn barely winning out until a mere 25,000 remained. Isath's main attention was elsewhere, busy as it was with the delicate probings of the meaty Living Gate. Its thick tendrils braced against the inner-gate and Isath flexed. As a living thing made of Isath's flesh it knew that the gate could expand but perhaps not very comfortably so unless it took the time to properly engorge and stretch it. Certainly it would not be able to encompass the entire wide area currently claimed by the thaw. The gate's baleful eyes twisted and simultaneously oriented up. Another God! Still bleeding and sore from the mad Firegod's assault it prepared itself to launch an all-out preemptive strike against the newcomer which Isath saw to be the young Sungod it had ignored at the Convocation. REBELLIOUS FOMORIANS Flip Out, attack ISATHSPAWN in a suicidal strike! ISATHSPAWN had the advantage! Roll was success! 25,000 ISATHSPAWN have been killed! ISATHSPAWN attack REBELLIOUS FOMORIANS! Roll was success! ISATHSPAWN had the advantage! Roll was success! 40,000 REBELLIOUS FOMORIANS (all of them) have been killed! ISATH +6 examines the LIVING GATE to see if it can be moved safely from it's current position! Roll was success! It is fairly possible provided precautionary measures are taken beforehand! godkegels :p A God (the Sun God, MOUTH OF THE SUN) has appeared before the LIVING GATE! LIVING GATE is still recovering from the trauma of the earlier attack, and is preparing to defend itself violently! Abyaz - Gates of Hell Floating away was easy. Fragile though it may be Abyaz had made well in his balloon, and it was a simple affair to breathe warmth and heat between its leaves and hasten his journey across the wasteland that the world had become. What he found along the way disheartened him. Ice, massive and deadly glaciers of it, storms and icebergs and strange eruptions of sub-zero air which would have dragged him to his death had he not been flying at such speeds was everywhere. Harried by the cold Abyaz warmed himself as he pondered his next step. Now more than ever the heavy, freezing conditions of the world weighed down on him. It took him by surprise when he was hit by a sudden thermal as he approached Hell. He looked down over Hell's gate, finding himself doubly startled when it gazed hatefully back.  Parts of it weeped blood and pus but on the hole the gate stood strong. Bursts of molten blood and concentrated light erupted forth from it, dominating the damaged by entirely unfrozen landscape for miles. ABAYZ spends 3 AP to recover ranks of (temporary) cold damage! ABAYZ +14 Travels to HELL! Roll was success! HELLGATE is the epicenter of a vast area of THAW which covers the zone! HELLGATE is a living monstrosity of eyes and flesh which bleeds/hurts/hates! Crow - Hell, Home Crow flapped his great wings and pecked at a stubborn straggler caught on the base of one of his pinions. It wailed and clutched fiercely at him, perhaps having sensed the eternity of torment waiting for it in Hell but with a flick he plucked it free, looked it over with an appraising eye, and flung it into the machinery of torment already warming up to full swing for the age. 250,000 souls was a good start but nowhere near the amount of raw power he needed to see his plans to fruition. But still, it was good to see the Wildings perform as expected. Wild by nature, mischievous with an intensity bordering on maliciousness, and fast moving enough that they could infest any area their little wings could take them, they would make the perfect spies. Purely for their own good (and Parelle's) of course. As the source of their life Pirsuq was a reflection of them as they him, and a clever God could easily make changes to one and thus subtly influence the other. But Crow was a different kind of clever. As the Wildings buzzed and bickered amongst themselves in the area of thaw he unfolded across space and brushed a wing against every Wilding's eyes. His touch was the raw stuff of Chaos, which wormed its way into their bodies and souls. Somewhere along the way up the line to Pirsuq the original intent of the Trickster's eyes changed. "Hey!" "What's that!" "Dude!" "Hey!" "I can see-uh... I can see! Ahah!" "Ah... Crow? Here." She dropped a basket of glowing fruits at his feet that radiated cold power. "It's cold-resistant and sturdy enough to be handled over long distances while