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Hello, Commander. In light of the recent extraterrestrial incursion, this Council of Nations has convened to approve the activation of the XCOM Project.
You have been chosen to lead this initiative. To oversee our first—and last—line of defense.
Your efforts will have considerable influence on this planet's future. We urge you to keep that in mind as you proceed.
Good luck, Commander.

Main Thread

Greetings, Hallowed Priests

The Fortress is in disarray. The remaking of the world, the disappearance of the old Gods and the reappearance of many creatures thought to be myths has shaken Dwarven society on it's foundations.

But from the Ashes come new beginnings. A new God has revealed itself to you, willing to lead this fortress to glory and prosperity. You've already pledged your faith, but many in your fortress are still uncertain.

Design your myths and rituals, miracles and cantrips, and win the hearts of the dwarves in the fortress, so that you may secure your divine favor. Because in this new and dangerous world, you will certainly be lost without it.

This is turn -2. You possess 10 dice, and it is the start of the design phase.
Each design costs 3 dice.

As an added challenge, you must provide a name for your God.

Thread 1
Thread 2
This is the Core Thread, for general discussion between people on different teams or not on any teams, rules, updates, contests and more. For actual game play or team-only talk, visit the appropriate team thread.
If you're new to Arms Races but are unfamiliar, read through the rules spoilers on the bottom, pick a team, and start participating in their thread; please don't read or otherwise participate in the other team's thread. Looking at their thread's OP to decide which team is okay, however.

General Idea

Unlike many (all?) Arms Races, it is important to note this Arms Race is not strictly adversarial. Both sides exist within the same fortress, and the effects each side has on the health and well being of the fortress will affect the other side as well. If you smite your enemy with a giant meteor, that meteor will land on your head as well. As such, this not quite be a battle with sword and axe, but rather a battle for the hearts and minds of the fortresses worshiper.

Convince your fellow dwarves that your God can do the best for the fortress, with divine miracles, fancy cantrips and well timed rituals to take credit for random chance of even your opponents actions.

General Gameplay Loop

Each turn consists out of 3 phases. The design and progress phase, the revision phase, and the worship phase. Absent special events, each side will receive 5 dice at the start of each turn. Both sides cycle through the 3 phases in sync, spending dice to start designs, revisions, and then carefully planning their worship in order to convince the population of the fortress to follow their side.

At the start of each turn (which lasts a month), each side's projects are advanced. In this phase, new projects are designed. All players can propose new designs, and every member of the team is allowed to vote.Each design requires the dedication of 3 dice, which means you can start multiple designs in the same turn if you have the requisite dice.  Players can vote for as many designs as they want, though can not vote against any design, or vote for 1 design multiple times. In the case of confusion, my interpretation of the votes stands, so be clear with what you want. Include metavotes (example : only 1 design) as needed. For detailed instructions as to what can be designed, see the detailed section below.

During the revision phase, players can vote for any numbers of revisions to existing projects, miracles, rituals and so on. Each revision costs 1 dice. Revisions are best utilized to resolve issues with the original design, or to slightly tweak it in the phase of different circumstances. Straight up trying to improve the performance of a design with revisions will quickly result in diminishing returns.

In the Worship phase, no dice are spent. At the start of this phase, players are provided with what information they can gather (temporal as well as divinely) about the near future, as well as quick overview of how their chosen divinity currently views them. Calling upon the your God to bless the harvest when he's upset with your recent actions may not be the wisest action, while executing a ritual of warning about that group of Goblins you heard coming may be a stroke of genius. Keep in mind that your actions will have consequences. Claim that your god told you that the Elves are traitors, and you may well lead your fortress into a war.

Once that's finished, the events of the month are rolled, and the results are posted in the main thread. Hidden details (if any exist) are posted in the specific faction thread. After that, the cycle begins anew.

The Fortress and the world

The Arms race is set in a Dwarf Fortress world, something that you should all be familiar with. For those who're not, Dwarf Fortress ( the game this forum is named after) is a generic fantasy world generator. Groups of Dwarves try to build mighty underground fortresses, fending of evil vampires, necromancers, goblins, and the occasional pretentious elves.

The specific world we'll be using here is one that has just emerged from the Age of Renewal, a cataclysmic and unexplained event where millions died, continents moved and the world was suddenly reshaped. The old Gods have fallen, disappeared without a trace, and mysterious monsters once thought to be legend now once again walk the land.

Gods and Domains

Gods are capricious creatures. While you get to have enormous influence over what actions your God can take, you do not get to decide which actions they'll take, or when. So be careful with what miracles you design for them to use.

