Remove ads

Respect Your Elders v2 - Galactic Boogaloo [Warhammer Lizardmen Quest]

Reader mode
So just to comment on the whole Rule 2 and Warhammer thing because frankly I don't think Nix was at all providing a fair or accurate assessment of SV's rules and the staff's enforcement of such (I'm happy to move this to Staff communication but I think it's fine here as long as we're not directly subverting or undermining the staff, especially since this discussion has been had over there numerous times).

The basic idea for the Rule 2 and fictional settings is to 'not be weird about it', to paraphrase @BoneyM. So that means not coming across as bloodthirsty and not making extreme statements that resemble things not-very-good people say IRL*. You might think that what you're saying is technically correct to the setting, but the general philosophy of the staff is that the rules of the setting are an artificial construct decided by the QM/author and while we might be importing someone else's setting, it's ultimately still the users' decision to A: pick a setting to import and B: decide which bits of canon are kept and which bits are removed or replaced. That second part is obviously really important to Warhammer because you can spin the various sources into a variety of different tones and settings.

So best practice for a QM is to either tackle the 'problematic' areas head-on in a mature, conscious way (see: @BoneyM making the execution of the Broodmothers in Divided Loyalties really harrowing and uncomfortable) or just gloss over that stuff and avoid going all genocide-porn about it (see: the Space Marine quests by @Swordomatic and @torroar). It's also generally a good idea as a QM to avoid presenting choices that would lead the sheep voters to that sort of rhetoric. Not because the QM'll necessarily get punished for it, but because it might lead to the voterbase getting nuked. I mean, if it keeps happening over and over then the mods'll probably raise eyebrows at the QM too but that's another issue and one that can usually be solved with communication between staff and mods, as many larger quests have.

*I'll note here that the People/Monster distinction that I think @Red Flag coined over on SB can edge close to this depending on how you're using it. Something like 'it's ok to exterminate X because they're Monsters not People' is not going to fly and imo rightly so.

To clarify, I don't think @Xantalos has actually done anything wrong yet, people just flipped the fuck out when he said the word 'Rangdan'.
 
I Like the turtle the most and will probably vote for it in the end.

[x] Ayotzl, the Mist Swimmer
[X] Nantli'atl
 
Last edited:
AbZHz101 said:
I apologize if this comes off as pedantic, but which turtle? There's like 3 different options.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The great turtle Ayotzl, the Mist Swimmer.

Partial description below,

Rockeye said:
The Lizardmen suffer and work for the Great Plan. It is only natural that death should give them some relief. Upon death, the great turtle Ayotzl draws a Lizardman's soul into the Realm of Fog, a place of warmth and endless comforting mist where they can rest and recover from their sacrifice. In the Realm of Fog, there is no suffering or pain, no work or thought. After death, the only duty is to sleep and recover until they are called to serve again. Ayotzl weaves concealing mist that deafens and blinds, and numbs all other senses so that no daemons may disturb the rest of his charges. He walks the edge of the Realm of Fog constantly, ever watchful for anyone or anything that might seek to disturb the recovering sleepers.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
 
CallMeIsmail said:
So just to comment on the whole Rule 2 and Warhammer thing because frankly I don't think Nix was at all providing a fair or accurate assessment of SV's rules and the staff's enforcement of such (I'm happy to move this to Staff communication but I think it's fine here as long as we're not directly subverting or undermining the staff, especially since this discussion has been had over there numerous times).

The basic idea for the Rule 2 and fictional settings is to 'not be weird about it', to paraphrase @BoneyM. So that means not coming across as bloodthirsty and not making extreme statements that resemble things not-very-good people say IRL*. You might think that what you're saying is technically correct to the setting, but the general philosophy of the staff is that the rules of the setting are an artificial construct decided by the QM/author and while we might be importing someone else's setting, it's ultimately still the users' decision to A: pick a setting to import and B: decide which bits of canon are kept and which bits are removed or replaced. That second part is obviously really important to Warhammer because you can spin the various sources into a variety of different tones and settings.

So best practice for a QM is to either tackle the 'problematic' areas head-on in a mature, conscious way (see: @BoneyM making the execution of the Broodmothers in Divided Loyalties really harrowing and uncomfortable) or just gloss over that stuff and avoid going all genocide-porn about it (see: the Space Marine quests by @Swordomatic and @torroar). It's also generally a good idea as a QM to avoid presenting choices that would lead the sheep voters to that sort of rhetoric. Not because the QM'll necessarily get punished for it, but because it might lead to the voterbase getting nuked. I mean, if it keeps happening over and over then the mods'll probably raise eyebrows at the QM too but that's another issue and one that can usually be solved with communication between staff and mods, as many larger quests have.

