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)
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.
It is very hard to follow the voting process since people vote for all sorts of acts at once, so I'm kinda at a lost for words as to how my sentient race managed to get into the approved Grand Acts in this current epoch?
I say you should increase the grand/cosmic act price honestly, there's too many grand acts happening currently. Maybe make cosmic acts 10 votes and Grand Acts 8?
It is very hard to follow the voting process since people vote for all sorts of acts at once, so I'm kinda at a lost for words as to how my sentient race managed to get into the approved Grand Acts in this current epoch?
...because they were cool? I mean. It was an interesting pitch, it fit the epoch's act bonus, it gave us more toys to play with - kind of a no-brainer really.
@Photomajig , I'd suggest just putting a limit on how many grand and cosmic acts people can vote for? That way we have to prioritise a bit. When the grand and cosmic acts start failing but the lesser and demi-acts pass, that'll shift how people pitch.
Yeah grand acts are probably getting passed at a way too high rate. Maybe make it so you can only vote for a certain amount and grand and cosmic acts? Currently it seems like a lot of them end up passing since you can just put up a massive vote wall of grand and cosmic acts with not much thought.
Yeah grand acts are probably getting passed at a way too high rate. Maybe make it so you can only vote for a certain amount and grand and cosmic acts? Currently it seems like a lot of them end up passing since you can just put up a massive vote wall of grand and cosmic acts with not much thought.
Well, this issue is inevitable. Yeah, it feels like the solution to is to restrict the number of votes people have, at least limiting the amount of cosmic acts they can vote for.
It would make people more strategic in their voting habits without unduly restricting the amount of people needed.
It would also keep the universe from being overwhelmed with everyone and their grandmothers magic system or "well we gotta have that" on the cosmic scale
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.
If there were fewer people in the quest it probably wouldn't be an issue, but then this quest seems to have gotten rather popular on the whole. I've actually been considering the matter myself.
The idea of percentages is what I was thinking, too, since it automatically scales with the number of participants which saves you the trouble of having to rebalance depending on if you've got a high player count or low player count.
Only letting people vote for so many options might be interesting as well, but that would still run into the same problem of you can't really balance it properly when you don't know how many players are going to be in the game at a given time.
I think that before we expand the magic system and how we want it to work, we all need to discuss and agree on terms that we all agree on before we create it. Do we want it to be completely like Tolkien? Something more vague and low scale, or complete nutjob city-shaking proportions? Do we want mages, wizards and sorcerers be able to make fireballs fall from the sky like in Warhammer?
Sure, everyone wants their way with things in the magic system, so we can all sit down like adults and discuss what each of us want to implement, do a pro & con debate to how this would affect the magic system, add drawbacks and eventually we'll get there.
Does that sound efficient, or will it just devolve into a mass of screams and arguments?
Also, humans are a must in this setting and maybe one or more human-like sentient race should sound good.
I think that before we expand the magic system and how we want it to work, we all need to discuss and agree on terms that we all agree on before we create it. Do we want it to be completely like Tolkien? Something more vague and low scale, or complete nutjob city-shaking proportions? Do we want mages, wizards and sorcerers be able to make fireballs fall from the sky like in Warhammer?
Sure, everyone wants their way with things in the magic system, so we can all sit down like adults and discuss what each of us want to implement, do a pro & con debate to how this would affect the magic system, add drawbacks and eventually we'll get there.
Does that sound efficient, or will it just devolve into a mass of screams and arguments?
Also, humans are a must in this setting and maybe one or more human-like sentient race should sound good.
I would personally like if our magic system is tied to the cosmic laws we have set up for the game.
For example, Spirit Magic could have three ways of being used:
1. Use your own spirit. Perfectly reliable, but limited in effect (unless you find some way of augmenting your own spirit somehow).
2. Get other spirits. More power & versatility but you have to bargain with them to get what you want.
3. Some third option, maybe willing possession of some sort where you get the best of the above two albeit with some major side effects.
And presumably there are working to weaken the barrier between the real and real so you can do the above 3 to begin win. Or maybe magic is imposing the unreal on the real somehow, etc. Something that ties with earlier cosmic laws.
I think that before we expand the magic system and how we want it to work, we all need to discuss and agree on terms that we all agree on before we create it. Do we want it to be completely like Tolkien? Something more vague and low scale, or complete nutjob city-shaking proportions? Do we want mages, wizards and sorcerers be able to make fireballs fall from the sky like in Warhammer?