staying fresh. Assuming it hits striking someone with it it will weaken the effects of Sloth's curse. I'm not going to make a weapon out of something designed to heal the world, but if everything out there is tainted by Sloth you can probably weaken or confuse them by lifting the curse abruptly." "I don't think you need to worry about anybody remembering the Undying Flame anymore either." Pirsuq floated by with a look of self satisfaction, not flinching as the inner temple to the Undying Flame crumpled spectacularly in the distance and Wildings buzzed and swarmed through the skies. "Hahaha! Boom!" "Look at that!" "Hit it there! I think I see a squishy spot!" "Dude that was like a hundred points!" CROW (+14, 6 AP) grants PIRSUQ and the WILDINGS a new divine trait! Roll was not quite success! WILDINGS have gained the trait, Chaos Eyes! For whatever good it does, WILDINGS have the ability to see the raw force of CHAOS! CADENZA & THRYM (+18) create a weapon from the curse-bearing fruit for use against the CURSE OF SLOTH! Roll was success! PIRSUQ influences the former worshipers of the UNDYING FLAME! Roll was success! 25,000 more WILDINGS have been created! WILDINGS have begun to use their Chaos Eyes trait to play pranks! Parelle - Hell, Vendruck's Workshop "Go away! I'll give you all your due in time." Well that was ominous. She knocked again on the door of the private workshop that Vendruck had built for himself. It was a quiet little corner of Hell (though Hell had no corners he'd managed to make some) and even lacking knowledge of advanced artifice and architecture she could tell that it was place of power which had sprung up without any of them noticing. He'd hidden it but with her new control over Hell she could sense its shape and rough depth, and with a closer but more obvious observation she could definitely plumb its depths with ease. She waited patiently and knocked again. "Parelle huh. State your business." Something that could have been a gun port rolled open and instead she saw the flicker of a reflected eye. PARELLE has discovered VENDRUCK'S WORKSHOP! VENDRUCK'S WORKSHOP is a sacred space of +??? unknown ranks! It's currently sealed against the rest of Hell! PARELLE has the ability to identify the ranks of VENDRUCK'S WORSKHOP for free!
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Mar 3, 2016 17:40
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Parelle - Hell, but Workshop Adjacent As Parelle waited and Vendruck groused, she knocked again. With her power over artifice she merely produced a folding chair, mixed up a fruity, alcoholic drink that she'd learned about in Lust and sipped it while she waited for the dwarf to open up. When she finished that off she filled up one more along with a traditional dwarven ale, room temperature and tasting slightly of mushrooms just like the ancient dwarves used to make. Honestly it tasted like rear end, but so did many traditional things. Then as the dwarf opened up and she saw the barrel of a gun, she frowned. Paranoia and lots of time was not particularly healthy for Vendruck. She gently slid the ale to the edge of the door where it hung suspended by nothing in particular. She lifted her own drink in salute. "I wanted to check up on you," she said. "I saw that what you woke up to was a fight with the ice giant and harsh words from the trickster. I'm here to try and smooth things out. I'd prefer peace. Can we have peace for a few minutes at least while you air out some grievances? We'll both have our drinks and chat. You have my word of honor that if anyone attacks or even provokes you while we are chatting I'll personally kick the poo poo out of them. You can just stand by and laugh. So please do put the armament away." Parelle is going to sense just what this workshop is all about. Parelle is creating the perfect dwarven ale for Vendruck as a sign of respect and as a gift. To her it might taste like rear end, but they aren't her tastes. +4 Nature for the ingredients,, +2 food and drink because it is a drink and +2 artifice to blend it all together using an apparatus. The point it to get him to disarm, talk and hopefully calm him down enough that he won't go on a rampage. I figure the drinks will get him talking about what's bugging him. 4+2+2=8 Reggie, Cadenza and Pirsuq are free for this round as well, though I'll probably want them after this.