*I'll note here that the People/Monster distinction that I think @Red Flag coined over on SB can edge close to this depending on how you're using it. Something like 'it's ok to exterminate X because they're Monsters not People' is not going to fly and imo rightly so.

To clarify, I don't think @Xantalos has actually done anything wrong yet, people just flipped the fuck out when he said the word 'Rangdan'.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Aye, I've read (some of) the thread pertaining to Rule 2 and WHF myself, as well as arguably played with where exactly that line is myself in From A Dead World, where I had arguably-questionable things happen such as:
- Human children being kidnapped by skaven, fed mutagen-laced food until they swelled into obese balls of fat, and then sold to ogres to be eaten as a form of payment
- A skaven warleader psyching out a human goddess of warfare by taunting her with banners made out of tortured children
- Extensive descriptions of millions of skavenslaves dying in an underground labyrinth in order to consecrate the area for the Horned God

None of those got any mod attention, I'd reckon mainly because I portrayed them in such a cartoonishly villainous light that it's obvious that those were Bad Guy Acts that weren't meant to be emulated by any reasonable person.

But yeah, the Ayacmanik discussion has been going on since turn 2, the only reason attention's been drawn now is because, as you said, people freaked out when I pulled the Rangdan reveal. Apologies for that, I did anticipate people freaking out but I didn't foresee people getting in actual trouble for it. But people have mostly calmed down from that now, so I reckon so long as no one starts spouting off weird genocidal rhetoric and couches any arguments for killing/driving off the Ayacmanik in actually reasoned terms, things should be okay.

Leaving that aside, constructing god comparison sheet now.
 
I believe the Rangdan should be literally anything but uplifted or mind slaved, because they are not what I want to read about in this quest and any option other than those two would neatly remove them from the narrative.
 
Xantalos said:
so long as no one starts spouting off weird genocidal rhetoric and couches any arguments for killing/driving off the Ayacmanik in actually reasoned terms
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

hard to do when you are dealing with a race of evil parasytes and you cant say ''we should kill them all'' without getting threadbanned for a week or more

EVA-Saiyajin said:
I cannot countenance anything less than the complete destruction of the Rangdan.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

*gets threadbanned*

the rangdan are a race of parasytes wich have nothing in common with mankind and only exist to consume,there is no ''dehumanization'' because they were never designed with any resemblance of humanity as species in both inside and outside setting

i get that oversigth is needed to avoid the chuds that use fictional genocide as a vehicle for their thinly veiled political views (''durr durr lets purge the sub-humans'') ,but nuancenes and context is important
and we have at least one mod that has openly said he knows nothing of the context of the quest while infracting points

you wouldnt say that stealing a bank and stealing a dorito bag while starving are the same
then why mods act like saying ''this race is uncapable of human tought as an objective fact of the setting,they are a existential threath and they threathen sentient life,therefore we should kill them'' is one the same level as ''this race is capable of love,emotions and dreams,lets kill them''

the lack of context for the mods make them act like we are suggesting killing babies for profit,when its not the case

i have no problem with genocide on the liked of rangdan,tyranids or orkz

but i see it as a horrible crime when people suggest it against eldars,tau or many of the sophont (capable of higher morality and emotions) and sentient species

SurpriseMe said:
I believe the Rangdan should be literally anything but uplifted or mind slaved, because they are not what I want to read about in this quest and any option other than those two would neatly remove them from the narrative.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

i want to uplift them,just to see what happens
narratively speaking i find it more interesting

the idea of taking something that in the OTL would have turned evil and destructive,and guide it into something better apeals me
 
Last edited:
I don't engage with the quest much, but I fall into the camp of wanting to uplift.

Not really interested in not seeing where this can go.
 
I'm more or less fine with anything but enslavement (i.e. uplifting and then mind-control).
But I will not support plans that will not include research "Burn Their Souls". We will not need to use it if everything goes well. But if shit hits the fan... I want to be prepared.
 
Xantalos said:
Apologies for that, I did anticipate people freaking out but I didn't foresee people getting in actual trouble for it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
It's definitely not your fault - having gone over the discussion after Nix's post I can say that for sure. It was a twist, and a lot of people reacted by wanting to change their vote or discuss further as you'd expect from a major reveal - the people who got infracted were the ones who expressed said views through the internet forum equivalent of frothing at the mouth rather than engaging even remotely tactfully.
 
armentho said:
you wouldnt say that stealing a bank and stealing a dorito bag while starving are the same
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
To poke the existential crisis some more, I'd like to submit that some situations are less clear cut, even when context makes a massive difference on how we'd view it.

For example, stealing a food truck vs stealing a food truck vs stealing a food truck vs stealing a food truck.

