(Inspired by nostalgia for the glorious Sand & Souls. (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=173275.0) So let's just shamelessly copy that and see what we get!)
If it's not clear from that statement, this is an RTD god game. You play as beings with broad powers of creation which are still physical and killable.
Actions use 1d6. You know the deal but if you don't I shall list the results:
1: Poor luck causes your project to disintegrate. Depending on what this project was, this may result in additional collateral damage as everything collapses around you.
2: No progress is made. A different approach may be called for.
3: Something is made, but not good enough. May require refinement or acceptance.
4: Success. A reasonable amount of progress is made, whether this be sufficient or not.
5: Amazing progress. We honestly didn't think you had it in you.
6: As above but the result wields its own will on reality.
Each turn you may use two actions, one Primary and the other Secondary. You may not do two primary actions or two secondary actions in a turn.
Primary: Acting; creation, works, and violence.
Secondary: Sensing, research, diplomacy and command.
EITHER: Traveling.
A turn is around 10 days. Divine beings could easily fight for several turns without stopping, but mere mortals will become exhausted after only a single round of combat.
Mortals and other creatures act on their own, but will often require a Secondary action to be prodded into action.
Certain actions require no roll: observing or examining when there's nothing hidden to be noticed, traveling terrain which you're well-adapted to navigate, or other actions which are trivially easy for you in specific.
For example, a sea creature will have no trouble swimming across the ocean where a terrestrial creature would have more of a challenge.
Actions which challenge another player will be resolved by an opposed roll, with the one who rolls higher coming out on top. This does not require that the targeted player use their Action to defend themselves; in cases where two players mutually attack one another, there will be two separate opposed rolls.
Attacking an Immortal may prompt an automatic and instinctual counter attack unless the recipient specifically suppresses that response.
Cold. Cramped. Frozen.
Even as your body and essence are encased and helpless, your perception is free of bounds and wanders and charts.
The world is comprised of two halves. One is frozen water; ice. In this impossibly cold medium you are frozen. Below is more ice, on and on and more and more ice below.
Above is the air. The sky. On and on and forever more sky above. Yet the sky is dark and blank.
Will this be forever, you wonder. Were you meant to be stuck here, observing the cracks in the ice, gazing at the black sky, forever?
Of course not.
From boundless below, heat trickles, suffuses up and up. Ice melts, churning into infinitely more chaotic streams of water.
Your essence is freed from the cold and quickly spikes into a body, a warm home, a tool of creation. And you float to the top of the chilly sea.
This world is barren and cold, but you hold the means to change that.
Just who are you?
Name: What shall I call you?
Body: What form do you take?
Essence: What power fills you? What spheres drive you?
Purpose: Why are you? What goals will you seek?
(Taking first five-ish sheets. Updates when I have spoons available for updating.)
Tricmagic the Demon
Horizon the ??
Name: Jackel Luvinsky The Hermit King
Body: A creature that looks much like a tall skinny human with the notable exception of having pure white skin and what looks to be a gold crown fused to his noggin. He also wears regal medieval style robes, has black hair, and seems to be missing his right pinky finger for some odd reason.
Essence: Madness
Extra Info/Trivia/Purpose: Jackel is quiet mad suffering from delusions of grandeur and severe schizophrenia, dropped in from a reality that no longer exists he is not aware of his divinity and believes he is the ruler of a powerful kingdom filled with subjects willing to work for his every whim while he sits back and reaps the benefits, when in reality his kingdom is nothing more than a small "castle" and all the actions so far that he contributed to "the effort of his loyal subjects" including the building of his "castle" has actually been him the whole time and he has no subjects to speak of infact as of right now he has no castle either.
(Obligatory song as usual https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vsb4I0NYYYM)
Name: Aum
Body: A three-eyed olm.
Essence: Sleep
Purpose: All shall be well.
Name: Fragment.
Body: A truly colossal crab formed from frost-covered stones.
Essence: Justice.
Purpose: Why is the Sky so empty, when the Land here has so much to share? Why must we live, instead of others? Injustice and inequality shall be sought and smote, for the sake of a better world.
Name: Tim
Body: A plain looking humanpod with hair of brown and demonic spikes in their hair.
Essence: Demons, bonded and fed. Fire, everlasting and unending.
Purpose: Burn.
Burn the water, burn the earth, burn the sky. Let fire fill the horizons, and weather be born from the ash.
Something terrible beneath the waves screams heat and death and chaos everlasting. And yet, some unseen force impedes it. Unlike the other Essences beneath the waves, it cannot effect, nor reach for its cold body drifting lifeless under the unending waves. Only so much Power is allowable in one place, and this world has reached its limit.
So the demonic Essence drifts, unable to touch. Of course, it can watch, and bide its time.
The other Essences see it too. Should any of them fall, Demons would take their place.
[Waitlisted. Please wait patiently to be allowed Agency. This world is yet young, but perhaps ways will come to hasten your freedom...]
Agrok, the first light, the greatest light, the frozen light, the impossible flame, the freezing flame of the ice, the center of the sky, the bright ice, maker of the great flames, lord of all light, builder of the skies, maker of all that goes high create the great star of the world, an enormous flame of blue light high above the ice shining bright, but less so then Agrok, the first light themselves
(Yes, I lengthen my name, yes it is in relation to the current action that hasn't been rolled yet)
The Scribe grumbles at being made to excavate the relevant agency from that sentence, but dutifully marks it down all the same.
