Gods of Chaos: a Riot God Quest

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This Quest will have a go at the Creative Questing Confabulation contest, though we will see just how creative people will deem the mechanics.

GODS OF CHAOS
A Riot Quest of Divine Creation



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This is a place without time. A world of endless still waters orbits a frozen sun. The moment is eternal, suspended, waiting - and at once, or at last, the waiting ends, as the Sun stirs and unleashes with cataclysmic fury the Flame of Chaos, the instrument of Creation. In this furnace are born the Makers, spirits of unbounded creation and potential. In time, they will be called Gods...

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What's all this, then?

This is a Riot Quest about collaborative world-creation. Every voter shall represent a spirit of creation, a little spark of divine potential that can accomplish things both small and large. The Quest moves through Epochs of Creation - rounds, during which each voter may put forward an Act of Creation. These can range from creating a mysterious divine tree, raising a mountain range, establishing new rules of reality, spreading a new species of creature, and so forth. Not all Acts are made equal, however. Small additions or changes can be accomplished with just one vote, but larger Acts require more votes in support. If a world-shaking act fails to get enough votes behind it, it will fail or simply manifest at a smaller scale.

Essentially, anyone can create little things and add to the world. However, larger changes need to win over the crowd and get others to vote for it - large-scale worldbuilding is a democratic exercise. This, I hope, prevents one person from making wildly unpopular changes and encourages collaboration in creating.

What are Acts?

An Act is a change made to the world through your divine power. Below you will find the scale of Acts and the votes required to accomplish them. Below that there's a non-exhaustive list of examples for different kinds of Acts.

Demi-Act (1 Vote): An act of small divinity, manifesting on a local scale. Empower a single mortal. Grow a magical tree. Forge an item of power. Shape a landmark. Form a healing pool.
Lesser Act (3+ Votes): An act of lesser divinity, manifesting on a regional scale. Empower a community of mortals. Create a new kind of creature. Raise up a mystical forest. Form an island. Forge an artifact of great power. Sculpt a mountain.
Grand Act (8+ Votes): An act of true divinity, manifesting on a continental scale. Empower an entire race of mortals. Create a new family of life. Birth a sentient race. Shape a new continent. Make a magical ocean.
Cosmic Act (10+ Votes): An act of cosmic divinity, manifesting universally. Change or create a new fundamental law of reality. Shape a new planet. Craft a new plane of existence.

Spoiler: Act Type Examples

Creating or Empowering Life
Demi-Act: Creating an unique being, such as a one-of-a-kind cursed monster or an impossible high tree. Granting minor, restricted powers, such as healing hands, fire magic, unaging nature, enhanced strength, etc.
Lesser Act: Creating a new type of creature, such as tigers, raspberries, eagles, rice, dragons, giants. Empowering a large group of mortals or making a particularly potent change, such as invincibility against mortal weapons, mastery of a type of magic, ability to spread one's powers to others, et cetera.
Grand Act: Creating a broad family of life, such as trees, fish, cetaceans, birds, felines, fungi. Creating a new sentient race. Changing an entire people or race. Empowering a mortal with world-shaking power, such as mastery of all magic, unrestricted immortality, perfect knowledge of Creation, et cetera.
Cosmic Act: Creating a being of cosmic power, such as a god-devouring eldritch horror.

Creating or Empowering Places
Demi-Act: Creating a lone island, secluded grove, a deep cavern of significance. Empowering a place with limited effects, such as a violence-preventing tree, a pool of visions, or a corrupting altar.
Lesser Act: Creating a great forest, a mountain range, a series of great lakes. Empowering a region with widespread effects or a place with very powerful ones, such as a magical forest one cannot leave after entering, a holy mountain repelling all evil, an indestructible city in the clouds.
Grand Act: Creating a new continent, an ocean, a realm of clouds. Empowering magical effects on a continental scale, such as a sea of mind-controlling mists, a land immersed in chaotic wild magic, or an underground realm that transitions visitors to monsters.
Cosmic Act: Creating a new planet, a new place of reality, a new cold sun.

Creating or Empowering Things
Demi-Act: Creating an object of unusual nature; an ever-sharp sword, a chalice that cures illness, a suit of armor stronger than steel, a seeing-stone that shows the approach of danger.
Lesser Act: Creating an object of great power or an empowered material or resource; a ring with the power to subjugate others to its will, a metal stronger and lighter than steel, a legendary spear that cannot be evaded, a medallion that allows instant travel around the world, a gas that steals away free will, a type of wood that becomes lighter than air when treated, et cetera.
Grand Act: A legendary artifact or a vault of lesser ones; a blade that can kill even gods, a key that manipulates time at will, a mask that hides you even from godly sight.

Altering Laws of Reality
Cosmic Act: Establishing that there is no death, that souls are reincarnated, that certain mortals are born Fated for great things, creating the foundations of mortal magic, et cetera.

How is the Quest played?

Each voter may author one (1) Act on any Epoch. They may also vote for an unlimited number of Lesser Acts as they please and up to 3 Grand Acts and 1 Cosmic Act. Keep in mind that if this should prove unfeasibly popular, I might have to limit how many Acts you can support/that can pass in any given Epoch - to avoid a crushing workload for my part.

You should write your Act out like this:

[X] Act Name (Desired Scale of Act)

[Description of what you are creating. Detailed, well-written and creative Acts might get a boost for Artistry, so don't feel any need to hold back! If necessary, provide the key details (such as powers, name, location) of your creation in a summary at the end.]

If your Act passes, it will be incorporated into the world in the next Epoch by Yours Truly. I will write it out, fill in any details and describe how it fits into the world as it is. You should keep in mind the state of the world when you Act. While I'll be merciful for new life, your carnivorous wolf-men will not thrive in a world with only fungal grass to eat. I will also describe any non-Act-related developments, such as how a race created several Epochs ago is doing right now. I'll be going for a mythic/heroic fantasy, Silmarillion-esque tone for these, so we'll see how it goes!

You might have noticed the map. I'll also be updating it in Wonderdraft as we go along!

Spoiler: Act Examples

[X] Create Somnolent Meridian, King of All Whales (Lesser Act)

In the deeps of the world-sea is born a great leviathan of a whale; a beast of cratered hide and long baleen beard. Unto his shoulders is given dominion over all whales and cetaceans. He shall possess awareness of all whales in existence, feeling what they feel, knowing what they know, and is ready always to exact terrible vengeance when their populations are unnaturally threatened. His songs of might and sorrow shall reverberate through the ocean depths.

[X] Forge the Crucible Mountains (Lesser Act)

The heart of the Red Continent is sundered and broken, as a wall of high jagged peaks appears to bisect it. Their slopes are steep and treacherous, fit only for the most hardy of animals, and their deeps hide valuable ores for mortalkind to exploit. Those who seek to brave them shall be tested body and soul, until they have passed through the Crucible or died trying.

[X] Create Felines (Grand Act)

Cats great and small are given the gift of life. From diminutive desert cats to fearsome panthers of the jungle, the feline species appear across the world. Their meows, purrs, yowls ad roars add new notes to the symphony of life.

[X] Establish the Chain of Souls (Cosmic Act)

Reality itself shudders as a new universal law is hammered into its scarred flesh. All living beings now reincarnate when they die, their souls migrating in a great chain step by step - from a short-lived bacterium to a lowly vermin, from vermin to a cattle beast, from cattle to the most wretched of the thinking races, from wretches to the well-off, from the well-off to the kings and masters of their lands, and from kings back to the primordial muck of the bacteria. This, the gods hope, shall teach them much-needed humility.

Miscellaneous Rules

-Epochs: Each Epoch will have its own affinity, which will aid in creating related things. An Epoch of Sentience will reduce the votes needed to create sentient life by -1, while an Epoch of Beasts would do the same for animal species, while an Epoch of Lands would help for creating new continents and areas.
-Naming: Places and things left unnamed by their creator may be named by others. 3+ Votes are needed for a name to stick.
-Artistry: Particularly well-written Acts may receive the Mark of Artistry chosen by the QM, which acts as an extra Vote for them.
-Retirement: This Quest is intended to run for a set amount of time. While the exact amount will depend on how many voters and how much activity I'll be getting, it will likely be something in the way of 20 Epochs. After that, the spirits are asked to Retire. You can then let go of your cosmic potential to create a young god to exist in the world.

The power and position of this new god will depend on the level of Acts you have authored - if you have only Demi-Acts to your name, you might end up being a local spirit. A Lesser Act can make you a minor god, perhaps one of a certain race. A Grand Act will make you a powerful major god, while a Cosmic Act will allow you to be the head of a pantheon or some other supreme deity.

The End Result

At the end of those 15 Epochs, the Age of Creation shall end, and the world shall pass into its Second Age - the Age where great divine powers are gone and younger gods rule in their stead, meddling far less in the affairs of the world. That will be the end of this Quest, but the setting we will have created can then be used for any number of other Quests and works, if desired. The idea is for us to collaboratively create a world for all of SV to enjoy.

 

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Reserved for accumulated lore and things!

WORK IN PROGRESS


Aebrirea, the First World

Regions

The World-Sea The City of the First Children The Island of Ouroboros The Isolated Island The Hot Lands The Clouded Lands The Skylands The Arken Lands

• The name given to the connected seas of the World. Wide and varied, with abyssal depths and shallow waters, icy polar caps and churning hydrothermal vents, vibrant coral reefs and oxygen-starved wastelands. Divinely blessed with nutrients, feeding a vast array of life. Inhabited by microbial and simple multicellular life, algae, aquatic plants, coral, fish, cetaceans, leviathans, sea serpents, K'orlannsch and sentient algae. The World-Sea and all its descendants possess a mind in the form of the Spirit of the World-Sea. The rise of continents has fragmented the World-Sea and the Spirit considerably.
• A grand divine city of coral rising from the ocean near the First Island. It was raised by the Makers in the form a divinity known as Bãsn in an act of titanic self-sacrifice. The City is half-submerged, with its cavernous lower levels underwater and its high spires and many domes above the surface. Its rough coral surface and organic shapes give it the appearance of a vast living thing at a distance.
  
  Currently inhabited by the Bãsn-Shaal-Khlomet - 'the Favored Children of Bãsn' - an alliance of Shallow Algal colonies who have agreed to share the City among themselves. Outsiders are not tolerated. The practice of Ardency allows these colonies to settle even in the upper levels of the City, far above the water's surface.
• The first surface landmass to be created. The Island of Ouroboros is made of woods, grasslands and desert, inhabited by Baólians, Hollows, Dream Canidae, Humans and Ogres. Nature consists of microbial and simple multicellular life, lichen and fungi, plants, trees, birds, fish, cetaceans, ungulates, felines, slimes, elemental salamanders, nymphs, wyverns, K'orlannsch, Ixnix and Iktai.
  
  On the island one can find the Comfortable Cave, the Memory Pool and the Tree of Evolution. World-Song Stones may be found on the southern shore of the Island.
  
  Some legends hold that as all things began, so shall all things come to an end on the island.
• A lonely, small island off the eastern coast of the Clouded Lands. Dominated by a great divine tree that places the entire island in shadow and inhabited by White Ants. Nature consists of microbial and simple multicellular life, lichen and fungi, plants, birds, fish, cetaceans, felines, slimes, elemental salamanders and nymphs.
  
  The Tree is known as Crataegus, the Guardian Tree. From his fruits have all trees of the World come and spread. He is sentient and has power over the island. He sees his purpose as keeping peace and protecting the Island. Kaileah the Dryad is his child, a creature of nature who guards her father from harm.
• A continent in the southwest of the world. Dominated by mountain ranges, volcanoes, geysers and geothermal pools alongside craggy lowlands. Volcanic ash offers good conditions for life to grow. Inhabitated by Myridna, Hollows, Baólians, Dream Canidae, Humans and Ogres. Nature consists of microbial and simple multicellular life, plants, trees, lichen and fungi, volcanic flora, fish, birds, cetaceans, ungulates, felines, slimes, elemental salamanders, wyverns, nymphs, K'orlannsch, Iktai, Hrududu, Nym-Haggis and Sphinxes.
  
  In the central mountains rise Mount Sollaar, the peak of Nehu Far-Strider's ascension, and Ironmount (or Hanehuramo), the dwelling of Myridna kings. Embla's Grove (or Emblatha), a fertile human settlement seeded with divine plants of Humanity's birth-home, can be found in a volcanic valley in the Hot Lands. Mount Matuname is a volcanic peak in the north-central mountains of the interior.
• A continent in the southeast of the world. Features extreme terrain, with phenomenally high mountains and deep ravines side by side. Inhabitated by Skrayt, Umbrals, Hollows, Baólians, White Ants, Dream Canidae, Humans and Ogres. Nature consists of microbial and simple multicellular life, plants, trees, lichen and fungi, Dandreble Fungi, fish, birds, cetaceans, ungulates, felines, slimes, elemental salamanders, wyverns, nymphs, K'orlannsch and Iktai.
  
  On the eastern coast stands Tamvatra, 'Salt-Mound', the fortress founded by Imsamrta Sea-Queen, a cosmopolitan White Ant colony and capital of the Hive Coast civilization.
• A collection of floating islands of varying size in the skies of the world. Held up by divine magics and magical metal with gravity-manipulation properties. Each island has its own miniature center of gravity that creates a bonus effect whereby the underside of each floating island likewise has a gravitational force that pulls things 'upside down'. Inhabited by Hollows, Dream Canidae, Humans, Ogres and Skrayt. Nature consists of microbial and simple multicellular life, lichen and fungi, plants, trees, birds, felines, slimes, elemental salamanders, wyverns and nymphs.
• Two vast continents in the north of the World. Connected by a massive stone arch spanning from the edge of the western continent to the end of the eastern. The western continent holds lush jungles and wetlands in the south, temperate plains and woodlands in the center, and forest and taiga to the north. The eastern continent is made of almost entirely of grassland, steppe, tundra and savanna, with sporadic woodlands and alpine environments.
  
  Inhabited by Baólians, Dream Canidae, Humans, Ogres, Druyul, Sura and Myridna. Nature consists of microbial and simple multicellular life, lichen and fungi, plants, trees, birds, fish, cetaceans, cetaceans, ungulates, felines, slimes, elemental salamanders, wyverns, nymphs, Iktai, Horror Birds, K'orlannsch and Sphinxes.
  
  The Unreal Lake, the Mirror Spring, the Temple of Broken Angels and the Floatwood Swamp can be found in the Arken Lands. The Ziggurat of Ascension is found in the south-western jungles and is of great significance to Druyul culture. Askr's Garden (or Askrheimr) is a lush human settlement seeded with divine plants of Humanity's birth-home. It can be found on an island between the two continents.

Places

The Comfortable Cave The Memory Pool The World-Pillars The World-Song Stones The Ziggurat of Ascension The Gate of Trials The Unreal Lake The Mirror Spring The Tree of Evolution Floatwood Swamp

• An empowered cavern found on the First Island. The temperature within is always comfortable for the visitor.
• A mysterious crystal-lined pool of black liquid on the First Island. The Pool allows one to view their memories in vivid detail, projecting them onto its surface.
• Divine stone pillars found at the northern and southern poles. Time flows differently atop the poles. Time spent on the Northern Pillar passes faster than in the world below, slower on the Southern.
• Stone formations found around the World. Beautiful, serene melodies echo from them when the wind passes through. They allow for communication between the Seen and the Unseen, and are points where the barriers between the two worlds are weak.
• A great temple of stone, jade and gold in the jungle of the western Arken Lands. It is filled with riches and attracts visitors from all around, though the land outside is barren and drained by the Ziggurat's foundations. Atop the Ziggurat is a fragment of the Flame of Chaos, a contained spark of divinity which beckons living beings to it. Claiming the flame ascends you to minor divinity and can be done by beasts and intelligent creatures alike. When claimed, it takes ten years for it to grow again into a pure form; if not claimed in the day after the completion of the flame, the fire shoots out in a blinding pillar towards the Sun and the process begins again.
  
  Currently, the Ziggurat is occupied by the Druyul of the Draghai tribes. The Prophet and his line are to keep the Ziggurat's power for themselves, each ascending in turn.
• A gateway with imposing doors that appears at random around the world, challenging those who find to test themselves within. Runic divine script on the gateway, understood by any who look upon it, reads:
  
  "Thou who strives for that most wondrous"
  "Thou who craves for power much higher"
  "Thou who covets treasures without peer"
  "For one time only"
  "Enter our sacred halls and face thy trial within"
  "Prove thy worth and beest did bless"
  "Yet be warned, for those who is't enter may not escape"
  "Not until ten trials hath't did pass"
  "Or thee're forgotten forevermore"
  "But oh thy greed may calleth for more"
  "Then thee may taketh ten moo trials, forevermore"
  "Until thy greed is did sate or thee're carrion"
  
  The Gate crafts pocket realities tailor-made for those who enter and puts them through ten increasingly demanding trials for a suitable reward. The trials begin with ones suited to the skills and abilities of the challengers, but grow more and more foreign and unusual to them. Those who wish to risk it may forsake the reward for a chance at another gauntlet of ten challenges for a greater reward in turn, but failure may mean never returning to the outside world. The Gate may only be attempted once.
• A lake existing both in the Seen and the Unseen. Those who drink from its shimmering, shifting waters are granted the ability to see into the other realm, while those who submerge themselves within appear there bodily.
• A spring existing both in the Seen and the Unseen. The Mirror Spring of the Seen heals imperfections and returns things to a pristine state and blesses the surrounding vegetation and trees with a state of perfect vitality and growth, while the Spring of the Unseen does the reverse. Things and beings submerged in its waters now improve appropriately in body and mind, though those who overstay their welcome and strain themselves too far within risk literally exploding from the accumulated power. The Spring also affects the minds of its users, who grow more detached and coldly logical from extended exposure. The effect is mild at best when bottled or drawn from the springs themselves, but in time a way may be discovered to sustain its effects for longer.
  
