Arkhamthe_Black
Watcher of the Ways
- Location
- Mordor
Oh, I hadn't even noticed that! I mostly skimmed over everyone else to see if the pillars I wanted were taken. But yeah, that does sound like a good source of delicious, delicious drama.
Immured Titans (5/5)
- Thread starter Demonic Spoon
- Start date
- OOC
-
- Tags
- god game
- Location
- Deep Within the Pennsylvanian Forests
I'd initially pictured it as a closely related to sorcery, related to the geometric perfection and the way it was expressed. It'd be easy to roll that into the first Pillar and replace it with, well, a lot of things. I'm thinking something like "riches," in a similar vein to how Pluto was seen as the god of wealth. This would harken back to her covetousness and desire to restrict magic, her fine crystal Forms, and give her a way through influencing the world by manipulating wealth on individual and societal scales.
- Location
- Germany
=}+{=
Name: The Lovely-Haired Charioteer
Pillars: Rebirth and the Wandering Death (formerly Growth and Familial Love)
Vehemence: Melancholy; Longing
Trauma: The Charioteer had not been in the battle proper, torn between love and hate, she had instead ran her chariot around creation as it was set asunder. Had seen seas boil, mountains crumble and cities swallowed by the ground beneath them as divine powers had fought across a world that was suddenly no longer the one she had known before. It had been a time of great slaughter and as her peers fought one another, she tried to fight another battle: the sudden deluge of souls unbound from the mortal coil - and the dwindling numbers of mortals that would survive the conflict. It would be a loss, grand and terrible, the knowledge, the art - maybe even the souls if no new bodies were to be born. The result was a grand gathering, a last refuge for those souls - and the memories that came with them...
...but the haste might have been an error. The souls destined to be reborn, instead gathered up by the charioteer as her desperate whispers sought out the great minds and cities she had watched so tenderly. As her chariot was filling with souls - terrified and sometimes still bound to their dying flesh - the others took notice and a shining force was thrown at the frantic Charioteer, scorching her hair and piecing her throat - silencing her whispers as she lost her voice.
A voice that that did not heal, that did not allow her to express her anguish as the results of her meddling became clear: the souls she had gathered were missing from the system - but the fight had scattered them along her path. Some would find themselves bound to decaying bodies as they stumbled through a world in ruins, others would find themselves stuck to their erstwhile rescue - and now captor. But the worst, the view that would send the Charioteer into the depths of grief and disgust would be those mortals born for souls that were now out of their reach: mindless and soulless, without growth, without art - a poor imitation of what had come before...
Terrible Glory: What is more cruel than to remember the world as it had been before? To know the heights from which all of Creation had fallen? Those who destroy the great artifacts of the past, who destroy the souls of the death - there's no greater affront to the Charioteer even in her diminished state. Those who face her wrath will be gripped by a deep sadness and thrust into madness as they get exposed to the memories of the death the charioteer had gathered, visions of great cities and grander castastrophies - making them life through the evens of the Titanomachy as the world was torn asunder - again and again from a hundred perspectives till the punished...gives out.
Forms:
- Primary Form: The Chained Moon - The golden chariot of the charioteer, with its bright tail trailing behind it as it runs around creation, its light having dimmed since the events of the Trauma, its run across creation having been stopped and its golden surface tarnished from the impact of weaponry. Grand chains and balls keep it fixed to the sky, unable to resume its run for its last tasks: the gathering of mortal souls. What had been intended as a desperate measures in the days of the grand betrayal had turned into something more permanent, a coping mechanism into a fixed part of the recycling of soul - memory and body. Death on Creation parted souls and memories from the body, upon which they were grasped by the pull of the golden moon, lifted away from their mortal coil and split once more. The chained golden moon sometimes glitters with a silver ring - an ill omen for mortals as it informs them of great dying having taken place.