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Mar 3, 2016 23:19
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Hanuman Hell --> Thawzone AP: 10/24 Hanuman ponders the situation unfolding in Naraka and its surroundings...Pirsuq has successfully "converted" the followers of the (as it turns out, inaccurately-named) Undying Flame, while Vendruck shut himself within his workshop. Deeper within, Parelle's newest race of followers clashed with their monstrous guests's spawn. Meanwhile, his modifications to the Wildings did not go quite according to his plan, but the outcome was not as unsuccessful as it could have been...if he cannot have his Eyes, at least he would inject a bit more Chaos into the staid existence of those who call Hell their Home. Given all that had recently transpired, now, it seems, would be a good time to leave the rest of them to their own tumult and discord and begin his hunt for Ravana. And so he marhsals his forces out upon Thawzone. First is Thrym, the Ice God Hell-bent on re-capturing The (Formerly) Imprisoned, holding the leash of the remaining Hell Hounds. Then, in the air above come Pirsuq and his Wildings flitting about with neither rhyme nor reason in their flight. The mortals within Home, and those who have spilled out into the Thawzone, watch in awe as Gods and demigods prepare for The Hunt. "Reggie! Cadenza! Do what you can for the people! They will need stout walls -- build what defenses you can for them; if the fortifications you make can be encompassed within the Living Gate, so much the better. They will need food -- plant what gardens you can for them; if the Food of the Gods that lifts the Curse of Sloth can be planted and tended within the Thawzone, so much the better. And now," his voice reaches a crescendo, "we..." And then from above, a warm wind brings a gigantic floating Tree into their midst, even as the Living Gate itself pulses and squeals in alarm, recoiling as if preparing to lash out. Fortunately, the Trickster recognizes the God aboard the unusual form of transport. "Do not strike! This one is not an enemy!" Hanuman commands the Gate as he raises a pacifying hand. Presumably, Isath would receive the command, given his ongoing connection to the Gate, and he would ensure that there would be no unnecessary violence. Then, turning to the newcomer, he adds, "Welcome once again Abyaz, Mouth of the Sun, to the humble abode of The Family. The Lady of the House, as well as our guest, the Divine Monstrosity Isath, are within. You are welcome to enter, should you wish to do so. However, I myself and my companions are just about to set off on The Hunt, should you wish to join us in scouring the face of the Earth, instead." He briefly considers forestalling the start of The Hunt, but everything is already prepared, and it would look kind of silly to have his followers stand down when they were just about to begin. But perhaps as long as the others stayed within sight, he could steal at least a few more moments to prepare himself... Turning again to his entourage, he calls, "And now, we HUNT! Begin nearby, at the edges of the Thawzone, and seek out our quarry. Once you have its scent, we shall away!" As the hounds begin baying and the Wildings begin wildly whooping as they buzz crazily throughout the air above Thawzone, Hanuman returns swiftly to the mouth of Hell to finish just one more quick preparation... Thrym and Hanuman are each taking some of the fruit that Cadenza has provided for us. This round Reggie and Cadenza are working on making the Thawzone more defensible and more habitable, with Walls and Gardens and such. If Reggie (+6) can assist Isath in expanding the Living Gate to encompass the Thawzone, that would be great; otherwise he's just going to build more mundane defenses against invading armies (and or/invading Cold). Cadenza (+6) will be using her gardening to help the mortal population of Home flourish and expand into the Thawzone. Meanwhile, the Hunters are making a mortal-scale move to the edges of the Thawzone and beginning The Hunt! Thrym (+12) + Pirsuq (+6) + Hell Hounds (+12) + Wildings (+?, including Chaos Eyes) are all teaming up to try to catch The (Soon-to-be-Re-)Imprisoned's scent. Hanuman himself is waiting to see if Abyaz will take him up on the offer to join The Hunt (hey, that may be a good way for him to find his missing sibling too!) Meanwhile, he is taking one last stab at fixing his Mask; I'm also going to try acquiring the Essence of the other Gods nearby to feed it. I already have Parelle's essence; I figure with Isath, Vendruck, Cadenza, Reggie, and Pirsuq all being here through the Turning of the Age, I should be able to acquire a bit of all of their essences rather easily (especially Isath's, since he leaves a trail of it wherever he goes). As far as fixing the Mask goes: Trickster Spirit (+4) + Inbetween All Realms (+4) = +8 + 2 AP. And finally, with the spectacular display of Godly force to awe the mortals, I'm tapping at least some of our followers devotion (and/or our dead souls' "worship") to refresh my AP. I fed 4AP to TUF from our worshippers earlier; how much is left? I am down 14, so that is the max I'd need; I'll take that or 1/2 of The Family's total AP reserves, whichever is lower.