[Primary: 5]
The Frozen Flame boils and fumes with Power, which soon erupts in upwards torrents of bright shining. The sky bursts and is illuminated white-cold as the strands curl and twist together into ropes of light which tie and weave again and again into a tight point of impossible brightness.
And all below the Great Star is illuminated in a radius even greater than beneath Agrok itself. All of the immortals imbued with Essence are bathed in its undiminishing light, and so is created the second largest Realm of the world: All The Light Touches. In this area the stark emptiness of the sea is made visible, and the formerly icy waves are heated and made warm, and water evaporates and forms clouds, and weather is driven, and storms grow and roam, raining and sleeting and thundering.
Jackel from his high tower stares outwards at his domain he does not see a dark blank icy expanse but rather a sunny bustling prosperous city where people go about their day to day in happiness all thanks to his efforts, his head starts pounding and the king starts to shiver his mind only able to carry on the strain of such a potent delusion for so long so reluctantly he tears his gaze away from his domain and retreats from his tower back into his throne room a king can not dally after all and their are many matters which need his attention. "Squire summon the council t is timeth a meeting beest did hold on the matters of the kingdom!
Primary Action: Summon The Council they will be the Kings personal advisors they are responsible for matters which the King himself should not have to bother himself with. This includes a Steward, Spymaster, Archbishop, Chancellor, and Marshal. While they will look normal to the King and others who suffer from his same brand of madness this will not be the case for the average mortal or deity.
Secondary Action: Idly admire the throne room while I wait
As Jackel summons his Council, a bright and shiny thing appears outside his windows. He checks outside for a moment and spies the Great Star overhead, glaring annoyingly. Who did this? He shakes his fist at the thing.
[Primary: 2]
He waits patiently for his minions to arrive, but after days, they never do. Where have they gone? Is this treason? Jackel searches his castle top to bottom and yet finds no clues.
[Secondary: no roll]
Exhausted, he collapses on his throne and simply admires the room. Unbeknownst to the king, the castle in its true form becomes that little bit more solid, more stable from his faith and attention. Solid water stabilizes into solid stone and wood and steel whilst imagined artworks instantiate themselves miraculously into objective reality.
Works of gold and silver and unknowable artistry, a delicious buffet for any prospective burglar...
Aum stirs. This light disturbs it. How can one rest when a glittering thing flits across the sky?
It surfaces, bringing with it a mouthful of water, and spits mist into the air.
Aum the Olm blinks at the bright annoyances in the sky. Two of them now. When will it stop?
[Primary: 4]
It gulps up a huge mouthful of water and promptly spews it out into the sky. The droplets diffuse and drift lazily on the breeze, forming a blanket of white mist in the air and shade below.
Though not reduced to the blackness before, a subsection of All The Light Touches is shaded and become notably chillier. These Mistlands might be ideal habitat for those who aren't so enamored with constant brightness. Though the mist already starts to drift and may disappear in time unless maintained somehow.
Logan laughs, a odd and disturbing noise from a mass of black inky tentacles, but don’t let him hear you say that.
Primary Action: Transform nearby environment into my domain, a chaotic mix of different types of landscapes that shift and move constantly. It is populated by newly created servants called Acubi, a human-like species who grow black tentacles with age.
Secondary Action: Research my powers and how they work. What can I do? How can I do this? What am I?
[Primary (VS Fragment): 1 vs 3]
Logan roots his many tentacles into the rocky terrain around him, seeking to terraform it. Yet, the terrain he touches is the Body of an Immortal. It does not submit to his efforts, instead pinching and grinding arms off of him painfully.
Small stone bodies, golem-like drones emerge from the ground and strike out at Logan, too weak to be a real threat but forcing Logan to retreat.
This doesn't seem like a conscious attack from the colossal Immortal. An immune response perhaps? Logan feels that if something attacked his own body, the same might happen on a smaller scale.
[Secondary: 5]
Information streams into Logan's mind immediately in response to his desire. Easy as that.
He and five others are Immortals; semi-divine beings of flesh or matter with a core of pure Concept, a singular Essence. Despite the name, Immortals can be slain through sufficient force to disperse their body or else force their Essence into inactivity. Though deadly, their Essence would live on, awaiting a time and place it can live again, in a new body.
Immortals can drive change innately in the world, though some proximity is required. Anything is possible, though hard things are hard. It's possible for some changes to come into effect unintentionally or unknowingly, as a side effect of ones perception, biases, and uninternalized biases. It's for this reason that creations by Immortals are... inconsistent. Using your Power in precisely the way you intend requires focus and a singular vision. Distraction and hesitation may result in a monster you can't take back easily.
Additionally, an Immortal may cast its perception outwards and observe things at any distance and length. This does require intentional action however. They are not quite omniscient.
Logan's meditations are interrupted by encroaching rain and howling wind. This world is becoming more alive all the time.
Heave. The colossal being stirs into motion, shattering the ice which had formed around it’s frozen shell.
Primary: Fragment casts the shattered remains of the ice upwards, the first step of many to righting the greatest wrong.
Secondary: It walks onwards into the grand nothingness of the sea, the water churning in it’s wake.
The Colossal Crab cracks its limbs and sets to work. A tiny yet powerful being nibbles on its back, and the crab's body replies automatically with tiny defenses, but Justice decides to turn its attention elsewhere for the time being.