Identical crimes at first blush, but let's mock that up!

So, the first two trucks are headed to a dump, because reasons, while the other two are headed to homeless shelters/orphanages. Now swiping the first two isn't quite as bad, yes? But wait, there's more!

You see, the first and third trucks were stolen by jerks for the sake of being jerks, and the second and fourth were swiped by hungry men with hungrier families.

Now the third scenario has the clearest ass, while the second involves a borderline hero. But the first and fourth are somewhat less clear cut, with one coming closer to a victimless crime, and the third being a terrible action with good reason for it.

Alright. So, I've established that we have a spectrum of circumstances surrounding these four trucks. Now say that there's 20 to 50 of them, and there's circumstances beyond the original propositions. Now what? You can either go through each of them individually, determine extenuating circumstances, and rule appropriately... OR you could go "look, stealing is bad", go through them all in less then a quarter of the time, have lunch, and start working on the case of the stolen jam jars.

At some point, I realized this may not be the correct place to put this, bit by then I WAS COMMITED!. Also, we should make athletic slann as a not-quite-inqusition analogue for those problems that require more then usual attention, but don't quite rate the full Communion attention. Because Frog Prince + Battle Toad.
 
Remove ads
Turn 10 God Comparison
  • Apocrypha
    • God comparison time! This is mainly just to convey the impression I get from each god - I don't really think any one will be more 'optimal' than another, it's all just a matter of what idea appeals to you the most.

    Ekzentric Lohner said:
    Name: Nantli'atl
    Symbols: White crocodile, fog/mist (SV uses a weird emoji for 🌫 - just go with the wavy-lines Microsoft version or the cloud-above-wavy-lines LG version)
    Category: Death
    Variety: Protector/Psychopomp/Reverse-psychopomp
    Domain: Fog/mist
    Methods of worship:
    • Praying into steam
    • Anointing the dead or soon to die with precipitated water - dew is best, rain is okay if no dew is available, artificially distilled water is technically acceptable but should preferably have some dew or rain mixed in
    • Ritual suicide to strengthen Natli'atl's influence in the area (mostly the nearby warp, but there are signs of it in the materium) around your ritually-preserved corpse - if you are faithful and dead, then you are with her; if something is linking you here despite that, then logically she is also here; this is a sacrifice because you're choosing to stick around and help guard an area/hold ground in the warp instead of being reincarnated; if your corpse starts to decay, then others know you've reincarnated and it's someone else's turn
    Favored Foes: Necromancers, thieves/predators/corruptors of souls
    Blessing Thematics: fog/mist, ghosts, tranquility, custody, restoration (as in the purification and rebirth of the dead, not the healing of the living)

    Incorporates the Seed of Fog - 1/3 default, can be interpreted up to 3/3 if voters desire
    • Incorporates Fog directly as a domain
    • Can incorporate Slumber if desired due to the fluff - "Other species might describe what the dead in her care experience as rest."
    • Can incorporate Numb if desired due to the fluff - her mist is cold and might therefor be numbing.

    Constructed from the god-seed made from the megadaemon responsible for the mind-fog affliction once laid upon the Slaan, Nantli'atl is the first god deliberately created by the Lizardmen. She is the dark, cool, endless fog of Death, and she is a vast, bone-white crocodile with Shyish-purple eyes swimming silently within that fog.

    The afterlife and its guardian, Nantli'atl carries the souls of the dead safely away into the cold fog that is her self, and she carries them back to the waters of birth when it is time for them to precipitate back into life. She is a gentle, tranquil god, preferring to protect the souls in her care passively with the concealment and intangeability of fog, but if pressed she can drag threats into the cold depths of her being with the crushing grip of a crocodile's jaws and thus protect her charges by imprisoning/drowning/consuming that which might endanger them.

    Other species might describe Nantli'atl as a mother figure. Lizardmen do not, but that is simply because they do not have mothers - they acknowledge the similarity in roles if it is pointed out, and the sheer narrative weight in the warp of mother-related archetypes is something the Slaan mage-priests could certainly observe and exploit to strengthen their creation. That mother crocodiles are attentive guardians of their young and carry them to the water in their jaws is another useful thematic resonance.

    Other species might describe what the dead in her care experience as rest. Lizardmen do not, but that is because the closest thing to rest that they experience in life is guard duty. Certainly, the dead wait in stillness as the mists of Nantli'atl's being wash away any hurts, fatigue, or corruption left over from life - whether this is rest or a mutually-reinforcing system of guarding and being guarded is relative.