- Secondary Forms: Spread over the surface of the moon are what might appear at a first glance to be cities. In some the Titanomachy has never quite ended: fires created by divine weapons are still smoldering, the bodies of the fallen are preserved perfectly and sometimes even still move as they did in life, souls stuck to death bodies moving through streets and homes that have been created in the image of their lost homes. But most of these cities are made up by nothing else but memories, having been shed by mortal souls in all the time of imprisonement. They form cities of memories, filled with wandering memories and ghostly appereations of things that the souls had seen throughout their lives. Sometimes a city might show streets from a millennia ago, sometimes a building that was built just a month ago - and most often both would be mixed and mismatched as the structures shift and change with each new memory falling onto the moon. But in the end, the older, the more powerful a memory - or the more memories start to mix together, they get 'heavier' and sink beneath the surface of the moon, getting poured into a network of channels and caves that hold the oldest and purest memories of creation like a giant - if sometimes unreliable- library.
- Tertiary Forms: Mute female figures on tarnished chariots can be seen in the grand pools of memories, racing through the channels and swimming through the sheer mass of accumulated memories that have gathered inside of the moon. They traverse these tunnels, freeing them if they are clogged up by particular heavy memories - or lost souls of ancient times that were not torn from the moons grasp when it was turned into a prison. They try to bring order to an over growing bloat of mortal memories, try to understand - try to preserve them.
The golden moon can never stop in face of the need for mortal souls to traverse to it and return for rebirth: It wanders the sky and gathers the memories of the death - making it perfectly suited for the purpose of watching over its fellow captives and checking the memories of the death for contact with them.
Description:
Once her wheels had strewn sparks when their golden wheels touched the tips of mountains, her bright eyed laugh had created symphonies and tales alike. Her hands had reached out to lift great buildings from mortal minds and her presence had whispered into the ears of those gifted with visions of great new works and helped bring them into reality. She had bound across Creation as it is known to see it grow, to see it change, to see the rise of mortals and mountains alike.
Was it a surprise that nothing caught her fascination as much as the offspring of intelligent unions? Of minds both grand and small that came together and create new true or mortal life? Her golden wheels were emblazoned upon the first symbols mortals fastened upon their newborns cloth or crib - and her actual wagon was always open for the off-springs of her fellows, allowing her to show the new true life the world, its changes and its creations. Familiale bounds were holy to her - and in turn her name was used to enshrine them in mortal communities.
All this changed with the grand Betrayal and Apocalyptic Battle.
As cities burned, as art turned into ash and beautiful minds were crushed beneath waves and earth, the golden moon changed its direction, changed its actions: the soft whisper turning into a desperate scream as families were torn asunder and all the growth was halted and ground to dust. Instead of whispering into the minds of mortals, the charioteer screamed into them, desperately pulling back what it had freely given, pulling back ideas and even souls as the mortals perished and what remained of them was poured into the depths of the moon, to be preserved - stockpiled - protected - something, anything to stop the end of all the things that had been made and had been built before.
She screamed - screamed and screamed - till she couldn't anymore, till her voice was torn out and the glorious whispers were replaced by a void: a sucking silence that continued to gather the souls of those that had perished, gathered and stockpiled them.... till she was forced to open her form, hooks and tendrils forced into her form, chaining her, turning what had been a desperate measure into something more permanent, something more refined - and torturous at the same time.
Where the The Lovely-Haired Charioteer had once nurtured, had led and guided - she was now presiding over the end of things, preserving what could and sending the souls as the bodies became available: her chariot becoming a place of cleaning and a place of deep melancholy as memories were gathered, poured into pools and ordered by ages and regions. Souls sometimes gained some respite, manifested - but were send down again to Creation when the new rulers demanded...
...and all the while shards of the Chariot that had been scattered around the world when the Charioteer was silenced continued their whispers - dragging in the lost souls that had become bound to their rotting forms, filling their minds with song and memories of old: creating cities of the death that formed mismatched streets and buildings were styles and materials generations apart mashed and were erected next to one another - by souls whose mind was filled with a blissful song till the day their bodies broke utterly and their souls were dragged into the splinter and finally... up.
Consensus Building:
Vermin: Offspring - A betrayal most foul and most deep.
Survival: Greed - Souls and Memories, the stuff of the past and of the future.
Tribute: Tribute/Public Service
=}+{=
Last edited:
Kadmus
Dragon's teeth are surprisingly hard to sow
- Location
- Devon
- Pronouns
- He/Him
@Demonic Spoon : I've fixed my Trauma. Not sure what happened there!
- Location
- Germany
Be the giant Primordial Soup from which all life comes and into which it dissolves again~
Arkhamthe_Black
Watcher of the Ways
- Location
- Mordor
Get a little Nurgly with it, if you want another idea. The cycle of life, rot, death, and the life that springs from the rot!