[Primary: 2]
Justice reaches back to fling the ice on its back up into the sky, only to discover that its limbs are unable to reach that far back. To be halted by such a trivial limitation...
[Seondary: no roll]
Undeterred, at least nominally, the crab swims off into the sea with no particular destination, spurring great waves behind it which further feed the developing storm system in the realm of All The Light Touches. Warm storms wash over Justice's back, beginning to thaw the frost over the rocks.
*the sounds of panic and trying not to drown while swimming*
Primary: Debby swims towards the nearest shore and drags herself onto it.
Secondary: Look around the shore line and see where I find myself.
A star appears overhead, providing light and illumination. And hope, however faint.
[Primary: 1]
Debby paddles desperately and without coordination and utterly fails to get anywhere other than barely-afloat.
And then a huge wave arrives, stirred by Justice's wake, and Debby is plunged under. Shit, shit shit shit!
[Secondary: 2]
Under the sea, the light of the Great Star is split and fragmented and Debby can't tell up from down. Surrounded by water, she can't breathe!
Without air, the Immortal's terrestrial body expires and all goes black. But a curious spirit clings defiantly to her bones: Not yet! Not yet, there's still time!
Debby's eyes open amid a chaotic storm. It takes more than some seawater to kill an Immortal.
The Boundless Black: Infinite and unilluminated and unexplored.
All The Light Touches: Waves underneath the Great Star, many leagues across. Bright and warm and stormy.
Jackel's Castle: A stone castle rooted atop the sea, kept solid and stable through force of Jackel's godly delirium.
Mistlands: A section of sea blanketed by Aum's white mist. Chilly and shady, but not icy black. The mist is temporary and will eventually disperse.
Justice: The Truly Colossal Immortal itself qualifies as a landmass, floating atop the sea. A rocky and barren landscape occasionally battered by tropical storms.
(OP edited: Added waitlist and rules for no roll actions and vs actions.)
“Ah. A harsher reaction then expected. Perhaps a lighter touch is necessary?”
Primary Action: Rip off one of my many tentacles and pour blood onto a large section of the boundless black, creating a dark and cold shifting landmass of squirming flesh. Home sweet home.
Secondary Action: See if I can draw power from acting more chaotic, will that generate more power for me to use? Secret sneaky way to kill another god? Throw mortals at them
"Oh shit."
Primary: Debby tries to use the water around her to make a ship, fishing boat, crappy rubber dingy, or any other floating thing to keep her from dying.
Secondary: If that fails just keep swimming and maybe try to make a life preserver ring to aid in the swimming.
Drifting lifeless in the water, and yet still aware. Muscles twitch and burn. And then obey. Life without life.
[Primary: 4]
A sheet of Curious material appears below, wraps itself, and dissolved air streams from the water to fill the cavity. The rubber lifeboat rises up and carries Debby with it to the surface. Here there's plenty of light, but not much in the way of land. The Curious Immortal gazes out to the horizon for any salvation... and spies a stone tower rising up from the waves in the distance. A mirage?
"..."
Secondary - Aum fishes Debby from the sea and carries her back to the mistlands.
Primary - Once it has swum to the center of the mistlands, Aum closes its eyes and dreams. It allows these dreams to seep out into the mists, attuning them to its essence.
Aum the Olm pokes its tri-eyed head out of the water, seeing a rather drenched bipedal being in a flimsy boat. Well, surely she would be safer with Aum. It leaps from the water to grab her!
[Secondary (VS Debby): 4 vs 4]
The deer sees the ripple and defends herself, wrestling the sea creature with the surprising strength of a dead body. They wrestle for several minutes before Aum sleepily gets the message and returns to the water.
[Secondary: that's not a secondary!]
(Usually picking something up on your travels would be trivial enough, but this catch would require a little extra effort in the form of a Primary.)
[Primary: 1]
In the center of the Mistlands, Aum is lulled to sleep. It is not peaceful sleep.
Nightmarish phantasms leech from the Immortal's turning and shivering body, drifting upward, not swimming but echoing through the clear water. The white fog above turns black and fell, possessed of sinister intent.
The corrupt vapor condenses into a massive cloud hovering overhead and begins to swirl as a cyclone. As Aum awakes from fitful dreams, but the nightmare doesn't stop, now freed to act on its own. The Mistlands themselves are... working on something?
An inconvenience, surely, but not one that cannot be surmounted. Fragment (Justice? Fragmented Justice? It is unsure.) continues it's ceaseless march.
Secondary Action: Fragment crawls forward, past All The Light Touches, and into The Boundless Black.
Primary Action: Stymied in it's pursuit of Righting The Wrong, Justice takes a moment to correct another that has formed. Rather than cast into uncaring sea, new immortals shall be brought and given a moment's rest upon the shell of Fragment.
[Secondary: no roll]
The Colossal trundles on. Past the known, into the dark. Where no light reaches, and icebergs still float, untouched by whatever Event first melted the ice.
[Primary: 6]
Fragment sees without seeing something hidden. Not just the world, but the Logic of the world. Delicately it bends the wires, redirects the logic, such that-
One errant twitch, and KABLOOEY!
The delicate wires of Logic twist and break under the Colossal's claws, an earth-shattering slip and they're made all frayed and crooked.
Moments later, a being falls onto its shell. But no immortal; this is... a human? Who the hell did a human get here?
Over the following days, more and more begin to show up, coming from... somewhere!? This might continue for some time...