Sure, everyone wants their way with things in the magic system, so we can all sit down like adults and discuss what each of us want to implement, do a pro & con debate to how this would affect the magic system, add drawbacks and eventually we'll get there.
Does that sound efficient, or will it just devolve into a mass of screams and arguments?
Also, humans are a must in this setting and maybe one or more human-like sentient race should sound good.
I almost guarantee it will break down at least a bit, everyone is gunna have a different idea on what they want for the magic and will argue for their own interpretation.
Personally for me as long as its not eldritch I'll probably be fine with it.
I feel like a dick saying this, but I feel like I have to - given this is a riot quest, and people can just wander in and throw up anything they want, we can't guarantee or enforce any underlying system to magic. I'm not saying the conversation isn't worth having, but it's worth remembering that we'll probably see ideas that directly contradict anything we accept, and if they're cool people will probably vote for them.
I'm thinking on continuing with both increasing the Cosmic and Grand Act thresholds (likely to 10+ and 8+) and limiting how many things in those categories you may vote for (likely 1 and 3). But first, the update!
In the depths of the Void and the hidden places of the Unseen, the Makers begin a terrible work. Vast, ravenous minds burning with the unbound Flame of Chaos awaken in the darkness, slavering with a hunger for dominion. So are the Outer Gods created, to menace the far reaches of the Void and the Unseen.
These godlike entities are fat with distorted power, though where the Custodians enjoy the power to create and preserve, the Outer Gods know only to destroy and corrupt. Twenty of their eldritch line arise in the unformed terminus of the Void, on the very margins of Universal Expansion. Twenty others come to be in its mirror within Unseen. From the first instant, they are at war with another, an eternal struggle for survival and lordship. That is well, for should they unite, they might threaten even the Makers themselves...
Cosmic Act: Create the forty Outer Gods.
***
Unseen Afterlife:
A new cosmic law is hammered into the Universal spine. Living beings in the Seen now reflect a spiritual counterpart into the Unseen, which grows and evolves with them. When living things pass from the Seen, they awaken into a new life in the Unseen as spirits. From the lowliest microbe to the most intelligent of the sentient species, there is now life after life awaiting.
Cosmic Act: 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.
***
The World Tree:
In the Unseen, the great boundless World Tree sprouts and grows. 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 spread and take over places 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. The Moon is the only place not barred in this manner.
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.
Cosmic Act: Create the World Tree.
***
The World-Pillars:
On the poles of the Unnamed World, the touch of the Makers sends towering pillars racing high into the arctic sky. These World-Pillars distort the passage of Time. If one climbs the northern World-Pillar, they will find that time passes faster there than it does down below. The southern Pillar in turn leads to faster passage of time down below and slower up above.
Cosmic Act: Create the World-Pillars.
***
Grand Acts
Plants:
Plants are created. This broad family includes grasses, mosses, flowering plants and much else. The Makers shape myriad seeds with loving care, hammering little armor around tiny slumbering cells and whispering to them of the beautiful forms they may in time grow to take.
The Abraxas are tasked with the Great Seeding. They descend upon the lands of the Unnamed World as a great swarm. They lash at the soil to create furrows and holes, then cast their bounty generously over the disturbed earth. Their forms of terrible light and cosmic dust drive the Ixnix and the Algals who witness them into blind terror, but they are gone as soon as they depart.
After they have gone, and the rains have come, the world awakens in green. Grass races to colonize once-barren slopes of the Clouded Lands, shrubs shudder in endless clusters over the foothills of the Hot Lands, moss cradles the mouth of the Cave on the Island, all receiving the radiance of the Unfrozen Sun and giving out in turn. They shall feed millions to come.
Grand Act: Bring Color to the World.
***
Birds:
A divine breath gives birth to the birds in the Clouded Lands – a wide variety of avians, from tiny songbirds to great hunting eagles. Some feed on seeds and plants, others pluck fish from the waters, while some few pursue their smaller kin without mercy.
The birds are made in greater numbers than their environment can support. Some cannot even bear the conditions of the Clouded Lands to begin with. Those who survive are driven to desperate competition. First they eat the earth bare and strip the local waters of fish; then they begin to die off en masse, many cannibalizing their own kind as a last resort. As their creators intended, only the fittest triumph.