A family-minded patroness of the arts turned psychopomp hoarder by the ravages of war is certainly not something I expected to see, but that's what makes it so cool.
I would like to note that the implicit assumption of you being placed in a prison, is that you are in fact inside the prison, as such while the form descriptions are fine, they were probably transported (presumably kicking and screaming) into the titan-prison during its construction and barred from wandering into the outside world, and while it's perfectly feasible and a-ok for you to have smuggled outside souls into your prison with you, I'm not sure granting you access to the external afterlife is something the vermin would normally do, since they have presumably more trustworthy agents to carry out the relevant duties, and it creates flaws in your imprisonment.
Sorry if I'm mis-interpreting or coming across as mean here, I like your character and concept a lot, but it's generally my responsibility to try and maintain thematic coherence? (making up terms is fun!) Like I think you might have intended to be the locus of an in-prison reincarnation system, and through that monitor titan activity for the vermin, which is perfectly cool and fine. In such an instance mortal contact with titans is presumably expected and not something of particular note, whereas titan contact with mortals outside the prison would be ringing all sorts of alarm bells.
As an tangent: I found myself liking your character a lot as a potential collaborator npc titan who didn't get imprisoned and is in fact monitoring the souls of the dead as they await reincarnation for signs of a titanic prison-break, but that's more an idle thought than really indicative of anything one way or another.
Last edited:
- Location
- Germany
Not at all, keeping Themes and Power-levels in tune is a hazardous business in God-Games. And I did mostly run with the idea of ripping of Pythagorean thoughts on reincarnation (just without fear of beans, chicken and cut nails) and put less of an emphasis on checking how my idea interfaces with just about everything else. I just thought it might fit neatly with the Public Service Idea (not completely shut away, but slowed down; contact with the outside etc.) and one could say that the souls merely get dragged to and around the moon before descending back onto the ground, with only their memories left to be hoarded about.
But if you want I can try coming up with another idea and you can use this one as NPC Titan?
PS: As German I totally understand the love of making up words, its one of the perks of my tongue after all~
Last edited:
Zedalb
I just started a Patreon!
- Location
- Washington
Name:
Pillars: Any Two
Vehemence: Up to Two
Trauma:
Terrible Glory:
Forms:
Description:
Nemesis (Optional):
Consensus Building:
Vermin: Offspring/Siblings/Servants/Cattle/Other
Survival: Safeguards/Insurance/Unkillable/Surrender/Greed/Other
Tribute: Slavery/Tribute/Secrets/Public Service/Other
Okay, done.
I'm serious it's a wild swing, but the blank sheet is my offer. If you have four players you really like, or someone you want a mirror for that you want to include that's what I'm offering. A totally blank sheet willing to do pretty much anything to work the thematics, balance out another sheet, or hit some avenue you may feel the group is missing.
You wanted to do a lot of world building in step 2 after selection, so I would just do it then, making something custom to fit in with the others.
Pillars: Any Two
Vehemence: Up to Two
Trauma:
Terrible Glory:
Forms:
- Primary Form:
- Secondary Forms:
- Tertiary Forms:
Description:
Nemesis (Optional):
Consensus Building:
Vermin: Offspring/Siblings/Servants/Cattle/Other
Survival: Safeguards/Insurance/Unkillable/Surrender/Greed/Other
Tribute: Slavery/Tribute/Secrets/Public Service/Other
Okay, done.
I'm serious it's a wild swing, but the blank sheet is my offer. If you have four players you really like, or someone you want a mirror for that you want to include that's what I'm offering. A totally blank sheet willing to do pretty much anything to work the thematics, balance out another sheet, or hit some avenue you may feel the group is missing.
You wanted to do a lot of world building in step 2 after selection, so I would just do it then, making something custom to fit in with the others.
Ah, I didn't actually catch the public service angle of this on an initial read through, but I can get where you're coming from now.
I'd still want to disallow freestanding external forms, because this seems particularly messy logistically.I'd be fine with you continuing with this character with, imo, minor edits (mostly just removing the assumptions of outside world access), and the character is cool and interesting. The npc thing was more an idle comment because I sometimes don't have a good word filter. But if you do actually want to make a new character instead, that's fine too of course.