Each side's God has 2 associated meters, being Mood and Favor. The former determines their inclination to whether they will utilize punishing or blessed actions, the latter how likely they're to change their chosen actions based upon the rituals the priests utilize to plea for them to intervene. A vengeful God can be dissuaded, but you may have to sacrifice quite a bit.

In addition, Gods also have domains. These are acquired dynamically depending on what designs and actions you make. Design a harvest fertival, and you may get Harvest as a domain. Design a lightning strike smiting, and you'll get weather, stuff like that. Domains effect what form of worship your gods will desire, how powerful their actions and those of their clerics are, what kind of tribute they like, and what kind of actions they can take credit for. No one will believe that the God of Death, decay and destruction is responsible for a nice summer's day.

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The Age of Myth: The game starts in the Age of Myth. Forgotten Beasts roam the land, Titans, Collosi, Dragons, Demons can attack your fortress. The logic of Dwarf Fortress serves as a guideline, but is not strictly followed. Other magic besides necromancy exists, cool stuff can be done. Be inventive, but keep in mind that cool stuff still comes with a cost. Fundamentally however, this is a fantasy world. Don't try to kick start the industrial revolution.

Begin at your Beginnings: This game will have a special opening phase, two turns in length. During this period, the final phase of each turn is skipped- so there is no production, deployment and tactics. Instead, you are given ten dice per turn, and you will be asked to create the designs for most of your starting tech.

Losing is Fun: The world will not be content to leave your fortress alone. If your internecine strive places the fortress at the verge of a loyalty cascade while Goblins prepare to evade, the fortress, the cult and everyone in it may very well be slaughtered. Be careful, and don't forget the consequences of your actions.

Frostpunk


Introduction

Frostpunk is recently videogame, set in a Steampunk universe that's being destroyed by an endless winter. It's a great game, and you should play. It's also, I believe, a decent setting for a forum game. The forum game will be similar in idea with the game, but I'm not planning to just copy paste the plot, as much at it exists. So don't worry if you haven't played the game. For those of you who haven't a short introduction.

The year is 1887. It's a time of progress, of industry and science. Giant airship float through the sky, mechanical automatons perform the work of a dozen men, and Britain rules the waves. But this era comes to a sudden halt, when the temperatures start dropping. Harvests fail, but that is only a prelude to the cataclysm that is to follow. Frost and snow cover the world, and plunging temperatures cause millions to freeze. Society cracks and nations collapse. As the world descends deeper into the chaos of winter, a lucky few have a way out, departing North.

Only there exists the infrastructure build to deal with terrible. Animals and plants adapted to frigid, massive generators made to warm an entire city. Untapped resource deposits that can fuel these powerful machines.

But even with most of society already collapsed, the worst is still to come. Temperatures continue to fall, and the stresses upon society continue to accumulate. Unfortunate choices may need to be made, sacrifices for the common good. The city must survive, but in what shape?

Rules

Like the game upon which it's based, this is a game about the city, not any individual character. As such, you will manage the actions of the entire city, choosing the things it does or accomplishes.

Every turn, you can choose what actions will be taken, what buildings are constructed. Every so often, events may occur that require acting upon, giving additional choices and additional cost.

Resources

Resources are tracked in pools, which gradually refill themselves each turn. For each resource, there's therefore 2 figures. The maximum capacity to which the pool fills, and the temporary value. Most actions will deplete the current value. For example, constructing tents will consume some Temp Wood, but leave your permanent supplies untouched. Others may consume permanent values. For example, setting up a charcoal burner will take away some of your Wood stat, to increase coal.

The stats are as follows:

Wood : A basic construction resource, and impromptu fuel source
Steel : An advanced construction resource, required for industrial buildings and more advanced infrastructure
Coal : The lifeblood of the colony, Without coal, the generator dies and everything crumbles.
Food: Essential to keeping everyone alive
Steam Cores : Advanced pieces of technology, utterly irreplaceable in this frozen landscape

Weather

The weather is your constant enemy. Everything is frozen, and the temperature drops with the day. You have to ensure that nobody freezes to death. As such, most actions will carry a weather warning. Sending people to gather wood during a blizzard is likely to result in frostbitten corpses. Keep attention to the weather, and keep the generator running.

Society

Your other big enemy. The industrial revolution is a time of serious social tension, and the Frost has not changed that. Society is divided between the upper classes, the engineers who develop magnificant machines and do gentleman science, and the lower classes, who actually have to use them in the field. Tensions will arise naturally, as the city is split on possible paths and opportunities.