    Other species might wonder if Nantli'atl might care for the merely unconscious as well as the dead, or if her realm of death might also be a realm of dreams, were they to worship her as well. The Lizardmen, who never sleep or dream, do not yet have an answer - but if the sea of calm fog, of the uncorrupted souls of the dead, that grows in the Warp as the influence of their afterlife expands, might also be a Sea of Dreams... well, the servants of the Old Ones would certainly not object to putting things back to the way they ought to be. And time is a funny thing in the Warp - if Nantli'atl is much older than the years since her creation, that just makes her story stronger, doesn't it? Or perhaps it's the other way around?

    Chaos knew not what it did when it tried to make a trap of fog for the children of the Old Ones...

    Where the servants of Sotek are vicious fighters, the servents of Nantli'atl are peaceful, quiet, unobtrusive - and, when necessary, inexorable and inescapable. They normally operate within the infrastructure of Lizardmen cities, but when fights come to them, the violence is ended less with defeat than with cessation as the flowing mists of the Death Goddess, and if necessary the ghostly guards within them, either remove the faithful from harm or swallow up the harm. If the priests themselves are forced to fight, their enemies find that no obstacle or attack will disturb their calm pursuit and no trick or struggle will let a target escape their custody at the end of said pursuit.


    OOC: This concept accomplishes several things:
    • Uses at least one harmonic concept from the Seed of Fog (namely the fog) and could easily be stretched to use one or both of the others depending on how much voters want to trade cost for vulnerability,
    • Prepares for resurrection of the dead - even if Slann don't quite have the same relationship to gods that other Lizardmen do, divine aid certainly can't hurt,
    • Has great potential for expansion when we meet other races in the future (planning ahead!), and
    • Provides a possible means of undoing the current Chaotic state of the Immaterium - not through violence, but through inexorable tranquility.
    That last one is a very much a stretch goal, but an appropriate one given the origin of the seed - with the right story-telling, Nantli'atl and how she came to be as she is could end up as sort of a cosmic-scale Briar Patching incident. The Old Ones made many things by harnessing the Sea of Dreams - perhaps the part of the Warp that remembered being a dreamy, tranquil place also remembered the children it bore them? What might a mother do, to protect her young?

    She doesn't have swarms of crocodiles like Sotek has swarms of snakes - she's got cold mist for the environmental SFX and the not-yet-reincarnated in her care for swarming tactics. If a crocodile comes out of all that mist, it's one big one and it's an avatar of Nanti'atl herself (because the enemy has Done F*cked Up Now with her faithful). She's more a No-More-Combat deity than a Combat deity, though, so it's mostly just the mist that shows up.

    Another thing to note is that Nantli'atl's mists aren't just her realm, they're also her. Like how Yog-Sothoth not only Knows The Gate and Is The Gate but also Is The Key And Guardian Of The Gate. When a soul is just standing around in the mist waiting for rebirth, or occasionally assisting priests when the mist is summoned, they are still being carried by Nantli'atl. It's like if Charon's (heavily armed) boat was also the river it crossed, and the people he was ferrying were also swimming (in the river, which was also his boat), and also Charon was his boat (and the river it crossed), and he didn't just drop his passengers off on the other side of the Styx but kept going somehow to the Lethe and only then let them off to reincarnate; except instead of a boatman and his boat and the river(s) it traveled, it was a giant white crocodile swimming in an endless realm of mist (which was also the crocodile) - look, it makes perfect sense to the super-intelligent frog mages who constructed Nantli'atl's narrative, okay?

    Name origin: Nantli (Nahuatl word for mother) + atl (Nahuatl word for water).
    Also has sound similarities to "natal" (added rebirth association) and "Nana" or "Auntie" (just slightly removed from Mother, if that relationship is too close to work).Question: Is she a mother of water (because fog precipitates into water), or a mother made of water (because Lizardmen are born from water and fog is a form of water)?Answer: 🐸 Yes.
    Idea for first prophet: Leucistic (because full albino is a cliche), probably a Kroxigor because of the Krox/Croc sound similarity but could be a Saurus because more of them are going to be in mortal peril soon. Remembers their previous life and death, being taken away to the afterlife of Nantli'atl, and being returned the spawning pool to be born into their current life. Either the leucism or the past-life/afterlife memories may end up being a distinguishing characteristic for all her priests. Name should be some kind of ghost-related reference or pun - my first thought is Kasp'r, but I'm sure there are better ideas out there.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    A very detailed entry, and an interesting concept to boot! Ekzentric is right when they speculate that Nantli'atl could have 3/3 connections to the Seed of Fog if so wished; her thematics certainly allow for it. Honestly, there's not a lot more I can say about it that isn't said in the entry itself - the afterlife this god would make might not be as complex as some others would do, but it would work very well for protecting the souls within it, still allows for the possibility of dead lizardmen fighting daemons in the warp by making the setting of the fights withing Nantli'atl's mists, and has a pretty cool crocodile motif that contrasts nicely with Sotek.

    notanautomaton said:
    [x] Ayotlek, the city-turtle of lost souls

    Name: Ayotlek, the city-turtle of lost souls.
    Symbols: A turtle-shell, skulls.
    Category: Death
    Variety: Protection
    Domain: Mausoleums
    Methods of Worship: Funerals, Guarding the Dead
    Favored Foes: Orks
    Blessing Thematics: The Unquiet Dead, Endurance Beyond Death, Sight Beyond Sight.