So do what you want to do, with the understanding that you probably can't have your forms be external to the prison, but that the prison could be for example, somehow supporting the afterlife or something, with a public service tribute?
I haven't taken a solid look at it yet, because I'm waiting for the deadline before trying to lock that in, but my impression from reading the sheets so far is I should be able to pull together a group I'm more than satisfied with from the sheets so far. But I will keep this offer in mind if I feel there is something vital missing, thanks.
Last edited:
Zedalb
I just started a Patreon!
- Location
- Washington
Np, I understand it's a long shot and I'm confident you can pull together a very solid team, but if an idea strikes you that comes as great and you need a little wiggle room to make it work? Well then I'm here. Thank you for the consideration either way.Ah, I didn't actually catch the public service angle of this on an initial read through, but I can get where you're coming from now
I'd be fine with you continuing with this character with, imo, minor edits (mostly just removing the assumptions of outside world access), and the character is cool and itneresting. The npc thing was more an idle comment because I sometimes don't have a good word filter. But if you do actually want to make a new character instead, that's fine too of course.
So do what you want to do, with the understanding that you probably can't have your forms be around external to the prison, but that the prison could be for example, somehow supporting the afterlife or something, with a public service tribute?
I haven't taken a solid look at it yet, because I'm waiting for the deadline before trying to lock that in, but my impression from reading the sheets so far is I should be able to pull together a group I'm more than satisfied with from the sheets so far. But I will keep this offer in mind if I feel there is something vital missing, thanks.
Last edited:
- Location
- Germany
From what I have taken from your original post, there's no afterlife per se. Instead souls do get recycled and reborn, resetting their cynicism and turning them into fresh Ichor creators once more. I think in that frame I could push all my forms together and maybe fix the golden moon into orbit of creation - its immobility its own prison. The Three Forms in turn would be the moon itself, the broken cities on its surface and the small tertiary forms on its inside.
Souls would gravitate towards the moon as the Charioteer tried to preserve them and their memories through the Titanomachy, but the measures of the vermin mean that no soul actually reaches it. Instead they sling shot around it, creating a halo of souls that shears off their memories and finally slingshots the soul purge of all memories back towards creation to be inserted into a new body. The secondary forms would be results of the memories falling onto the moon, mixing with ancient ideas, lost souls and what other driftwood came down. They form cities of memories, filled with wandering memories and ghostly appereations of things that the souls had seen throughout their lives. Sometimes a city might show streets from a millennia ago, sometimes a building that was built just a month ago - and most often both would be mixed and mismatched as the structures shift and change with each new memory falling onto the moon. But in the end, the older, the more powerful a memory - or the more memories start to mix together, they get 'heavier' and sink beneath the surface of the moon, getting poured into a network of channels and caves that hold the oldest and purest memories of creation like a giant - if sometimes unreliable- library. The Tertiary forms in turn would traverse the tunnels, freeing them if they are clogged up by particular heavy memories - or lost souls of ancient times that were not torn from the moons grasp when it was turned into a prison.
This way everything would be self-contained, the original mechanism repurposed in a way that a fronts the Charioteer and the public service might be the use as cleansing place of souls - or maybe the vermin is interested in preserving mortal memory of themselves forever? Both maybe~
Yes, that is correct. This is generally what I meant by "afterlife" a waiting room for souls until they are reborn. I apologize if my imprecise terminology was unclear.
I can't offhand think of another good word for it that would in any way be clearer now I am actually considering it. In mythologies with reincarnation, it's usually called something like the netherworld or the six paths (of reincarnation) or hell or something like that afaik, which isn't really much clearer imo.I like this, and it seems fine, and I have plans for how this could be handled in game, so feel free to go for it!
- Location
- Germany
Fixed and added~
I just roughly hammered Platos Chariot Allegory into place and cut sun and afterlife out of the process~ ^-^
Version beta0.05 is now edited in, making a few things more clear, and somewhat rewriting All is Fair in Love and War to fit a bit better with how the Twins developed while writing them up.
Not quite. I've edited their description to make it more clear, but a short summary on this topic probably can't hurt.
The primary forms are the constellations, which shift around, but as with clouds any given onlooker will probably see something familiar there. Brains are good at pattern matching, but this perspective is the most removed from that kind of perception and doesn't do much with it.