  The Spring of the Unseen has converse effects. It manifests a dark abyss in the space around it. Those submerged are detached from the limits of their being, but like on the other side, staying for too long will see one perish as their essence dissolves into the Unseen. Extended exposure renders the affected more sensitive and emotional. A being in equilibrium between the two states will receive far greater benefits from the Springs than one affected more one way than the other.
• This towering maple can be found on the Island of Ouroboros. It is hardy, but can be damaged to create a red healing sap. Every five years, the Tree bears a Fruit of Evolution, attracting living beings to it as it ripens. Those who consume the Fruit are blessed with long life and excellent health, a broad and general increase of all physical qualities. A single mortal creature can only consume ten of the Fruits at most – any more, and they shall burst.
• A divine bog dominated by a massive tree connected to many other trees through its roots. Though rooted deep, wood cut off from the main organism can be found to float; with the injection of Vigor - a feat usually managed by repeatedly punching the wood - the buoyancy can be increased or decreased as wished.

Species

Sentient Algae Skrayt Umbrals Myridna Baólians White Ants Hollows Humans Ogres Dream Canidae Druyul Sura Nymphs Sphinxes Me'vel

• The first sentient species, sentient algae are an aquatic species found across the world. Individual sentient algae are only around 10 cm in size, but may join together into vast colonies with their kin. These colonies join not only bodies, but also minds, leading to highly complex 'mind-hives' which fuse their component minds into one consensus intellect. When such colonies grow too large to maintain a consensus mind, the hive detaches the 'aberrants' to found a new colony elsewhere.
  
  The large colony body also provides additional mobility to the algae, as their combined efforts allow the beings to crawl across the seafloor and terrain rather than simply float at the mercy of ocean currents. The algae are physically weak in many respects, but their intellect and shared will allows them to combine their strength against predators and opponents.
  
  The sentient algae communicate with visual stimuli, specifically light and motion. They emit bioluminescent blasts and displays of light in intricate patterns alongside dance-like movements as their language. Algae linked together in a colony join neural pathways, allowing for instant and 'telepathic' communication within the hive.
• Four-winged creatures from the Clouded Lands, Skrayt are able fliers and agile hunters. They came to being in the Clouded Lands and consider it their homeland and birthright. Skrayt measure at around 160 cm on average, with wiry, lean muscle on their flight-adapted bodies. One pair of wings is larger and feathered, used for gliding and soaring, while a smaller pair of leathery wings provides fine control and steering, as well as allowing the Skrayt to grip onto surfaces. Their legs are dextrous, with prehensile feet and killing talons. They are generalist omnivores but prefer to feed on fish when possible. Skrayt females lay 1-3 eggs on average.
  
  Skrayt live in tight-knit tribes of some hundred individuals. A tribe shares food, with the best catches brought in going to chiefs, expecting mothers and children. Eggs are cared for by the entire tribe communally. They utilize tools of worked stone and wear cloaks and blankets against the cold. Skrayt dwellings are usually rough holes and shelters raised on the flying islands of their home continent, lined with feathers and leather for warmth. Skrayt have a great love of freedom and of song. Tribes come together in communal feasts and sky-dances, with the distinctive warbling songs of the Skrayt audible over long distances.
• A sentient race given to life underground. The Umbrals are pale and blind creatures with sharp hearing and smell. An Umbral appears to stand at roughly 150 cm tall on average due to their hunched backs, but are actually quite a bit taller. The pale skin of the Umbrals is hypersensitive to sunlight. They dwell in dark places such as caverns and ravines, ascending to the surface only at night to gather food and valuable resources. The Umbral are mainly herbivorous, preferring Dandreble Fungi and other dark-adapted growth as well as edible surface grasses.
  
  Umbrals are innately empathetic and in tune with their fellows. This makes their communities exceptionally close and loyal when all members can conform, but causes harsh shunning to those who provoke negative feelings in the family. Such aberrants are exiled, which can lead to violent and mentally unstable individuals unless the afflicted manage to find a community where they can fit in. Umbrals use tools of stone but usually don't bother building dwellings, as their caverns and pits provide enough shelter.
• A sentient race of bipedal feline rodents found primarily in the Hot Lands. Myridna have fur that shields them against extremes of temperature and comes in shades of yellows and oranges for females, reds and browns for males. Females stand on average at 120 cm, males at 150 cm.
  
  They have strong longer upper arms, a pair of smaller secondary arms on the upper waist and legs that in normal sitting position look short and stubby, but can stretch to be quite long. Myridna middle arms are short with three clawed stubby fingers well suited for gripping, while the upper arms have three fingers flanked by a pair of thumbs; the three fingers each have retractable claws. Male claws are shorter and sturdier and better suited for digging through tough surfaces; while female claws are longer, sharper, and better suited for cutting through softer substances. Myridna tails are short, strong, and sturdy on the males, while females have thinner, longer, prehensile tails.
  
  Myridna live long lives, up to hundreds of years, but this can vary immensely as more sedentary and passive individuals die out faster, while more active lifestyles can prolong Myridna lives to exceptional length.
  
  Myridna are well suited for living terrestrial, semi-aquatic or even underground lifestyles. Their lungs and digestive systems are especially hardy. The lungs are both capable of breathing in all but the most toxic of environments and holding air for extreme periods of time. Their digestive systems are highly efficient and capable of digesting practically any biological matter. Myridna are partial to darker locations, with eyes well suited for dimly lit places. While not blinded by bright lights, they are not fond of them and can grow irritable if forced to be out in sunlight or other bright places without means to dim the light their eyes are exposed to. Myridna are particularly fast and dextrous, making for exceptional climbers - a process aided by their claws.
  
  The Myridna as a race are given to a love of craftsmanship and building. They dig the earth for valuable ores and metals, which they have an affinity to working with. Myridna dig warrens and burrows in soil or construct dwellings within stone, preferring underground locations. Their construction tends to favor utilitarian design over style - Myridna creations are intended to last the test of time.
  
  Myridna live in tight-knit clans under chiefs. Labor is heavily divided by sex due to the significant dimorphism of the species. Myridna couple in monogamous pairs. Attachment to one's mate is so strong that widowed Myridna are unlikely to remarry. Loyalty in general is at core of Myridna being, with betrayal the gravest sin one can commit.
• Baólians are amphibious creatures found worldwide on coasts and in shallow waters. A Baólian is tall, rising on average to 2m, lean and agile. They have gills on their necks which allow for underwater breathing for hours on end. Tentacles extend from the mouths of Baólians, which are highly sensitive and assist in finding food. They have clawed hands well suited for climbing both underwater and aboveground. Baólians are carnivores and feed mainly on fish, though in times of scarcity they can derive nutrition from some plant matter as well.
  
  Baólians live in small nomadic bands that migrate around in pursuit of fish stocks. They are highly efficient predators and can quickly exterminate populations where they hunt. They are a curious and open-minded race, happy to trade and converse with those they meet, and with an affinity for languages. Bands that encounter one another tend to stop to feast, tell stories and negotiate matings before moving on, possibly with brides or grooms exchanged.
• White Ants are a species of sentient ants originally from the Isolated Island. They are eusocial and live in large colonies led by a dominant queen. The vast majority of White Ants in any given colony are worker drones and soldier drones - infertile females left docile and simple-minded by the queen's pheromones and social conditioning. In theory, any drone can grow to become a fertile queen in the absence of one, but usually a carefully groomed daughter-heir is chosen to succeed a ruling queen. Males are traded between colonies to replenish genetic stocks and live out their lives in the gilded cages of the queen's chambers.
  
  Queens usually grow to around 2m in length, with heavy shells, non-functional wings used for dominance displays and atrophied limbs, though more active individuals can retain full mobility through their lives. Males are somewhat smaller at around 170 cm. Worker drones tend to plateau at around 150cm, with soldiers reaching lengths of around 170cm with noticeably bulkier and stronger bodies. All White Ants are white with red eyes and pale red ichor. Their wings are too small to allow for flight, but fulfill purposes of social signaling instead.
  
  White Ant queens are known for being very possessive and territorial of their colonies and subjects. Colonies tend to stockpile food and resources, which at times leads to ecological devastation as the surrounding area is stripped bare and everything edible carried off into the hive. Cultivation of certain plant species is common as well. Alliances between hives are usually respected. Conversely, queens are quite vengeful and patient in their anger when they feel slighted. Old grudges are passed on to heirs to be carried on for centuries if need be.
• A sentient species of living pebbles filled with meat. A Hollow can manipulate their shell and biology as they grow, with some reaching enormous size and strength. Most Hollows, however, are tiny and easily missed by other creatures. Their stony shells make them unpalatable for most predators, but trampling and rough play can still lead to accidental deaths at the hands of larger animals.
  
  Hollows live solitary existences, wandering the World. Even mating pairs meet only for short times before separating. There is no unified Hollow culture or civilization as such. Some Hollows have been made into larger Hollow Men in the shape of other sentient races, retaining the innate abilities of their race.
• A sentient species of mammals with two arms and two legs. Not especially strong, armored or otherwise physically dangerous, but very enduring, intelligent and adaptable. Sexually dimorphic, with males larger and stronger on average and females bearing and nursing young. Omnivorous, mainly feeding on certain types of plant matter and the meat of animals. Possess an innate connection to the World Tree that nursed them and fed them in the childhood of the species. Often found with Dream Canidae, who they have a primordial pact of friendship with.
  
  Love all growing things and tending to nature, and as such usually make their homes in forests and woodlands. Possessed of a love of freedom and vibrant imaginations. Humans can be found everywhere in small nomadic groups with semi-egalitarian social structures. The human diaspora and fragmentation is leading to many divergent cultures and traditions.
  
  The father and mother of the human race are Askr and Embla, two demigods born of divine wood from whose love all ancestors of Humanity have sprung. As humans multiply and new generations come into being, the divine power in their flesh and blood will gradually weaken and grow thinner. Strong bloodlines may retain more of Askr and Embla's strength, affinity with nature and long life than others.
• Parasite cousins of Humans, the Ogres resemble large and ugly men and women. They are possessed of unusual strength, large stature and hardy bodies. Ogres are mostly able to pass as ordinary humans and use this to infiltrate human societies as warriors and heroes promising greatness, safety or prosperity. The Ogre will then begin to consume humans under its 'care' until they are identified for what they are or have devoured the entire community. By consuming humans, the Ogres gain fragments of the primordial power of Askr and Embla, and thus grow stronger still. They dream of eating the demigods themselves and of ruling over all of Humanity.
  
  Ogres are far more cunning than their brutish appearance suggests, and as such often underestimated by their seekers and opponents. Paranoia over Ogres has led to some human communities to murder misshapen or unusual-looking babies at birth and to shun outsiders thought to look suspicious. Ogres may reproduce with ordinary humans as well as each other, with the traits of an Ogre usually not noticeable until puberty, if even then. Despite their monstrous nature and ruthlessness, Ogres share the talent for growing things and pleasure in nature found in ordinary humans.
• A sentient species of canines known for their canny and mischievous natures. Can live in both the Seen and the Unseen and cross between the Realms with ease. In the Unseen, they exist as spirits, changing and reimagining themselves as they wish. In the Seen, they take on bodies of matter and flesh, but retain some of their spiritual nature in the ethereal look of their bodies and their ability to change their 'spots' and coats as they like. As beings of the Seen, Dream Canidae are mostly carnivorous. When their Seen bodies are spent by age or injury, they tend to simply migrate to the Unseen to be reborn over time.
  
  Dream Canidae are not interested in the building of 'civilization'. They live as bands of tricksters, messengers and pathfinders, aiding or hindering others according to their whims. They have a particular love for Humanity, however, thanks to a primordial pact of friendship between the two species.
• A sentient species of bipedal reptilians at home in hot and humid environments and native to the western Arken Lands. They are efficient omnivorous predators utilizing pack tactics, persistence hunting and tool use to bring down even very dangerous prey. Druyul are an industrious and competitive species, which manifests both as great communal labors and frequent hostilities between rival tribes.
  
  They stand at around 180 cm, with chameleon skin and flexible, detachable tails. The shifting coloration of Druyul scales is also used for intentional and involuntary emotional and social signalling. Eggs laid by fertile females are typically covered with mounds of earth warmed by fires for incubation; parents will retrieve their spawn once they have hatched and raise them with the help of extended families.
  
  Druyul live in large tribes led by often hereditary chiefs. Druyul society respects industriousness, strength and utility to the tribe as a whole most of all. Druyul culture shuns those who cannot or will not work for the benefit of all. Old Druyul either serve as advisors for the chief, or commit a kind of ritual suicide by departing to hunt a Horror Bird on their own, depending on the tribe and individual.
• A sentient species native to the western Arken Lands, the Suras are a race of exceptional physical strength and stature. They are unable to use magic, save for the practice of Vigor, which they have a natural affinity for.
  
  A Sura stands at around 3m tall, with six arms and a physically powerful frame. They have three eyes, the third situated on the forehead. Their skin is in shades of red and bronze. Their body hair is white and silky.
  
  Sura live in nomadic bands ruled by chiefs and advised by Exarchs. The Paths of the Sura form the backbone of Surish society, dividing individuals onto various Paths and professions. Contests of strength and athleticism are the favorite pastimes of Surish culture, with wrestling generally thought a sacred and vital sport that every Sura should learn in their time. The Sura were the first to develop tool-aided pottery and the wheel.
• Elemental guardians who appear in places of particular beauty and significance. They are blessed with powers over nature. While generally kindly and nurturing, they react with hostility to those who would destroy or steal away the natural splendor they protect. Nymphs are known by different names depending on their origin and appearance: the dryads are born of great trees, the naiads of waters and the nepheles of clouds and winds. They usually resemble a being of some sentient race composed of an element they have an affinity for.
• Winged beings with the head of a human and the body of a lion. These wondrous monsters roam the deserts and mountains of the world in states of deep contemplation (and of rather more mundane hunger). They crave new knowledge and mental stimulation, and thus often engage travelers in games of riddles and telling of stories. Their company is enriching, but to anger these normally docile creatures means having to fend off an enormous carnivorous monster easily capable of devouring you whole.
• A machine race with forms of living metal. For the Me'vel, artistry and craft is all. They sustain themselves on the products of their creative labor, deriving nutrition from symbols and works of art. The Me'vel are detached from linear time and may travel, twist and manipulate it to varying amounts. They do not reproduce as most do, but are instead born where time frays and is disrupted, and from acts of great passion and emotion. Their numbers are thus consistently low.
  
  Me'vel bodies and shapes are varied. As the Me'vel age, they incorporate new parts and materials into their forms to become living pieces of art.
  
  The Me'vel exist mostly as small groups and bands flitting through time, with temporary garden-settlements adorned with manipulations of time. They love the light of the stars and the Belt of the Second World, and thus prefer to dwell upon the Second.

Civilizations

Deep Algals Ardent Algals Highland Myridna Lowland Myridna Coastal Myridna Hive Coast Draghai Druyul

• The Deep Algals are sentient algae who have retreated from shallow waters and abhor the surface. They live a relatively primitive existence and tend to inhabit coral reefs for the protection their confines grant against grazing predators. They feed on sunlight, the ample nutrients provided by the waters and occasionally on rival lifeforms such as fish and cetaceans.
  
  Deep Algals possess a mastery of the Art of Shaping. Its use is widespread in their culture, though also regulated through taboos and common practices. Individual Deep Algal colonies can reshape themselves into radically different forms, changing their physical qualities, form of mobility, their connections to other Algals and much else. This has made the Deep Algals renewed masters of their environments, with little to fear except from the greatest aquatic beasts. Failed Shapings lead to shunned and feared 'abominations' - mutated and corrupted Algal colonies consumed by hunger and often indulging in cannibalism of their fellows.
  
  Other magic is unknown or poorly understood, but Shaping is sometimes applied to form organs and biologies which utilize ambient solar and lunar magic in an organic fashion.
  
  Deep Algals make little use of tools, prefering to Shape themselves as necessary instead. They have domesticated leviathans and other beasts of the sea into their service through Shaping and conditioning. Large whales and leviathans are often used as mobile homes for colonies to inhabit and control.
  
  The Deep Algals hold the Spirit of the World-Sea in great esteem as a nurturer and protector. The Spirit of the World-Sea is honored through elaborate rituals of light and motion. The Makers, though poorly understood, are feared and revered for giving them the dangerous gift of Shaping.
• The Ardent or Shallow Algals are sentient algae who inhabit the City of the First Children and shallow waters near it. They enjoy much greater safety from rivals and predators in their fortress-like abode. The Shallow Algals feast on the ample sunlight of the surface water, with faster population growth than their Deep brethren. In darker months, they add to their diet by trapping plankton, fish and cetaceans swimming into the flooded lower chambers of the City. Aquacultural practices allow for the growth and cultivation of considerable stocks of marine creatures to be eaten in times of scarcity.
  
  The Ardent Algal practice the Arts of Ardency, gifted to them by the divinity Bãsn. This magical discipline allows mental and spiritual focus through meditation and self-control, leading to a state of purity in which the Law of Narrative Satisfaction can be harnessed to tweak and bend laws of nature. Masters of Ardency, the leaders of the Ardent Algals, develop cold, amoral personalities devoid of emotion or conscience. The Ardent Algals devote themselves the Great Bãsn, honoring him through rituals of light and motion as well as sacrifices of captured lifeforms.
  
  Other magic is shunned as distracting from the utter focus demanded by Ardency. Mystical architecture occurring naturally in the City is utilized to focus Ardent practices further, however.
  
  The Ardent Algals of the City call themselves the Bãsn-Shaal-Khlomet, 'the Favored Children of Bãsn'. They are governed by a council of colonies most advanced in their studies of Ardency, known as the Masters. All others are expected to submit to their will and live a strictly disciplined existence.
• Myridna tribes dwelling in the mountains and highlands of the Hot Lands. They are organized in tight-knit clans under male chiefs advised by prominent females, which in turn answer to the Mountain King at Ironmount. The royal Holystone clan enjoys a privileged position among the highland Myridna. A number of lowland clans are subject to the King as well.
  
  The highlanders live semi-nomadic lives. Cultivation of hardy highland crops and fungi is supplemented by hunting and gathering as well as some shepherding of Nym-Haggis and ungulate mammals. Birds are kept for their eggs and feathers. A fully settled community exists at Ironmount, fed by tribute from the clans.
  
