Chapter I, Turn 1A brief moment of harmony, spurred by Chaos of all forces, quickly falters as you immediately start doing your own things. Dissatisfied with the emptiness of the cosmos, the spirit of Order kicks things off, channelling creative energy through the 6 of Laws to fill the still-small universe with a dense cloud of matter in the form of
many tiny coral cubes. While these cubes remain inert and motionless,
Felidae plays the 5 of Cats to add another layer of structure to the realm, a
dense network of pink arteries intended to ferry energy from point to point. I say "intended to" because, at the time, no forms of energy existed other than the raw creative force which permeated everything equally a state of affairs which would shortly be overturned, but not before Chivalry brought its essence to bear, separating a
certain place from the rest of the world with the 6 of Valours to serve as a
world of spirit and mind. This separated plane contains no matter and even the fibres of the energy network are excluded from it; instead it simply contains a pure mental energy.
With that out of the way, the indefatigable Improvement expended the most power of anyone, instantiating
all the most boring laws of physics with the 10 of Gains to Improve the universe to a position for the creation of life, imbuing the
coral cubes with properties like mass and heat and gravity. For a short time, the baby universe filled with a
brilliant cyan light as the swirling chaos of matter began to heat and glow under the pressures these new laws introduced, but the energy soon balanced out into a new equilibrium as the
veins of Felidae did their work. Improvement's laws were several levels of power stronger, though, so this ultimate equilibrium still favoured coalescence, and the cubes slowly condensed into gravitationally contained clouds (still dimly glowing a soft cyan) that would eventually form galaxies, stars, and even planets. Toward that end, the Knave of Gains and Page of Gains were set aside, as well, to select a single planet for Improvement's stronghold, and to create the world's first true being, an angel of Improvement called the
Gardener, respectively. Though the power has been spent, these effects have not yet occurred, since the world is too inchoate.
It is at this point that Chaos stepped in and put the first kink in the plans of the more orderly gods. The 5 of Bedlam adds a new law defining the
Chaotic Progression of Matter: as the energy of a certain quantity of matter increases, its state will advance from the base state of
plasma through
rubber,
gas,
solid,
liquid,
fire, and ultimately, at the highest energies,
cat. As the basic principles of blackbody radiation (that matter emits light in a certain proportion to its free energy content) were included in Improvement's boring-physics package, and this does not overturn that, it naturally follows that cats must produce a great deal of light. Thanks to the energy dissipation engendered by the
veins, most matter in the universe now enters a solid or gaseous state, though matter falling into areas of particularly high density (and therefore high gravitational force) can become liquid. As the universe continues to expand and cool over the course of the turn, liquid areas are more likely to solidify and solid areas more likely to dissipate into gas.
The force of Asininity opts to play the 2 of Louts to enact the
Glum Law inducing everything that exists to feel bad about itself. Improvement astutely points out that this has nothing to do with asininity, but it happens anyway. The
tiny coral cubes become wracked with self-doubt and fear that they are not good enough to serve as the foundation of the material realm. As they cannot communicate or act on this feeling, nobody cares. In any case, this action sets off a brief flurry of awareness among the forces that their current state of existence is unacceptably fragile, and work immediately commences to improve the state of the boundary protecting them against oblivion, ironically without the involvement of Improvement. The 2 of Cats yields up a
Nyan Shield, a wall of overlapping
s fortifying the bubble's surface from the inside. Although the
Nyan Shield is initially many layers thick, it tends to thin over time as the expanding universe slowly draws the
scales apart. Order follows with the 9 of Laws to build the
Octolith, a vast cube of energy inscribed within the bubble, anchored by the eight cubic
Monoliths at its corners. This shield is unaffected by the universe's expansion, as the continual shifting of its anchors merely lengthens the cube's edges.
With more than 63% of the space of the universe now cordoned off, and all matter now compressed into the remaining less-than-37%, everything is suddenly much hotter and denser; regions of space where the gravitational acceleration is strongest now emit jets of fire and even the occasional
cyan-glowing cat, while the cooler areas are dominated by
globs of coral liquid. Outside the
Octolith, the bubble is now vacant except for the
Nyan Shield for now. The
physical forces that control the motion of matter are, however, slightly stronger than the containing force of the
Octolith, and the pressure that matter exerts on the
Octolith's surfaces may yet prove too much for it to restrain.