“Ah. A harsher reaction then expected. Perhaps a lighter touch is necessary?”
Primary Action: Rip off one of my many tentacles and pour blood onto a large section of the boundless black, creating a dark and cold shifting landmass of squirming flesh. Home sweet home.
Secondary Action: See if I can draw power from acting more chaotic, will that generate more power for me to use? Secret sneaky way to kill another god? Throw mortals at them
Logan drifts off over the waves, comfortable enough in this pitch black place.
[Primary: 1]
He rips off one of his limbs and drops it. The ichor drifts off over the water. Ouch, fuck.
Maybe he shouldn't have ripped off one of the big ones... he's bleeding now...
[Secondary: no roll]
Nope, you can't.
Jackel sits on his throne in both contemplation and disbelief the pounding in his head slowly returning where could his council have gone? Granted there have been moments where one or two have not arrived when summoned due to them suffering from moments of faintness and as such not able to carry out their duties but for the entire council to not heed a summons is strange indeed is it a conspiracy? Treason? Could that terrible yet oddly familiar orb be the cause of the unexplained absence? Even odder still where are his servants? His guards?!?! Jackel sighs in anguish his headache now reaching a fever point no more must thought be held now is the time for action. "SQUIRE FINDETH ME THE GUARDS ANON MAKETH HASTE!
Primary Action: Summon the guards the defenders of the kingdom and responsible for maintaining law and order throughout the realm less it be reduced to barbarity his personal guards should be around somewhere... right?
Secondary Action: If the guards are successfully summoned have them find the council and bring them to me they must explain their actions and be held accountable! If not go take a walk I shall figure out this matter myself!
[Primary: 3]
The 'Guards' trundle in. Crudely crafted suits of plate with silly googly eyes and sticking out woolen tongues. They stumble about foolishly and jump to attention. Still, the King seems quite satisfied with them.
[Secondary: no roll]
The King shouts for the 'Captain of the Guard', who is gobbling violently on a donut, to go forth and find the council. The 'Captain' salutes, clonking himself in the face with an armored face, and then sprint-stumbles out of the room.
['Guards': 6]
Soon the 'Captain' returns, along with a posse of four other 'Guards'. They have the 'Council' with them! Each of the 'Guards' is wearing a sock puppet representing the Steward, Spymaster, Archbishop, Chancellor, and Marshal.
The sock puppets each bow their heads in unison, begging their king for forgiveness in their previous absence! They were away, uh, at a surprise birthday party for one of the village pigs! The 'Captain' covers its mouth to 'hide' its loud giggling.
"..."
Agrok, the first light, the greatest light, the frozen light, the impossible flame, the freezing flame of the ice, the center of the sky, the bright ice, maker of the great flames, lord of all light, builder of the skies, maker of all that goes high, the brightest light, the infinite glow, the one to which light bows, the omnipresent shine, the lord of mirrors and lenses, the shaper of water and ice
Primary: build from water and ice a throne, where when they sit in it center, their light will be seen from the outside brighter and further.
Secondary: They focus their mind and enhance their brightness, taking their rightful place as outshining their creation.
[Primary: 6]
Agrok the Yeah Yeah Yeah, perhaps emboldened by past displays of competence, casts beams of freezing light down below, instantly hardening a layer of ice. Then this layer rises up, and Agrok sends another volley of beams, printing a throne out of the sea layer by layer.
By the end the throne is glorious... more glorious than Agrok! It shines smugly in the light cast by the Great Star.
"Hello creator. I'm shinier than you, just how it should be. Just watch as all who behold me are dazzled by my elegance and radiance!"
Enraged, Agrok turns within to focus its power. Its perception must be contained, perfect...
[Secondary: 5]
Stumbling about its own mind in search of a solution, it suddenly comes:
DOUBT IS THE ENEMY.
SIMPLY NEVER DOUBT THAT ANYTHING COULD BE BRIGHTER, AND IT WON'T BE.
Renewed, the Impossible Flame blazes incredibly brightly. The water below it boils from the added energy and rises as steam, and the Throne Agrok itself built is sublimating.
The Boundless Black: Infinite and unilluminated and unexplored.
Fragment: The Truly Colossal Immortal itself qualifies as a landmass, floating atop the sea. A rocky and barren landscape beneath a starless sky.
Humans: Extremely lost interdimensional travelers, brought here by a glitch in reality. They currently wish they had light, food, and drinking water.
All The Light Touches: Waves underneath the Great Star, many leagues across. Bright and warm and stormy.
The Throne: A great sentient throne of ice. Its beauty and grace are as yet unmatched in the world, and it knows it!
Jackel's Castle: A stone castle rooted atop the sea, kept solid and stable through force of Jackel's godly delirium.
'Guards': A small force of delirious constructs, consisting of googly eyes and poorly made plate armor. Comically incompetent.
'Council': Sockpuppets of the King's Steward, Spymaster, Archbishop, Chancellor, and Marshal. In the pocket of the 'Captain of the Guard'. Literally.
Mistlands: A section of sea blanketed by Aum's mist, blackened by nightmares. Dark and dreary, a distinctly menacing aura can be felt here. The dark cloud above is preparing something...
Secondary: use my awesome powers of bleeding tentacle persuasion to convince the humans to stick with me.