  The highland Myridna are skilled at digging stone and excavating precious ores and gems. Copper, bronze, lead, tin, gold and silver are worked by the forges at Ironmount. The secrets of metalwork and smithing are carefully guarded by the Holystone Myridna and the court at Ironmount, but rudimentary smelteries have spread elsewhere as well.
  
  Magic is known by individuals and usually taught by practicioners to one or a few apprentices. Ritual implements of different metals and materials are valued as empowering symbols. The most common magics known to highland Myridna are solar and lunar magics. Vigor is practiced though poorly understood by some warriors. Shaping and shadow magic are virtually unknown.
• Myridna tribes dwelling in hills and lowlands of the Hot Lands. They are organized in tight-knit clans under male chiefs advised by prominent females, which may ally, quarrel and trade with one another. A large portion of lowland clans have united in the Federation of Horns, an alliance of clans led by the Mihoza chieftains of the Rootbiter clan. Some lowland clans are subject to the Mountain King of the highlanders instead, while some live in Emblatha under the human demigoddess Embla.
  
  The lowland Myridna are generally semi-nomadic pastoralists. Domesticated animals are raised for food and labor, including Hrududu, Nym-Haggis, ungulate mammals and some bird species. Clans migrate between seasonal settlements, some of which hold plantations and fields of crops as well. The work of planting and growing is usually handled by human specialists. Tools and weapons are largely of stone, horn and bone, with rare metal objects valued greatly for their durability and utility.
  
  Magic is known by individuals and usually taught by practicioners to one or a few apprentices. Shaping has some pupils, who utilize the Art to strengthen and evolve the clans' cattle. Vigor, solar magic, lunar magic and shadow magic are known by individuals. Lowlander clans usually construct a ritual enclosure in the middle of their camps and villages utilizing basic principles of mystical architecture to empower magic.
• Myridna tribes dwelling on the coasts and estuaries of the Hot Lands. They are organized in tight-knit clans under male chiefs advised by prominent females, which may ally, quarrel and trade with one another. They live a semi-nomadic existence, settling at good fishing waters for some time and moving on when they are depleted. Coastal Myridna are skilled fishers and love the water. They build their dwellings near water and incorporate shaded pools and trenches into them. Tools are of stone, wood, bone and other simple materials.
  
  Coastal Myridna are pioneers of the art of sailing. Fishers can range far for their catch on simple sailing vessels. The ships of Myridna are notable for their covered decks - for the Myridna dislike the irritation of being in the open sun and endeavor to avoid it at all costs. Meetings with others have produced an interest in trade and barter as well, and Myridna traders are held to be particularly shrewd and perceptive.
  
  Magic is known by individuals and usually taught by practicioners to one or a few apprentices. Most of these are coastal Myridna who offer gifts of their catch back to the Sea to gain fragments of the Sea-Spirit's power. Other magics are known at a basic level or not at all.
• The Hive Coast is the name given to a part of the eastern coast of the Clouded Lands dominated by the 'Sea-Ants' and their subjects. The White Ant population descends from the Sea-Queen Imsamrta and her exiles. These 'Sea-Ants' are ruled by Queens bearing a fraction of Imsamrta's power over the Sea in their veins. They are thought wise and compassionate, though traits of possessiveness, vindictiveness and territoriality are still found among them.
  
  The Hive Coast is a cosmopolitan civilization. Its rulers are the White Ant Queens, but beneath them live White Ant drones, Skrayt, Baólians, Umbrals, Humans and even some few Hollows and Dream Canidae. The heart of the Hive Coast is the fortress-like hive of Tamvatra, the 'Salt-Mound', built by Queen Imsamrta at the beginning of her exile. Smaller colonies in its image are scattered around the region, not directly subservient to but generally following the guidance of the heart-hive and its sovereign. They are carefully planned and well-ordered structures built as tiered levels tapering to rounded peaks. Construction materials are packed earth, wood and clay. Choke points and trapped approaches allow for strong defenses. Night soil is poured down a central chasm, which leads through underground levels out to sea.
  
  The Hivers practice basic forms of agriculture and animal husbandry developed together by White Ants and Humans. Birds are kept in pens within hives for their eggs, meat and feathers. The slopes of the hives are given over to terraced 'gardens' cultivating fruit and berries as well as some food crops. Low caverns are used for the growth of edible and useful mushrooms that are fed by the nutritious night soil produced by the population. These supplement the foraging, fishing and hunting that still occupies much of the Coast's population. One of the most important sources of nutrition are so-called 'royal harvests', where the Queens use their powers over the Sea to stun, direct and trap fish for the colonies en masse.
  
  Tools are stone and wood. Clothing is made of wild flax, feather, fur and leather and used to varying degrees. Various styles of art exist, from Baólian water dances and Skrayt peak-songs to Human wood-painting and Umbral cave carvings. Magic is not practiced or taught in any organized manner; most commonly known Arts are those of Vigor and Shaping. Specialized ritual chambers within colonies are built on basic principles of mystical architecture as well. Lunar magic is viewed with distrust as the treacherous magic of the islander White Ants.
  
  The different subject races are essentially equal in their rights under the Queens. Each inhabitant swears their loyalty to their Queen and exists at her sufferance, but enjoys no real privileges over their peers. Labor is generally specialized according to the natural abilities and culture of each species, however. The Ants themselves maintain the colony, enforce order and form the bulk of any fighting force. Humans are almost universally growers and planters. Skrayt have an important duty as aerial guards and scouts, for which they tend to live on the highest levels of their hives. Baólians serve as fishers and increasingly as sea-farers. Umbral communities work the mushroom pits and guard against underground threats such as Iktai.
  
  Each race forms its own subcommunity, but they are united by a broader culture revering the wisdom and guidance of Imsamrta Sea-Queen, by communal feasts and performances held in the central halls of the hives and by a generally shared ethical and social code of conduct that stresses loyalty, tolerance and hard work.
• The Draghai Druyul are tribes that have assimilated into or are closely associated with the Draghai tribe of the Druyul and its leader, the Prophet of the Ziggurat. They live in the jungles and wetlands around the Ziggurat of Ascension and within the temple-complex itself. The Draghai serve and revere their god-chief and seek to understand his teachings. Draghai society is more hierarchical and authoritarian than that of other Druyul, with an appropriately pyramid-like social structure with the Prophet and his line at the top.
  
  The Draghai Druyul are best characterized as semi-nomadic. The Ziggurat is a permanent settlement inhabited by the Prophet and his closest followers; other villages exist which tribes live in for parts of the year, yet abandon for most of the time. These tend to incorporate hidden granaries guarded by traps from beasts and rivals. Small semi-cultivated plantations tend to exist at these sites; left mostly to nature outside of sowing and protected by palisades and traps from grazers.
  
  The secrets of metalworking are known at the Ziggurat, though the scarcity of available ore makes production minimal. Many of the temple's chambers are given over to different experiments, from animal breeding to certain magics; Druyul from all around the continent make pilgrimages to the Ziggurat to gawk and wonder at these oddities.

Creatures

Leviathans K'orlannsch Ixnix Iktai Horror Birds Wyverns Slimes Hrududu Nym-Haggis Elemental Salamanders Sea Serpents

• Great beasts of the deep, leviathans are serpentine creatures dwelling in the world's oceans. They grow as they age and have no end to their natural lifespans, making ancient leviathans truly vast and powerful - though also lethargic and inactive. Leviathans are filter feeders and tend to congregate near thermal vents in large family pods. They are keystone species that play an important role in the life cycles of many lesser creatures.
• K'orlannsch are photosynthetic air-breathing worms which live in shallow waters, rivers and coastal areas. They spend much of their days in sun-bathing torpor as they feed on the sun's light, trusting in their large size and hardy skin to protect them from attack. At dusk they stir to socialize, play, mate and explore. They currently have few natural predators and as such are extremely placid creatures. Most live near the equator - extreme latitudes suit them poorly, with individuals growing up stunted from lesser levels of sunlight.
• Creatures descending from Ik'Shar the Fluffy and Nix'Shar the Marginally Fluffier, Ixnix are round, furry and extremely social. They are fairly long-lived and feed on plants, fungi, lichen and algae. They live across the First Island in large herds.
• Burrowing centipede-like creatures which dig through soil and rock rubble, consuming minerals and nutrient-rich soil in great quantities as they travel. Their powerful pincers and hardy bodies allow them to dig long winding tunnels underground as they seek out delicious ores and minerals. The Iktai remake their shells when consuming great quantities of a mineral - gold-eaters developing gold-plated shells, for example. They are found everywhere on the World and are especially plentiful in the Hot Lands and Stromhiem.
• Large hunting birds found in the Arken Lands. They are far too heavy to fly, but their great muscular wings are tipped with talons and strong enough to tear flesh and bone with ease. Their strong legs allow them to sprint quickly over short distances when they ambush prey or usurp the kills of others. Their piercing beaks are all too capable of crushing spines and cracking skulls to kill their prey in one blow. Worst of all, the cry of the Horror Birds sounds on many frequencies of sound and stirs feelings of primordial terror, often paralyzing those hunted before they even glimpse their opponent.
  
  Horror Birds are apex predators of the Arken Lands. They sustain themselves on the plentiful ungulates found on the continent, utilizing a mix of ambush tactics and usurpation of carcasses from smaller predators. They require so much to eat that their populations are relatively small by necessity, yet their presence in their territory cannot be missed. Horror Birds rule over large territories, with males intruding on female nesting grounds in the hopes of winning her affections for mating, only to be driven off once their business is concluded.
• Large flying two-legged monsters with immense strength and considerable animal cunning. They are carnivorous and prefer to take large prey, carrying it to their nests to eat over time. Wyverns tend to ambush their prey and kill it with their powerful bites to the neck and spine. They are a particularly diverse kind of creature with many sub-species adapted to their native environments. Notable subspecies include the sea-hunting cliff wyverns, the cloud-circling high wyverns, the canopy-dwelling forest wyverns, the burrowing sand wyverns and the amphibious muck wyverns.
• Slimes are small, simple-minded creatures with bodies of amorphous clear slime. They are weak enough to be dissolved by a simple kick and roam the world mindlessly eating. Slimes grow and strengthen by consuming different materials, such as stone, metal or bone, and divide when growing large enough.
  
  Depending on the type of substances dissolved by a Slime, their remains have different properties. For example, grass-eating Slimes offer a great source of fertilizer when butchered. The uses of Slime remains are discovered around the world by sentient races and clever animals, with some even feeding Slimes certain materials on purpose for a valuable end product.
• Hexapedal lizard grazers found in the Clouded Lands. They have crests of bone on their heads that can be raised and lowered for communicating mood, and when threatened are used to emit sound that is inaudible to most creatures, yet has the effect of inducing dizziness and even unconsciousness. They are generally docile and have powerful herd instinct, which is why they have found well-suitable for domestication. Their strong frames allow them to serve as beasts of burden and their meat, hides, bone and eggs are valuable in different ways. Their bone crests have the potential to be worked into instruments which can replicate a weaker version of the dizziness-inducing effect they emit.
• Mammalian grazers found in the Clouded Lands. Nym-Haggis are roughly 120 cm long on average. They have six legs, each which have claws that are well-suited for climbing and latching onto difficult terrain. Males have a pair of curved horns along the sides of their heads and strong skulls that are excellent for bashing things, while females have a single sharp horn on their nose that are excellent for stabbing things. Among the traits that make Nym-Haggis excellent livestock is that every part of their body is useful in some way. Nym-Haggis bones are hard as stone but far lighter; their hides slowly toughen over their course of their lives (to the point where Nym-Haggis that die of 'old age' mostly just can't move very well anymore because of how tough their skin has become) enabling their hides to grow increasingly useful as leather the older they get; Nym-Haggis grow hardy fur depending on their environment which can be shaved for use as base fabric material.
  
  In addition to the very tasty meat they provide, Nym-Haggis lay their young as eggs - under the right conditions may lay eggs on a regular basis despite said eggs being unfertilized, which can be used as another source of food; Nym-Haggis young feed on milk from their mothers, which can likewise be used as another source of food. Nym-Haggis are by nature herbivores. However, they have highly durable digestive systems. Nym-Haggis are more than capable of functioning as scavengers if need be, and will accept a diet of nearly anything put in front of them - which sometimes includes things that would normally not be edible. They are, in their own way, living recyclers, as their own refuse makes for excellent fertilizer. While ill-suited for swimming, they are hardy enough to survive most reasonable land environments.
  
  Nym-Haggis are predispositioned to mostly passive behavior, caring little beyond the basic necessities of life - eating, drinking, sleeping, and breeding. This makes them easy to domesticate, though they are renowned for their stubborness and ornery tempers when prodded to do something they do not like. It is when they are ready to breed that the males are most likely to be most active, and in their natural settings will challenge one another for the right to mate with a chosen female by slamming heads together until one reigns supreme. However, in the presence of danger, they can in fact be motivated to take action, such as protecting themselves against predators or moving to escape dangerous weather or terrain events.
• Elemental salamanders are small creatures with slick, poisonous skin. Each grows to harness a spark of innate elemental magic, most commonly fire, and as they age they grow small antlers on their heads. They are enthralling and may draw attention and affections from other creatures. Elemental salamanders have an inborn desire to fly through the air and Void, though they are sadly wingless and flightless. The little animals' dreams of flight lead them to often jump on the backs of birds and flying creatures, even predatory ones. Most of the time, this ends up with them being eaten or cast off, but their entrancing looks lead to them developing symbiotic relationships with some animals and creatures – though the poison on their skin limits these relationships to those with some resistance to it.
• Sea Serpents are the children of Nahesa. They are born from their mother as a cloud of mote-sized spawnlings every five years and cannot breed on their own. They are extremely long-lived, though in their early years very vulnerable to predation due to their small size and weakness. As they grow, they become kings and queens of the seas in their own right, with powerful affinity to the Sea-Spirit and its magic and over lunar magics. The Serpents may shed their scales to assume the forms of mortal races at will, though such a transformation weakens them severely, and they must be careful not to lose their shed scales – without them, they cannot transform back. In these forms, they may be capable of bearing or siring children taking traits from both parents.

Entities

The Spirit of the World-Sea Ik'Shar the Fluffy Nix'Shar the Marginally Fluffier Nahesa, First of the Sea Serpents Crataegus, the Guardian Tree Kaileah the Dryad The Merchant of Hope The Questing Beast Oech-Rul, the Monster of Many Faces Glacis the Mountain-Carver The Goliath Bird The Tyrant of Gold The Lizard of Potential Melkiades, the First Undead The Rift Serpents The Two-Headed Sphinx Ünnarae

• The personification and manifested soul of the World-Sea. Possesses vast magical power and awareness. Considers the denizens of the oceans their charges and wards, sometimes to a possessive degree - a being of both great compassion and great pride. With the rising of many new continents, their consciousness and power has been fragmented considerably.
• Ik'Shar the Fluffy was a divinely created creature inhabiting the Central Island and a parent of the Ixnix race. It resembled a ball of fur in the colors of the aurora borealis and possessed a friendly, affectionate personality.
• Ik'Shar the Fluffy was a divinely created creature inhabiting the Central Island and a parent of the Ixnix race. It resembled a ball of fur in the colors of the aurora borealis and possessed a friendly, affectionate personality.
• A scaled, amphibious serpent, Nahesa was born as small as a grain of sand but grows larger and larger as time goes on. They are the mother of all sea serpents, which Nahesa births every five years as tiny mote-sized spawnlings.
• The awakened intellect of the great Guardian Tree of the Lonesome Island. The Tree bears fruit in many colors and is the ancestor of all the world's trees. Crataegus sees himself as the benevolent but if necessary strict patriarch of the Island. His powers over the great tree and the island's natural bounty make its other inhabitants fall in line with his peacekeeping decrees. His daughter is the Dryad Kaileah, his protector.
• The first of the nymphs, Kaileah is a protector of Crataegus on the Lonesome Island and leader of its lesser dryads. She has a humanoid body of bark, vine and leaves. She holds powers over nature and possesses preternatural strength. Kaileah is a stalwart and sharp-eyed sentinel who seeks to end threats before they even come to the attention of Crataegus.
• The Merchant of Hope is a divine wanderer who grants great gifts to to those in need in exchange for good deeds performed. The good-natured entity appears differently depending on its audience, but it generally a trader of pleasant and somehow familiar appearance. The Merchant sells only to those in need and asks only that the buyer does good deeds in value equal to what was bought. Heroes may purchase the tools they need to vanquish great monsters; the despairing find what they need to grasp hope; those tempted by evil may be offered a reminder of their true goodness.
• A divine entity and living tale built from the remains of an Outer God. It is a creature taking many forms of charred black bones and luminous flesh. This strange entity appears in a variety of bestial forms to challenge and test heroes and villains alike. To see the Beast is to be invited for a Hunt: to find and kill the Beast is to find the power one needs to overcome their obstacles. The Beast is mighty, always powerful enough to pose a grueling challenge to the one challenging it, but never so strong as to make its defeat impossible. Those with the purity of will to triumph will triumph; those who falter may very well perish. No mortal can kill the Beast for good, for that is not its purpose - at the conclusion of the Hunt, it is always reborn in new form within the Unseen.
• A living tale and servant of the Questing Beast. They appear to those hunting the Beast in many different guises.
  
  As the Savage, a barbarian warrior, they appear to hone the fighting instincts of the hunter through grueling challenges or training. As the Sage, they come as a wise elder with valuable lessons to give. As the Seductress, they appear as a figure of temptation testing the hunter's devotion to their quest and ideals. As the Hunter, they pursue the hero and force them into a confrontation, turning them from the hunter to the hunted for a change.
  
  As the Riddle-Maker, they manifest as a youth asking riddles to test their wisdom and insight, rewarding correct answers with valuable advice, but turning into a ferocious giant should they fail. And as the Apparition, Oech-Rul challenges the hunter as the amalgation of their worst fears, forcing them to overcome that which they dread most if they are to face the Beast.
  
