AGARTHAThis is an RTD god game. You play as beings with broad powers of creation which are still physical and killable.
It's also a new iteration of Sand & Souls (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=173275.msg7931038#msg7931038), a half-baked minimalist RTD I ran several years ago. Egan recently renewed my interest in the concept by plagiarizing it (http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=181309.0), and I've decided to retaliate by plagiarizing them right back. Egan, if you're reading this, the correct countermove is to update Driftwould.
Turns will happen approximately once a day, but not any later than 1:00 AM CST because my sleep schedule is bad enough to begin with.
In every direction, there is earth.
But your perception extends far beyond the place where your body is entombed, and you can tell that there are variations. Soil, with its familiar crumbly texture. Stones of many different kinds. Mud, in regions where there's enough groundwater to moisten it, often accompanied by clay and silt. Precious gems, metallic ores, dry sand, magma that glows red-hot with sourceless heat. And seams filled with rubble, each produced by a stirring of the vast tectonic forces which shape this place.
Those forces are converging now, in a way that unsettles your dreams and makes the earth around you creak with tension. Soon the firmament will split open, and your eons-long slumber will finally come to an end.
What is your name?
What form do you take?
What essence defines you?
What is you purpose?
You are also encouraged to include your first action.
Most actions will be resolved by a d6. I take context into account when interpreting the results, but in situations that are especially conducive to success or failure, I may also break out the circumstance modifiers. These influence the outcome rather than the roll itself, so a 5+1 won't be an overshot. Trivial actions require no roll.
Damage to player characters is represented by Harm. This is an abstract measure, and should really be treated as a representation of my decision-process as it relates to character death rather than an HP bar, but generally one injury results in one point of Harm. Three Harm and you're dead.
Harm can be reduced by resting, eating, tending to your wounds, or performing other self-care activities appropriate to your character concept.
Places:
The Knifelands: A ring of caves where sharp crystals protrude from every gap in the earth.
The Mountainhome: An unoccupied dwarven fortress built around Bastet's first resting place.
Beings:
The Watcher: A jade eye which detects surfeits of order and chaos, first of its kind.
Players:
Harm: 0/3
Form: Catgirl or cat.
Essence: Capriciousness and conceit, maternity and protection, sensuality and lust.
Purpose: To give birth to, watch over, and protect those who shall move upon Creation.
Harm: 0/3
Form: A short creature fond of drink and industry. They take no particular gender but have a long beard with the color and consistency of stone.
Essence: Greed and industry, yet also comfort.
Purpose: To mine and acquire all of worth there is.
Harm: 0/3
Cursed Gemstone
Form: A female humanoid with the head of a deer, that's wearing casual clothing, a pair of sunglasses, and a wide brimmed hat.
Essence: Curiosity and inventiveness.
Purpose: To discover and invent things.
Harm: 0/3
Form: A Shifting mass of meat ooze.
Essence: Chaos
Purpose Purposelessness
Harm: 0/3
Form: The boundary between cessation and continuous creation.
Essence: Endings.
Purpose: To enable endings and perpetuate the possibility of endings. To make endings beautiful and smooth. To weaken direct legacies and strengthen indirect legacies.
Harm: 1/3
Form: A man with golden hair, eyes that shine like the sun, and white feathered wings, surrounded by an aura of blinding light.
Essence: Justice and divine retribution, glory and triumph, warmth and burning.
Purpose: To punish the wicked, to burn the darkness away and destroy all evil. To inspire others to fight against that which is vile.
What is your name?
Bastet
What form do you take?
Either a dominant and capricious, nude catgirl with black ankle-length hair and short, black, velvety fur on her ears and three tails, violet eyes, a stunningly seductive body which glows with a soft violet light when in low light, and a violet jewel in her forehead.
-or-
A more demure and comely version of the above with only one tail, no forehead jewel, and no glow, that also wears clothing.
-or-
A female cat with short, black, velvety fur, three tails, violet eyes, and a violet jewel in her forehead, whose body glows with a soft violet light when in low light.
-or-
As the above, but with only one tail, no forehead jewel, and no glowing.
depending on whim.
What essence defines you?
Capriciousness and conceit, maternity and protection, sensuality and lust.
What is you purpose?
To give birth to, watch over, and protect those who shall move upon Creation.
As there are, as of yet, no other gods, Bastet rests in her first form.
What is your name?
Hezerhekahaithoth.
What form do you take?
The boundary between cessation and continuous creation.
What essence defines you?
There is a point at which something ceases. A fire is quenched. A being breathes their last. A sketch is lacquered. The end, arrives. This is not good. This is not evil. This is an inevitability.
Perfect perpetuity must never exist. It would be wrong to the utmost.
A beautiful end is the highest form of order.
What is your purpose?
To enable endings and perpetuate the possibility of endings. To make endings beautiful and smooth. To weaken direct legacies and strengthen indirect legacies.
Hezerhekahaithoth begins to bring an end to the primordial chaos, projecting stillness from a generated crystal of void.
What is your name?
The Herald
What form do you take?
I am a shining beacon, a light that blinds those that try to comprehend my form but in truth I am a man with golden hair and eyes that shine like the sun's. I have wide white feathered wings that spread from my back.
What essence defines you?
Justice and divine retribution, glory and triumph, warmth and burning.
What is your purpose?
To punish the wicked, to burn the darkness away and destroy all evil. To inspire others to fight against that which is vile.
Pour in from the dark cracks and bathe all in holy light.
Bastet is shocked awake by Uristos's arrival. She breifly considers him, but then comes to a shocking conclusion as she stares at the barren cavern.
"What will my children eat?", she asks, looking around...
What is your name?
Bastet
What form do you take?
Either a dominant and capricious, nude catgirl with black ankle-length hair and short, black, velvety fur on her ears and three tails, violet eyes, a stunningly seductive body which glows with a soft violet light when in low light, and a violet jewel in her forehead.
-or-
A more demure and comely version of the above with only one tail, no forehead jewel, and no glow, that also wears clothing.
-or-
A female cat with short, black, velvety fur, three tails, violet eyes, and a violet jewel in her forehead, whose body glows with a soft violet light when in low light.
-or-
As the above, but with only one tail, no forehead jewel, and no glowing.
depending on whim.
What essence defines you?
Capriciousness and conceit, maternity and protection, sensuality and lust.
What is you purpose?
To give birth to, watch over, and protect those who shall move upon Creation.
What is your name?
The Herald
What form do you take?
I am a shining beacon, a light that blinds those that try to comprehend my form but in truth I am a man with golden hair and eyes that shine like the sun's. I have wide white feathered wings that spread from my back.
What essence defines you?
Justice and divine retribution, glory and triumph, warmth and burning.
What is your purpose?
To punish the wicked, to burn the darkness away and destroy all evil. To inspire others to fight against that which is vile.
"Ah to bleed, and from my blood I shall grant thee a new life."
Pluck the three shards from my arm, infusing each with light and the power of my divine blood to create three beings of crystalline light; the Guardians.
If this is still active:
What is your name?
Athranosa
What form do you take?
A jet-black gooey serpentine creature with two hands. Seems to be wearing a white hard head with eyeholes.
What essence defines you?
Trickery and nature
What is your purpose?
To help things adapt to growing circumstances