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Mar 4, 2016 03:18
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Abyaz - Gates of Hell The warmth of the air is as welcome as the sight of the fleshy gate before him is unwelcome, but it is certainly deserving of the name "Gates of Hell"; especially since it now stares back. Whether the magma and light are a standard greeting to guests, Abyaz didn't know, but before he can react a familiar voice calms the wounded gate and greets him, once again, to Hell. Abyaz rubs the bark of the great balloon he's sitting in, "As you can see, Summer's grove is quite bountiful, despite the cold. It has the widest range of greenery I've seen since arriving here, not that that's saying much. As for the hunt: I expected it to have started already; I certainly didn't expect you to be leading it. I heard that you slink away from danger and responsibility equally; yet here you are, about to lead a hunt for... something. Color me intrigued." He briefly considers refusing the hunt, but a glance past the gate is all he needs to make up his mind, as sin and pain practically ooze out past the gate, "Ugh, I see you've wasted no time in trying to recapture the original atmosphere of Hell. I was hoping to do some light work, but working in there would constitute as torture; at least the snow has a certain beauty to it. It seems I have little choice." As he continues speaking, his words lose their usual dismissive tone and carry an unexpected weight. "A hunt for some powerful being in the worst climate I've ever seen; it's refreshing to see such bold actions in times like these. Yes, I'll join the hunt." Abyaz stretches his hand towards Hanuman, awaiting a handshake. "I trust you have a plan for bringing it back?" Abyaz is using Mouth +4 to give Hanuman "Bold": a +2 upshift to Hanuman's next use of his Leader skill. GoldenJoe fucked around with this message at 18:07 on Mar 7, 2016 |
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Mar 7, 2016 18:04
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Hanuman Thawzone AP: 10/24 "I am pleased that you will join us in our Hunt," the Monkey-God replies to Abyaz as he finishes tinkering with his Mask before grasping the other God's hand. "The Land of Summer does indeed seem lovely; perhaps our search shall take us there. For before we can return the Imprisoned to its proper state, we must first find it. Thrym, the Ice Giant, exists to hold prisoners within Hell, and nothing will stop him from recapturing the one who escaped. The Hell Hounds and the Wildings are our trackers to flush it out of hiding, and we have weapons against both the Cold and the Curse of Sloth that our quarry laid upon the world. With these we shall eliminate its foul taint upon the world and the mortals under our protection, quarantining it back in its prison for the rest of Eternity." Presumably Abyaz can be airborne with Pirsuq and the Wildings while Thrym and the Hell Hounds and I scour the surface of the earth (and Beneath it) during out Hunt? Regarding our AP pool, according to the info on page 1, "The Family" have 300K mortal followers in Home + 100K Fomorians in Hell. Puppies' tracking of the number of Fomorians is somewhat hard to follow, however, and I also don't know if the mortals expanding into the Thawzone over the last several turns has increased their number at all (for that matter, the number of Wildings is not mentioned, unless they're included in the regular mortal followers). But assuming these numbers are it, we have 4AP available from mortals, equivalent to what I already gave to TUF before he went and blowed himself (and half of my Hell Hound Pack) up. We also have 400K incorporeal souls (presumably +250K souls I just collected), which gives us only 1-2 AP. So unless these numbers are way off, there's only 1-2 AP available for the entire Pantheon; if that's the case, I will just refresh the full amount that I am able without eating them entirely. Also, Puppies, can you update the traits/population of Hell and Home (and the Thawzone)? Or are you keeping track of it somewhere other than page 1?