  The many tests of Oech-Rul make the journey to the Beast a far more difficult one, but they greatly push its seekers along on the path to Legendhood. Those heroes who triumph over each of Oech-Rul's faces and meet the Beast itself have already learned and suffered much; the final confrontation is all the more sweeter for it.
• An enormous serpent in the Clouded Lands. It is an incredibly slow and rather dim-witted behemoth grinds valleys into existence with its passing across years, winding its way against the warm sides of volcanoes. Entire ranges may slowly be broken down by its relentless passage. It is next to impossible to fall to victim to such a being, but it is dangerous to settlements and constructions due to its sheer size and weight.
• A giant teratorn transformed by a divine hand into a monstrous and immortal tyrant. It channels solar magic through its feathers into terrifying displays of destruction. It grows further without end as it ages. Great greed consumes its mind and it seeks to amass glittering and precious things as much as food. The Goliath Bird's offspring with ordinary teratorns has given birth to the species of sun birds, which occasionally manifest sparks of its solar magic.
• A monstrous solar elemental ruling over a peak, Sol Mountain, in the Clouded Lands. The Tyrant has great curling horns and flesh of light and molten gold, so bright it is difficult to discern its proportions or shape. It is a strange creature, capable of moving through sunlight and shooting deadly tendrils out of its body. The Tyrant is territorial and quick to violence as it rules over the peak known as Sol Mountain. Each intruder it consumes adds to its throne atop the Mountain.
• A divine winged lizard. It has the power to absorb qualities and grow larger from everything it manages to eat, with no real limit to its ultimate size and power.
• A hapless creature made by the Makers with a touch that brings slow death. They are a rotten, withered figure resembling a mix of many sentient races – with the facial tentacles of a Baólian, the third eye of a Sura, the prehensile feet of a Skrayt, the hairlessness of Men, the digging claws of a Myridna, and other such amalgations. Melkiades means no harm, but has very little understanding of the world around it and is doomed to kill much of what they come across.
• The Twin Rift Serpents are a pair of divine wyrms living in the waters of the First and Second Worlds. They have scales colored in an ever shifting starscape. They are curious and friendly creatures ever hunting for more stories and knowledge to receive and give back to mortals. They may communicate with each other at any time despite the distance. By coiling themselves and biting their own tail, they create a portal between one another - anything passing through one circle will come out of the other.
  
  The First World is home to the Elder Rift Serpent.
• The merged form of Tsu-Kai the Umbral and Unthra the Sphinx, a pair of unlikely lovers. After Tsu-Kai's death, the Makers resurrected him as the second head of the Sphinx. The Two-Headed Sphinx now guides and protects the Umbrals of Stromhiem. They enjoy a position of great respect among the Sphinxes of the continent.
• Ünnarae the Great Collector and Creator is a spirit embodied as a thing of shadows that roams the worlds seeking sinners. Its purpose is to trap the souls of sinners in the Seen and Unseen within its dark mirror. Every hundred souls gathered are fused into a new being, which is further placed within an item of power. If defeated and destroyed, Ünnarae will be reborn a decade later and begin its work anew.
  
  Ünnarae's judgement of what is evil is the same as that of ultimate arbitrator of morality in Creation, the Mantle of the Breaker. When there is no holder for the Mantle, Ünnarae bases its judgement on the views of those around it.

Phenomena

The Sky Sea Hour-Stones

• A rogue aerial sea wandering in the upper atmosphere. These floating waters carry with them floating islands of pumice, gold, ash and other, stranger substances. Only the highest-flying birds and the inhabitants of high Skylands isles are graced by its presence as it roams the clouds, but strange gold-flecked rain, ashen clouds and typhoons of salt on the land below can sometimes speak of its passing far overhead. It also allows for sporadic migration between islands of the Skylands for creatures unable to make the journey by flight.
• Time-distorting monoliths which arise in places of great change or ruin, or in places where Time fractures as a dressing on its wounds. Time stutters and skips near these monuments, with illusions of past, future and present dancing in and out of view in their shadow. For those of pure will, they may grant prophecies of potential futures, but for the careless they are a danger - be caught too deeply into visions of the tides of Time, and you may never find your way back into the present to live your own life.

The Second World

Regions

The Belt of Light The Nameless Sea Avoroth

• A great shifting ring of crystals, space rocks and accumulated debris forming a planetary ring around the Second World. The Belt soaks in lunar and solar magic over time, turning ever brighter and into magically valuable material. The barriers between the Realms are weak here, allowing spirits to sometimes slip onto the ring for brief periods to add to their light and splendor.
• The turbulent black seas of the Second World. Inhabited by microbial and simple multicellular life, algae, coral, aquatic plants and Yamas.
• A large rugged continent on the Second World. Divided by a high mountain range and home to many lesser peaks, highlands, valleys, ravines, hills and caverns as well as grasslands, steppe, savanna and desert, the latter especially in the more arid eastern half of the continent. Rich in subterranean minerals. Mountains and rocky areas are covered in Avorrite crystals.
  
  Inhabitated by Yamas and Me'vel. Nature consists of microbial and simple multicellular life, plants, lichen and fungi and trees.

Species

Yamas Me'vel

• These titanic humanoids are native to the Second World. They move in silent ranks through the waters and lands of the planet, their faces black hungering pits. Their flesh is dark as void and freezing to the touch. The Yamas are driven by relentless Hunger – one that must be satisfied to fill the void in the place of their faces and souls. Yamas are not sentient or intelligent at creation - rising from the corpses of fallen Yamas in grotesque displays of reincarnation - but may grow so as they feed on intelligent and soul-possessing creatures.
  
  Those they eat become red bone in their pit-like mouths, in which flesh and soul merge. To be devoured by a Yama is to lose any hope of reawakening in the Unseen – at least, for as long as the giant lives. The stronger their prey, the stronger eating them makes the Yama. They amalgate souls and faces from those they consume and draw magic from them – a shadow magic that closely resembles that of the Fleshless Moon and is indeed empowered by it.
  
  A Yama can grow to be several kilometres tall, towering over even ocean waves and being visible for leagues around, though this requires years and years of feeding and plentiful souls to consume. Most Yamas are 'merely' 500-800m tall.
• A machine race with forms of living metal. For the Me'vel, artistry and craft is all. They sustain themselves on the products of their creative labor, deriving nutrition from symbols and works of art. The Me'vel are detached from linear time and may travel, twist and manipulate it to varying amounts. They do not reproduce as most do, but are instead born where time frays and is disrupted, and from acts of great passion and emotion. Their numbers are thus consistently low.
  
  Me'vel bodies and shapes are varied. As the Me'vel age, they incorporate new parts and materials into their forms to become living pieces of art.
  
  The Me'vel exist mostly as small groups and bands flitting through time, with temporary garden-settlements adorned with manipulations of time. The Me'vel exist mostly as small groups and bands flitting through time, with temporary garden-settlements adorned with manipulations of time. They love the light of the stars and the Belt of the Second World, and thus prefer to dwell upon the Second.

Entities

Dien, the Mirage Turtle The Rift Serpents

• A brass turtle the size of an island, Dien feeds on the roots of the World-Tree and may travel freely across the disturbances such a breach creates, being utterly impervious to their grasp. Dien is a messy eater and can be found after crossings covered in dripping ichor, which canny creatures may feed upon to grow stronger themselves. Where the Mirage Turtle feasts, the roots are damaged for longer periods of time, offering new pathways between the two Realms for those who are ready to take advantage.
• The Twin Rift Serpents are a pair of divine wyrms living in the waters of the First and Second Worlds. They have scales colored in an ever shifting starscape. They are curious and friendly creatures ever hunting for more stories and knowledge to receive and give back to mortals. They may communicate with each other at any time despite the distance. By coiling themselves and biting their own tail, they create a portal between one another - anything passing through one circle will come out of the other.
  
  The Second World is home to the Younger Rift Serpent.

Artifacts

Avorrite Crystals

• Rapidly growing magical crystals with a variety of uses. They root to rock and grow at a rate of four centimetres per week. They form as rod-like hexagonal crystals that are naturally light electric blue in color. The crystals draw on ambient energy, particularly that of the Unseen, to sustain themselves, and thus sometimes may 'trap' spirits from the Unseen into their structures. Excess energy is stored within the crystal as powerful charges.
  
  - Avorrite crystals glow as they accumulate more energy a skilled eye can tell roughly how much energy a crystal has stored inside
  - The Energy inside Avorrite crystals can be tapped in a variety of ways such as but not limited to
  - - Releasing electricity from the ends when put under pressure
  - - when powdered and dissolved in (reasonably) pure water (such as rain water) it can be safely consumed and it will invigorate the consumer (the resulting liquid is luminously dark blue)
  - - when the crystals are soaked in water with wood ash for hours it will turn red and release heat when under pressure
  - - when the crystals are soaked in oil for hours it will turn black and become burnable like coal (only lasting 1000 times as long)
  - - when the crystals are soaked in (reasonably) pure water (such as rain water) and electrified for some time it will return to it's natural blue
  - - when red Avorrite is powdered and dissolved in (reasonably) pure water (such as rain water) it can be safely consumed and it will heal wounds in/on the consumer (the resulting liquid is luminously red)
  - - when black Avorrite is powdered and dissolved in (reasonably) pure water (such as rain water) it can be safely consumed and it can be used as a magical ink or to seed an area to grow natural Avorrite crystals (the resulting liquid is luminously black)
  - - used as a component in magic it will empower the spell
  
  Avorrite covers much of Avoroth and gives its mountains their characteristic glow.

The Void

Species

The Custodians The Abraxas The Cultivars Outer Gods of the Void Sun-Whales

• Powerful divine servants granted fragments of the creating Flame of Chaos. Their task is to maintain and refine the works of the Makers in the outer Void. Formidable alone, the Custodians become unto gods when they unite in large numbers.
  
  A Custodian's form varies, but they share some physical properties. Each possesses a skull of godwrought iron resembling a cage or an ornate helmet. Inside this head is the radiant Flame which powers their ability to Create and crowns them in terrible blinding light. Should their skull be cracked or breached, the uncontrolled energies unleashed would surely cause great devastation. Custodians tend to be tall and vaguely humanoid, dressed in colorless robes made of void-stuff. They rarely speak, as their Flame-infused voices are enough to deafen mortal ears and drive those who hear it to madness.
• Divine messengers and servants. They number fifteen greater brothers and sisters and four hundred forty lesser. They exist to serve the will of the Makers, but possess desires and will of their own. The Abraxas take on forms of stardust and bright light, frightening to most mortal creatures.
• Divine gardeners, tasked with spreading and cultivating life across Creation. They harvest living things and carry them to new continents or across the great Void to new worlds entirely. Cultivars do not create themselves, but use their powers to ensure that life is able to take root and evolve on its own where it is planted. Cultivars resemble tall, thin giants in green living robes, with sprouts of new life coming out of their heads in place of any recognizable features. Living things are invigorated to hear their strange song-like language.
• Once-powerful godlike entities of relentless hunger and corruption, reduced to five maimed things hiding in the Outer Void at the edge of ever-expanding Creation. In their full power, the Outer Gods burn with the unbound Flame of Chaos and are capable of destruction and transformation at a grand scale. In their current state, they can only bring a fraction of that power to bear and risk the attention of the Void Huntress should they do so.
  
  The form of an Outer God is ever-shifting, a chaos of spasming flesh and snapping black bone ever making and remaking itself. The sheer power burning in them at their full strength is so inconceivably vast as to crack the minds of mortals with the misfortune of witnessing them. Outer Gods feed on traces of the Flame of Chaos inherent in all Creation to grow, with their preferred diet being stars and planets. They are well capable of sustaining themselves on their own power indefinitely, however.
• Colossal solar behemoths dwelling in the Sun's chromosphere and feeding on its energies. They are intelligent and harness great solar magics, but care little for the world outside their fiery home. Sun-Whales are kilometres in length and sometimes large enough to be seen as sun spots from the outside.

Creatures

Moon-Watchers Star Eaters Lineals

• Beings native to the Moon resembling the Watcher's Watcher, with shells of stone. They are playful creatures with powers over the Unseen and spirit-kind, spending most of their time in rather destructive games running over the lunar surface. Moon-Watchers may create more of their kind by constructing representations of the Watcher's Watcher.
• Insectoid creatures inhabiting the Void and feeding on the energy of stars. They have wings of stardust and bodies of molten metal wreathed by electromagnetism. Star Eaters transport others across the Void for a price of their choosing.
• Hyper-adaptive creatures used by Cultivars to kick-start biospheres on worlds of the Void. These miniscule arthropods evolve and grow rapidly into different shapes and forms and subsist on little more than air, water, light and base chemicals. They possess sparks of Shaping and Vigor which grant them some ability to change themselves and their environment further, laying the foundations for further growth.
  
  The Lineals grow in complexity and sophistication with each generation, spawning greater and greater biodiversity and elaborate ecosystems. In their genetic code is a kill-switch however; any attempt to invade a world not meant for them will neuter their ability to reproduce, ensuring that they cannot disrupt or destroy the delicate environments of other worlds. The most intelligent and evolved Lineals become physical gods, who may be given the role of World Guardian by Cultivars, or even elevated into the Cultivars' ranks.
  
  The base, unmutated form of Lineals are called Seed Kind, and they are all born in this state, though they can have a bizzare array of differences in form and character even at this phase of their lifecycle due to their Lineage. They reproduce at a rate of 8 to 12 Seed Kind per Lineal per Month. Seed Kind will die of natural causes due to age after roughly two years, with each additional development stage living for twice as long. Each time they reproduce, they have a 1 in 20 chance of producing a Rare Kind, and another 1 in 20 chance of producing a New Kind. When a Rare Kind mutates there's only a 1 in 20 chance that it remains a Rare Kind with the potential for further mutations, and there is another 1 in 20 chance it becomes a New Kind. When a Rare Kind fails to retain the capacity for further mutations, it becomes a Dead End.
  
  All Lineals possess a genetic memory of instincts and mutations called Lineage, which are passed down to and through their Seed Kind. Rare Kinds absorb and assimilate these Lineages when they consume Dead Ends or other Rare Kinds, and Rare Kinds gain new abilities and instincts when they mutate depending on the Dead Ends or Rare Kinds they consumed. All Rare Kinds are born with a deviant, heritable characteristic which distinguishes them from other Seed Kind, which is passed down through their Lineage. Rare Kinds will consume up to 6 Dead Ends or other Rare Kinds of equivalent development stage before they mutate into a higher stage with a more powerful form. Rare Kinds will also exclusively predate on Seed Kind for sustenance while keeping their population numbers regulated, gathering them into a swarm to feed on passively and filter out the weaker Lineage from the local strain.
  
  New Kinds will take their Lineage and use it to evolve into entirely new species to fill unoccupied ecological niches, maximizing local biodiversity and enriching their environment with resources, and this is the ultimate purpose of Lineals as a species. The species created by New Kinds may hunt and consume one another or they may prey on Lineals, but Lineals will never hunt the species created by New Kinds, as doing so would potentially damage the balance and advancement of the biosphere. Each development stage of Rare Kinds are more powerful and intelligent than the previous ones, and New Kinds of higher development stages will evolve into more sophisticated and unique lifeforms.
  
  All Lineals have a magically enforced biological kill switch written into their genetic code, which is specifically keyed to the Cultivars so that only they can use it, and it is given to them so they may curtail explosive Lineal population growth or stop their expansion into other worlds where they had not been planned for introduction. Any Cultivar may mentally apply it to wipe out the Lineal population from up to an entire planet at once, and the kill switch automatically triggers if a Lineal crosses a Cosmic Path into another world to keep them from breaking containment. The specific mechanism of the kill switch works by simply deactivating and potentially destroying the Lineal's reproductive functions, preventing them from multiplying and carrying out their normal lifecycle. Cultivars can give allowances for individual Lineals to travel through Cosmic Paths with active supervision, but cannot ever give blanket permissions for travel without activating the kill switch.
  
  Evolved New Kinds lose their biological kill switch, but necessarily reproduce at a sustainable rate commiserate to their species' lifespan, and they're generally far less intrinsically adaptable to new environments as compared to Lineal Seed Kind. The most highly developed Lineals can become the progenitors of terrifyingly versatile races, very nearly physical gods and practically avatars of the Law of Constant Evolution well suited to any habitat, but they will always be extremely few in numbers with severe maintenance requirements for their greatly enhanced constitutions. They will always require access to a robust supporting food chain if they hope for long term survival. Below is listed the development stages of the Lineal species, the depth of their Lineage and thus estimated quality and quantity of their Vigor as compared to Seed Kind, relative population sizes, the extent of their lifespans, and finally their relative intelligence.
  
  1st Stage - 6x Lineage Factor - 1/140th of Total Population, 4 Year Lifespan, *Animalistic
  2nd Stage - 36x Lineage Factor - 1/2,800th of Total Population, 8 Year Lifespan,
  3rd Stage - 216x Lineage Factor - 1/56,000th of Total Population, 16 Year Lifespan, *Basically Sentient
  4th Stage - 1,296x Lineage Factor - 1/1,120,000th of Total Population, 32 Year Lifespan, *At this Stage, any would be Dead Ends instead become New Kinds.
  5th Stage - 7,776x Lineage Factor - 1/156,800,000th of Total Population, 64 Year Lifespan, *Fully Sapient, at this Stage Legend Cultivation begins.
  6th Stage - 46,656x Lineage Factor - 1/3,136,000,000th of Total Population, 128 Year Lifespan,
  7th Stage - 279,936x Lineage Factor - 1/62,680,000,000th of Total Population, 256 Year Lifespan, *Monstrous Intellect
  8th Stage - 1,679,616x Lineage Factor - 1/1,253,600,000,000th of Total Population, 512 Year Lifespan, *At this Stage, any would be Dead Ends instead become New Kinds.
  9th Stage - 10,077,696x Lineage Factor - 1/175,504,000,000,000th of Total Population, 1028 Year Lifespan, *Divine Genius, at this Stage all Lineals become New Kinds.

Entities

The Watcher The Historian The Watcher's Watcher The Void Huntress

• An immortal entity perceiving all that is in Creation. Exists in the void. Resembles a living star crowned with eyes. Soulbound to the Historian, their beloved. A dispassionate soul.
• An immortal entity recording all that transpires in History. Exists in the void. Soulbound to the Watcher, their beloved. Something of a romantic.
• An ethereal being tasked with observing the Watcher, the Historian, and other such entities. Forgetful, wandering and simple-minded, it exists wherever it happens to find itself next.
• The ascended form of Nehu Far-Strider, a Myridna explorer empowered with the Might of the OutSlayer and tasked with destroying the Outer Gods. She appears as a tall Myridna woman garbed in Custodian-forged armor and armed with a void-black scythe. She is capable of creating new Cosmic Paths at will and shifting instantaneously across Creation. The Huntress resides in Nehu's Rest, a divine planetoid transforming to suit her needs.