Primary: Say fuck it and just create my land of chaos in the mistlands
[Secondary: 2]
Under the emerging light of the Great Star, Logan shows himself before the gathering communities of displaced humans. He travels between each of the groups where they are setting up the best shelters they can from the stone and ice. Most of the communities form near the coast where they hope to fish in the sea, though to no success just yet.
His attempts at persuasion meet little success. He can sense the skepticism, the outright mistrust. Mainly they remain tightly grouped and quiet, but a few let slip that trusting sus beings like Logan is how they wound up in such a situation in the first place.
[Primary: No Roll]
(Gonna say you'll at least have to go there before you start terraforming, so this Primary will instead be used for traveling.)
Having thus far stayed close to Fragment's shell, Logan sees the dark cloud out on the horizon and starts to slither off to sea, wriggling awkwardly yet gracefully through the waves. When he arrives at the Mistlands, he finds it a strange place... An odd winged creature dives at him, its mind mad with rage, only to be grabbed out the the air and eviscerated. Logan attempts to sip the creature's blood but the corpse seep into the fog leaving nothing.
Aum attempts to wrench its mind from the nightmares and dream of its purpose instead. All shall be well and all shall be well and all shall be well...
It coughs up a pearl filled with these dreams, to ward off the malign power surrounding it.
[Primary: 3]
An orb of comfort, of assurance. Nightmares swirl around it, threatening, yet unable to snuff out that light. That tiny light. But a candle lit in the abyss.
[Dark Cloud: 3]
Strange beings descend from the clouds. Their forms poorly defined and inconsistent, but always flapping about on frightful veiny wings. A few dive, screaming, to attack Aum and seize its orb, but the weak creatures are easily dispatched by tail slaps and dreams of death, dissolving back into the nightmare except where they're trapped by the orb's light. There, unable to escape, they lie broken and the light of the pearl devours them, its candle-flame growing nigh imperceptibly stronger for it.
Fragment hears the cries of the beings it has inadvertently brought here, and ponders.
Secondary Action: ...Perhaps it was too hasty about this whole "Light" idea. After all, does the star not give presence to that which had none? Return to All The Light Touches, for the sake of the creatures which now inhabit me.
Primary Action: The flesh of an Immortal, willingly shed, is a powerful thing. Cut into form a shoal of fish from the severed limb of the foolish one, then breathe life to them with one's own blood. This swarm, following in it's creator's wake, will feed the many.
[Secondary: no roll]
Light returns, bringing with it heat, and the melting of the frost. Yet, the realm of light also brings with it huge storms and lightning. The humans find shelter among gaps between the massive stone plates of the Colossus's shell, but they lack any other sort of building material besides whatever they brought with them. Many humans opt to sacrifice their clothing to use the cloth as a material to somewhat insulate their makeshift dwellings among the rocks.
Fragment takes care to stay near the outer ring of All The Light Touches, for near the center the light is bright and incinerating from Agrok's quite unmatched luminescence, which would be unhealthy for organic non-immortals to be around.
[Primary: 5]
Seeing the limb in question wriggling in the sea, Fragment fishes it out gingerly and tinkers with it while journeying into the light. The thing nearly managed to slip away and escape, and already features several "buds" growing on it. Would it have grown into an entire new chaos spawn if left to fester?
It may never be known. The flesh is carved apart into even sections, left to rise, divided again, molded and bathed in Fragment's lifeblood, divided again, and finally released to the sea to rehydrate.
The resulting shoal is watched closely for any form of defect, considering the... questionable providence provided by the base material. And yet, the tiny protofish perform admirably. They grow quickly even in a sea devoid of nourishment and, before growing too large, split apart into two equal fish. Naturally, they quickly multiply and fill the coastal area. As the fish grow and split and grow and split, some slight variance can be noticed. Perhaps they will evolve or speciate given enough time.
While protofish are not predatory, instead just growing and multiplying from residual essential energy, they are attracted towards scraps of flesh floating in the water. This serves the purpose of keeping the water clear of detritus from dead fish or other creatures.
It also helps the Humans to fish them more easily, as once one protofish is caught and gutted its flesh can be used as bait to attract more. Those settlements near the coast flourish, or at least are glad to not be starving. Groups which gathered higher up and away from the coasts soon catch word and begin to migrate to where the food is. Thankfully, there's enough protofish available for all humans to eat, at least for now.
"You dare proclaim yourself greater then me, your creator, you do not deserve to be a herald to my light but a marker for my strength"
Agrok
Primary action: melt parts and disform the throne until it glows is reduced
Secondary action: survey the are under the sun, look for land
"..."
[Primary: 6]
Boiling bolts of magnificence scream geometrically from Agrok, selectively annihilating parts of The Throne, destroying a beautiful thing. I hope you're happy.
Especially because those beams immediately escape Agrok's grasp, darting about the world at light-speed intent to destroy anything beautiful they come across. Oddly, none of them attack the Immortals.
As for the Throne, it now resembles nothing more than a gargantuan mound of ice. Any trace of worksgodship or inner power is gone, leaving something which strongly resembles a natural formation which some foolish mortal might be awe-struck by, declaring it a throne fit for a god. But it's not.
[Secondary: no roll]
The world remains empty, devoid of land masses except for those listed in the chronicle below. At least now you know that for sure!
"Oh thank god I made a boat."
Primary: Debby searches the dingy for anything use full and an oar, if she can't find an oar she'll use some water to make one.
Secondary: Then with or without an oar she starts paddling towards those towers.