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Mar 8, 2016 01:30
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Parelle - Hell, but Workshop Adjacent Gently and without fanfare, Parelle extended her awareness of Hell across the sealed Workshop. What she found was whips, chains, saw toothed gears, and spikes. So many spikes. She could sense it, that the place was drawing energy off from Vendruck somehow and storing it mechanically but divining its purpose or current function would take more obtrusive measures that he would likely notice. As the dwarven beer percolator hissed and chuffed she gave the drink another turn and smiled hopefully. The gun port snapped shut. "Bedevil me not with your libatious bribes, woman! Your puppet master has already given me my marching orders and I'll see him answered!" She waited patiently and added another load of coal to the hopper, letting the yeasty cloud of soot do its own talking. It was truly, objectively awful. Served body temperature warm in steins hewn from raw rock (the sediment taste gave it character!) Parelle had once heard a human brewmaster liken dwarven beer to unfiltered beard squeezings from a vomiting alcoholic. The port was closed but she knew that he must be watching and resigned herself to taking another friendly sip to show that it was harmless. Definitely beard squeezings. "My grievances are none, for I have nothing. No people, no home. No servants. No oath to protect now that Malador is dead and his Hell destroyed." Something in the workshop rumbled, cutting off what may have been a rising monologue. "What I will have is vengeance. And I'll have Hell's last prisoner back if it kills me and everything that stands in my way. Stay out of my way Parelle." VENDRUCK'S WORKSHOP is a +6 PLACE OF MECHANICAL PUNISHMENT!  PARELLE +8 creates DWARVEN BEER for VENDRUCK as a peace offering! Roll was success! VENDRUCK isn't crazy, crazy but he is cuckoo for vengeance-puffs! Abayz, Hanuman - Outside Hell (Thawzone) Seeing the two Gods clasp hands the Living Gate shuddered itself to a halt, deflating visibly as it oozed hot light and bloody lava harmlessly across the grounds of the thawed land instead of a direct explosion skyward. Hanuman grinned toothily as the Sungod's earnest praise warmed him. Of course he would make for a bold and daring leader. He even had a plan! He had an army. He had a tangible threat to all of existence which could serve as a plausible cover for just about any larcenous act or excess if spun right. He had an army of easily manipulated and theoretically loyal Gods to throw at it, and a Abayz watched in some surprise at the doings of Hell's Gods. The brother and sister Gods were bent over clumps of stone and clay, lumping them together and dismissing them seemingly at random. Then it occurred to him what they were doing. The terrestrial Gods were building a bulwark against the cold. In a stodgy, primitive way it made sense. Most of what they had was mud and dirt, and where a powerful celestial God would build something reactive or mobile from light, heat, and flame, the siblings would use their mud to... pile up and get in the Ice's way when it inevitably came. Well whatever good that would do was their business. The massive undertaking of Hanuman's huntsmen was more interesting by far. Combining the efforts of the giant, a living storm, fire-breathing hounds, and a swarm of those annoying little creatures that eyed him strangely, the power and intent of the gathered Hunt was a strange and dangerous thing. It would be folly even for them to repeatedly traverse the world covered by Ice so instead they took a single great action, bending skies, ice, and fate to allow the Hounds the chance to catch the Imprisoned's scent.  They bayed and snapped beneath the grip of the Ice Giant, ready for the hunt. Fixing the mask and combing the bedsheets for Isath-stains are two different actions, but since the fixing action is more important/has stats devoted to it I'll give that one priority. CADENZA's domain involves HEALING, but I guess CONSTRUCTION + HEALING can have some effect like the one you're looking for. HANUMAN (+8, 2 AP) repairs the damage to the TRICKSTER'S MASK +4! Roll was success! ABAYZ and HANUMAN have demonstrated that they are cooperating! LIVING GATE regretfully does not launch the attack it was building up to! ABAYZ+4 creates an upshift (Bold) to the next leadership-related action taken by HANUMAN! Roll was success! CADENZA & REGGIE +12 create a trait for the Thawzone, (Bulwarks of Defense)! Roll was success! THYRM & PIRSUQ & HELLHOUNDS (+30)take the WILDINGS with them to hunt down the trail of the IMPRISONED! Roll was success! The scent of the IMPRISONED has been caught! HELLHOUNDS will be able to track the IMPRISONED until the scent is lost or they are destroyed!
