The God Equation

Welcome to the quest all! The God Equation is a fantasy tranhumanist quest where you will be guiding a magical civilisation through the dangers of a unique singularity. It is heavily inspired by Academia Nut's excellent Science and Exploration Devision with my own fantasy spin. First, though, we have to decide what kind of world we will be inhabiting.

If you are just joining us and don't want to slog through world creation, skip through to Prologue Finale for the beginning of the Quest proper.

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Prologue 1: In the Beginning

In the beginning there was nothing but the gods. In that infinite, unlit void they danced and sung and warred for longer than the existence of the universe. There was no counting them, they were born and died in an eye blink for there was no such thing as time before creation.

After an eternity, or perhaps an instant, something miraculous happened. An explosion of light and magic rent the backness, scattering the gods across all the heavens. Our gods, the ones you know well, put aside their foolish strifes of youth and after much discussion decided that they needed to create their playground anew. This was not done through a flick of a magic wand, for millions of years they laboured.

First, they captured the dying embers of magic and strung them high in the heavens, these formed the stars.

Next, they poured their own lives into a titanic bonfire to keep the light of creation burning, this formed the sun.

Finally, wearily, they forged a world on which their games would begin anew. This was the Earth and it was:

Rank Choices:

[]Infinite
-Stretching beyond mortal comprehension the plane contained all possible wonders, if one were willing to walk far enough.
-Exploitation ++++, Reach --, Cohesion -

[]Bountiful
-A rich paradise awaited the mortals filled with all manner of treasures. They immediately began to fight each other for them.
-Exploitation ++, Curiosity +, Cohesion --

[]Dangerous
-The gods created a world filled with beasts, monsters and other more subtle dangers, rewarding for the strong and the quick but deadly for all others.
-Exploitation ++, Mastery +, Innovation -, Reach -

[]Mundane
-A plain land lacking much in the way of magic, but with a multitude of other resources for the taking and empty lands waiting to be claimed.
-Exploitation +

[]Barren
-A blasted wasteland awaited the mortals, where every effort had to be made to survive.
-Exploitation -, Cohesion +, Mastery +

[]Flooded
-Only a few islands breach the waves and the world's true bounty lies just out of mortal reach.
-Exploitation --, Reach ++, Curiosity +

[]Shattered
-A world unforged, shattered into a thousand islands dotted across an infinite sky.
-Exploitation --, Cohesion --, Freedom +++, Reach +, Curiosity +

To make things more inclusive, I'm using a consensus voting system where possible. When casting a vote please mark all acceptable options Eg:
[x]Bountiful
or
[x]Barren
[x]Mundane
[x]Flooded

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The Zephyr League

Attributes
Traits
Bonus

Open Research Culture - All research performed by all groups is known.
Academic/Political Institute - The Department of Development may be called upon to make political decisions.

Attributes and Traits

Attributes

Attributes are the core values of a society as dictated by their culture, geography and technology. Attributes range between -5 and +5, with both representing the absolute extremes of human cultures, for example, Imperial Japan would be one of the few nations in history to score +5 in Cohesion. Most cultures exist on a range between these two values with 0 being completely average as compared to its peers. Values below -5 are possible but very likely to provoke an immediate crisis, similarly greater than +5 values are very vulnerable to a sudden re-alignment unless supported by other changes to technology.

Exploitation

A measure of how much raw resource the society has access too. High numbers represent an abundance of magic or minerals, negatives represent a scarcity.

Cohesion

A high cohesion society is one that pulls in the same direction no matter what. This may be due to choice or due to coercion. Negative cohesion represents political or social instability that gets in the way of governance.

Reach

An abstract measure of the society's ability to affect the world around it, combining military and civilian infrastructure. High reach allows intervention anywhere in the world, negative reach prevents a society from operating beyond its own borders easily.

Mastery

The ability, education and knowledge of a society. High mastery is representative of a well educated and intellectual populace, negative mastery societies are ill-informed and simplistic.

Prosperity

The relative abundance available to the society, high abundance means freedom from want for a large number of people, negative prosperity represents relative poverty for many or all.