Regions

The Moon The Fleshless Moon The Cosmic Forge

• A divinely-crafted rock orbiting the Unnamed World. The source of potent magical energies. The fuller the Moon is in the sky of the Unnamed World, the greater the bombardment of lunar magic that those beneath it receive. Exists simultaneously in the Seen and the Unseen.
  
  Barren and uninhabitable by things of flesh, but home to spirits of the Unseen and Moon-Watchers. The manifestations of Unseen visions and illusions these spirits create are sometimes visible on the planet as luminous spectacles known as spirit-lights or moonfire.
• A moon of obsidian and brass made of the remains of the Outer God Ithzunchult the Fleshless, also known as the Dark Moon. The Fleshless Moon follows an erratic and unpredictable circuit around the First World. It can only be seen when neither the Sun or the Moon are in the sky. The Fleshless Moon radiates shadow magic, but it has a slumbering mind of its own. The Moon inevitably twists and influences those who seek to wield its power to fulfill its strange desires.
• A vast divine foundry in the far Void, resembling a colossal and indestructible diamond. With hungry tendrils it drains nearby worlds and stars for fuel in its forging. A divine entity known as the Forger is the master and sole inhabitant of the complex. They may forge the bounty of the stars into all manner of divine artifacts and arms for the Gods and their servants.

Phenomena

Cosmic Paths Star-Trails The Arising Star and the Triumphant Comet

• Divinely crafted pathways that connect different worlds in the Void with one another. Some worlds possess more pathways to others, some less, but at least one leads to each. The Unnamed World possesses the most of all, though many of them are carefully hidden by the Makers. Paths can be sealed with great difficulty, but never forever. Though they shorten cosmic distances by a great deal, travel across a Path still requires a considerable exertion of time and effort.
  
  The Paths appear as shimmering bridges of light throughout the darkness of space, visible only to those who know where to look. On worlds, their entry-points are gateways of light.
• The many stars of the Void represent individual life stories of the mortal beings of Creation. Through esoteric means, others can use the Star-Trails great individuals have Blazed to gain some of their qualities for themselves.
• Cosmic phenomena appearing at the beginning and end of great stories. They are visible both in the Seen and the Unseen and shine in every color conceivable.

The Unseen

Species

Spirits Outer Gods of the Unseen Muses Monument Makers Clayborn Tenders

• Native inhabitants of the Unseen, spirits are formless and ephemeral beings of imagination and change. They take on and discard forms and identities as they please, but tend to revolve around certain themes and concepts born as reflections of the Seen. In the Unseen, imagination is reality, and the spirits embody this by manifesting their thoughts and desires into the spiritual realm around them. Spirits can enforce their reality on the Seen. The stronger the spirit, the more 'real' their manifestations; most spirits can only affect the Seen in places where the borders between the two realms are weak.
  
  All living beings become spirits after they die in the Seen. Living beings reflect a dormant spiritual mass into the Unseen while they live and reawake in this form after their flesh is gone. Mortals that pass into the Unseen merge with their spiritual counterparts for the duration of their visit.
• Once-powerful godlike entities of relentless hunger and corruption, reduced to five maimed things hiding in subtle and transitional places of the Unseen. In their full power, the Outer Gods burn with the unbound Flame of Chaos and are capable of destruction and transformation at a grand scale. In their current state, they can only bring a fraction of that power to bear and risk the attention of the Void Huntress should they do so.
  
  The form of an Outer God is ever-shifting, a chaos of spasming flesh and snapping black bone ever making and remaking itself. The sheer power burning in them at their full strength is so inconceivably vast as to crack the minds of mortals with the misfortune of witnessing them. Outer Gods feed on traces of the Flame of Chaos inherent in all Creation to grow. They are well capable of sustaining themselves on their own power indefinitely, however.
• Spirits of artistic creation and imagination. The Muses seek out mortal artists and whisper to them from across the Veil, inspiring them to great works and granting them abilities allowing for extraordinary feats of performance and creation. Once such an inspired creation is completed in the Seen, its reflection takes shape in the Unseen and becomes the home of the Muse. New Muses are born from these reflected works to ever seek out creators in the other world. When perceived directly, Muses appear as embodiments of all that the watcher finds fair and beautiful - leading to no end of longing and obsession by mortals for them.
  
  The power of Muses is limited by the barrier between the two Realms. They might grant even greater blessings if they manifested bodily in the Seen - a feat made difficult by the barrier of the World-Tree's roots blocking their passage. As such, desperate artists sometimes end up seeking magical power to create openings in the roots in order to bring their Muses to them in 'the flesh' - for better or worse.
• Canine spirits are cousins of the Dream Canidae, native inhabitants of the Unseen capable of crossing over to the Seen with ease. They are similar in appearance to the Canidae, though smaller in size and with generally calmer and more thoughtful personalities. Nevertheless, they are tricksters at heart. The Monument Makers are devoted to the building of strange monuments and structures. Each dreams of raising something that will truly baffle the minds of mortals for aeons to come. Every full moon, packs of Monument Makers descend upon the Seen to build their monuments - the closer to intelligent observers, the better. Mortals may awaken in the morning to find themselves surrounded by imposing canine statues and hear the howling laughter of departing Monument Makers, for example.
• Spirit-things of misshapen clay, born from the discarded creations of Vadhu. They exist to serve and attend to their father and creator. Vadhu, for his part, barely acknowledges their presence. Some labor within the Truth of Betrayal, while others wander the wider Unseen singing the praises and promises of their master. They are particularly found at World-Song Stones and other places where the barriers between realms are weak, whispering knowledge of Vadhu and what he might do for them to the mortal races.
• Caretaker spirits of the World-Tree, made from the spirits of deceased trees and plants. They work dutifully to heal its wounds, though some end up wandering off for a time to explore the Unseen and the Worlds of the Tree.

Entities

Vanti of the Rainbow Dream Vadhu The Dominion Tree

• A vast and powerful spirit in the form of a spider of many colors and patterns. She towers over the strange horizon of the Unseen, spinning dreams and grand visions for all to see during the day, only to destroy them without mercy come nightfall. Such is her prominence and power that the spirits use her to track the passage of their days in the realm of imagination. Days are counted from Vanti's works - a spirit may conceive of the time being six works from Vanti's emerald-castle-of-the-clouds, or thirty-nine works from her whirlpool-of-laughter-and-grief, or seven hundred works from Vanti's-chasm-of-a-thousand-regrets. Each work is a masterpiece without equal, inspiring and horrifying the spirits in equal respect.
• A crippled Outer God dwelling within the dream-place-emotion known as the Truth of Betrayal. Vadhu was once Vadhuzalthul of the Endless Dark, a mighty horror of the deep Unseen, but he took on a new existence after his kind's defeat at the hands of the Custodians and Nehu the Void Huntress. Vadhu hid within a masterwork of Vanti the Rainbow Dream, the only such work to be restored after its destruction thanks to the intervention of a Maker. This undoing of destruction and breaking of causality granted Vadhu a talent for resurrection and restoration of destroyed things. Those who venture within its refuge may have a taste of such gifts, for a price. Vadhu is served by the Clayborn spirits.
  
  Vadhu also oversees the Tournament of Life and Death, assisting its victors for a price of its choosing. He is accompanied at all times by a Muse guiding his hopeless efforts in shaping and building clay.
• A bud of the World-Tree placed in the heart of the Shifting City. Endowed with a terrible Will, those venturing close to it - and in the Shifting City, it can always be behind the corner - are subjugated and subsumed under its power. This Dominion Tree is small and young, its powers limited, but in its maturity may come to dominate countless denizens of the City.

Places

The World Tree The Shifting City The Truth of Betrayal The Unreal Lake The Mirror Spring The Arena of Life and Death

• A great cosmic tree existing throughout Creation but seen only in the Unseen, where it is free to exist paradoxically and in violation of mundane geography and logic. Its trunk, an impervious and vast mass, reflects the First World, while its branches mirror the Cosmic Paths in the Void, and its fruits link to stars and other worlds. The Tree's roots strengthen the barriers between worlds, growing swiflty to block breaches where the borders between the Seen and Unseen are weak or gone, guarding against intrusions between the planes. In such places, the Tree physically manifests in the Seen as impossibly thick and ancient growth. Those who open new passages with their own magics must move swiftly, lest the roots reach them before they complete their transition. Only some few places and creatures may cross without interference.
  
  Passage through the roots is not impossible, but it is dangerous. Those caught in the grasp of the roots are devoured, but one can claim power from them as well. The ichor of the roots empowers those who consume it and allows one to flout the laws of reality, but extracting it without being captured within the roots yourself is a challenge.
  
  If one is caught for a time yet escapes, they gain the ability to see as the Tree sees – a powerful ability of divination – but are doomed to assimilate as a new part of the Tree should they overuse this magic. The stolen power of Yggdrasil always comes at a cost.
  
  Spirit realms are maintained between the branches and the roots of the Tree. In the canopy, new realms born from the Legend of Stars. Where many lights intersect, greater worlds exist reflecting their merging themes and qualities. In time, the dreams and imaginations of beings living in the light of those stars in the Seen shall develop them further. In the roots, there exist stable realms created by native spirits of the Unseen for their own use.
  
  The Tree is maintained and repaired when it suffers damage by the Tenders, its caretaker spirits.
• A city of dream-stuff in the Unseen. Composed of ever-shifting dream-stuff, it grows and changes with its inhabitants, never staying the same for very long. Its roads shine like precious jewels and its buildings take on the most outrageous forms. It is inhabited by spirits and Dream Canidae.
• The Truth of Betrayal is simultaneously a place, an experience and a feeling, a thing made possible by the dream logic of the Unseen. It can be entered physically or by dwelling on betrayal felt or imagined. The Truth of Betrayal is made of the terrible clarity that comes when all that you loved and desired is lost to you, in the realization of betrayal by yourself or others, by the gnawing emptiness left in the wake of unjust loss - a complex and frightening masterpiece crafted by Vanti of the Rainbow Dream for the Outer God Vadhu.
  
  Within dwells Vadhu, master and prisoner of his personal hell. Few intrude upon his solitude willingly. He is accompanied by Clayborn servants and by Vadhu's Muses.
• A lake existing both in the Seen and the Unseen. Those who drink from its shimmering, shifting waters are granted the ability to see into the other realm, while those who submerge themselves within appear there bodily.
• A spring existing both in the Seen and the Unseen. The Mirror Spring of the Seen heals imperfections and returns things to a pristine state and blesses the surrounding vegetation and trees with a state of perfect vitality and growth, while the Spring of the Unseen does the reverse. Things and beings submerged in its waters now improve appropriately in body and mind, though those who overstay their welcome and strain themselves too far within risk literally exploding from the accumulated power. The Spring also affects the minds of its users, who grow more detached and coldly logical from extended exposure. The effect is mild at best when bottled or drawn from the springs themselves, but in time a way may be discovered to sustain its effects for longer.
  
  The Spring of the Unseen has converse effects. It manifests a dark abyss in the space around it. Those submerged are detached from the limits of their being, but like on the other side, staying for too long will see one perish as their essence dissolves into the Unseen. Extended exposure renders the affected more sensitive and emotional. A being in equilibrium between the two states will receive far greater benefits from the Springs than one affected more one way than the other.
• A grandiose arena near the Truth of Betrayal where the Tournament of Life and Death is held every year. The simplest means of finding your way to the Arena is to call out your intent to compete; alternatively, one may draw a portal with a dead and living version of something on each end and pass through (for example, a dead and living bird of the same species). The Tournament tests its competitors in many skills and challenges. There can only be one winner, however, and their reward is reincarnation - Vadhu will grant them new bodies and lives in the Unseen in whatever manner they desire, but always for a cost.

Artifacts

The Twilight Arc The Trident of the Ocean The Mask of Madness The Void Scythe Tamvatra's Shield The Holystone Crown Claíomh, the Orb of Purity The Seared Spear Staff of the Stone Dancer

• A divine weapon forged of bright sunlight and shimmering moonlight, morphing to fit the grasp of whoever wields it. In the night, it glows with soft moonlight and channels the power of lunar magic; in the day, it radiates bright-hot flame and thrums with accumulated solar magic. In the twilight hours, these lights combine to produce truly legendary magics.
  
  Its first wielder was Sigren the Fury, a human Legend.
• An artifact weapon channeling and augmenting the magic of the Spirit of the World-Sea. The Trident appears to be made of incredibly durable and sharp coral in strange and beautiful shapes. It may be found and wielded only by those with the World-Sea's blessing and whispers to the wielder of its will.
  
  Its first wielders were the Baólian Legends Siriine and her son Azúl.
• A cursed artifact resembling a wide distorted face, made of dark wood and glistening with a blood-like sheen. It grants its wearer greater strength, endurance and immunity to pain, at the cost of driving them to berzerk rage. The more the Mask is used and the more living beings the wearer kills in their rages, the harder it will be to leave such rages and the more aggressive the wearer becomes even when not using the Mask. Addiction to bloodshed and violence are certain to follow if worn for too long.
• A divine artifact allowing its wielder to instaneously transport between Void and the First World and survive in vacuum. A long void-black weapon with a blade of starlight. Created to satisfy the Desire of Shlim-Boolt the Deep Algal and first wielded by them.
• A shield of living quicksilver crafted by the Makers and granted to the Hive Coasters of Tamvatra. Deflects all attacks against it and moves against incoming blows in a large area, which allows it to defend even settlements the size of Tamvatra. Wielded by the Sea-Ant descendants of Imsamrtra the Sea-Queen in defense of the Hive Coast.
• A crown of holystone empowered to grant a state of sovereign clarity to its wearer, allowing them to detach themselves from all emotion and prejudice to see things in a purely utilitarian manner. Appears as a rough, jagged stone circle of a blueish-grey color, vibrating when pressed. Part of the regalia of the Mountain Kings of the highland Myridna.
• A divine crystal lattice in the shape of an orb worn on a necklace capable of augmenting and channeling energy. In its present form, it focuses will and clarity of thought, allowing its wearer to tap into the Law of Narrative Satisfaction to a greater degree.
  
  Its first wearer was Draszi-Jast Ominoor, the First Prophet of the Druyul.
• A weapon of burnt wood and rusted iron that nevertheless withstands almost any harm and possesses a point sharper the greater the difference between the power of its wielder and their opponent. It grants its wielder immunity to heat and flame. In the hands of one with courage and determination, it offers a chance for the weak to overcome the strong. For a mighty warrior it is of little use and may easily slip from their grasp, ensuring that it is always finding its way to new and worthy wielders.
  
  Its first wielders were the Skrayt rebel Yshri and her son Rashru, who overthrew the Goliath Bird ruling over their tribe.
• A darkened brass staff, approximately half a human height in length, topped with a polished green and black crystal sphere that floats above it at all times. Engraved upon it are depictions of dancers flowing through motions, and the earth responding in kind by reshaping. Should the staff become damaged through any means, it will slowly restore itself by drawing from the very earth, reforming all the depictions though never the same dances. When used in a performance such as dance, though other performances may also work and engrave their own legend, it remolds the earth, soil and stone. Precise control may be gained by those who practice well, and true mastery may even allow shaping of metal, crystal and other more worthy materials.
  
  Its first wielder was the demigoddess Embla, and with it were shaped the Green Walls of Emblatha.

Magics



Legends

Imsamrta

 

[Photomajig]

EPOCH 0:
THE AGE OF NOTHING
ALL ACTS RECEIVE A FREE +1 VOTE.

​

This is a place without time. A world of endless still waters orbits a frozen sun. The moment is eternal, suspended, waiting - and at once, or at last, the waiting ends, as the Sun stirs and unleashes with cataclysmic fury the Flame of Chaos, the instrument of Creation. In this furnace are born the Makers, spirits of unbounded creation and potential. In time, they will be called Gods...

[] Write-in. Describe what your Act is trying to accomplish and what Scale you estimate it to be.

Spoiler: World Information

Sea: Unnamed
Saltwater sea. Microbial, simple multicellular life.

Laws of Reality
The world obeys the laws of our reality.

Spoiler: Makers

None

To reiterate - simply write out the kind of Act you wish to accomplish and the Scale you think it should take (Demi-Act, Lesser, Grand, Cosmic). Feel free to ask if you are not sure what Scale your Act is going to be. For a small-scale change or addition, you only need your own vote. For a greater change, you will need the votes of others as well.

 

[Photomajig]

Scheduled vote count started by Photomajig on Dec 6, 2021 at 1:37 AM, finished with 7 posts and 1 votes.

• ---

  1 people have voted

  [X] Make sure the sea will always have nutrients for life to grow (Grand Act)

  • Dheer

  1 people have voted

  [X] Expand this world to something more than a planet orbiting a star (Cosmic Act)

  • Dheer

  1 people have voted

  [X] Divide Creation into the Real and the Unreal (Cosmic Act)

  • Dheer

  1 people have voted

  [X] Creation of the Watcher, someone who records and observes all that happens in this new universe from the beginning to the end. (Demi-Act)

  • Dheer

  1 people have voted

  [X] Create an Island in the middle of the Sea (Lesser Act)

  • Dheer

  1 people have voted

  [X] Create The Memory Pool (Demi Act)?

  • Dheer

 

[Photomajig]

Yes, I've now fixed that.