There is a survivor for every niche, more or less, but the most successful are a species of diving sea-birds ranging far and wide for fish, lightning-fast falcons falling upon smaller birds and, surprisingly enough, small hummingbirds which dart from flower to flower supping on their nectar. Of note is also the enormous giant teratorns, which boast a wingspan of over 6 metres – which despite its great size is a carrion feeder and scavenger, using its terrifying size to steal meals from smaller birds of prey and to loot eggs from nests.
They are not the only survivors, but they prove the most successful in their own niches. Many species also migrate over the great seas and begin slowly spreading to the other continents as well.
Grand Act: Create the first series of birds within the Clouded Lands, from the smallest song bird to massive mythical beasts.
***
The Skrayt:
The Makers come to the highest peak of the Clouded Lands and create the second sentient race of the world, the Skrayt. These four-winged fliers are at home in the heights of the Clouded Lands, soaring on thermals, diving and rising back high with exceptional agility. Their two pairs of wings allow them to maneuver effortlessly through the air. They feed mainly on fish which they catch on the coast – and as such, live mostly in the outer mountains of the continent, close to the sea – though as plants begin to sprout across their homeland, they begin to complement this diet with berries and edible grasses. When birds arrive, bringing with them an ecological cataclysm, the Skrayt take to catching them as well. Their populations suffer for some time as food sources are scoured clean by the bird swarms, but eventually recover.
The Skrayt come to live as a number of tribes. With tools of worked stone, they carve out nests and build shelters against the icy winds of the high peaks. Skrayt sky-dances and warbling songs are soon common occurrences in the mountains.
Grand Act: Create the Skrayt.
***
The Umbrals:
The second race to arrive in the Clouded Lands come to be in the deep chasms and caverns of the continent. The Umbrals are created as a race of blind empaths, dwelling in the dark places beneath the mountains. They arrive in life hungry and in a battle for desperate survival, for next to nothing lives in the dark aside from them. Underground pools and streams offer some scant life in chemosynthetic bacteria and species of stunted fish grazing on them, but that is not enough to feed large populations.
The Umbrals are thus forced to live their lives near the surface light, despite their blindness and vulnerability to sunlight. They tend to ascend in the night to forage and hunt, ghostly figures moving across the slumbering earth in large packs.
The Umbrals are natural empaths, always aware of the feelings of others in their packs. This leaves them tight-knit and communal, but also sees aberrant individuals exiled when their emotions cause conflict with their fellows. Some of these outcasts descend into the depths to live a wretched, hungry existence, while others are forced to climb to the surface to live ther epermanently. These aggressive, burned, miserable individuals are driven to aggression and violence – and it is these creatures that the Skrayt encounter, leaving them with a deep-seated suspicion of the Dwellers in the Dark.
Grand Act: Create the Umbrals.
***
The Sun Whales:
Bursts of solar energy race out from the Unfrozen Sun and coalesce into the Sun-Whales. These giants of the Void live in impossible heat within the Sun's chromosphere, supping on its unlimited warmth and energy, drawing upon it to power potent solar magics. Their bodies are vast, kilometres in size, and made incredibly durable to withstand all the rage of the Sun at their backs.
Grand Act: Create the great Sun-Whales.
***
The Myridna:
A third sentient race is brought to the world. The Myridna are created in the Hot Lands. They are a species of hardy diggers and craftsmen, resembling multi-armed bipedal feline rodents that can withstand a wide variety of both aquatic and terrestrial environments.
Three groups of the Myridna emerge. The first settles in the lowlands, digging extensive burrows through the fresh soil. Their diet consists mostly of edible grasses, roots and berries, enriched by riverine fish and the occasional bird from the species migrating from the Clouded Lands.
The second come to live on coastal lands and estuaries. These Myridna build pits and enclosed pools on the shore to dwell in. They occupy themselves primarily with fishing and have a particular love for swimming.
The third climb up to the foothills and the mountains. They adopt tools of stone and begin digging not just into soil, but also into rock. With less to feed on, their diet comes to consist greatly of hardy highland moss and shrubs. In a testament to the efficiency of their metabolism, some even simply gobble down soil in great quantities for the microbial life and nutrients within.
The Myridna are greatly predisposed to working metals, and in time will undoubtedly become great smiths. For now, their craftsmanship is reserved to bone, leather and stone.
Grand Act: Create the Myridna in the Hot Lands.