Industry

The productive capacity of the society, its ability to build new infrastructure and finished goods. High industry societies are production powerhouses able to tackle large new projects, negative industry societies rely on imports or trade to survive.

Curiosity

A society's relative interest in new knowledge and new discoveries. High curiosity societies are devoted to pure science and exploration, low curiosity are closed minded and rarely wander.

Freedom

The liberty available to individual citizens. High freedom societies do little to restrict their citizens and encourage liberty. Negative freedom societies are repressive and controlling.

Innovation

The willingness to tear up and recreate. Innovative societies are always improving, or at least always changing. Negative innovation societies are strongly traditional and reluctant to alter their ways.


Traits

Traits represent the working output of the society as competed by combining three key factors. Traits are used to resolve crises and to pay for research and development tasks. To resolve a crisis a number of d10s are rolled equal to the current value of the trait, with 8, 9 and 10 being a success (and 10s exploding!). This is tested against a pre-defined target. While traits can reach negative values at least one die will be rolled regardless of the value.

Power (Reach + Industry + Exploitation)

The amount of hard power a society has to apply to problems. While this is predominantly military force it also covers more esoteric uses such as protecting trade and disaster response.

Research (Innovation + Mastery + Curiosity)

The amount a society is able to devote to developing new technologies and processes. This covers blue sky processes and the facilities to investigate the unknown.

Diplomacy (Mastery + Freedom + Reach)

A measure of the soft power available to a society. This includes diplomats, espionage and aid and covers all situations where negotiation is important.

Development (Curiosity + Cohesion + Industry)

The ability of a society to act and build solutions to solve its problems. This covers practical implementation and the infrastructure necessary to support new discoveries.

Wealth (Innovation + Prosperity + Exploitation)

The amount of material value a society has access to, primarily mineral and institutional but also the productivity of its people.

Dynamism (Cohesion + Prosperity + Freedom)

The speed at which new ideas and new discoveries propagate across a society. Dynamic societies are always on the move, regardless of the destination.

Transgression (Innovation + Cohesion + Reach)

The willingness for a society to break its own rules and do things that are morally questionable. Transgressive societies do not question why they act, they can and so do.

Consumption (Mastery + Prosperity + Industry)

The volume of raw resources a society is consuming. High consumption societies often find themselves living on borrowed time.

Revolution (Curiosity + Freedom + Exploitation)

A society's tolerance for new ideas, good or ill. High revolution societies are fundamentally unstable, but may be onto something.

Winner: Shattered

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Prologue 2: The Breath of Life

This is not how thing were meant to be.

The gods intended to create a boundless paradise for their children, an infinite plane lit by an eternal sun. Instead, they created a whirling maelstrom of stone and sky; a shattered land where what little life there is clings to broken rocks drifting through the endless sky. The largest of these were lands unto themselves, a thousand kilometres across and so vast one could forget that the horizon came to a sharp edge. The smallest were mere hunks of gravel a few hundred meters across, held together more by the roots of hardy plants than gravity.

It was a harsh world, the maelstrom of stone circled the ever burning sun like water around a drain. Those lands that drew too close to the light were blasted by the all consuming heat, becoming mere storm-scoured cinders. Those that drifted too far from the centre froze solid, leaving only airless wastes. Between these two extremes, however, life persisted in the sky. Isolated islands soon became havens for an uncountable number of new species as the gods poured themselves into the rebuilding of what was lost.

After a millennia, though, the gods became unsatisfied by the twittering of birds and the whisper of wind in the trees. They longed again for the time before time and their long lost brethren, and endeavoured to create something that could fill the void. They could not create new gods, but they were able to pour their essence into a creature was not divine but not fully beast.

Us.

