Stewards of an Ailing SUN: Arrival
For years, the
SUN has been declining. It's been declining for far longer than that, the wags will say; anyone who's ever witnessed a sunset can attest to that. Unfortunately, it isn't quite so simple here, and it's becoming clear that the
SUN's birth-sojourn through the hungry void has taken a heavy toll on its magnificent carriage. Where once it burned bright and seared and sealed away all impossibilities, it now has barely enough vigor to shine half of the time. But now, for the first time in its unending journey, there is hope. The
SUN's rays have revealed a featureless ball of rock floating in the void. Both a sanctuary and a playground for the
SUN's attendants, it is finally time for something suitably interesting to happen.
ActsDivine actsActs are needed for most actions that don't boil down to talking with messengers or other Stewards on the
SUN. They don't generally carry over to the next turn unless otherwise specified, and it generally takes more to destroy something than it does to create it. Some actions can be gradually completed over several turns, and some must be completed on the turn they're started; check the costs for details. Certain large actions like large-scale worldscaping or life creation will get harder over time. Many actions are cheaper or more effective if performed within one's THRONE's dominion.
Faulty acts can be used for essentially anything a normal act would be used for, but the results may fall somewhat short of the intent or even backfire. This chance is reduced when faulty acts are diluted with normal acts.
Sources:
- Stipend for having placed a THRONE: 1 act
- Paths: 0-2 acts
- 0-1 criteria satisfied*: 0 acts
- 2 criteria satisfied: 1 faulty act
- 3 criteria satisfied: 1 act
- 4+ criteria satisfied: 2 acts
- Essence act: 1 collective act per flavor of essence
* Only one Path can contribute acts at any given time.
Council proposals and counterproposalsCouncil proposals/counterproposals are (untested, experimental) used when making proposals or counterproposals on Council turns. Each Steward gets 2 of each on each Council turn, and as with divine acts, they don't carry over. Talking or voting on Council resolutions doesn't consume any Council acts. Leaving a Council meeting costs a proposal, not that that generally matters if the intent is to avoid having to deal with it in the first place. Because leaving a meeting is an option at all, those who stay in a meeting but aren't explicitly in favor of a given resolution are assumed to be against it to hurry things along and simplify vote tallying.
Council resolutions can change most any rule (including Council rules or the
SUN's LAWs), but for now, here is what a proposal needs to pass:
- Someone present to spend a Council act on proposing the resolution.
- An active Council turn, i.e. at least half of the Stewards are currently in attendance.
- Support from a majority of present Stewards, i.e. more than half of the present Stewards support the resolution.
As with divine acts, each flavor of essence with at least two present members receives one collective Council act. It can be spent to propose a resolution backed by a majority of the flavor's members or to have all of the flavor's members exit the current Council meeting. Two essence actions can be spent to end a Council meeting early. Three essence actions are theoretically indistinguishable from a normal majority and don't do anything particularly special.
TurnsBy default, there will be up to one Council turn for every five normal turns. Divine acts are unusable (and not awarded anyway) during a Council turn. If fewer than half of all active Stewards are present on a Council turn, it'll be outright skipped in favor of another five normal turns. The first turn will be a mandatory Council turn and a Session 0 of sorts.
Costs (very much under construction)CreationAssorted wild animals: 1 act
Near-domestic animals: 2 acts
Up to 3 petty messengers (1 acts): If a Steward only needs to send a yes/no answer, a petty messenger will suffice.
Lesser messenger (2 acts): Sometimes a Steward just needs to send a quick message to some mortals without too much fanfare or too many fear-nots.
Messenger (5 acts): Other times, a Steward needs to send something more than just a message whether it's a blessing or a curse to hard-hearted mortals with armies.
Greater Messenger (10 acts): Still other times, a Steward needs to make a point completely clear. In these times, Greater Messengers will see the message through.
Note: Creating messengers over several turns instead of in one turn may be a bad idea...
Modifiers:- Transient (-half, min. 1): Vanishes after delivering a message/miracle. Applies after additive modifiers and rounds up.
- No exemptions (-1 act, min. 1): Messenger is bound by the LAW as all mortals are and cannot return to the SUN once dispatched.