***
Living Pebbles:
The whims of the Makers give birth to yet another thinking race. Pebbles around the World are hollowed out and filled with living flesh. These Hollows or Rockshells can manipulate their stony skins and their flesh and biology more and more as they age, making elder individuals unassuming yet very powerful.
The Rockshells are an insectoid species given to solitary existence, roaming alone or in small groups throughout the world. They are generalists and can often alter their metabolism to feed on anything living, or even inorganic compounds, though most often they simply feed on the leaves and fruits of plants.
Grand Act: Hollow and puncture holes to pebbles all around the Unnamed World and fill them with living meat.
***
The Baólians:
On the coasts and shallow waters of the continents, a new sentient race comes into being. The Baólians are created as an semi-aquatic species dwelling in coastal areas. They are tall and agile, expert swimmers and climbers who hunt food using the sensitive tentacles on their faces.
Populations of Baólians appear at the First Island, by the Clouded Lands and in the Hot Lands. The youngest race fares well in the bountiful shallow waters, where they become terrors to fish. They are able to outcompete other predators of the same stocks, including their sentient peers.
Skirmishes with Skrayt over fish become semi-frequent in the Clouded Lands, though there is enough space and food on the continent yet for the two species to mostly avoid one another. In the Hot Lands, some similar clashes occur with the coastal Myridna, but for the most part they enjoy a tense but peaceful coexistence. Baólian exploration of the City of the First Children sees a group destroyed by a colony of Ardent-minded Algals who can no longer conceive them as anything but a threat - further expeditions stop out of fear of the strange, cursed place.
Grand Act: Create the Baólians.
***
The Shifting City:
The Unseen shudders as a great unreal city grows within. 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. Spirits of the City are born with it and more migrate in when it has settled.
Grand Act: Create a grand city within the Unreal, one that grows and changes with its inhabitants.
***
Hot Lands Flora:
In the Hot Lands, where fiery volcanoes and steaming geysers speak of its molten core, new kinds of plants come into being. Volcanic plants are created – a name for a broad category of hardy, heat-resistant plants which either use magma and fire to thrive, or simply possess some means of enduring their wrath. These beautiful and varied plants spread across the Hot Lands, persevering in volcanically active and hot areas where normal plans cannot. Where wildfires destroy grasslands and torch meadows, these hot plants survive and continue to grow.
Grand Act: Create the first series of plant life within the hot lands.
***
The Cultivars:
The World grows ever greener and more busy with life. To assist in their efforts in spreading life across the universe, the Cultivars are created. These beings are given the task of helping life grow and seeding it across Creation.
The Cultivars follow their calling. They take growing populations of simple lifeforms from the World and take them into the Void, though few planets exist where the prerequisites for life are present – but that is what they will work on just the same. On the World itself, they help in spreading fungi and lichen from the Skylands to the continents below, and push along seeds for trees to spread on every landmass.
Grand Act: Create the Cultivars, beings that shall help the makers fill the universe with life.
***
Lesser Acts
The Art of Ardency:
Once more does Bãsn manifest to his Favored Children. The colonies of the City of Coral bear witness to a grand divine proclamation as the voice of the Makers speaks in their minds with deafening power.
The Bãsn-Shaal-Khlomet are taught the Art of Ardency, a practice of mental discipline which allows its masters to purify their minds and hearts for the manipulation of the Grand Law of Narrative Satisfaction. The flood of information on how to pursue this discipline slams into the Algals, almost too much to bear at once even for minds of many minds. When they recover, they are stunned by awe for the great gift they have been given.
Dozens of colonies dwell in the City at this point, with rapid population growth suggesting more than hundred in the near future – the greatest concentration of Algal colonies in one place. The Arts of Ardency turn out to be difficult to master, but the new devotion to mental discipline and conformity come to characterize all of the Bãsn-Shaal-Khlomet.
This turns out to allow for larger hives to form – with the Algals practiced in discipline of thought, it becomes far easier for a broader spectrum of minds to subsume themselves into one united will. For those who come to grasp the higher tenets of Ardency, they learn to use their new power to ignore the harsh surface conditions which would normally deter the growth of the aquatic species. As such, these Ardent Algals grow both physically larger and numerous, spreading now even through the surface levels of the City.
All things have their flipside. Those who pursue Ardency grow colder and more rigid, leaving behind the creative and free-thinking past of their species. Bãsn's poisoned gifts bear their fruit.