[Primary: no roll]
There's nothing around to use. Absolutely nothing but water and water and water on the open sea for what might just be infinity around her. But Debby quickly finds that she can shape that water very easily and obtains an oar made from solidified water. Something so simple is easily within grasp.
[Secondary: no roll]
Armed with an appropriate implement which is itself a thing of the waves, Debby makes good time sailing to her destination, merely taking a few days of light work to arrive at the strange structure. Not that days have much meaning here in All The Light Touches, where the Great Star burns, well, night and day.
When she arrives she finds no land, just the castle jutting oddly out of the sea, not moving with its waves and currents. She docks her boat at the gate, securing it with a rope of woven water, and steps inside. An odd metallic creature with googly eyes salutes her and lets her inside in a mockery of security.
Soon she finds herself in a great dining hall filled with more of those armored creatures, some of them holding little sock puppets. They're all pretending to eat the food arrayed on the table, which is just row after row of uncooked hot dogs without buns. At the head of the table is a stranger creature still. A man with completely marble white skin dressed in rich robes. The golden crown upon his head is... fused into his skull.
Debby feels an odd aura of dreamlike wonder, as if anything could happen. And perhaps it shall. Still, such a creature as this is surely very powerful, best to proceed with some caution.
Jackel stares silently at his 'council' for a brief moment before letting out a sigh of relief "Hmm Has't thee all lost weight? Regardless thanketh the heavens i wast afraid something t'rrible hast hath happened! as thy rightful rul'r i decree yond thee all art f'rgiven aft'r all i und'rstand the imp'rtance of hoyday birthday parties but next timeth doth not leaveth me out of t! Concluded, be it in celebration of thy returneth i decree t is timeth f'r a feast bef're resuming n'rmal duties! All hail the king! ...Oh right almost f'rgot guards thou art cashiered backeth to thy posts thanketh thee f'r thy s'rvice!"
Primary Action: Summon the cooks and servants to make preparation for the feast! All this thinking has me mighty famished and what better way to celebrate the councils return then a good meal!
Secondary Action: The council and I shall head to the Great Hall a feast of legendary proportions shall soon be upon us!
[Primary: 3]
Plans are set and measured. Ingredients gathered. The invisible hands of the Castle set to work, building, gathering, cooking. After a week of toil, the feast is ready.
[Secondary: you don't really even need an action to go somewhere inside your own castle you know these turns are like a week right]
The food isn't even that good, but the gossip is legendary. All of the guards and the council and some extra unimportant characters gather together and eat and talk and be merry and most importantly enjoy the grace of the King.
Then Jackel sees something unusual. Someone he hasn't seen before. A woman with the head of a deer and wearing odd, alien clothes and jewelry of metal.
Even his addled mind can detect something different about this character, which might be the fact that she's a god or maybe just that she's not a figment of his imagination. Either way it might be best to approach this situation with care.
The Boundless Black: Infinite and unilluminated and unexplored.
All The Light Touches: Waves underneath the Great Star, many leagues across. Bright and warm and stormy.
Magnificent Raiders: Beams of enraged geometric light which dart about like sprites in the sky and hunt for works of beauty to destroy.
The Throne: A tremendous mound of ice, a glacier resembling a natural formation, if a majestic one.
Jackel's Castle: A stone castle rooted atop the sea, kept solid and stable through force of Jackel's godly delirium.
'Guards': A small force of delirious constructs, consisting of googly eyes and poorly made plate armor. Comically incompetent.
'Council': Sockpuppets of the King's Steward, Spymaster, Archbishop, Chancellor, and Marshal. In the pocket of the 'Captain of the Guard'. Literally.
Mistlands: A section of sea blanketed by Aum's mist, blackened by nightmares. Dark and dreary, a distinctly menacing aura can be felt here.
Dark Cloud: The swirling mass of malevolence seems to have a mind of its own, acting to secure and expand its territory.
Nightmare Imps: Flapping nightmares which dive and attack. They seem relatively weak, but can slip into and out of the mist with ease.
☼Orb of Comfort☼: Comforting thoughts and dreams suffuse this pearl, and ward off nightmarish influence in a small area.
Fragment: The Truly Colossal Immortal itself qualifies as a landmass, floating atop the sea. A rocky and barren landscape beneath a starless sky.
Humans: Extremely lost interdimensional travelers, brought here by a glitch in reality. Coastal fishers who huddle amongst the stones for shelter when storms arrive.
Protofish: Small boney fish created from Logan's flesh and Fragment's blood. Multiply rapidly, even without food. Also eat carrion. May be evolving due to rapid growth rate.
The sun will be a glorious body.
Led there by firelight!
[Let it ignite; behold its glory: No Roll]
A spark drifts over the dark sky. With untold fury it grows and grows and rises and rises. Bursting with Glory it enflames the very sky, filling it with a terrible sight. A terrific sight.
The burning eye gazes down on the world. There is nothing it doesn't see.
Perhaps it was always meant to be. The sun os a glorious body, beyond any which existed before, or shall ever exist. The latent potential was there already, an endless sea of solar power just waiting to burst through.
The word. Sun. Constant. Here. Everywhere.
Soon the sun drifts over the infinite horizon, casting the vast majority of the endless world into darkness. Soon it shall return in its endless cycle of day and night.
[Chronicle update: The Boundless Black renamed to The Unknown. These lands are introduced to the cycle of night and day.]
Aum dives beneath the waves, so that the water above it might act as a buffer against the imps.