Passed Acts for Epoch 0:

COSMIC

[X] Divide Creation into the Real and the Unreal (Cosmic Act)
[X] Expand this world to something more than a planet orbiting a star (Cosmic Act)
[X] The Grand Law of Narrative Satisfaction - The laws of reality are not absolute, and can be bent or defied either to suit grand enough narratively satisfactory outcomes or in the presence of a sufficiently strong display of pure will and pure heart. (Cosmic Act)

GRAND

[X] Make sure the sea will always have nutrients for life to grow (Grand Act)
[X] Imbue the sea with life and thought and magical power. All water is part of the same whole, and shall forever remember the World Ocean. (Grand Act)
[X] Plate Tectonics (Grand Act)
[X] Create Sentient Algae across the Oceans (Grand Act)

LESSER

[X] Creation of the Watcher, someone who records and observes all that happens in this new universe from the beginning to the end. (Lesser Act)
[X] Create The Historian, an immortal being of immense mind (one capable of remembering all historical events, major or minor) whose sole duty is to compile a history of the Epochs. (Lesser Act)
[X] Bind the souls of the Watcher and Historian together (Lesser Act)
[X] Create an Island in the middle of the Sea (Lesser Act)

DEMI

[X] Creation of the Watcher's Watcher, a being similar to the Watcher whose purpose is to observe and record the Watcher, the Historian, and other entities of a similar nature. Unfortunately, due to cosmic budgetary constraints, the quality of their recordkeeping is very low and they aren't exactly the most attentive of beings. (Demi-Act)
[X] Create Ik'Shar, a happy small fluffy ball with googly eyes. (Demi-Act)
[X] Create a new isolated Island, to experiment with as I please. (Demi-Act)
[X] Create The Memory Pool (Demi-Act)
[X] Create a cave in which The temprature is always comfortable (Demi-Act)

The vote for creating stars that would possess great secrets in their hearts was made as a Grand Act, but it definitely sounds to me like a Cosmic Act - which it doesn't have votes for. Apologies for not catching this one earlier. You are free to suggest it again for the next Epoch as a Cosmic one, of course.

(I could see it as a Grand Act if we had established stars as, like, bulbs of glass in orbit that you can just fly up to, but that was not described. Some detail about what those great secrets are might also help!)

These are the Acts of Creation for our Epoch. Update to follow!

 

[Photomajig]

EPOCH 0:
THE AGE OF NOTHING
​

2.1 And lo, so didst they come to be in more perfect Union.
2.2 "Look upon Creation and speak to me, beloved," said the Historian, "of all that is."
2.3 Said the Watcher: "It is thusly. I see the waters teem with minds. I see the unseen. I see rocky shores reaching from the deep. I see the boundless terminus race outward. I see a world take its first breaths."
2.4 "Speak to me, beloved," said the Historian, "if it is beautiful."
2.5 "What is beauty?" said the Watcher. And verily didst they dwell upon this for a time.
2.6 And so it is written.

-Eternities, 2.1-2.6

​

Creation begins. Reality shifts and grows. Life and matter manifest upon the nameless world.

Acts​

Cosmic Acts

The fabric of reality shudders as Creation is divided into the Seen and the Unseen. The material world is forged as a realm of order where things are always what they seem; its reflection, on the other hand, is one of imagination and spirit, of unbounded chaos and freedom. The two realms do not touch - except rarely, lightly, in times and places of transition, such as in dreams. From these interactions with the thoughts, desires, dreams and feelings of the living are born spirits to reside in the Unseen and make it their own. Cosmic Act: The Seen and the Unseen.

Universal Expansion begins. With impossible speed, the borders of all material and immaterial reality hurtle outwards from the Sun and the World, expanding in every direction on an unimaginable scale. As they advance, more planets, stars, black holes and other cosmic phenomena are born - perhaps in time with inhabitants of their own. Cosmic Act: Universal Expansion.

The First Law of Creation is hammered into being: The Grand Law of Narrative Satisfaction establishes that all other laws of reality are not absolute, but indeed there to be broken and bent when narrative satisfaction or the power of pure heart and will demand it. Life shall no longer be a collection of random events and the whims of Chaos only. Cosmic Act: The Grand Law of Narrative Satisfaction.


Grand Acts

The World-Sea flourishes with potential and fertility, as divine providence guarantees it shall always have nutrients for life to grow on. Even the deepest and most inhospitable reaches of the endless ocean manifest motes of energy-rich nutrients. This explosion in potential sustenance leads to massive growth in the populations of the simple lifeforms making it their home. Mats of primitive microalgae grow to extend over vast stretches of seafloor, forming underwater 'plains' sheltering a wide variety of simple life. Grand Act: Make sure the sea will always have nutrients for life to grow.

Another stirring accompanies this divine blessing. The World-Sea is awakened as a living entity of great magical power. All water of the primordial ocean is as one and will remember its great origin, wherever Creation takes it in the epochs to come. Its birth in a time of power and plenty shapes its soul accordingly; if such an entity can be described, affectionate yet proud might be thought appropriate. The World-Sea perceives the living beings within it and begins to foster their growth. For now, storms are gentled, cold deeps given warmth to shelter life. Grand Act: Imbue the sea with life and thought and magical power.

This time of plenty for the all-encompassing waters brings to life the first thinking species of the new world, the sentient algae. These beings resemble their mindless brethren, but show their cognition through the elaborate displays of photoluminescence through which they communicate. The beings join together in great mounds and fields of living matter, each individual adding their mind to the whole to form a greater mind-hive. When such hives grow too large to maintain consensus, new colonies are split off to drift on the ocean currents until they settle elsewhere. Grand Act: Create Sentient Algae across the oceans.

The sentient algae, for all their intellect, live a primitive life for now. They sustain themselves on plentiful ocean nutrients and sometimes by preying on other organisms. Already they begin the march towards civilization, though, granting themselves names, wondering on the nature of the universe, and thanking the World-Sea for its many gifts in sophisticated ritual displays of light and motion.

For its part, the World-Sea comes to love and marvel at these First Children, guarding their colonies from harm. But it soon finds itself under unexpected assault - by the very heart of the world itself. Plate tectonics come into existence, setting the mantle of the World in an unending dance of crashing continental shelves and volcanic fury. Underwater vents ripple open across the seafloor - bringing forth both heat and nutrients, and terror and death. In time, new lands may be raised from the ocean depths through these arcane processes. Grand Act: Plate Tectonics.


Lesser Acts

The divine powers moving across the face of the waters are not content to leave such things only for epoch-spanning mechanisms, however. An island is created in the middle of the World-Sea, bursting out from the ocean depths with violent force. At first it is a barren rock, devoid of all life - but slowly, the algae and simple organisms of the waters begin to colonize its shallow waters. Some would venture higher, into the terrifying openness of the surface, but its hostility and the protective hand of the spirit of the World-Sea keep them below for now. Lesser Act: Create an Island in the middle of the sea.

While life grows more complex and bountiful in the ocean depths, it also takes shape in the void - though in strange, extraordinary forms. The Watcher and the Historian are created. These immortal beings are given the task of perceiving all and recording all that occurs. At first alone, they are soon joined as one, bound soul to soul for the benefit and happiness of both. High in the void, the Watcher observes all that transpires, whispering each event, no matter how insignificant, to their ever-recording partner. Lesser Act: Create the Watcher, Lesser Act: Create the Historian, Lesser Act: Bind the souls of the Historian and the Watcher together.


Demi-Acts

But who shall watch the Watcher? The Watcher's Watcher is created, an ephemeral being spawned from divine whimsy. The formless entity's task is to keep watch over the Watcher, the Historian and all such beings who might follow - but the power granted unto it by its Makers is not quite up to the task. Forgetful, wandering and simple-minded, the Watcher's Watcher begins to do its best to keep up with its elder siblings. Demi-Act: Create the Watcher's Watcher.

On the young island below, Ik'Shar the Fluffy is created. This round, furry little creature is blessed with coloring resembling the aurora borealis and with a friendly, affectionate personality. It is delighted to exist and rolls around its new home for a while, munching on the simple algae drifting to shore and marveling at the stars coming to life in the skies above. After a while, however, it begins to feel undeniably, inevitably lonely... Demi-Act: Create Ik'Shar.

The spirits of Creation coalesce to give birth to a cave where the temperature is always comfortable on the island. It becomes Ik'Shar's favorite place to rest in. The Memory Pool is also created on the island - as the rest of the world happens to be entirely submerged and would not have much use for a pool - as a crystal-lined pool of void-black liquid. Through divine magics, it allows those who touch it to project a memory of theirs onto the surface, more vivid and real than ever in their own recollecting. Demi-Act: Create a cave of comfortable temperature. Demi-Act: Create the Memory Pool.

Far from the first island, a much smaller speck of land makes its way to the surface. Like its predecessor, it is not much more than a wind-blasted rock, lashed by the ocean. Drifting algae begin to slowly colonize its shores as well. Demi-Act: Create an isolated island to experiment with.

​

The First Age is over, as Nothing gives way to Creation. Time advances at its own inevitable pace, and the next Epoch will soon begin. For now, the Watcher watches, the Historians perceive, and the Makers marvel at their works.

Spoiler: World Information

The Void

-Being: The Watcher. An immortal entity perceiving all of Creation.
-Being: The Historian. An immortal entity recording all of History.
-Being: The Watcher's Watcher. An immortal entity trying its best.

The Unnamed World

Sea: Unnamed
Saltwater sea, blessed with nutrients and life. Microbial, simple multicellular life. Sentient algae.
-Being: The Spirit of the World-Sea. The awakened genius loci of the World-Sea, possessed of great magical power.

Central island: Unnamed
Barren rock. Some microbial, simple multicellular life.
-Being: Ik'Shar. A friendly, furry creature inhabiting the island.
-Place: The Memory Pool. A mysterious pool of black liquid. Allows one to view their memories in vivid detail.
-Place: The Comfortable Cave. A cave where the temperature is always comfortable.

Isolated island: Unnamed
Barren rock. Some microbial, simple multicellular life.

The Unseen
A realm of dreams, imagination and spirits.
-Being: Spirits. Native entities of the Unseen.

Laws of Reality

Law: Narrative Satisfaction. All laws of reality may be broken and bent for the purpose of narratively satisfying outcomes or for the pure of heart and will.

***​

A moratorium on Acts is now in effect. You may begin Voting for the next Epoch in 12 hours. I'll be writing up the status of the world in the second post in some fancy table or something in the meantime.

The following Epoch shall be the Age of Places. Acts to create or alter places at any scale will receive a free +1 Vote.

 

[Photomajig]

Doesn't seem like the passed Acts are going to change anymore, so I'll call the vote a bit early.

Passed Acts

COSMIC
[X] Create a moon as a font of magic and the bridge between the Real and the Unreal (Cosmic Act)
[X] Create pathways through which the worlds can be connected forevermore (Cosmic Act)
[X] Create Law of Constant Evolution (Cosmic Act)
[X] (Cosmic Act) Create The Stars and Star-trails
[X] Create the Custodians. (Cosmic Act)

GRAND
[X] The Hot Lands. (Grand Act)
[X] Create the Skylands (Grand Act)
[X] Raise up the City of the First Children by the Island. (Grand Act)
[X] let there be myriad fishes in the sea and beautiful coral reef for them to dwell in (Grand Act)
[X] Create the Abraxas, the divinely Inspired, primordial in nature, offspring and agents of the Architect's thought and mind. (Grand Act)
[X] Create the Clouded Lands, a set of absolute towering mountains surrounded by impossibly deep canyons and ravines. Between these mountains float a series of various sized pieces of land that move between the mountain peaks in, some the size of a wagon and others big enough to be a small country in itself. (Grand Act)

LESSER
[X] Create Leviathans (Lesser Act)
[X] Create the K'orlannsch, sizable and intelligent air-breathing worms that subsist on sunlight alone. (Lesser Act)
[X] Create The Triumphant Comet. (Lesser Act)
[X] Create The Arising Star (Lesser Art)
[X] Create Nahesa, First of the Sea Serpents (Lesser Act)

DEMI

[X] Make the conformable cave both sapient and capable of telepathic communication, so that Ik'Shar the Fluffy can have some company.
[X] Create, a massive tree who's branches spread out to cover the entirety of the 'Isolated Island' in a perpetual shade. (Demi Act)
[X] Create Nix'Shar the Marginally Fluffier, a small, fluffy being that is exactly 20% more friendly and fluffy than Ik'Shar the Fluffy, on the same island as Ik'Shar (Demi Act)

Scheduled vote count started by Photomajig on Dec 6, 2021 at 12:07 PM, finished with 78 posts and 26 votes.

• ---

  17 people have voted

  [X] Create a moon as a font of magic and the bridge between the Real and the Unreal (Cosmic Act)

  • Tarumath
  • Shard
  • Sir_Travelsalot
  • Jakub1228
  • bioticgrunt
  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Phigment
  • Scrivener
  • armentho
  • Starman
  • Vanestus
  • Dheer
  • SolAnon1
  • Razzocnor
  • H2F2
  • Rolen von Keng
  • Voidseer

  16 people have voted

  [X] The Hot Lands. (Grand Act)

  • Tarumath
  • Shard
  • Sir_Travelsalot
  • Space Jawa
  • Jakub1228
  • bioticgrunt
  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Phigment
  • Scrivener
  • Starman
  • Vanestus
  • Dheer
  • SolAnon1
  • Razzocnor
  • H2F2
  • Rolen von Keng

  15 people have voted

  [X] Create pathways through which the worlds can be connected forevermore (Cosmic Act)

  • Tarumath
  • Shard
  • Sir_Travelsalot
  • Space Jawa
  • Jakub1228
  • bioticgrunt
  • Phigment
  • Scrivener
  • armentho
  • Starman
  • SolAnon1
  • Razzocnor
  • H2F2
  • Rolen von Keng
  • Voidseer

  14 people have voted

  [X] Create Law of Constant Evolution (Cosmic Act)

  • Tarumath
  • Shard
  • Sir_Travelsalot
  • Jakub1228
  • bioticgrunt
  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Scrivener
  • Starman
  • Vanestus
  • Dheer
  • SolAnon1
  • Razzocnor
  • H2F2
  • Rolen von Keng

  12 people have voted

  [X] (Cosmic Act) Create The Stars and Star-trails

  • Tarumath
  • Sir_Travelsalot
  • Jakub1228
  • bioticgrunt
  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Scrivener
  • Starman
  • Dheer
  • SolAnon1
  • H2F2
  • Rolen von Keng
  • Voidseer

  12 people have voted

  [X] Create the Custodians. (Cosmic Act)

  • Tarumath
  • Shard
  • Sir_Travelsalot
  • Jakub1228
  • bioticgrunt
  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Scrivener
  • Starman
  • Dheer
  • SolAnon1
  • H2F2
  • Rolen von Keng

  12 people have voted

  [X] Create the Skylands (Grand Act)

  • Shard
  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Phigment
  • Scrivener
  • armentho
  • Starman
  • Dheer
  • SolAnon1
  • Razzocnor
  • H2F2
  • Rolen von Keng
  • Voidseer

  11 people have voted

  [X] let there be myriad fishes in the sea and beautiful coral reef for them to dwell in (lesser act)

  • Shard
  • Space Jawa
  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Phigment
  • Scrivener
  • armentho
  • Starman
  • SolAnon1
  • H2F2
  • Rolen von Keng
  • Voidseer

  10 people have voted

  [X] Raise up the City of the First Children by the Island. (Grand Act)

  • Tarumath
  • Shard
  • Sir_Travelsalot
  • Jakub1228
  • bioticgrunt
  • Phigment
  • Scrivener
  • armentho
  • Starman
  • Vanestus

  10 people have voted

  [X] Create The Triumphant Comet. (Lesser Act)

  • Tarumath
  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Scrivener
  • Starman
  • OBrien
  • SolAnon1
  • Razzocnor
  • H2F2
  • Y Draig Gosch
  • Rolen von Keng

  8 people have voted

  [X] Create Leviathans (Grand Act)

  • Tarumath
  • Phigment
  • armentho
  • Starman
  • SolAnon1
  • Razzocnor
  • H2F2
  • Rolen von Keng

  7 people have voted

  [X] Create the Cultivars, beings that shall help the makers fill the universe with life. (Grand Act)

  • Tarumath
  • Shard
  • Sir_Travelsalot
  • Jakub1228
  • bioticgrunt
  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Vanestus

  7 people have voted

  [X] Create The Arising Star (Lesser Art)

  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Scrivener
  • Dheer
  • SolAnon1
  • Razzocnor
  • H2F2
  • Rolen von Keng

  6 people have voted

  [X] Create the K'orlannsch, sizable and intelligent air-breathing worms that subsist on sunlight alone. (Grand Act)

  • Tarumath
  • Sir_Travelsalot
  • Jakub1228
  • bioticgrunt
  • Phigment
  • armentho

  6 people have voted

  [X] Enable The Sun to focus it's emissions into singular deadly lazer of variable power. (Cosmic Act)

  • Phigment
  • armentho
  • Shard of Victory
  • H2F2
  • Y Draig Gosch
  • Rolen von Keng

  5 people have voted

  [X] Create Nahesa, First of the Sea Serpents (Lesser-Act)

  • Scrivener
  • Starman
  • Razzocnor
  • Rolen von Keng
  • Npt170

  5 people have voted

  [X] Create the Ouroboros (Cosmic Act)

  • Starman
  • SolAnon1
  • Razzocnor
  • H2F2
  • Rolen von Keng

  4 people have voted

  [X] Create Leviathans (Grand Act): As plate tectonics warm the floor of the World Sea, and the sea flourishes with nutrients, the waters are ripe for larger life. Create reptilian, serpentine filter feeders that sup upon that life and relish the warmth. Intelligent in their way, and immortal unless killed, these creatures will never stop growing unless they die, and will grow in wisdom and power as they age.

  • Tarumath
  • Sir_Travelsalot
  • Jakub1228
  • bioticgrunt

  4 people have voted

  [X] Create the Abraxas, the divinely Inspired, primordial in nature, offspring and agents of the Architect's thought and mind. (Grand Act)

  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Scrivener
  • Dheer
  • Shard of Victory

  4 people have voted

  [X] Create the Abraxas. (Grand Act)

  • Starman
  • SolAnon1
  • H2F2
  • Rolen von Keng

  4 people have voted

  [X] Create the K'orlannsch. (Grand Act)

  • Starman
  • SolAnon1
  • H2F2
  • Rolen von Keng

  3 people have voted

  [X] Create the Ouroboros, a monstruously powerful sea serpent tasked with protecting the world from external threats (Cosmic Act)

  • Jakub1228
  • bioticgrunt
  • BadAtScreenNames

  2 people have voted

  [X] Create a sentient race of octopuses (Grand Act)

  • Jakub1228
  • bioticgrunt

  2 people have voted

  [X] the grand penguins (cosmic act)

  • BadAtScreenNames
  • armentho

  2 people have voted

  [X] Create GigaChad (Cosmic Act)

  • BadAtScreenNames
  • rush99999

  2 people have voted

  [X] Create words from the edge. (Cosmic Act.)