In any case, while the wisdom of this action is still being debated, the 6 of Pains enforces the
Law of Entropy at the behest of the force of Sadism, driving all things to an
inexorable decay. Nobody seems to notice at the time, possibly because it is a very slow inexorable decay. At some point during all of this, the force of Caprice used its 9 of Play to slip unnoticed into the outermost limits of the bubble, even beneath the
Nyan Shield, where it began to accrete a layer of
foamy purple material to form a complex system of anthill-like tunnels across the entire bubble's surface while thickening it yet further. This also somewhat reduces the surface area the
Nyan Shield has to cover, cancelling out some of the thinning produced by the universe's expansion but that thinning effect now also applies to the
tunnel layer as well. It's almost like the very edge of the universe isn't the best place to create things, or something. Caprice even takes the step of entering the material world itself to live inside this
purple warren. Perhaps this is what inspires Chivalry to pursue a similar end, spending its own 9 to reorder the "interstellar fluid" in the very centre of the bubble into a
great elaborate castle which enables easy transit between the material and metaphorical planes, as well as others (such as Chivalry's own realm of mind). Much like the
Octolith, this castle must fight an uphill battle against the
laws of boring physics to exist, but for now it stands firm. From this castle, Chivalry then makes a yet bolder move: bidding the 10 of Valours, Chivalry successfully claims
Ascendancy, gaining considerable added power that will last for the next three turns.
Currently, the consequences of
Ascendancy are such: for the next three turns, the ascendant force receives a bonus of +1 power to all actions, which can even bring actions to an otherwise impossible power level of 11; on the second of those turns, that bonus increases to +2. Furthermore, on the next turn, Chivalry (or any other ascendant force) may select one force to make
Descendant for the following turn (that is, the turn at which the ascendancy bonus peaks): a descendant force's power is used at a malus of -1. The next bid for ascendancy will take place in two turns when the current ascendancy bonus peaks and can potentially be won by the same force again, in which case the overlapping +1 modifiers for the turn afterward would stack to +2; as well, a descendant force has an effective -2 malus to bids for ascendancy.
With that dramatic decision made, and totally unopposed, one more force finally acted in the world, as Nature spent the 9 of Truths to claim ownership over the
essential truths of all things. This would prove to be an extremely consequential action, as
essential truths define all things, even the forces themselves. In any case, Nature chose to arrange the
essential truths into a tasteful system of organisation revolving around
spheres named after each force, with each
sphere corresponding to the associated force's creations. Things aligned with a particular force, then, become more powerful when that force does, and the spheres that force opposes become less powerful in turn. As a result, I suppose, this implies that anything in the
sphere of Chivalry would now be empowered; in this case, the
energy of soul suffusing Chivalry's previously-made realm.
Finally, after all else has been completed,
Felidae acts again, throwing down the 7 of Cats in what would seem to be an attempt to make the forces themselves discard their feelings of emnity. Whether this will work on so high a level remains to be seen, but insofar as it applies to the physical universe, it is now certainly the case that no forces may be considered in opposition. This obviates the clause in Nature's
law of spheres that would have made opposing spheres weaken proportionally to their opposites' strength (since no spheres are now opposing), but has no other observable effects at the moment.
While all this takes place, raw creative power continues to flux through the metaphorical plane, and you find yourselves ah, those of you who remained there surrounded by a horde of lesser forces with domains ranging from
champions or
secrets all the way to
insanity. Some of you might find natural allies or enemies in these lesser forces, while others might be content to ignore them but one thing is certainly true: left to their own devices, in time they will grow in power and become able to affect the world. How will you respond?
Power Status:
sadism 1 2 3 4 5 - 7 8 9 X P N Q K
improvement 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 - - N Q K
procrastination 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 X P N Q K
cats 1 - 3 4 - 6 - 8 9 X P N Q K
chivalry 1 2 3 4 5 - 7 8 - - P N Q K
caprice 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 - X P N Q K
asininity 1 - 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 X P N Q K
chaos 1 2 3 4 - 6 7 8 9 X P N Q K
nature 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 - X P N Q K
order 1 2 3 4 5 - 7 8 - X P N Q KCreative Flux:
Strong
Author
Topic: Stage Zero Turn 2 (YES REALLY) (OPEN TO APPLICATIONS BTW) (Read 8174 times)