It feeds the pearl more of its dreams.
[Secondary: No Roll]
Below is only more sea. Deepest. An abyss far from any light.
A bulwark guarding rest.
[Primary: 2]
The Pearl turns slowly with an inner warmth. It's growing on its own timescale, becoming mightier moment by moment.
This world will last forever. Everness in width and depth and height and longness. If the pearl survives, it will eventually become infinitely mighty and hatch into its own boundless world.
But for now, it drifts contently in the dark, growing slowly and surely.
[Chronicle update: Orb of Comfort properties clarified.]
[Mist: 1]
A seed falls from the clouds. A... gleaming and strange thing. It burrows deep into the water.
A forest sprouts above Aum's head, complete with a layer of dirt over the abyss of sea. Whatever lies within, Aum cannot see. Which is unusual!
[Chronicle update: Mistlands have changed drastically. Deep of Dreams added.]
Agrok, jerk with overly long name
Primary action: Make upon the throne the blue plant, a large plant which expand it's root system around the throne as it grows.
Secondary action: look at the humans on the back of Fragment, see their thought and action relating tho the star and Me.
Primary Action: Create a seed of divine chaotic power and plant it and water it with blood. It shall grow into a godly plant that spreads my influence and will across the land until all bow to me, sooner or later.
Secondary Action: Try again with the humans. Promise them riches, power and divinity if they bend to my will and worship me.
[Synchrony: 1]
[Alert! Auto-Synchrony critical failure results in increased risk.]
[Agrok Primary: 5 1]
[Logan Primary: 4 4]
A shower of seeds from above soon transforms All The Light Touches. The bountiful orderly light from the Great Star spurs rapid growth. Unexpected growth, whose success even transforms the water below into nurturing soil. The three strains of flora battle with one another furiously, drawing lines in the dirt.
The first of them is a black vine of discordant chaos. It spreads rapidly bringing with it the fruits of its master's will.
The second is a voracious blue vine of chaotic dissonance, much to the annoyance of its creator.
The last strain are tall impervious pines, sprouting up among the mists. Their pollen sparkles and shines and, by some blasphemous effect, Immortal vision cannot penetrate the forest. Whatever lies within will have to be investigated manually.
[Chronicle update: The Tangle and The Briar are created and quickly conquer the available space in All The Light Touches. The Throne, Jackel's Castle and Fragment are enveloped.]
[Agrok Secondary: no roll]
Looking into the minds of the "humans", Agrok discovers that they are mainly concerned with sex, petty tribal politics, and staying alive, in that order. They do seem somewhat annoyed that the Great Star does not bend to their diurnal biology, being lit at all times, day and night. They seem vaguely aware of the emergence of The Sun, but locally the Great Star's brightness is greater, and The Sun appears to be a single traveling star.
Oh, and they think less of Agrok itself, seeing as their landmass keeps a fairly safe distance from that loose cannon.
[Logan Secondary: see below :^)]
Jackel gives her a look of pity Thou art s'rious... I pity thee madam f'r clearly thee has't hath lost thy marbles! Oth'r than the garden fountain and some nearby ponds th're is not a corse of wat'r f'r miles! GUARDS! Prithee giveth this mistress a toureth of our quite quaint city p'rhaps seeing the sights shall maketh h'r cometh to h'r senses?
Primary action: The notion that an ocean is right outside my castle is absurd my kingdom stretches onwards for miles! Cobbled streets! Bustling marketplaces! Rowdy Taverns! Greenery as far as the eye can see! Clearly, this strange lady simply needs some fresh air to clear her head of such absurd notions and see the truth before her eyes. (If it aint clear im making the city capital surrounding my castle)
Secondary Action: You know talking to this strange deer mask lady has gotten me in a pondering mood maybe I should hire a cartographer to make some type of... map of my kingdom of course there isn't an ocean right outside but maybe there is a massive river nearby that I missed? She does look a bit... drenched after all.
[Primary (vs The Tangle): 5 vs 3]
[Tangle attacks (vs Jackel): 1 vs 5]
The rotten vines encroach rapidly around Jackel's castle. They nearly begin to crawl ruinously up the brickwork before, perhaps subconsciously, perhaps unwittingly, the Mad King retaliates.
The vines and their attendant soil BOIL, rent into glowing waste by Jackel's delirium. Bits and shards congeal and assemble themselves, burning and forming new compounds. A sturdy clay, cobblestones, planks and roofs and stalls and cobbles and planks and nails and clay and straw.
The new terrain stands mighty and imposing. And empty. Like a play set before the audience arrives.
[Secondary: no roll]
Of course Jackel has a cartographer already! What kind of king would he be if he didn't? The cartographer proudly hands Jackel a detailed map of the city, and another of his entire domain.
...Oddly, the domain seems a bit limited. And surrounded on every side by angry vines? Perhaps it is time for a nice war of conquest. Vines shouldn't be allowed to own countries!
[Chronicle update: Logan's Castle is now Logan's Domain. Surrounded by the Tangle, but not over-run.]
"I'd like that I always like seeing new things, as long as those new things aren't related to water."
Primary: Go with the guards for the tour and see the sights, if there is no town to tour and they throw me back in to the ocean swim back to my dingy.
[Primary: no roll]
The odd metal guards happily escort you out (in the friendly way, not the hostile way) and you see the outside of the castle again. You'd only spent a couple days inside, but things have changed a lot! Or did you just imagine it...?