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Mar 14, 2016 21:02
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Parelle Parelle blew on her foam. The wind carried it as a message to Pirsuq. The message was simple. "Stay with your siblings. Guard them. Work with them. I'm going to busy for a while with Vendruck. Listen to Reggie and Cadenza. Be good. I love you." She blew again and power fled from her to the trickster. She almost didn't, but she had a plan. It wasn't a particularly smart one, but she was determined. "We can't leave Hell undefended. Reggie and Cadenza are not fighters, and I need to speak to Vendruck. Pirsuq is needed for defense. In return I give you the last of my remaining power. Use it in good health." Then she drank and threw up in her mouth a little. Part of it was her nerves. She couldn't really turn back now. Most of it was the drink though. Ugh. Maybe she shouldn't have blown that foam to Pirsuq, but it was too late. Honestly this stuff was awful, and what was worse is that somehow the bile didn't make it taste any less foul. She grunted and sipped some more. "I chose to subordinate myself to the trickster because I was making an enormous amount of bad decisions. Too much power too fast and not enough thought. Not only that, but I was good at achieving what I thought were good ends, but were mostly short sighted. I am a paragon of short and mid term gains, but I kept losing on long term solutions over and over again. I don't expect to get in your way, or at least not any longer. I'm fully committed to finding and imprisoning Sin. In fact I've been fine tuning Hell in order to produce peerless mortals who have tasted sin and rejected it. It needs a little more time, but I have plans for them. Inside of Hell I created a new and powerful species of mortals. If the dead souls that earn their way out of Hell would be the tip of my spear, they would be the shaft. Our goals are aligned. Somehow I highly doubt that the Trickster will be able to take on Sin alone. We'll need to work together, or he'll defeat us in detail." She quaffed her beer and her throat and lips began to grow numb. She frowned at it. Were those mushroom chunks at the bottom? Weren't mushrooms supposed to float? "I know you have your grudges. In fact I know that I've wronged you grievously. I did try to save your dwarves, but it didn't work out in the end. As I understand it, this doesn't create a balance at all. There is just the wound that I've done to you. Just the grudge. So here I stand right outside of your chamber of torture and inside my own chamber of torture as we share a beer. I want to sate your need for a grudge, if it can be sated. I want to act rightly, and do right things by those I wronged." She took a deep breath and let it out in an unsteady rush. Vile foam from the beer was puffed off into the dirt. Her heads was swimming. "So we can work together. Maybe I work off my debt to you in boons. Maybe I help you find your reason to live beyond vengeance and find new and worthy oaths to fulfill. Maybe we just get that vengeance together. Maybe I let everyone know I'm going to spend some time with you in here." She looked about at the implements of destruction and gulped. "Maybe I walk in and don't walk out again," she whispered. "I would deserve it. I would let those who are loyal to me know that this would be of my own free will and that they should not oppose you. When I say maybe, I don't say that it is my choice if I do these at all. Not anymore at least. What I mean by maybe is what you decide to do to me." Her eyes flicked down at her beer. Despite how rancid it was, she still finished the last of it in a single gulp. She didn't look up again. She spoke, and her words began to slur, but she momentarily had courage. "Malador thought you were a worthy judge for old Hell. Despite how much I hated what he was, he was necessary. Now that I'm in a similar position I understand more about him than I previously did, though still only just a little. I feel that if I continue down the path that I'm on I might be like him someday if I survive. I need to know if I'm worthy, and to prove myself by deed or by punishment. Maybe both at once. Vendruck, I need to be tested. I need to be judged. I need to make amends. I need to know if I'm strong enough to control new Hell. I need to know that you would destroy me and take my power to hunt down Sin. I need to know that you'll use that power to beat back the ice if I am not good enough. If I am good enough, I need to know that you would stand by me, imprison Sin, beat back the ice and rule Hell as its judge with me as its warden." She quirked a small smile and looked up at him. She felt giddy. No mortal could truly punish her. Hell couldn't truly punish her any more than she let it. No, she needed penance. She needed a judge. She needed Vendruck. "I think I needed that beer," she babbled, and her personal gravitas faded as she did. "Are you supposed to be able to feel your tongue after you drink that stuff?" Parelle is putting herself at Vendruck's mercy of which he has little or none. She wants to make amends with the biggest, angriest, most vengeful god on the block. She wants to be tested. I'm banking just a little on the fact that Parelle made friends with him at a low time and that Hope may have changed him just a bit. She's offering: 1. Boons. Essentially tasks to fulfill if he wanted them. New race? Done. Items? Done. Lands? Done. Influence? Done. 2. Joint ruling of new Hell as a co-equal partnership with her as warden and him as judge. 3. To hunt down Sin. 4. That if he's not satisfied, or the grudge is too great, that he can do what he wishes with her. In an OOC fashion I'm okay with Parelle being killed as always. I could play the triumverate of Pirsuq, Reggie and Cadenza because strangely they all add up to +12 power wise. Or you could find another player I guess if that's what you want. I'd like to keep playing as Parelle, but I figure that having Vendruck 100% on board is a big deal, and should have risks. What Parelle wants: 1. A 100% on board partner to rule new Hell, imprison Sin and beat back the ice. Not someone who's there because he has nowhere else to go, but someone who is going to have her back. Parelle is throwing a ton of favors at him and what could be free shots at her to wounding or death if he's that spiteful. I feel like using powers really wouldn't be appropriate and would be influencing Vendruck unduly. She's not trying to influence him past the beer, which was just to get him to talk to her. She's at his mercy, just like she had him at her mercy after she talked him down in Hell. I figure that's a good way to establish trust. Or get istagibbed. I'm not sure which. Just in case, Reggie, Pirsuq and Cadenza are to stick around and improve the area with Reggie as boss. They'll improve the area and do gruntwork until Parelle either gets back or dies, whichever happens. So Pirsuq isn't going to be part of the hunting party, sorry. However, to make up for his absence and to show her total submission to Vendruck's will and her good will to the trickster's cause, she's going to transfer the last of her AP to Vicissitude. That would be a full 12 AP for his hunt. Go get 'em, Ray. 