The secondary forms, the muses, are more aware of perceptions and shape themselves as a kind of shapeshifting, but a bit unfinished. The gap is met by perception, whomever is looking filling in the details to make the most beautiful being they can imagine. A smile at the right time has started wars.
The tertiary forms, the companions, are the closest to a mortal perspective (not all that close, but closest in this system), and don't rely on the perspective tricks. Rather, they take a form on instantiation, maintain it, then discard the form when done, whether that be a few days later or a mortal lifetime.
With a period allotted for discussion, I think there'll be plenty of time to work things out here.
That is a good reason to have similar tribute for everyone, and I don't have a great argument for how to make a complex tribute function not run into this problem.
The Twins probably fall pretty heavily into this camp, though malicious might be a matter of perspective. From a mortal perspective, having a companion shoot Archduke Ferdinand because the ensuing war would be a beautiful work of art probably looks pretty malicious.
Within the Prison... well, the Twin's plan to get back at the vermin probably involves mortals set into a runaway love//war cycle with as near to exponential growth as can be managed, probably running up to a Skaven-style "civil war is a societal good, actually" philosophy. Having the other titans join in on pushing them through torments would be seen as outright helping.
The Twins getting knocked out early probably made the war a lot cleaner, since they wouldn't be egging on both sides and providing weapons to make it as catastrophic as possible, as is their usual course when they see a nice war breaking out.
Player Selection and Discussion Phase
Thank you very much everyone who applied. The sheets were all fantastic and a real treat to read through. I really wish I could run a game with all of you, but sadly my maximum is probably 5, which is why that's why I set that as the target player count. I struggled a bit with who to finally pick, so settled on some arbitrary guidelines like trying to fill every purpose slot, and trying to pick the Titans that I think I could write for the easiest. That I didn't pick you in no way indicates I think you made a poor character, it was more a struggle of too many good choices XD
The Playerlist/Prison:
Walls: Muor, The Lightning Lord, The Thunder and the Rain. @triumph8w
Grim and foreboding storm clouds press in on you from all sides, lightning crackles and everything is undercut by a constant rumbling of thunder.
Energy: Ca-E-Rhun, the Fallen Firmament, the Second Sky @6 ZeV Proton
By the fell right hand of Ca-E-Rhun have you been brought far below all that is, and are pushed ever further down, escape becoming more and more impossible as you are pushed further into a non-existent abyss...
Surveillance: Solaris, The Red Sun, The All-Searing Light @Kadmus
Great chains stretch out from the encompassing thunderheads, immobilizing the great solar spotlight, who gazes balefully all around, looking for any signs of inevitable betrayal.
Enforcement: The Unending Blight Upon Existence @NSMS
Malevolent rivers wander among the clouds, gnashing with revulsion as they nibble away, awaiting greater destruction to come.
Tributary: The Twins Exalted Above and Below @Logos
The slippery forms of the twins flits amongst the exposed veins and hidden wells of power of their siblings, drinking deeply like bees before depositing their harvest at the one exit to the prison, a strangely fuzzy and nondescript area which cannot be directly observed. Hmmm...
Feel free to adjust the purpose fluff above, I just wrote it for fun.
The purpose of this phase is for the selected players to come to a consensus on which vermin were perceived as being most vile and worthy of loathing, presumably by being the predominant offenders, why the Titans are alive and imprisoned instead of dead and rotting, and what additional toll you are forced to pay to those most hateful of jailors. You can be pretty freeform in the consensus you reach, as long as it feels thematically fitting. I would prefer this phase to last not more than two days, but it may be much shorter if a consensus is reached sooner, or longer if players remain at loggerheads.
The initial inclinations:
Summary of initial inclinations:
The titans were vilely betrayed by their most beloved children, who did not kill them because to do so would be to destroy the vital underpinnings which perform many vital functions of all that is. So instead the traitorous sons and daughters of the titans formed their parents into a prison which is eternally falling below all, yet somehow paradoxically is also the pillar of the horizon, holding up the sky so that it may not fall again.
The Playerlist/Prison:
Walls: Muor, The Lightning Lord, The Thunder and the Rain. @triumph8w
Grim and foreboding storm clouds press in on you from all sides, lightning crackles and everything is undercut by a constant rumbling of thunder.