    Born during the first great war the Lizardmen have seen since their arrival to Mochantia, Ayotlek exists to protect the dead of the Lizardmen within his shell. Taking the form of a massive turtle with a city on its back, Ayotlek is inhabited by the souls of all Lizardmen to die under its protection. Upon the death of a Lizardman, Ayotlek is invoked in a massive funeral procession from the place of death to the mausoleum that the corpse will be interred in, watched over and tended to by fanatical worshipers.

    In order to fulfill this duty, Ayotlek can bless its worshipers with great endurance, even to the point of living beyond fatal wounds for a time, and great senses, including the ability to seen into the realm of souls. At other times, the corpses of the dead will rise to avenge themselves on those who killed them, or who would disturb their tombs. Worshipers of Ayotlek have been known to hear the whispers of ghosts, offering warnings or wisdom.

    At this time, Ayotlek hates Orks the most out of all enemies, for it was born as thousands upon thousands of Lizardmen died fighting their Waaaagh. As time passes and this trauma grows distant, it is likely that the myths of Ayotlek will shift to emphasize other foes.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Ayotlek is, to my mind, very similar to Nantli'atl, with the main differences of course being the lack of fog imagery and connection to the Seed. But they're both gods of death that focus on protecting the souls of the lizardmen after they die - a good move given how much daemons will hate your guts - with their methods of protection differing. Ayotlek houses the souls of the dead within the mausoleum that is his own shell, just as Nantli'atl protects the lizardmen with the fog that is her self. Heck, Ayotlek could very well be connected to the Seed, at least to the degree of Numb and/or Slumber. Also, turtles are cool.

    Rockeye said:
    [x] Ayotzl, the Mist Swimmer

    Name: Ayotzl (from the Nahuatl "Ayotl" - Turtle)
    Symbols: Turtles, seen either from above or from the side. Fog over swampland.
    Category: Death
    Variety: Rest
    Domain: Fog
    Methods of Worship: Vow of Silence, Vigils
    Favored Foes: Chaos
    Blessing Thematics: Calling upon the slumbering dead, Fog of Numbness (ignore pain/hinder enemy senses), Etherealness (form of fog)

    Incorporates the Seed of Fog 3/3 (Fog domain, Rest-->Slumber category, Numbness themed blessings)

    The Lizardmen do not sleep in the mortal realm. They serve tirelessly and eternally, united in a purpose greater than themselves, content to serve the will of the Slann and the Great Plan. They do not slumber and rarely rest, driven forth constantly to bring the Old Ones' will into the world. To a Lizardman, true sleep is unheard of - to sleep would be like death, the interruption of their eternal service. And death, either in accidents or against the many and endless foes of the Lizardmen, can end hundreds of years of uninterrupted service.

    The Lizardmen suffer and work for the Great Plan. It is only natural that death should give them some relief. Upon death, the great turtle Ayotzl draws a Lizardman's soul into the Realm of Fog, a place of warmth and endless comforting mist where they can rest and recover from their sacrifice. In the Realm of Fog, there is no suffering or pain, no work or thought. After death, the only duty is to sleep and recover until they are called to serve again. Ayotzl weaves concealing mist that deafens and blinds, and numbs all other senses so that no daemons may disturb the rest of his charges. He swims along the edge of the Realm of Fog constantly, ever watchful for anyone or anything that might seek to disturb the recovering sleepers.

    Ayotzl always moves in total silence, lest he disturb those whose rest he works so hard to protect. His faithful follow his example, vowing to never speak, endeavoring to move and work as quietly as possible at all times - or standing silent vigil over the Lizardmen's most precious places. In times of great need, the faithful can draw on Ayotzl's Realm of Fog. Those who call upon the silent god can spill forth a numbing fog, using the sensory deprivation to their advantage in peace by blocking distracting sensations so that one may focus on a task, and in war by warding away pain and dazzling light and noise, or blinding their enemies with the thick mists.

    The most favored can take on the aspect of fog, allowing them to pass through solid objects or ignore lethal blows. And in times of direst need, the faithful speaking aloud will awaken the spirits of long-dead servants, calling sleeping-dead Lizardmen to fight or work by their side. To interrupt the slumber of death with a shout is no small matter, but if the need is great, any of the Lizardmen are willing to awaken and serve, if only for a short while.