Ice Phisherman fucked around with this message at 01:17 on Mar 15, 2016 |
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Mar 15, 2016 01:14
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Wallastra 16/16 AP Wallastra stared out over the precipice of the hole within his city. He had taken to coming here recently, since he used the power to consume the burg at the city gates and looked across his kingdom. The forges had revitalized it's creaking heart, the other burgs were kept away from the path of progress, a road even as he spoke was being laid to one of the nearest cities to connect it to Wallastra. He had gathered around him worthy subordinates with the potential to growth, he had the means to expand his city, he had the power to defend it. He felt so hollow inside that it really didn't leave any room for much else. It was wrong, everything was wrong, it was never meant to turn out like this. The Warbot approached he had been requested by Wallastra. [You wished to see me sir?] "Yes, faithful servant, report to me" [The Hunting Party you have told us to anticipate is on it's way sire] Wallastra nodded "Good, good, you will assist them if you can? I do not expect them to cause issues within the city itself but, be careful" [Yes sir. You will be seeing them I assume?] "No" There was a very long pause in which Wallastra had slowly stood up. [No sir?] "I would like you to see them, I trust you with the defense of the city" [Yes sir, are you planning on another expedition?] "No, this will be something I have to do" [A, solo expedition sire?] "Yes" [But the last time you left the city, you became nearly mortal] Wallatra said nothing [And your bond with the city has become more, emphatic what are you planning to do] Wallastra remained very silent just staring into the depths. And reached a personal decision that had been a long time coming. "I am planning, on just going outside." He said in a cool voice "I may be some time." Wallastra stepped off of the edge, and plunged into the hole. --- Wallastra take the wheel, we aren't going to be using god purviews where we're going. Time to confront that which has been a long time coming. TheNabster fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Mar 15, 2016 |
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Mar 15, 2016 20:30
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Hanuman Departing the Thawzone AP: 22/24 Assuming I got 2 AP from tapping the rest of our worshippers last round -- is that right? As Parelle's Divine strength flows to him, Hanuman is taken off guard by her generous gift, and he wonders if she has finally gone completely insane. It is almost enough for him to voluntarily send Pirsuq back to her -- if only to make sure she doesn't do anything else incredibly risky that could endanger their people. But he still thinks that their cause is best served with Pirsuq at his side. After all, what more could Pirsuq accomplish than any number of the other gods still in HellHome -- to say nothing of the great womb-like gate protecting those ensconced within? He briefly considers undercutting Parelle's efforts and directly bending the sentient ice storm to his will, but with the Hell Hounds baying at their leads, he has more important matters on which to focus his Divine attention. "Your mistress is summoning you, Pirsuq," he declares brusquely. "But of course, you are no longer a servant at the beck and call of the one who created you. No, you are your own being now, with your own creatures made in your likeness. You must decide for yourself where you'd have the most fun -- or where you'd do the most good for all, if that's your thing. But the HellHounds have caught the scent of our quarry, and I need to know now whether you are joining the Hunt or staying behind." And with that, Hanuman and his entourage Depart. Not in the manner of mere mortals, of course, but as only one with his Divine portfolio could accomplish. Following the snarling HellHounds, they set off on the trail of their quarry. Moving all of us (Hanuman, Abyaz, Thrym, the HellHounds, and the Wildings -- as well as Pirsuq if he's still down with The Hunt) to wherever the scent of The Imprisoned is strongest -- presumably that's where it's physically located, but perhaps not. Trickster Spirit +4 to overcome any deceits it has employed to throw us off its trail, Between All Worlds +4 to Travel, HellWarden +2 because even my tenuous connection to the erstwhile Realm of Torment affords me some insight into The Imprisoned's motives and goals and modus operandi, Leader +2 (+2 from Abyaz) to bring everyone else along = +14 +2 AP for what amounts to a Mass Teleport. To where, you ask? Well, the HellHounds +12 are going to be adding to the effort to stay on The Imprisoned's scent, so we end up in the right place. Meanwhile, Thrym +12 is going to be fending off any Ice that threatens us along our path; if Pirsuq +6 is coming too, he can help Thrym out with the protective magics. Meanwhile, the Wildings are going to be collecting any loose souls we encounter along the way and depositing them in my Soul Seal for safekeeping. If they find anything interesting with their Chaos Sight, that would be good to know too, though that's not their main focus. Abyaz can help out with any of the actions I've already laid out, as he sees fit, or tack on his own action if there's some crucial aspect of The Hunt that I've overlooked. Or I guess there's nothing stopping him from pursuing his own agenda as he bums a ride across the planet from me.