Energy: Ca-E-Rhun, the Fallen Firmament, the Second Sky @6 ZeV Proton
By the fell right hand of Ca-E-Rhun have you been brought far below all that is, and are pushed ever further down, escape becoming more and more impossible as you are pushed further into a non-existent abyss...
Surveillance: Solaris, The Red Sun, The All-Searing Light @Kadmus
Great chains stretch out from the encompassing thunderheads, immobilizing the great solar spotlight, who gazes balefully all around, looking for any signs of inevitable betrayal.
Enforcement: The Unending Blight Upon Existence @NSMS
Malevolent rivers wander among the clouds, gnashing with revulsion as they nibble away, awaiting greater destruction to come.
Tributary: The Twins Exalted Above and Below @Logos
The slippery forms of the twins flits amongst the exposed veins and hidden wells of power of their siblings, drinking deeply like bees before depositing their harvest at the one exit to the prison, a strangely fuzzy and nondescript area which cannot be directly observed. Hmmm...
Feel free to adjust the purpose fluff above, I just wrote it for fun.
The Discussion Phase Begins:
The purpose of this phase is for the selected players to come to a consensus on which vermin were perceived as being most vile and worthy of loathing, presumably by being the predominant offenders, why the Titans are alive and imprisoned instead of dead and rotting, and what additional toll you are forced to pay to those most hateful of jailors. You can be pretty freeform in the consensus you reach, as long as it feels thematically fitting. I would prefer this phase to last not more than two days, but it may be much shorter if a consensus is reached sooner, or longer if players remain at loggerheads.
The initial inclinations:
Summary of initial inclinations:
The titans were vilely betrayed by their most beloved children, who did not kill them because to do so would be to destroy the vital underpinnings which perform many vital functions of all that is. So instead the traitorous sons and daughters of the titans formed their parents into a prison which is eternally falling below all, yet somehow paradoxically is also the pillar of the horizon, holding up the sky so that it may not fall again.
Last edited:
Personally I'm predisposed to those who felled us being our off-spring. The Princelings of the universe being overthrown by their own creations, ones which have a familial connection even, to be too good. Especially as I'm somewhat a fan of the trope evil parents facing off against their children.
6 ZeV Proton
!niaga sekirts
- Location
- UTC-8
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I'm not too attached to having the vermin be (exclusively) cattle, and it would interfere with making new mortals as Logos pointed out and proposed a reasonable softer counter-penalty for. Offspring works for me!
NSMS
Probably evil, unfortunately.
- Location
- A rapidly widening tear in the fabric of reality
Offspring was already my preference.
Onto the next issue, why we survived: I prefer 'Unkillable' here, because it makes the most sense for why they'd keep the titans that contribute nothing positive around.
Onto the next issue, why we survived: I prefer 'Unkillable' here, because it makes the most sense for why they'd keep the titans that contribute nothing positive around.
I'm a little iffy on playing something that cannot be killed...but its shown real consequences can still befall our characters. And it does make sense as to why we'd be kept around, tied deeply as our characters are to vital functions of the world. Sure, they can kill us. But then they'd have to spend god knows how many millennia try to stitch the fabric of reality together again. And no matter the extent it'd probably be never the same.
6 ZeV Proton
!niaga sekirts
- Location
- UTC-8
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I'm a bit more attached to Insurance for Survival in large part because I (prematurely) wrote it into Ca-E-Rhun's details a bit too tightly, but I'd be open to a blend with either of the other options, especially if the offspring weren't in perfect agreement about their motivations with regards to the whole locking-your-forebears-in-their-own-tormented-hides thing. At least for me, Greed looks like it could potentially be easier to flavor than Unkillable, but Unkillable does feel like closer fit with Insurance conceptually.
Offspring being the locus of the rebellion works for me.
For survival, it feels like there's a fair bit of overlap between unkillable and insurance, where the cost of killing us was too great, with the main divisor being whether we built things such that that was so, or if it was unintended. To me, unintended works more than having purposely built reality to fail if you die, if that makes sense?
For survival, it feels like there's a fair bit of overlap between unkillable and insurance, where the cost of killing us was too great, with the main divisor being whether we built things such that that was so, or if it was unintended. To me, unintended works more than having purposely built reality to fail if you die, if that makes sense?