Bay 12 Games Forum

Visit the convenience store and look for the cheapest non-rotten food.

Reserved just in case

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.

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Acts

Divine acts

Acts 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 counterproposals

Council 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.

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Turns

By 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.

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Costs (very much under construction)

Creation





Alteration

Temporary 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.

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The SUN

Lantern. 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 LAW

The 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.

• Interpretation: So long as the SUN shines true, no Steward can harm another, nor can any Steward be harmed by another. They still shouldn't be used for target practice, obviously.

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.

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The Stewards

Essence

Godly 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 THRONES

Direct 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 CANDLES

From 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.

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Paths

The Path of Benevolence, or: The Mortals Path

The 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 Path

Some 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 Path

So long as the SUN shines true, there is no Path of Malevolence.

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The Earth

Here is the new world in all its blank glory:

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Character sheet

Name: 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


Quest for a cheese shop open at this hour!

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