Collaboration effect: Increase messenger tier for each additional contributing flavor.
10 pops: 5 acts
20 pops: 7 acts
40 pops: 9 acts
80 pops: 11 acts
Note: (Viable) mortals cannot be created in installments or parts.
Modifiers:- (None): Standard mortals, e.g. dwarves, elves, gnolls, gnomes, goblins, halflings, half-orcs, humans, kobolds, orcs
- Powerful (+1 act): Sometimes, being a standing ape who can talk to other standing apes isn't enough. Whether it's the strength of a bear, the speed of a gazelle, or the wrath of a carp, these mortals are noticeably special.
- Feeble (-1 act): On the other hand, maybe numbers are more useful than abilities only a few need to use at any given time.
Collaboration effect: Double number of pops for each additional contributing flavor.
Assorted wild plants: 1 act
Near-domestic plants: 2 acts
Site (1 act): 1 hex's worth of vegetation.
Trinkets (2 act): Slight effects including slight elemental resistance, luck, sharpness, hardness, or decorative value
Lesser magic items (4 acts): Minor effects including elemental effects, rudimentary magical organs/prosthetics, poison, more luck, speed/strength
Greater magic items (8 acts): Major effects including meteor summoning, menacing vines, short-range teleportation
Very powerful magic items (16 acts): Grand effects including elemental mastery, poison clouds, automatic recall, powerful magical organs/prosthetics, weather control, scrying
Note: Unlike most other creations, there is generally a lower risk of setbacks/curses/failure for artifacts forged over several turns rather than all at once. The optimal forging speed is currently set at 2 actions per turn.
Site (2 acts): A hex: A city site and its surrounding countryside, a small forest, a lake, a mountain, a bay, a stream
Area (4 acts): 7 hexes: A small country, a mountain range, a sea, a forest, a river
Region (8 acts): 19 hexes: A large region
Continent (16 acts): 61 hexes: A continent or an ocean
Note: It's fine to include descriptions of plants and wildlife in terraform actions. Plant/animal creation actions should generally only be needed for species introduced later.
Modifiers:- Within THRONE range: -1 act
- Resource-rich (+2 acts): Bountiful metal, specialty wood, fertile fields, or other desirable properties.
- Resource-poor (-2 acts, minimum 1):
- Resource-random (0 acts): Resource richness is randomly selected.
Collaboration effect: -1 act (minimum 1) for each additional contributing flavor.
Undirected exploration (1 act): Wander the SUN's halls aimlessly, but not too aimlessly. It's too easy to get lost. Rewards include but are not limited to Instrument locations, CANDLES, quests, acts, curses, blessings, curses disguised as blessings, intelligence on secret actions, maps, information, or nothing interesting.
Directed exploration (1 act): Seek out a partially known location in the SUN's halls. Getting there won't be easy.
Note: Exploration actions can only be performed once a turn.
Collaboration effect: Increased chance of something interesting for each additional collaborator. Further bonus for collaborators of different essences.
Any LAW: 1 Council act
Petty law (2 acts): E.g. subtle alterations to mood, weather, productivity, fertility, climate
Lesser law (4 acts): E.g. noticeable alterations to the above
Greater law (8 acts): E.g. suspend gravity, make fires burn cold, make rivers run uphill, let things walk on clouds, have swords replace feelings or vice versa, spawn spirits to inhabit rocks, plants, and rivers
Note: There is a high risk of setbacks/failure for laws imposed in installments rather than all at once. Laws can generally only affect the area covered by a friendly Steward's THRONE's influence.
Modifiers:- Smaller range (-1 act, min. 1): I.e. covers less area than your THRONE's full sphere of influence.
- Transient (-half, min. 1): Lasts only until the start of the next normal turn. Applied before additive modifiers.
- Portable (+1 act): Can be delivered to a location not in range by a regular messenger. Petty laws require lesser messengers or better, lesser laws require regular messengers or better, and greater laws require greater messengers.
- Very portable (+3 acts): Can be delivered to a location not in range by any non-petty messenger.
- Extremely portable (+5 acts): Can be delivered to a location not in range by even a petty messenger.