    OOC: I tried for a more peaceful god to contrast with violent Sotek, mostly attempting to harmonize with all three aspects of the Godseed. I'm not sure if the direction I took this is too different to get 3/3 resonance, the triple harmony bonus - I mostly went with a turtle instead of crocodile out of being afraid of being a copycat and also this god being a bit less focused on war and fightiness. Still, the ponderousness of a turtle seemed appropriate given that. I wanted to go a bit different on the blessings but ended up sticking pretty close to theme, specifically so it really resonates with the Seed of Fog. Lizardmen are tireless and Temple Guards can probably go centuries without saying a word, so including a Vow of Silence seemed amusing to me.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Ayotzl, on the other ... flipper, goes all-in on the Fog Seed, essentially combining Nantli'atl and Ayotlek's aspects (though not intentionally, I suspect). He, like them, functions as a psychopomp, guiding the dead to a realm of rest - more explicitly rest-oriented than the other two, harmonizing with the Fog's aspect of Slumber. Don't worry though, all afterlife capabilities will still be fully operational should this turtle be chosen. Also you'll get badass vow of silence warrior priests, which is a cool concept when elves do it (see Phoenix Guard), so it logically would be double cool when lizardmen do it.

    CuttleFish2.0 said:
    [X] Micqeuctli, the Buzzing Corpse

    Symbols: Bees/Beehives, the Buzzing Corpse
    Category: Death
    Variety: Construction
    Domain: Bees
    Methods of Worship: Building, Entombing, Creating Geometric Patterns, Beekeeping
    Favored Foes: Grave Robbers
    Blessing Thematics: Bees, Defense, Wax

    Uses the Godseed - 1/3 Connections

    On the eve of war Micquectli was born. Naught but a wriggling larva, resting gently in her cell, tended by the ghostly unborn souls of her servant-children-to-be, she nonetheless called out in a voice which echoed and was heard by Lizardmen in each of the Temple-Cities across the planet. Her command was thus; prepare to honor the dead, prepare to build them a place of safety, prepare to strike back at those who would violate the sacred ground of the Temple-Cities.

    A desiccated corpse of a saurus or a skink or a kroxigor, with great diaphanous wings, only partially covered in fraying flesh Micquectli bulges with swarms of bees that living within her - she is both hive and queen - and from her skeletal maw and eye sockets drips the Honey of the Dead. Her voice is the buzzing of the swarm.

    Her afterlife is an endless hive buzzing with giant lizard-corpse-bees that maintain, expand, and defend it and its inhabitants against the slavering hordes of neverborne who seek to consume the souls held within.

    Funereal Practices:
    All Lizardmen bodies, excluding slann, are to be secured and then preserved. First by desiccation and then with a layer of wax on the surface, sealing wounds and order replacing limbs if necessary.

    Before the head is sealed, a drop of Sacred Honey should be placed on the tongue, then the mouth, eyes, and ears sealed with wax in the same manner as the rest of the body. With this done the body is to be placed inside a hexagonal cell and the entire cell sealed - the cell maybe be within a structure, bare dirt, or within any other suitable material capable of being sealed - prayers to Micquectli for passage are to be said over the entombed with a bundled of smoking grasses.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Micquectli is a truly exotic concept for a god of death if I've ever heard of one, something far different than most on this list. Connected to the Seed via the practice of entombment (touching Slumber or Numb depending on how you look at it), the fact that she has a domain of bees really lets her call on unique imagery and the conceptual industriousness of those creatures. Her afterlife would be a busy place indeed, and well-suited for driving off daemonic incursions due to Construction syncing with her overall protective bent.

    CuttleFish2.0 said:
    [X] Tlanalotl the Dawn Butterfly

    Symbols: Butterflies/Moths/Cocoons, the Dawn, the Moon, Morning Dew
    Category: Death
    Variety: Renewal/Rebirth
    Domain: Butterflies/Moths/Cocoons
    Methods of Worship: Composting Corpses, Cyclic Rituals
    Favored Foes: Nurgle
    Blessing Thematics: Regeneration, Death Transformation, Purification

    Uses the Godseed - 3/3 Connections

    Tlanalotl. The Dawn Butterfly.

    Each day at dawn Tlanalotl breaks free of his cocoon to light the world, stretching his wings, still heavy with the dew of the night, he takes flight and brings from the dead of night the break of day. With each beat of his wings drops of dew fall, leaving silvery cocoons.

    As he passes these cocoons too break open, birthing forth the departed souls of Lizardmen into new life. Sometimes, for the devout of his cult, transformed into strange new forms to better aid the great fight against unclean evil in the world. The silken threads of their cocoons dissolve away leaving untainted earth beneath.