  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Rolen von Keng

  2 people have voted

  [X] Create the Clouded Lands, a set of absolute towering mountains surrounded by impossibly deep canyons and ravines. Between these mountains float a series of various sized pieces of land that move between the mountain peaks in, some the size of a wagon and others big enough to be a small country in itself.(Grand Act)

  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Easter

  2 people have voted

  [X]Create Wandering Whirlpools. (Lesser Act)

  • Starman
  • Rolen von Keng

  2 people have voted

  [x] Every living creature bears an innate link to a counterpart spiritual mass in the realm of the unseen. As they grow and experience things this mass grows and changes and upon the creature's death they reawaken as said spiritual mass, now brithed into the realm of the unseen. (Cosmic Act)

  • Voidseer
  • Mannan

  1 people have voted

  [X]Create Wandering Whirlpools: The World-Sea forms whirlpools of variable sizes, moving throughout its' skin. Inside the vortex, a connection to the Unseen is made. (Lesser Act)

  • Tarumath

  1 people have voted

  [X] Create the Skylands (Grand Act): A series of floating islands of various shape and size that float up amid the clouds of the world. Most are small scattered islands, a few are larger landmasses, a couple are even the size of small continents. Much like the land below, these islands come with their own assorted biomes and climates. These islands in effect create another 'surface' high above the 'true' surface of the world, but with a 'sea' of air rather than a 'sea' of water; a mix of clouds, specially strong air currents, and plant growth between these islands enable traversing between them. The islands are held in air through a mix of supernatural forces and a gravitonic metal that gives each island its own miniature center of gravity that creates a bonus effect whereby the underside of each floating island likewise has a gravitational force that pulls things 'upside down'.

  • Space Jawa

  1 people have voted

  [X] Reshape the worlds to have a matryoshka form (Cosmic Act)

  • Space Jawa

  1 people have voted

  [X] Raise up the City of the First Children by the Island. (Grand Act) (link to original here)

  • BadAtScreenNames

  1 people have voted

  [X] Create, a massive tree who's branches spread out to cover the entirety of the 'Isolated Island' in a perpetual shade. (Demi Act)

  • Vanestus

  1 people have voted

  [X] Create Nix'Shar the Marginally Fluffier, a small, fluffy being that is exactly 20% more friendly and fluffy than Ik'Shar the Fluffy, on the same island as Ik'Shar (Demi Act)

  • Razzocnor

  1 people have voted

  [X] Have life born of rock, metal, minerals emerge(Cosmic act)

  • Woltaire

  1 people have voted

  [X] Have a great boom of plantlike ocean life begin in the ocean with a vast variety of different types of planet life emerging throughout the ocean(cosmic act)

  • Woltaire

  1 people have voted

  [X] Create words from the edge.

  • H2F2

  1 people have voted

  [X] Create Trees (Grand Act)

  • Voidseer

  1 people have voted

  [X] Create Grass (Grand Act)

  • Voidseer

  1 people have voted

  [X] Create Myriad Sea Plants (Grand Act)

  • Voidseer

  1 people have voted

  [X] Every living creature bears an innate link to a counterpart spiritual mass in the realm of the unreal. As they grow and experience things this mass grows and changes and upon the creature's death they reawaken as said spiritual mass, now brithed into the realm of the unbeing. (Cosmic Act)

  • Npt170

 

[Photomajig]

EPOCH 1
THE AGE OF PLACES
​

Sing, Leviathan
Of the breaking and the end
Sing of terror and ruin
When the old world fell

-Ancient algae light-poem, unknown trans.

​

Cosmic Acts

A moon is placed into the unnamed world's orbit. Its appearance sends the ocean tides into a frenzy and is noted with interest by the few terrestrials down below. Far from a mere hunk of space rock, however, the moon soon reveals its true purpose. Waves of potent lunar magic radiate outward from its heart, washing down on the planet as it waxes and wanes. Those who may learn to harness this power will find it potent indeed.

The moon also acts as a meeting point of the Seen and the Unseen. Indeed, it exists simultaneously within both. Spirits flicker in and out of existence upon its rocky surface, bringing with them marvelous illusions and dreams of their native realm for fleeting moments. These phenomena, sometimes visible from the world's surface, will in time be named 'spirit-lights' and 'moonfire'. Some spirits begin to experiment with the energies of lunar magic, tying themselves further to the moon. Cosmic Act: Create a moon as a font of magic and bridge between the Seen and the Unseen.

The expanding universe births stars and planets in the distant void, comets and nebulas, the Flame of Chaos scattering cosmic phenomena with no rhyme or reason. The impossible distances that grow between them and the First World are noticed by the Makers, and cosmic pathways are forged between worlds. These divine bridges manifest as paths of light for those who know where to look for their shimmering gateways. Crossing these divine ways is far more easily done than travel across the Void by any means. Some worlds are given more paths to connect, some less, but the First World receives the greatest share as the hub of all Creation. Cosmic Act: Cosmic Paths.

The stellar nursery of the Void is lit by countless new lights as stars and Star-Trails are placed on the firmament. Stars are no longer merely byproducts of the Universal Expansion, but each now transforms into a memorial, representing a life story lived by something in Creation. The first stars are appropriately those of algae and other creatures of the World-Sea, but in time all creatures of the universe shall reflect their lives into the darkness. Through mysterious means, individuals may also learn to use the stars to gain characteristics of those who have Blazed their Star-Trails before. Cosmic Act: Stars and Star-Trails.

A new Law is pressed into the skin of Reality. The Law of Constant Evolution is put into effect, further pushing change and adaptation across the universe. This has a number of subtle effects: it pushes living things to mutate more often and more dramatically, instills a tendency in intelligent life to loathe and fear stagnation, and empowers natural forces that break up and transform the material world. Such changes can only be seen through the passage of many ages, of course, but it is made an inviolable truth of the universe that everything must and will change with time. Cosmic Act: The Law of Constant Evolution.

A great council of Makers manifests and begins a great work within the stellar forge of the Unfrozen Sun. The Custodians are created – divine servants tasked with upholding the works of the Makers and refining them further. Each is powered by a flicker of the Flame of Chaos – a fire that is caged within their iron skulls, crowning them with terrible light. They are formidable enough alone, but as they come together they become able to work miracles of their own – and their numbers are vast. Cosmic Act: Create the Custodians.

The Custodians are sent out into the universe to begin the aeons-long work of filling it with marvels and horrors of their devising. In this youth of their eternal existence, their minds are fixed things, mimicking and fulfilling the plans of their Makers. But the Law of Constant Evolution roots itself within them all the same, stoking the inherent Chaos of their souls. In time, they will begin to diverge, and change... but to what end?


Grand Acts

A similar, if lesser, union of divine spirits forms a titanic divinity, the Architect. Its mind of ever-changing plans and designs fixes on creating a race of servants, and so the Abraxas are given life. Formed of stardust and the endless light of the Flame, they come to be as fifteen greater and four hundred and forty lesser brothers and sisters. Their purpose is to serve the ephemeral Makers, and they come to dwell in the boundless Void alongside them, at times venturing onto worlds in pursuit of ineffable divine aims. Grand Act: Create the Abraxas.

Fish are created. This broad family of life comes into being in myriad niches and forms, quickly coming to dominate the young oceans. Some feed on floating nutrients, others graze on algae, while some species are made into deadly predators, hunting their lesser kin where they congregate. Simultaneously, coral appears in the seas. It forms elaborate reefs that provide shelter and homes for the species of the World Sea. Grand Act: Fish and Coral.

The sentient algae are unprepared for the introduction of so many rivals and predators into their environment. Entire colonies are devastated until countermeasures develop and the sentient algae learn to trap and hunt predator fish in turn. Most colonies shift to occupy coral reefs and heal in their sheltered confines. Within the colonies, a grave sense of a loss of innocence and peace is widespread.

By the First Island, a young colony of the sentient algae awakens to witness the power of the Makers unleashed. The powers of Creation coalesce for moments into a titanic divinity - Bãsn, the Smiling Maker. This apparition descends among the algae and commits an act of holy self-sacrifice. His savaged heart bleeds white-hot divine blood, the Flame of Chaos manifested, and floods the shores of the Island in power. Water of the World-Sea mingles with fiery blood and is transformed.

Upon the shallow waters of those shores rises the City of the First Children; a great bastion of high spires and shining domes of impossible coral, of deep cavernous chambers and a thousand monumental edifices. Its greatest towers cast long shadows over the island itself. Grand Act: Raise up the City of the First Children.

The colony of the algae is deeply affected by the chaotic upheaval of their waters and the visitation of the Great Bãsn. They make the choice to move into the City and settle it as their new home. For now, they dwell in the submerged lower levels, frightened of the open air above. Word of their choice travels, with far-reaching consequences...

In the southwestern World-Sea, the mantle of the world heaves and buckles in a violent eruption of magma and earth. Tortured tectonic plates crash together and force the ocean floor upwards in jagged peaks and volcanic plateaus. The waters recede from them in massive tsunamis, waves rushing across the planet's surface to slam onto shore as far as the first island.

As the sea winds cool this red-hot landmass, the Hot Lands come into being. This new continent becomes home to high mountain valleys and craggy lowlands alike, with imposing black-sloped volcanoes standing shoulder to shoulder with snow-capped peaks. The earth is rich in minerals and ores for those who know how to work them; geysers and steaming pools offer energy for the taking. In the lowlands, grinding stone and volcanic ash begins to build soil for life to take root in in the ages to come. Grand Act: The Hot Lands.

The first true continent of the World has been born. It will not remain alone for long.

The leisurely realm of cloud and wind of the sky is disrupted with the appearance of the Skylands. Floating islands of varying sizes appear in the skies of the world, held there by divine power and their cores of magical metal. While barren for now, they should possess all the prerequisites for a hardy kind of life to make them its own. Grand Act: The Skylands.

Lastly, the Clouded Lands burst into being. Impossibly high mountain peaks thrust out of the planet's crust like spears reaching to pierce the belly of the sky, skewering clouds and vaporizing a small sea's worth of water with the force of their arrival. This small new continent is a curious one – towering peaks stand next to deep chasms and treacherous canyons, making it a difficult place to traverse. Islands of the Skylands float between the mountain heights, however, allowing those who can track their movements to use them for transport. Of course, for now, nothing lives on these deathly slopes. Grand Act: The Clouded Lands.


Lesser Acts

The Arising Star is sighted for the first time. This magnificent, many-colored divine messenger is received with great awe and wonder, though the denizens of the world are at a loss to what it signifies. Only the Makers know it speaks of a great story unfolding. At the appointed time, the Triumphant Comet shall then fly across the skies of the Seen and Unseen. Likewise, it shines in every color in the universe and appears when great stories come to their end – a manifestation of the First Law of Reality. Lesser Act: The Arising Star & Lesser Act: The Triumphant Comet.

Leviathans come into existence. These large serpentine creatures spread into the depths of the World-Sea, feeding on nutrients drifting on currents and in the seafloor. They are often found near thermal vents, basking in large family pods as they enjoy the heat. Blessed with effectively endless lifespans, leviathans grow larger and larger unless struck down by violence, disease or misfortune. Leviathans prove a benefit to other species in the deeps. Their movements along the bottom of the ocean free nutrients trapped in the sand and the presence of these giants often discourages predators from approaching, allowing smaller beings to flourish. Lesser Act: Leviathans.

K'orlannsch appear in the World. These intelligent air-breathing worms sustain themselves on the light of the sun and come to dwell on land and in shallow water. They awaken to life by the Island, wriggling their way to shore. These creatures spend much of their days in photosynthetic torpor, stirring in the twilight hours to socialize, play, mate and explore. Lesser Act: K'orlannsch.

On the shores of the First Island, from sea foam and salt spray and drenched sand is born Nahesa, First of the Sea Serpents. A scaled, amphibious serpent, Nahesa comes into life as tiny as a grain of sand, unnoticed by all but the Watcher high above. As it happens, its Tale of Tails begins on the exact same moment that the Arising Star is first revealed to the world... Lesser Act: Create Nahesa, First of the Sea-Serpents.


Demi-Acts

The Comfortable Cave is granted sentience and an affable personality, to give Ik'Shar the Fluffy much-needed company. Ik'Shar is very pleased to make his acquaintance and spends many nights purring at the rocks and walls of the Cave. Very soon after, Ik'Shar is even more amazed to meet Nix'Shar the Marginally Fluffier, an almost identical being that is, in fact, a subtle but notable amount both fluffier and friendlier than it is. They both settle in the Comfortable Cave in great contentment. Demi-Act: Make the Comfortable Cave sentient and capable of telepathic communication & Demi-Act: Create Nix'Shar the Marginally Fluffier.

A great tree rises on the Isolated Island, its canopy great enough to shadow the entire breadth of it. As it happens, the Lonesome Tree is also the first of its kind in the World. Demi-Act: Create a massive tree to cover the entirety of the 'Isolated Island' in a perpetual shade.


Developments

Children of Water and Blood: The chaotic Epoch sees the sentient algae divide as a species. The sudden onslaught of predatory fish traumatizes many hives, as do the violent births of new continents that unwittingly destroy entire populations as they rise from the seafloor.

News of the Makers' divine visitation and the creation of the City spread slowly to other communities of the algae. This proves the final blow for those algae who feel abandoned and failed by the Sea-Spirit. Some begin migrating towards its strange shores, while others shun it and those who dwell within.

A dozen colonies reach the City of Coral. After lengthy negotiations, they come to an agreement to share the City among themselves without attempting to consolidate into one unfeasibly large hive - an unprecedented break with tradition no doubt spurred on by the new Law of Constant Evolution. Perhaps arrogantly, this new polity renames itself as (what is best transcribed as) Bãsn-Shaal-Khlomet, 'the Favored Children of Bãsn'. For their part, the 'loyal' colonies – the majority of the species – retreat from shallow waters and shores, settling in deeper waters and devoting themselves further to the Sea-Spirit. Time will tell what this division will lead to...


Leviathan Wakes: Chance sees a young colony of the sentient algae in the north-eastern ocean coalesce into a particularly daring and adventurous mind. It names itself Chuult-Shumo – which in the visual language of the algae is made up of various intricate pulses of light and shuddering motions, but which the Historian's mind transcribes as such – and settles near a hydrothermal vent in the region. The underwater geyser is frequented by a large pod of leviathans, and in these Chuult-Shumo sees potential.

The mind-hive ponders for a time the nature of these new beasts, admiring their great strength, longevity and evident intellect. It observes the leviathans from afar until one day, when it is approached by a lone wounded young leviathan. An idea hatches. The hive calls to the weakened beast with its bioluminescence and offers forth stored nutrients as gifts. The exhausted leviathan lets down its guard and begins sleeping near the colony. Chuult-Shumo works for days and days to earn the beast's trust. Finally, the placated leviathan allows the colony to attach itself to the beast's hardy hide. The algae swarm and settle like living armor over the leviathan's body – and as the leviathan swims away, they are carried with it. A symbiotic relationship is formed, and Chuult-Shumo becomes the first – yet likely not last! - leviathan rider of its people.


Friendship Goals: On the nameless central island, Ik'Shar and Nix'Shar become very affectionate friends indeed. As it turns out, the divine power of creation is strong in them – or in other words, their biologies turn out to be perfectly compatible for the purposes of reproduction. After the passing of some time, the pair find themselves looking at a mewling litter of furballs made in their own image. Their children represent the potential beginning of a new species - the Iknix, perhaps?

Spoiler: World Information

The Void
The nothing between worlds and stars.

-Being: The Watcher. An immortal entity perceiving all of Creation.
-Being: The Historian. An immortal entity recording all of History.
-Being: The Watcher's Watcher. An immortal entity trying its best.
-Being: Custodians. Powerful divine servants tasked with maintaining and continuing the works of the Makers.
-Being: Abraxas. Divine messengers and servants composed of fifteen greater and four hundred and forty lesser beings.

-Phenomenon: Cosmic Paths. Divine paths of light connecting worlds for travelers.
-Phenomenon: Stars and Star-Trails. Stars marking lives lived by beings of the universe. Characteristics of great beings of the past may be gained in some way from them.
-Phenomenon: The Arising Star and the Triumphant Comet. Cosmic phenomena marking the beginnings and ends of great stories.

The Moon
A rocky moon orbiting the World and existing simultaneously in the Seen and the Unseen. A source of powerful lunar magic.
-Being: Spirits. Native entities of the Unseen.

The Unnamed World

Sea: Unnamed
Saltwater sea, blessed with nutrients and life. Microbial, simple multicellular life, coral, fish, leviathans, K'orlannsch. Sentient algae.
-Being: The Spirit of the World-Sea. The awakened genius loci of the World-Sea, possessed of great magical power.
-Place: The City of the First Children. A great coral city by the central island. Settled by the sentient algae of the Bãsn-Shaal-Khlomet.

Central island: Unnamed
Barren rock. Some microbial, simple multicellular life, K'orlannsch.
-Being: Ik'Shar. A friendly, furry creature inhabiting the island.
-Being: Nix'Shar. A friendlier furry creature inhabiting the island.
-Being: Nahesa, First of the Sea-Serpents. An amphibious serpent inhabiting the island.
-Place: The Memory Pool. A mysterious pool of black liquid. Allows one to view their memories in vivid detail.
-Place: The Comfortable Cave. A sentient and telepathic cave where the temperature is always comfortable.

Isolated island: Unnamed
A rocky island dominated by a massive tree. Some microbial, simple multicellular life.
-Being: The Lonesome Tree. A great divine tree covering most of the Island.

The Hot Lands
A volcanically active continent in the southwest of the world. Some microbial, simple multicellular life.

The Clouded Lands
A landmass of extremes in the southeast of the world, made of high peaks and deep ravines side by side. Some microbial, simple multicellular life.

The Skylands
A collection of floating islands of varying size high above the surface world.

The Unseen
A realm of dreams, imagination and spirits.
-Being: Spirits. Native entities of the Unseen.