Lesser Act: Teach the Bãsn-Shaal-Khlomet the arts of Ardency.
***
The White Ants, Fruiting of the Lonesome Tree & Kaileah the Dryad:
On the Isolated Island, in the vast shadow of the Lonesome Tree, the White Ants are given life. These large white insects form a small but stable population on the small isle, forming a trio of hives around the roots of the great tree. They are sentient and uniquely attuned to lunar magics, soaking in the power hidden in the moonlight as it reaches through the canopy.
The Island is soon alive with lunar light, reflecting off the Ants as they harness it in their everyday lives. Rather than use tools, the Ants fashion tendrils of ghostly lunar light into whatever they need. Most powerful of all are the Three Sister-Queens of these first colonies, living avatars of lunar sorceries.
The Ants are generalist herbivores, feeding on the young plantlife and the fruits of the Tree on the Island. Their existence is a comfortable one, devoid of predators, and so far one of peace between the three colonies. Grand Act: Create the White Ants.
The Lonesome Tree awakens, bearing rich, many-colored fruit that will in time spread its kind across the world. Most that fall on the Island itself are devoured by the Ants, who are grateful for the bounty given unto them, but those that fall on the ocean waves begin to drift on the World-Sea. Many make the short crossing into the Clouded Lands and take root there among the fresh greenery. Trees join the new growth in the world.
One particularly rich seed grows into something else entirely. Kaileah the Dryad is born as a sentinel and guardian of the Tree, possessed of powers over nature and preternatural strength. Those Ants that dig too greedily into the Tree find themselves facing a stern Kaileah, who makes it clear no excess taking will be tolerated. The Three Sister-Queens of the Ants do not take kindly to what they perceive as a rival for power on the Island...
Lesser Act: Fill the branches of the Lonely Tree with nutritious, seed-bearing fruits & Lesser Act: Kaileah the Dryad.
***
Skylands Fungal Bloom:
The floating Skylands are given the kiss of life, as a great fungal bloom begins in the skies. Not only fungi, but lichen – symbiotes of algae and fungi – come to be in great quantities. The Skylands are painted in all the colors of the rainbow. They thrive where plants begin to die and decay, renewing life in endless cycles. In the high altitudes where normal plants could not hope to grow, lichen thrives against all odds. As some fungi fall from the skies to the land, they begin to spread in the landmasses beneath as well.
Lesser Act: Skylands Fungal Bloom.
***
Developments
War In Heaven: Far in the Void, the works of the Makers are besieged by their newest creation. The Outer Gods crawl across the edge of the Void, feeding upon young stars, devouring Cosmic Paths and distorting what has been built. For the Custodians, nothing could be as grave of a threat.
A great host gathers and rides out into the Outer Void. The Custodians have no knowledge of war, but they are swift learners. They fall upon the Outer Gods with the full might of their joined powers. The new, corrupted children of the Makers answer in full. The devastation unleashed sends ripples through the Unseen, inflicting dire nightmares upon all thinking creatures. Entire solar systems burn and wink out, struck by lances of divine fire and shattered by hammer blows of eldritch might.
The Custodians suffer terrible casualties, but the cold fury of their attacks drives the Outer Gods of the Void back and sees them pressed against the very edge of Creation. Before they can deal a finishing blow, however, the twenty Outer Gods of the Unseen breach the roots of the World-Tree and surge out of their plane to pounce on both of their weakened rivals. The Custodians, thinking these foul beings to be on the side of their Voidborn enemies, redirect their efforts and throw themselves at the invaders. They fight a desperate battle on both sides until they are forced to retreat, but not before inflicting such wounds against the Unseen Outer Gods that they are too broken to finish off their Voidborn brethren.
In the end, no one side emerges victorious. The Outer Gods retreat to lick their wounds and recover, withdrawing to hidden places where the Custodians cannot find them; but for their part, the Custodians have suffered such losses that they come to believe there can be no victory against these new powers in the dark.
Another thing troubles the Custodians, however. They exist to maintain and refine the works of the Makers, but are these new terrible gods also not spawned by the Makers? Why would they place such obstacles against their servants? The doubts grow, and the Custodians come to see the Makers in a new, uncertain light.