    Though occasionally a few strands remain and can be used to work miracles in Tlanalot's name.

    Each moment Tlanalot shines all the brighted, the radiance of the dawn diffracting through his jeweled wings to cast the lands below him in rainbows. Until at the peak of midday they reach a blinding radiance and begin to fade. Tlanalotl himself begins to fade too.

    His jeweled wings grow dull, his body heavy and shaggy with white-brown-silver fur. The souls of those who have died begin to flock to his body as the evening turns to night, forming the dew drops which will fall the next morn. Until eventually, during the deepest part of night Tlanalotl settles and weaves his cocoon to await dawn.

    Funereal Practices:
    Bodies should be recovered with care, bathed in cool morning dew, and then enclosed in a cocoon. Silk is best, but cloth, clay, or any moldable but breakable material will do at need.

    This cocoon must then be left for an entire year, from longest day to longest night. On the dawn after the longest night the soul of the deceased will return and emerge from their cocoon reborn. Most will be unchanged in physicality, but some chosen few will experience a transformation to give them greater power.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    More explicitly focused around rebirth than most of the other gods here (though it'd more be symbolic and/or in the Warp as opposed to happening physically until you do some research pertaining to reincarnation, as with any other death god), and one of two here to explicitly go 3/3 in on the Fog Seed. Overall, Tlanalotl's got a nice image, cool connection to the overall theme of natural cycles, which gives some neat thought to the lizardmen (who could arguably be said to be outside of nature due to their everlasting nature). This god's story is focused on reincarnation, and reincarnation he shall do.

    Simon_Jester said:
    Just to make sure it's positioned correctly:

    [X] Calquetzqui, the Great Architect, the Builder-in-Shadow

    (does not use the Seed of Fog)

    Calquetzui only began to coalesce with any certainty during the first great battles the lizardmen fought with orkoids on Mochantia, though his prophet Tlaquilqui (once a humble surveyor of Itza) recalls having his first visions decades earlier. Calquetzqui is a peaceful, industrious god, swift and efficient in giving souls their new tasks in their new life.

    Symbols: A pyramid sheltering a slumbering lizardman. An architect's square and beam compass. A great tortoise, bearing vast temples on its back.

    Category: Death

    Variety: Viceroy of the Afterlife

    Domain: Architecture, Protection

    Methods of Worship: Burial Rites and Construction, especially monumental and tomb structures.

    Favored Foes: Chaos Entities, especially the corruptive forces of Nurgle.

    Blessing Thematics: The Undying, Construction Empowerment/Hastening, Defensive Fortification, Visions.


    Cultic Rituals

    The pivotal rites of Calquetzui's worship revolve around the internment of lizardmen in designated ritually structured tombs, mausoleums, or (in a pinch and on the open field) ossuaries. Monumental architecture not directly containing the remains of the dead may also play a role. Calquetzui's cult holds the great vaults and the temples of the relic priests in even greater veneration than other lizardmen, and grows swiftly among the labor force assigned to maintain these sacred sites.

    Immaterial Presence

    When a lizardman dies and their soul passes beyond the mortal realm, the Builder-in-Shadow greets their coalescing immaterial form. He appears to them as a venerable skink of unusual physical stature, with scales forming intricate and flawless patterns of amethyst and obsidian, bedecked with all the tools of the engineer's trade.

    He directs the dead to proceed diligently to join the great work-teams that labor to construct an ordered and precise realm safe for the races of the lizardmen in the greater, disordered maelstrom of the Warp. His comprehension of the proper structure and alignment of this realm is nigh-limitless. He oversees this construction through the calm, watchful eyes of a vast collection of armored tortoises, who serve alongside the other beasts of burden as His special agents.

    Calquetzui lives-in-death to protect the sacred purpose of the lizardmen. Without His guidance, death is failure for the lizardmen, as Chaotic forces consume all that they are, endangering their contributions to the Great Plan. Calquetzui will not allow this.

    When Calquetzui's charges are threatened in the afterlife, He takes swift, decisive, yet usually indirect actions. With a sweep of dividers that span worlds, He forces the Immaterium into Euclidean order, drawing barriers that are anathema to the corruptive and distorting powers of the Warp. With a gesture of his measuring-rod, innumerable toiling legions erect fortresses of His design, interlocking and forming barricades of adamant perfection fit to repel the crawling chaos of a trillion malicious creatures, and whose intricate geometries branch out into fractal corners of unyielding stone that slice apart, deny, and dissolve into nothingness the corrupting powers of decay.