Collaboration effect: Increased range with any collaborator. Increased intensity with collaborators of different essences.
Magic: 9 acts
Note: Loopholes may be researched over several turns, i.e. the act cost does not need to be paid in full.
Modifiers:- Vulgar yet permitted (+4 acts): Despite flashy, overt effects like fireballs or walking houses, the case for this loophole being legal is ironclad at least until the next time the Stewards convene to squabble about it.
- Vulgar (default): The magic this loophole facilitates hinges on the flimsiest of technicalities. Best not to practice it while the SUN or the Stewards are watching.
- Coincidental (-4 acts): The effects of this loophole are subtle and negligible for the average observer.
- Coincidental yet forbidden (-6 acts, min. 1 act): Even though this magic doesn't do anything the average bystander can actually notice as out of place, it's still forbidden according to the LAW. The worst of both worlds, it's unlikely it'll get much if any traction.
- Limited scope (-2 acts, min. 1 act): This loophole is only intended for magic affecting a specific action or set of actions, e.g. household chores, walking, birdwatching.
Collaboration effect: -1 act (min. 1 act) for each collaborator. -1 act (min. 1 act) for each additional flavor of essence.
AlterationTemporary rule: Altering creations requires 2 acts in addition to the difference in costs (min. 1), and there is a price floor of 3 acts total.
The SUNLantern. Lawgiver. Locomotion. The
SUN is many things, but the
SUN is also the abode of the gods themselves. Its sprawling halls contain its Instruments, numerous wonders ranging from blinding lattices of mirrors and lenses to ticking arrays of countless gears. Such is the scale of the
SUN's labyrinthine corridors that it's thought that there are other gods (some lazily imprisoned, perhaps?) stuck wandering the endless rooms looking for a way out. Precious little is known about most of the rooms' purpose or function, and only two have been mapped out and characterized so far:
- THE BAT-RIDDEN BELFRY: Its jolly ringing marked the passage of hours. Indeed, the very sound of its bells seemed to fill things with a certain clarity. Why, then, was it so crudely disconnected by some previous batch of Stewards?
- THE ULTIMATE LENSES: The SUN's outermost lenses and last safe stop for outbound light. Despite their apparent fragility, they've survived the trek with only minor scratches, and even for the SUN's Stewards, standing in front of them while the SUN is active is extremely inadvisable.
THE LAWThe laws inscribed on the
SUN are many and onerous, a sure sign that your predecessors had too much Council time on their appendages. Here are a few of the less unimportant ones:
SUN ABOVE, GODS BETWEEN, EARTH BELOW.- Interpretation: So long as the SUN shines true, no living mortals are permitted to visit the SUN just as no Steward is permitted to visit the ball of earth.
GOD SHALL NEVER KILL GOD.TIME IS.- Interpretation: So long as the SUN shines true, causality exists, and things can happen only after other things.
HORRORS ARE NOT.- Interpretation: So long as the SUN shines true, nothing forbidden by THE LAW shall ever exist within its light.
THY WORD IS THY BOND.- Interpretation: So long as the SUN shines true, agreements and promises witnessed by the SUN must be kept.
(Loophole-ridden physical laws about thermodynamics, something called gravity, and lots of other stuff)
- Interpretation: So long as the SUN shines true, things seem to make sense and happen reproducibly except for that thing the wizard did that caused the farmers to turn into frogs. Luckily, the SUN took care of the upstart, and neither the wizard nor the farmers were ever seen or heard from again.
The StewardsEssenceGodly essences come in three flavors:
Flaming,
Frosted, and
Fulgent. Each flavor receives an extra collective act each turn should it manage to come to some sort of consensus (>50%) on what to do with it. Unused essence acts don't carry over to the next turn. Essence flavors with fewer than two members don't get this act.
Actions performed by gods of different essences working in concert are often cheaper or more effective than those performed solo. Differences will be listed in the relevant act's cost table.