And once they had one such example the gods:

Rank:

[]Stopped
-Only one thinking, feeling species was enough. We stand alone amongst the beasts.
-Cohesion +++, Innovation -, Curiosity -

[]Reviled
-The gods despised their imperfect creation. We fled their sight.
-Cohesion ++, Innovation +, Mastery +, Prosperity -, Reach --

[]Experimented
-A multitude of a variations exist to our base form. We do not always treat our brothers well.
-Cohesion +, Innovation +, Freedom -

[]Continued
-A number of different species makes up our society, they are all valued, although some are more valued than others.
-Cohesion -, Mastery +, Prosperity +

[]Divided
-A great many different peoples exist in the sky, we live apart as the gods first willed.
-Cohesion ++, Innovation -

[]Perfected
-The gods continued their craft, creating better creatures than us. We will have to prove our worth in their eyes.
-Cohesion +, Innovation ++, Mastery --, Prosperity -

And we are:

Rank:

[][Race]Human
[][Race]Write in (Do include a description of any write in races if they aren't something instantly recognisable like an elf)

Addendum: A World Unmade

There are many theories as to what went wrong with the forging of the world, some say the gods warred, others say that they gave up half way. What little fragmentary records exist suggest that the world that is, is not the world that was meant to be. Many consider that it may have been something to do with gravity, it was simply too strong for the purpose of which it was intended. Regardless of the cause, the skylands are our home and their study the most important endeavour one can pursue.


Overview

The Skylands as typically defined are a sphere of air some eighty thousand kilometres across with the sun at its very centre. The majority of the matter which makes up the skylands orbits with some speed around the sun in a direction that is agreed to be counter-clockwise, and a truly staggering percentage of the mass is the air itself. Indeed, if one added up at the rock that makes up our land it is a mere one percent of the total. This titanic volume of air keeps the majority of our lands in a stable orbit around the sun, acting to dampen eccentricity and more or less eliminate any counter revolutionary motion.

Of the physical matter in the skylands, seventy percent can be found in the equatorial band, scattered across all altitudes but broadly moving in unison. Twenty three percent is found in planar orbits, offset from the main body by anywhere between three and thirty degrees. Six percent exists in skylands too small to maintain an orbit and so are carried by wind current alone. Their position and speed can be extremely erratic and these rouges are a hazard to shipping, but lack the mass to disrupt a large skyland. The remainder can be found on anti-rotational orbits and represent a danger even to large landmasses due to their extreme speed.

Skylands exist at all altitudes, from the high speed orbits of the lower atmosphere to the lazy motion of the upper. Typically altitudes are divided into six zones based on their climate. At the lowest level there are the Blasted Reaches. Receiving the brunt of the sun's light these skylands are extremely hot, have almost no moisture and are rarely home to anything more than cacti and migratory birds. Rain, if it ever falls, can be so hot that it is scalding and any visitors are there either temporarily or because they have literally nowhere else to go.

Above these is the Tropical zone. Rich in vegetation and water rising form the hot clouds below vast jungle canopies arc from skyland to skyland in a sometime vain attempt to hold together the lands in the face of the titanic storms that roll continuously through the zone. Many of these skylands are not large enough to maintain a stable orbit and so are buffeted around at random by the weather, sometimes launching them high into colder altitudes or down to where nothing at all can survive. Habitation in this region is possible and a number of peoples call it home, but it is a hard life that favours migration over putting down roots.

More forgiving is the Paradise zone. These skylands are blessed with both bright sunlight, pleasant rains and frequent cool downdraughts. If it weren't for the relatively small sizes of these skylands and the poor crops that grow in the warm temperatures the Paradise zone would be a haven of civilisation. Alas, it remains a relative backwater with some large permanent settlement but with limited ability to support a larger population.

The Temperate zone is, instead, the focus of civilisation. Titanic skylands a thousand kilometres across rule the zone, so vast they are at risk of collapsing under their own weight. An ideal mix of light, rain and land allows for civilisation to flourish. Forests, fertile fields and even flowing waters make for a memory of the world that the gods intended. These lands each have their own ecologies and can be extremely distinctive.

Beyond this, conditions began to grow harsher once more. Tundra skylands are cold and dim, the larger dotted with slow growing forest, the smaller only scrubby grass and puffin roosts. What rain falls tends to be cold and may even fall as snow. These lands are habitable to the hardy and the stubborn, but there are rich takings for those willing to mine in such conditions. The lack of strong weather and slow orbits allows for some truly titanic skylands to form, practically planets in their own right.