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Mar 19, 2016 13:28
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Isath, Hellswamp AP: 15 Isath regarded those departing, its thoughts bubbling through the many appendages it had affixed to the Hellgate. "EXCESS BULK HINDRANCE IN HUNT. MOST ADVANTAGEOUS TO REMAIN BEHIND AND REBUILD HELL, FIND WAY TO FIGHT ICE. SUGGEST LURING IMPRISONED HERE, IF FOUND. ALL OUR COMBINED STRENGTH PROBABLY NECESSARY. NEED TO IMPRISON IT HERE ANYWAY." With that, the Hellgate trembled as Isath shifted its mass, bringing a large portion of its bulk to where Hanuman and his entourage were preparing for their travel. "THIS MIGHT ASSIST IN SCOUTING. SHOULD NOT HURT. BUT SUGGEST TESTING FIRST." Isath's bulk shifted and squirmed. A large pustule filled up with amniotic fluid, bright light shimmering from within. Something was being born - something that looked like an eye. Creating an artifact: Farseeing Eye. A pulsing, brightly luminous blob of flesh that burrows into your eye socket and interfaces directly with your brain to enhance your vision. Using Flesh +6, Light +4, and 2 AP. Giving it to Hanuman for his Hunt.
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Mar 19, 2016 23:17
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Abyaz - With the Hunt Having been given the signal to move out, Abyaz takes to the skies with the Wildings in tow and looks on at the snow below. They hadn't traveled far before one of the Wildings shouts "I found it!" Abyaz looks to see what it is looking at, "I found snow!" The rest of the Wildings erupt in laughter and begin talking over one another, "We aren't looking for snow, we're looking for souls!" "I thought we were looking for fart clouds?" "They're the same thing" "What about the big thing we're looking for?" "He's the biggest fart cloud of them all, the father of all fart clouds." "Oooooh," they all said in unison. They thought on the new information for a few blissful seconds of silence, before another piped up, "Who farted him?" Another cacophony of laughter surrounded Abyaz. Abyaz has never met a single thing as dumb, excitable, and easily distracted, yet still able to talk, as a Wilding; and here he is flying with a group of them. He feels this will be but one thing among many to make him regret coming, but what could he do? Killing or warping them would be too drastic, as they weren't his; but enduring them would drive him mad long before they found their prey. Maybe enticing them into silence would suffice? Abyaz takes a few deep breaths, to calm himself, before speaking in a soothing tone, "You've all done a great job collecting those lost souls, but you must get awfully tired and cold flying, right? I'll reward all of you with a rest on my warm back; but if you want to rest, you must play the silent game: Anyone that speaks will be on soul collecting duty. If all of you, somehow, manage to stay quite, then I'll collect the souls. Does that sound good?" And hey, if they agree to it, maybe a few less will stray and die on the trip. Adding to the "Teleport" spell by transporting the Wildings and myself with [+4] Of the Sun. Even if they all manage to stay quite, I don't think sucking up a few souls along the way will be too much for me.
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Mar 20, 2016 01:41
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