((As a warning, do not lynch each other for daring to disagree.))

Laws

You left behind the rules of the old world, but new rules need to be made. Laws open opportunities. Do you try to create a better society even in the worst of circumstances, or do you take hard decisions, sacrificing others for the good of the city. Laws allow you to open opportunities, and influence the society within the city. They're open to suggestions, in a relatively freeform format.

Each turn, the GM opens suggestions. Then, he picks the ones he likes, and let's you vote on which law you want to implement, combined with a few GM's own ideas.

Research

Frostpunk is a steampunk. That means airships, mechanical robots and much more. But a primitive colony in the middle of nowhere is unlikely to posses these things. You will need to scavenge, research and do much more to attain the quality of the old world.

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Now then, with those things explained (more or less) how about we start the colony. This is a suggestion game, so only 1 sheet can win.

Name :
Description :

You may get special bonusses for intriguing and good sheet.

The city is a bit more complex. You have 3 points to distribute among the following categories.

Generator
-Tesla Generator : An american folly, this generator diverts most of it's power to electric generators, protecting the city from snow beneath an electric shield (2 Points)
-Advanced Generator : An advanced generator, vastly more efficient and powerfull than most examples of it's kind(1 Points)
-Standard Generator : A powerful coal powered generator, capable of heating an entire city (0 Point)
-Prototype Generator : A British marvel of ingenuity, the first of it's kind. This prototype generator largely resembles the standard generator, with some notable design flaws (-1 points)
-Damaged Generator : Whether damaged by storm or never finished, the story is the same. This generator does not work (yet). You shall have to hurry to fix it before you freeze (-2 points)

Populace
- The Empire's finest : Trained men, experts of all kinds, hardworking and excelling in all fields. The best the british empire can offer (1 points)
- Men of science : Scientist, engineers. Smart, but often unused to backbreaking labor (1 point) 
- The Trade Union : Hardworking laborers, finally working for their own good instead of the industrialists. Tradesmen by heart, but not familiar with theoretic science  (1 point)
-The London Exodus: When the Empire started to crumble, anyone who could departed for the generator.

Expedition Vehicle
- An Imperial Dreadnought : A massive vessel, powered by steam and with a powerful ram allowing it to crush through the thick ice. Rare even in the royal navy, these vessel are incredibly powerfull and expensive, though even they can not withstand the frost forever (2 points)
- The Snowcrawler : A powerfull machine, capable of traversing on land and sea alike as long as it has coal to power it's turbine (2 points)
- Expeditions sleds : Lightweight reliable, and portable by hand. This allowed the expedition to travel easily through the Frostland (1point)
- Lost to the storm : The Frost claims all, even your vehicles. Stuck, lost and broken down, you had to leave them behind (0)

Resources
- Plentifull (2points)
- Normal (1 point)
- Limited (0)
- None (-1)

Automatons and advanced technology
- Highly advanced (2 points)
- A few examples (1 point)
- None (0 points)

Feel free to request additions.

WDR

The Wacky Death Race is an old game on this forum ,that I ran before. The idea is simple. People build their vehicles, then have a death race along a predefined track. Along the way, you can cheat, blow up each other up, scavenge for food and materials, and much more.

Link to Main Thread


The planet Earth rotates slowly beneath you. From your stealth command vessel, you can see them clearly, squabbling in the dirt, unaware of the universe. They do not possess the gift, nor do they posses a physical prowess, like the Mutton or Chrysalid's did. Still, the scans indicate they may show promise, and so they must be investigated and added to the Ethereal empire.

“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”

― Arthur C. Clarke

Ethereals
XCOM

No one would have believed in the last years of the twenty first century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's... Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.

The Ethereals scour the galaxy , seeking a species both physically enduring and capable of wielding a mysterious power they refer to only as "the gift". It's a power they themselves posses in abundance, but for which a serious price needs to be paid. Already, many species have been tested and found wanting, and the Ethereals have made them their servants in their ever expanding search. And now, their sights have been set on Earth.

Facing a threat they do not understand, the nations of the Earth have united to reactivate a special contigency unit, known as the Extraterrestrial Combat Unit, or XCOM. Tightly overseen by a mysterious council of 16 representatives, it's XCOM primary responsibility to investigate and eliminate any and all alien threat to the nations of Earth. They're Earth's first and only line of defense, the best and brightest the planet can support.






Note: If the rules are similar to those used by Nuke9.13, he stole them through timetravel.