Finally, the Frozen Wastes stretches out to the edges of the skylands. Beyond this point the light from the sun is so diffuse that the temperature never rises above zero and any skylands in this zone are perpetually covered in frost. Occasionally, one will become so laden with ice that it will fall out of its orbit, plummeting through the rest of the zones until the land and the ice vaporises in the heat of the sun, thus completing the Skylands' odd hydrological cycle. Few, if anyone travels to the Wastes. The air is thin, the lands are frozen and one's only companion are the unfeeling stars.

It is theorised that beyond the Wastes there is a zone so distant that even the air thins to nothing. Perhaps there is something out there, other Skylands circling distant stars, but we do not know.


Anatomy of a Skyland

A skyland, differentiated from the Skyland by the capitalisation, is any conglomeration of rock large enough to hold itself together under the force of the weather. While plant stabilised skylands can be as small as a a hundred meters across, gravity is rarely enough on its own on skylands below a kilometre in size, with other metrics refusing to classify a skyland as more than a navigational hazard unless it is above ten kilometres in length. The median size is approximately one hundred kilometres at its widest point, though this measure varies significantly with altitude.

Skylands are shaped by the wind predominantly and most form a somewhat aerodynamic shape, far longer than they are wide, but this is a tendency rather than a rule. Misshapen skylands are aerodynamically unstable and will tumble wildly, making them unsuitable for long term habitation. Even relatively stable skylands experience significant motion, most spinning on their axis at a rate that ranges between once a minute to generational timescales. A rotational period of less than an hour tends to preclude landing a sky ship.

Gravity is in constant flux across a skyland, varying noticeably with even small changes in altitude and the topography of the rock below. As such people are extremely used to a variable gravity, sometimes within the same building. Locals will often identify trip zones, where small but sudden changes will knock an unwary traveller flat on their face. While individual skylands do not vary too much, rarely more than five meters per second squared across their surface, a wide range of gravities are considered acceptable for habitation, from about three meters per second squared to approximately thirty with training. Below this one runs the risk of falling off a skyland and above one can be killed by tripping. Many skylands in the Tundra zone would be habitable save for the crushing gravity.

A notable exception exists around the leading and trailing edges of large skylands. These areas are so far from the centre of mass of the skyland that gravity begins to decrease rapidly, leaving natural areas of low gravity used for the berthing and launching of sky ships. Most civilian docks are located at the trailing edge and military bases tend to be located on the leading edge, the former to avoid the winds and the latter to take advantage of them for rapid deployment.

Most inhabited skylands follow relatively stable orbits, but a few oscillate between climate zones, producing an odd seasonal effect that can cause anything from a brief and pleasant summer to decades of icy winter. More eccentric orbits are generally smoothed by wind resistance until they fall into this narrow band of variability. Still, there exist recently created skylands that oscillate between the Blasted Reaches and the Frozen Wastes.


Weather

Meteorology is one of the very first arts developed in the skylands. Existing in a vast system of atmospheric currents being able to predict the wind and weather is absolutely vital for the continuation of civilisation. The Skyland's hydrological cycle is powered by the sun. Cold air, ice and sometimes small skylands falling towards the sun are vaporised and rise rapidly, producing hot and wet updrafts. These will often meet descending cold, dry air that has been chilled in the Frozen Wastes and form truly titanic storms.

These storm bring vital rains to the skylands but can stretch tens of thousands of kilometres across and last for years. Drala's Maelstrom is the most famous of these and has been in contusing existence for the entirety of recorded history. Fortunately, this storm is off the equatorial band and so does not threaten civilisation with regularity, but entire skylands have had to be abandoned when their orbit crossed its path. More mundane storms are merely hazardous to the inhabitants of skylands, although still represent certain death to those journeying through the sky unprotected. Clouds and other less extreme forms of weather are also frequent in the Skylands, but rarely represent an existential threat to anything but navigation.

Navigating the Skylands requires a keen eye and a strong grasp of meteorology. Catching airstreams is the best way to alter velocity enough to jump between orbital levels and sky ships will often take long, looping paths to catch these streams for as long as possible. A good captain will be willing to freeze his crew solid one week and bake them alive the next in an effort to catch the right winds.