Their THRONESDirect interaction with Stewards is incredibly dangerous to mortal health whether it comes in the form of speaking with, gazing at, or otherwise communing too closely with them. This is regrettably true even for the most fireproof and electrically insulated mortals. Fortunately, Stewards can send down their THRONES to maintain a presence on the material plane and, as a bonus, spread the cleansing radiance of the
SUN. THRONES can take on the appearance of buildings, natural wonders, monuments, literal thrones, or any number of other majestic things, and within their influence, everything conforms better to their owners' vision. The first time a Steward's THRONE is placed on the world is free and costs no actions and comes with the option of extending range/reducing intensity or increasing intensity/reducing range by one step. Subsequent moves require 2 Acts and can be repelled by the influence of THRONES of uncooperative Stewards. There is no penalty for overlapping spheres of influence between friendly Stewards. If anything, there may be a minor bonus in that the intersection is better covered at the expense of some area that is less covered.
THRONES in their default configuration gently affect places to a Steward's liking up to two hexes away and maintain the
SUN's LAW up to four hexes away. Stewards interested in better range or intensity may spend an act to reconfigure their THRONES to increase one at the expense of the other. Hexes that contain particularly pious mortals or that resonate particularly well with one's sphere can count as being within one's dominion even when they're out of range.
The CANDLESFrom time to time, Stewards may stumble on CANDLES. CANDLES may be lit to expand or intensify a Steward's THRONE's influence for two turns. Optionally, the CANDLE may be burned at both ends to double the bonus at the expense of making the bonus last for only a turn. In any case, the bonus starts on the next normal turn and ends on the end of the normal turn after that in the unmodified usage.
PathsThe Path of Benevolence, or: The Mortals PathThe positive attention of mortal charges is good for getting stuff done and translates rather directly to great power. Here are the types of mortal attention available:
Belief: Association of a god with a sphere. Excepting gods with colliding spheres, excessively broad/unenforceable spheres, excessively narrow/unrecognizable spheres, or without any representation on the mortal plane, this one is generally a freebie.
Worship: Active acts of adoration/veneration whether through offerings, festivals, sacrifices, or prayers.
Dedication: Righteous mortals dying and going to a god's afterlife vault and an argument against making worshipers immortal.
Souls: General population of a god's afterlife vault and another argument against making worshipers immortal.
The Path of Aloofness, or: The Meta PathSome Stewards don't particularly care about squishy mortals but would normally feel pressured to maintain good relations with them regardless in order to avoid falling behind. These Stewards may instead gain acts by following the Path of Aloofness:
Creator: Find a suitable muse and let the words or brush strokes flow. A picture is worth a thousand words, and either or both of these will satisfy this mechanism (unless it sparks unanimous disapproval). Literature, dialogue, and proposals (but not counterproposals) on IC count to the 1000 word quota.
Destroyer: Remove or arrange for the removal of a creation no one needs or remembers making. Make sure you have records if you're outsourcing the job. Alternatively, take up the position of devil's advocate during a Council turn and see an proposal fail after you've argued against it for five free turns of fulfilling this criterion.
Preserver: Stop something from getting destroyed/changed/improved. Alternatively, stop an act (whether divine or Council) from going through somehow. Make sure you have records if you're outsourcing this one.
Reshaper: Reshape the land itself (optionally including its attendant flora or fauna) to better fit some sort of vision. Mortals aren't necessarily involved, so surely this won't step on any toes? Alternatively, propose a counterproposal and see it pass.
Exister: Continue to exist. This one is generally a freebie and is solely in place to keep the Path of Aloofness vaguely playable.
The Path of Malevolence, or: The Nonexistent PathSo long as the
SUN shines true, there is no Path of Malevolence.
The EarthHere is the new world in all its blank glory:

Note: E-W wrap is in place even if there isn't any outward indication of it. The world is a cylinder twisted into a vaguely spherical shape, I guess.
Character sheetName: Who are you?
Predecessor: Who/what did you succeed? What was the cost? Are they imprisoned, dead, or just retired?
Sphere: What do you preside over?
Essence (select one): Flaming|Frosted|Fulgent.
THRONE form: What does your THRONE look like?
Sigil (optional): A glyph of some sort representing your portfolio.
Afterlife vault (optional): What do your worshipers have to look forward to?
Description (optional): Any additional details