Laws of Reality

Law: Narrative Satisfaction. All laws of reality may be broken and bent for the purpose of narratively satisfying outcomes or for the pure of heart and will.
Law: Constant Evolution. All of Creation strives to change and evolve. Mutations in living beings are common, forces of change are more potent, and intelligent creatures tend to oppose stagnation.

I might need to think about better formatting, given how big and wall-of-texty these are clearly going to be. Hopefully it is reasonably pleasant to read even so.

A moratorium on Acts is now in effect. You may begin Voting for the next Epoch in 12 hours. The following Epoch shall be the Age of Life. Acts to create or alter forms of life will receive a free +1 Vote.

 

[Photomajig]

Scheduled vote count started by Photomajig on Dec 8, 2021 at 3:02 PM, finished with 71 posts and 27 votes.

• ---

  18 people have voted

  [X] Bring Color to the World (Grand Act)

  • Rolen von Keng
  • Tarumath
  • Space Jawa
  • Easter
  • Babooie18
  • Scrivener
  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Shard
  • Starman
  • Phoenix853456!
  • Mannan
  • Vanestus
  • Razzocnor
  • bioticgrunt
  • Voidseer
  • Y Draig Gosch
  • Andmeuths
  • Dheer

  15 people have voted

  [X] Create the Skrayt, four-winged inhabitants of the Clouded Lands

  • Rolen von Keng
  • Tarumath
  • Space Jawa
  • Easter
  • Babooie18
  • Scrivener
  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Sir_Travelsalot
  • Shard
  • Starman
  • Phoenix853456!
  • Razzocnor
  • LordofActuality
  • Y Draig Gosch
  • Verdom

  15 people have voted

  [X] Create the great Sun-Whales, dwellers of the chromospere, titans tens of kilometers in length, children of the Unfrozen Sun. Each of them is a nation within one, their minds great and powerful, grand magic of sun at their command. (Grand Act)

  • Rolen von Keng
  • Tarumath
  • Babooie18
  • Scrivener
  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Sir_Travelsalot
  • Starman
  • Phoenix853456!
  • Vanestus
  • Shard of Victory
  • Chiperninerm
  • Y Draig Gosch
  • Andmeuths
  • Dheer
  • Verdom

  15 people have voted

  [X] Create the Myridna in the Hot Lands (Grand Act)

  • Rolen von Keng
  • Tarumath
  • Babooie18
  • Scrivener
  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Sir_Travelsalot
  • Shard
  • Starman
  • Phoenix853456!
  • Vanestus
  • Y Draig Gosch
  • Andmeuths
  • Dheer
  • Verdom
  • Space Jawa

  15 people have voted

  [X]Create the first series of birds within the Clouded Lands, from the smallest song bird to massive mythical beasts. Let them compete for survival within this land and see who comes out on top.(Grand Act)

  • Rolen von Keng
  • Tarumath
  • Space Jawa
  • Easter
  • Npt170
  • Scrivener
  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Shard
  • Starman
  • Phoenix853456!
  • Vanestus
  • Razzocnor
  • Y Draig Gosch
  • Andmeuths
  • Dheer

  14 people have voted

  [X] Every living creature bears an innate link to a counterpart spiritual mass in the realm of the unseen. As they grow and experience things this mass grows and changes and upon the creature's death they reawaken as said spiritual mass, now brithed into the realm of the unseen. A life after life. (Cosmic Act)

  • Rolen von Keng
  • Tarumath
  • Babooie18
  • Npt170
  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Sir_Travelsalot
  • Shard
  • Starman
  • Phoenix853456!
  • Mannan
  • Razzocnor
  • Andmeuths
  • Dheer
  • Verdom

  13 people have voted

  [X] Skyland Fungal Bloom(Lesser Act) - The Skylands must be provided with a basis to support life. Seed them with spores of lichen, moss and fungus of a thousand colors and properties, making rainbow landscapes in the skies that can support future life.

  • Rolen von Keng
  • Tarumath
  • Babooie18
  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Sir_Travelsalot
  • Starman
  • Phoenix853456!
  • Mannan
  • Vanestus
  • Razzocnor
  • bioticgrunt
  • Voidseer
  • Verdom

  11 people have voted

  [X] Create a sentient race : the White Ants, giant albino ants attuned to lunar magic on the Isolated Island. (Grand Act)

  • Rolen von Keng
  • Tarumath
  • Scrivener
  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Sir_Travelsalot
  • Starman
  • Phoenix853456!
  • Y Draig Gosch
  • Andmeuths
  • Dheer
  • Verdom

  11 people have voted

  [X] Create a sentient race: the Umbrals, a pale, blind, race, with hunched over backs, they dwell inside the darker parts of deep canyons and caverns of the cloudlands (Grand Act)

  • Rolen von Keng
  • Tarumath
  • Scrivener
  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Starman
  • Phoenix853456!
  • Y Draig Gosch
  • Andmeuths
  • Dheer
  • Babooie18
  • Verdom

  11 people have voted

  [X] Teach the Bãsn-Shaal-Khlomet the arts of Ardency. (Grand Act.)

  • Rolen von Keng
  • Tarumath
  • Scrivener
  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Starman
  • Razzocnor
  • LordofActuality
  • Pempelune
  • Y Draig Gosch
  • Andmeuths
  • Dheer

  11 people have voted

  [X] let there be all manner of beasts to dwell upon the land and all manner of plants to match the fish and coral of the sea. (grand act)

  • Tarumath
  • Space Jawa
  • Babooie18
  • Npt170
  • Scrivener
  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Starman
  • Phoenix853456!
  • Mannan
  • bioticgrunt
  • Voidseer

  10 people have voted

  [X] (Cosmic Act) Create the World Tree Yggdrasil, Tree of life and the 2 magics.

  • Rolen von Keng
  • Tarumath
  • Easter
  • Npt170
  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Sir_Travelsalot
  • Starman
  • Phoenix853456!
  • Vanestus
  • Andmeuths

  10 people have voted

  [X] Fill the branches of the 'Lonely Tree' with a variety of large, nutritious, seed-bearing fruit in a rainbow of colors so that it might spread lesser kin to the rest of the world. (Lesser Act)

  • Tarumath
  • Space Jawa
  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Starman
  • Vanestus
  • Razzocnor
  • LordofActuality
  • Andmeuths
  • Dheer
  • Verdom

  9 people have voted

  [X] The world's poles shoot out towards the sky far above, anchoring time to themselves; go up the Northern World-Pillar, and spend many years at the top while a single day passes. Climb the Southern World-Pillar for a few days, and descend to find months have passed. (Cosmic Act)

  • Rolen von Keng
  • Tarumath
  • Babooie18
  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Sir_Travelsalot
  • Starman
  • Phoenix853456!
  • Andmeuths
  • Verdom

  9 people have voted

  [X]Hollow and puncture holes to pebbles all around the Unnamed World and fill them with living meat. Grant them the power to shape their shells and meat in accordance to their time in the world. (Grand Act)

  • Rolen von Keng
  • Tarumath
  • Scrivener
  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Starman
  • Phoenix853456!
  • Razzocnor
  • Y Draig Gosch
  • Verdom

  9 people have voted

  [X] Create sentient race: the Baólians. (Grand Act)

  • Rolen von Keng
  • Tarumath
  • Space Jawa
  • Babooie18
  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Qudrim8054
  • Y Draig Gosch
  • Andmeuths
  • Dheer

  9 people have voted

  [X] Create a grand city within the Unreal, one that grows and changes with its inhabitants. It's roads shine like precious jewels while it's architecture will be the stuff of dreams. (Grand Act)

  • Tarumath
  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Starman
  • Razzocnor
  • bioticgrunt
  • LordofActuality
  • Andmeuths
  • Dheer
  • Verdom

  8 people have voted

  [X] To give challenge and danger to the Void and Unseen, may there be 40 Outer Deities, eldritch in mind and being, and powerful beyond imagining. However, they are split between the Void and Unseen, forever to war upon the other. (Cosmic Act)

  • Rolen von Keng
  • Tarumath
  • Babooie18
  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Sir_Travelsalot
  • Starman
  • Phoenix853456!
  • Y Draig Gosch

  8 people have voted

  [X] Create the Cultivars, beings that shall help the makers fill the universe with life. (Grand Act)

  • Rolen von Keng
  • Tarumath
  • Starman
  • Phoenix853456!
  • Vanestus
  • Voidseer
  • Andmeuths
  • Dheer

  8 people have voted

  [X]From a particularly lustrous fruit of the Lonesome Tree, Kaileah the Dryad is born. Between its twisting boughs she finds her purpose, as a sentinel and gardener to her beloved progenitor.(Lesser Act)

  • Tarumath
  • Space Jawa
  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Razzocnor
  • LordofActuality
  • Andmeuths
  • Dheer
  • Verdom

  7 people have voted

  [X] Skyland Fungal Bloom (Lesser Act)

  • Space Jawa
  • Easter
  • Scrivener
  • Shard
  • Y Draig Gosch
  • Andmeuths
  • Dheer

  5 people have voted

  [X] Create the first series of plant life within the hot lands, with all its variety and forms from the largest magma trees to the smallest flower. Let them grow in all their multitudes and forms adapted to the heat and flame of the environment whether by going towards the most intimate of connections with heat and flame such as the magma tree, or the beautiful flame flower or by going to all sorts of methods to survive and endure the land itself, from plants near the shore forming a connection with the sea to protect it or the simplest of methods where the plant life ensures that their seeds can endure the flames and regrow over another area where there is no flame. (Grand Act)

  • Tarumath
  • Space Jawa
  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Voidseer
  • Dheer

  5 people have voted

  [X] Create Myriad Sea Plants (Grand Act)

  • BadAtScreenNames
  • bioticgrunt
  • Voidseer
  • Andmeuths
  • Dheer

  4 people have voted

  [X] Create the Dream Plane within the Realm of Unreal (Grand Act)

  • Rolen von Keng
  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Starman
  • Y Draig Gosch

  2 people have voted

  -[X] They are unusually attuned to eachother's emotions, being able to sense them unconsciously. Due to this, those in the race with a tendency towards negative emotions tend to be ostracized and even exiled.

  • Babooie18
  • Verdom

  2 people have voted

  -[X] Usually timid and very empathetic due to their hypersensitivity of emotions. However, those exiled or ostracized tend to become more aggressive.

  • Babooie18
  • Verdom

  2 people have voted

  -[X] Dwell in caves and shaded area's because they're very sensitive to the sun due to their pale skin.

  • Babooie18
  • Verdom

  2 people have voted

  [X] creates a system that automatically collects remnants of divine power or powerful evil souls and then uses that power to create artifacts of all kinds that will have powers, these will be randomly given to unborn carriers and soul-bound.

  • BadAtScreenNames
  • Fluffy_serpent

  2 people have voted

  [x] Every living creature bears an innate link to a counterpart spiritual mass in the realm of the unseen. As they grow and experience things this mass grows and changes and upon the creature's death they reawaken as said spiritual mass, now brithed into the realm of the unseen. (Cosmic Act)

  • bioticgrunt
  • Voidseer

  1 people have voted

  [X] Create a grand city within the Unreal, one that grows and changes with its inhabitants. It's roads shine like precious jewels while it's architecture will be the stuff of dreams.

  • Rolen von Keng

  1 people have voted

  [X] Create words from the edge. (Cosmic Law)

  • Rolen von Keng

  1 people have voted

  -[X] An intelligent species and civilization of bipedal feline rodents, the Myridna are a hardy race of diggers and craftsmen.

  • Space Jawa

  1 people have voted

  -[X] Myridna stand at average of five feet for males and four feet for females. They are covered in fur that aids them in maintaining comfortable temperatures against both heat and cold, with females having longer fur in lighter shades of yellows and oranges while males have shorter furs in darker shades of reds and browns. They have strong longer upper arms, a pair of smaller secondary arms on the upper waist and legs that in normal sitting position look short and stubby but can stretch to be quite long. Myrinda middle arms are short with three clawed stubby fingers well suited for gripping, while the upper arms have three fingers flanked by a pair of thumbs; the three fingers each have retractable claws. Male claws are shorter and sturdier and better suited for digging through tough surfaces; while female claws are longer, sharper, and better suited for cutting through softer substances. Myrinda tails are short, strong, and sturdy on the males, while females have thinner, longer, prehensile tails.

  • Space Jawa

  1 people have voted

  -[X] Myrinda are well suited for living either in the sea or underground. Their lungs and digestive systems are especially hardy. The lungs are both capable of breathing in all but the most toxic of environments and holding air for extreme periods of time. Their digestive systems are highly efficient and capable of digesting practically any biological matter. Myrinda are partial to darker locations, with eyes well suited for dimly lit places. While not blinded by bright lights, they are not fond of them and can grow irritable if forced to be out in sunlight or other bright places without means to dim the light their eyes are exposed to. Myrina are particularly fast and dextrous, making for exceptional climbers - a process aided by their claws.

  • Space Jawa

  1 people have voted

  -[X] Myrinda as a civilization and culture are builders and craftsmen, having a keen eye and firm knack for taking raw resources and making new useful things out of them. They are especially fond of working with stone and metal due to those products having far greater durability and far better suited for surviving over longer periods of time. This, combined with their preference for darker places, leads them to primarily work towards building their settlements underground, which synergizes with their need to dig up metals and stone to work with. Myrinda on the whole desire function over form, the artistry of a given item is secondary next to how well an item functions and how durable and long lasting the object in question is. Indeed, the Myrina see their greatest works as eternal monuments that will stand for all time, outlasting any one given Myrina if not the entire species as a whole.

  • Space Jawa

  1 people have voted

  -[X] Myrinda are monogamous and mate for life, the loss of a Myrindas mate is a devastating event. Only those who lose their mates at a comparatively young age are likely to ever remarry, at elder ages the loss of a mate is frequently so devestating as to bring about the death of the partner soon after. This passionate sense of loyalty to ones mate echoes into other elements of their lives as well, as the Myrinda are a fiercely loyal species. Friendships are not easily broken, the strongest and longest companionships are neigh unbreakable short of death. Betrayal is one of the worst sins a Myrinda can commit.

  • Space Jawa

  1 people have voted

  -[X] Myrinda have lengthy natural lifespans that can last for hundreds of years. The exact average length of a Myrinda's lifespan, however, is hard to discern, as it is tied to the mental and physical stimulation the Myrinda receive. Those who continue to maintain an active lifestyle or are continually finding stimulation for their minds can live a youthful life until they simply 'give out', while those who turn sedentary or allow their minds to grow stale frequently die at comparatively young ages.

  • Space Jawa

  1 people have voted

  [X] Create words from the edge.

  • Verdom

 

[Photomajig]

Passed Acts

I am considering increasing the costs of Cosmic and Grand Acts given how top-heavy the Acts are getting. They were intended to be big collaborative efforts, but we almost have only them now.

COSMIC
[X] Every living creature bears an innate link to a counterpart spiritual mass in the realm of the unseen. As they grow and experience things this mass grows and changes and upon the creature's death they reawaken as said spiritual mass, now brithed into the realm of the unseen. A life after life. (Cosmic Act)
[X] (Cosmic Act) Create the World Tree Yggdrasil, Tree of life and the 2 magics. (Mannan's version)
[X] The world's poles shoot out towards the sky far above, anchoring time to themselves; go up the Northern World-Pillar, and spend many years at the top while a single day passes. Climb the Southern World-Pillar for a few days, and descend to find months have passed. (Cosmic Act)

GRAND
[X] Bring Color to the World (Grand Act)
[X] Create the Skrayt, four-winged inhabitants of the Clouded Lands
[X] Create the great Sun-Whales, dwellers of the chromospere, titans tens of kilometers in length, children of the Unfrozen Sun. Each of them is a nation within one, their minds great and powerful, grand magic of sun at their command. (Grand Act)
[X] Create the Myridna in the Hot Lands (Grand Act)
[X]Create the first series of birds within the Clouded Lands, from the smallest song bird to massive mythical beasts. Let them compete for survival within this land and see who comes out on top.(Grand Act)
[X] Create a sentient race : the White Ants, giant albino ants attuned to lunar magic on the Isolated Island. (Grand Act)
[X] Create a sentient race: the Umbrals, a pale, blind, race, with hunched over backs, they dwell inside the darker parts of deep canyons and caverns of the cloudlands (Grand Act)
[X]Hollow and puncture holes to pebbles all around the Unnamed World and fill them with living meat. Grant them the power to shape their shells and meat in accordance to their time in the world. (Grand Act)
[X] Create sentient race: the Baólians. (Grand Act)
[X] Create a grand city within the Unreal, one that grows and changes with its inhabitants. It's roads shine like precious jewels while it's architecture will be the stuff of dreams. (Grand Act)
[X] Create the Cultivars, beings that shall help the makers fill the universe with life. (Grand Act)
[X] Create the first series of plant life within the hot lands, with all its variety and forms from the largest magma trees to the smallest flower. Let them grow in all their multitudes and forms adapted to the heat and flame of the environment whether by going towards the most intimate of connections with heat and flame such as the magma tree, or the beautiful flame flower or by going to all sorts of methods to survive and endure the land itself, from plants near the shore forming a connection with the sea to protect it or the simplest of methods where the plant life ensures that their seeds can endure the flames and regrow over another area where there is no flame. (Grand Act)

LESSER
[X] Teach the Bãsn-Shaal-Khlomet the arts of Ardency. (Grand Act.) (After consideration, this didn't actually require a Grand Act and is fine as a Lesser one, given it was given to only one community and utilized an existing power source.)
[X] Skyland Fungal Bloom(Lesser Act) - The Skylands must be provided with a basis to support life. Seed them with spores of lichen, moss and fungus of a thousand colors and properties, making rainbow landscapes in the skies that can support future life.
[X] Fill the branches of the 'Lonely Tree' with a variety of large, nutritious, seed-bearing fruit in a rainbow of colors so that it might spread lesser kin to the rest of the world. (Lesser Act)
[X]From a particularly lustrous fruit of the Lonesome Tree, Kaileah the Dryad is born. Between its twisting boughs she finds her purpose, as a sentinel and gardener to her beloved progenitor.(Lesser Act)