***
Nehu Far-Strider: The young race of the Myridna is swift to produce an exceptional soul. A female Myridna called Nehu shows an interest in exploration and adventure from childhood, but her true tale begins when she stumbles upon the gateway of a Cosmic Path in the Hot Lands. Without any fear - and also without any preparation - she steps through the Gate and walks the Path to its end on the Moon above.
Nehu becomes the first inhabitant of the World to walk a Path and live to tell the tale, though only narrowly so. The airless void is not kind on Nehu, and it is only thanks to her race's strong physiology that she withstands it even as long as she does. Nehu is fortunate. Before she can perish, she is discovered by lunar spirits who are bewildered to find one such as her in their home. They pull her past the Veil into the Unseen, where petty problems such as oxygen and radiation can be safely dreamed away.
Nehu recovers under their protection and spends the following years exploring the Unseen, befriending its inhabitants, and mapping out what can be mapped. When she returns, walking the same Path back, she has a great many tales to tell - of lunar magics, shifting cities, nightmarish gods and much else. She becomes a hero of her people, but she turns down an offer to become chief over her tribe. Instead, she begins to plot another expedition out into the Void...
The Void
The nothing between worlds and stars. Sun-whales.
-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. -Being: Cultivars. Divine caretakers and seeders of life tasked with spreading lifeforms across Creation.
-Being: The Outer Gods. Godlike, corrupting horrors of the outer Void. Forever battling their kin in the Unseen.
-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. Microbial and simple multicellular life, plants, some trees, some birds, K'orlannsch. Ixnix, Hollows, Baólians.
-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. Microbial and simple multicellular life, plants, lichen and fungi, birds. White Ants.
-Being: The Lonesome Tree. A great divine tree covering most of the Island, growing rich fruit of many colors.
-Being: Kaileah the Dryad. A guardian and child of the Lonesome Tree with powers over nature.
The Hot Lands
A volcanically active continent in the southwest of the world. Microbial and simple multicellular life, plants, some trees, lichen and fungi, volcanic flora, some birds. Myridna, Hollows, Baólians.
The Clouded Lands
A landmass of extremes in the southeast of the world, made of high peaks and deep ravines side by side. Microbial and simple multicellular life, plants, trees, lichen and fungi, birds. Skrayt, Umbrals, Hollows, Baólians.
The Skylands
A collection of floating islands of varying size high above the surface world. Microbial and simple multicellular life, lichen and fungi, birds. Hollows.
The Northern World-Pillar
A divine pillar in the north pole of the World. Time spent atop it passes faster than in the world below.
The Southern World-Pillar
A divine pillar in the south pole of the World. Time spent atop it passes slower than in the world below.
The Unseen
A realm of dreams, imagination and spirits.
-Being: Spirits. Native entities of the Unseen.
The World-Tree
A spiritual reflection of Creation. Its roots prevent easy passage between the Seen and the Unseen.
The Shifting City
A city of dream-stuff shifting and changing with the imagination of its inhabitants. -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. Law: Unseen Reawakening. All living beings reflect spiritual counterparts into the Unseen. When they die in the Seen, they awaken in these forms to new lives in the Unseen as new spirits.
Hopefully this formatting makes things a bit more pleasant to read.
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 Heroes. Acts to create or empower individual mortals will receive a free +1 Vote. Keep in mind you may freely write new mortals into existence as part of your Acts, assuming it doesn't break any established lore.
ACT VOTE THRESHOLDS HAVE CHANGED: Grand Acts now require 8+ votes to pass. Cosmic Acts now require 10+ votes to pass.
VOTING RULES HAVE CHANGED: You can now only vote for 1 Cosmic Act and a maximum of 3 Grand Acts per Epoch. Acts you author do not count towards this.
Keep in mind there are other sources of magic already existing too! The Sun-Whales are said to harness the magic of the Sun itself, presumably something tied to the Flame of Chaos which powers all Creation. The Moon is a source of lunar magical energy which is channeled by lunar spirits and the White Ants so far. The roots of the World Tree are also a source of magical powers. The Spirit of the World-Sea can also be beseeched for magical aid. These are more intrinsic than any universal system of magic, of course, but there's nothing really stopping a mortal of any race from learning to harness lunar magic, for example.
War In Heaven: Far in the Void, the works of the Makers are besieged by their newest creation. The Outer Gods crawl across the edge of the Void, feeding upon young stars, devouring Cosmic Paths and distorting what has been built. For the Custodians, nothing could be as grave of a threat.