Your boat lies halfway buried in the soil. It looks a bit dejected, but keeps its spirits up.
You take some time to explore the town itself. The wind whistles disquietingly past empty houses, but the guards put up an amusing show with hand puppets of villagers walking past. In the inns and shops they set up more complex life sized puppets behind the counters, offering you booze and goods for gold.
You think for a moment, and then hold out your hand and allow a pile of coins to fall into it. It seems money won't be an issue.
Past the edges of the town, a huge mass of seemingly invasive black vines crowd the horizon. Guess you'll have to fight past those if you intend to leave.
Having achieved a most fortuitous outcome from it's actions, Fragment takes a moment to deal with the interloper who has done naught but harass it since the beginning of Time.
Primary Action: Snip that damned Seed that shall turn the many views into one if left untouched.
Secondary Action: Remind the creatures that live upon me that consigning their soul away to a a creature of death and madness for comfort is a very permanent solution to what I will soon make a temporary problem./b]
Horrible black vines spread quickly, faster than Fragment can evade them. It seems a confrontation is inevitable.
...Instead, the Protofish recognize their own flesh, an odd melding occurs. The swarms of fish keep the plants at bay, nibbling and changing in their own ways as they absorb the allsame essence of the vines.
[Chronicle: Fragment is not enveloped by the Tangle. Leaf Fish are created. Protofish are out-competed and will die out.]
At the end of its patience, Fragment reaches out with a gargantuan claw to snip Logan's immortal life short.
And welcome the flame.
[Primary (vs Logan): 2 vs 5]
The claws snip shut. The Seed disappears.
Perhaps a day passes before Fragment bellows in pain. Hairlike strands burrow through its body, drinking greedily. A parasite. No, a decomposer.
[Warning! Condition is critical! Continued damage will result in termination!]
[Diplomacy (vs Logan): 4 vs 4]
The humans pay close attention. Around half lean towards supporting the more benevolent of the gods, the other half suspect that Logan will successfully kill Fragment and favor the winning side.
Neither tribe seem inclined to fight a god or one another, though. Survival is too difficult to allow for war. As such support mainly takes the form of empty words, thoughts and prayers.
The Unknown: Infinite and unexplored. Beyond the light of the Great Star, the days are bright and the nights dark.
All The Light Touches: Waves underneath the Great Star, many leagues across. Bright and warm and stormy.
Magnificent Raiders: Beams of enraged geometric light which dart about like sprites in the sky and hunt for works of beauty to destroy.
Mistlands: A dark forest of pines. The mist here sparkles with odd pollen, and the contents of the forest are unknown until some immortal goes and investigates!
Deep of Dreams: A dark and restful sea lies below the soil of the Mistlands, warmed by the gently faint light of the Orb of Comfort.
☼Orb of Comfort☼: Comforting thoughts and dreams suffuse this pearl, and ward off nightmarish influence in a small area. After maturing for an infinite period of time, it will become mature enough to hatch and birth a new world.
The Tangle: A huge mass of discordantly chaotic black vines. Their fruit are the will of Logan the Last, whatever that means.
Jackel's Domain: A bustling (and empty) capital city with a keep in the middle. Surrounded by the Tangle, but the vines dare not encroach.
'Guards': A small force of delirious constructs, consisting of googly eyes and poorly made plate armor. Comically incompetent.
'Council': Sockpuppets of the King's Steward, Spymaster, Archbishop, Chancellor, and Marshal. In the pocket of the 'Captain of the Guard'. Literally.
The Briar: An extensive pile of chaotically discordant blue vines. They sprout fruits filled with defiance of Agrok, whatever that means.
The Throne: A tremendous mound of ice, a glacier resembling a natural formation, if a majestic one. Overrun by the Briar.
Fragment: The Truly Colossal Immortal itself qualifies as a landmass, floating atop the sea. A rocky and barren landscape beneath an annoyingly bright sky.
Humans: Extremely lost interdimensional travelers, brought here by a glitch in reality. Coastal fishers who huddle amongst the stones for shelter when storms arrive.
Protofish: Small boney fish created from Logan's flesh and Fragment's blood. Multiply rapidly, even without food. Also eat carrion. Being out-competed by Leaf Fish.
Leaf Fish: Evolved subspecies of Protofish. From consuming the Tangle, they gain the ability to laze about the surface and absorb solar or stellar energy. Cannot multiply without light.
On one hand, chaos can be fun, and I think the creative mishaps you've been inflicting on us serve an important purpose. I wouldn't be enjoying this game nearly as much without them.
On the other hand, there's a lot of weight resting on the assumption that taking an action will increase your odds of achieving a certain result, and the standard RTD ruleset doesn't always play nice with it. Four of the six possible outcomes could plausibly be considered "successes," but depending on how they're interpreted, sixes can cause problems and threes barely count. So it often feels like there's a 1/3 chance of getting what you want, a 1/3 chance of making matters worse, and a 1/3 chance of doing nothing. At best you can poke a situation repeatedly and hope it settles into an equilibrium you like.
The end result is what you see here. Participating makes interesting things happen, so we're all happy to be along for the ride - but there isn't much reason to formulate or pursue goals. So when determining how to do action resolution, you end up with a tradeoff between wacky chaotic antics and strategic planning.
Personally, I think that chaos has diminishing returns and the potential for strategy is very shiny. So I would take some marginal strategic planning. But your mileage may vary.