    Material Blessings

    In the mortal realm, the cult of Calquetzui invokes the Great Architect's blessing upon construction projects, with the result that accidents are prevented through sudden insights and all things seem to go more smoothly. Great stones seem almost to pull themselves into exact alignment, requiring only the roughest placement by the muscle of the kroxigor. Field fortifications can positively leap up out of the ground into the hands of the cult when they labor to prepare such things on the field of battle. The soil flies at their touch to transform the land into precisely laid out earthworks and entrenchments that shelter the lizardmen from the enemy's insolent bombardment, and allow them to direct the wrath of their own weapons onto the foe in safety.

    In the most extreme terrors of battle, the cult can invoke Calquetzui's remarkable and tangible blessings. Some of the most zealous of His followers may inscribe sigils sacred to the Builder-in-Shadows upon their bodies. In so doing, his followers become 'undying,' their souls continuing to fight and labor on, remaining in contact with their bodies for the duration of a single battle, no matter what grievous wounds they may take. Should they be reduced to bloody, charred bones, then those bloody, charred bones will go on to fight. But after the time of the undying sigils expires, their dissipating energies will ferry the souls of the cultists to parade in triumph on the backs of His chelonians, there to come to places of honor and trust in Calquetzui's great city in the afterlife, no matter what healing powers or bindings are placed upon them.

    Should even this prove insufficient, Calquetzui's resources may be called upon still more directly, as the souls of the dead are granted time in the Materium to avert disaster. The Great Architect's labor battalions can re-arm themselves for physical warfare. Some of these battalions sally forth from the hereafter as beings of pure warp energy, who can barely be seen in their wraith-like substanceless nature, but whose weapons slice through obsinite as obsinite slices through wood. Great, ghostly tortoises march with them, standing over and protectively around the bodies of the living like swirling clouds of fog in the shape of beasts- and though their flesh is intangible, their shells are hard like enchanted bronze, repelling the fire of enemy weapons and shielding the warriors from harm.

    Other servants of Calquetzui reform in the tombs of the fallen, warriors of bone that carry the armaments they were buried with, wielding them with the skill they enjoyed in life. Even those slain bare moments earlier can rise again, ignoring wounds be they ever so dire for the sake of absolute and perfect adherence to the Grand Design as protected and implemented by the Builder-in-Shadows' divine power.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Calquetzui is an interesting god, as he combines elements of both the lizardmen's skill in construction and their everlasting nature, and combines these by simply treating death as one more place to construct fortifications in. It's sort of like Micquectli, only quite distinctly not bee-flavored. You could very well see Awanabil'tat becoming involved with this god's cult (as well as Micquectli, come to think of it) due to its focus on construction. A very classically lizardmen-type god overall.

    SideVermin13 said:
    Name: Ata'botl, (literal translation: the prophecy/sequence of permanence), the Rippling Womb, the Yet-Made, the Nothing Devourer, Watersnake, the One Who Stands Between,
    Representation: rippling water, two separate stones surrounded by intersecting, concentric waves, a blank followed by a dot followed by a circle, a Water Moccasin, a Mauisaurus (it's long neck like a predatory snake emerging from the ocean)
    Category: Creation
    Variety: Craftslizardship, especially the birthing pools
    Domain: the interface layer between Material and Warp, particularly as is used in geomantic process of designs that cause a sequence of changes to ripple back and forth between the two until they cause something to come into being,
    Methods of Worship: making a new temple where previously there was nothing, sinuous shifting formation based line dances, percussive music, a recounting of the rippling chain of causation from the birth of a lizard folk to great events caused by that birth, a specific geomantic construction that sets the border of reality thrumming in time with the percussive music. Birthing Pools, a Slaan expounding on the prophecy of the Old Ones
    Favored Foes: saboteurs, destroyers, and natural disasters. Those that would break what it has made.
    Blessing Thematics: geomancy, enhanced construction quality or speed, enhanced craftslizardship, increased birth rates at the Birthing Pools, added features or phenotypes not in the original design. Bubbles of the twilight state of being halfway between Material and Warp, allowing safer venture deeper into the warp or somewhat limiting the capabilities of a manifest daemon.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    I will note that you'll need to put an actual vote box thing in for the counter to detect your vote for this, @SideVermin13, but I'll evaluate Ata'botl anyhow.

    One thing I will note is that this is the only non-death god being proposed currently, instead focusing more on the connections the Geomantic Web has with the natural order and the Warp. It's a god that ties pretty well into your existing thematics what with your leader being Mazdamundi, and while it certainly wouldn't be a fighter like Sotek, its ties to geomancy would make it a potent entity indeed. Judging by overall thread chatter, perhaps not what the thread will choose right now, but certainly something to consider for the future. Also props for using Saurian words in the name.

    Strunkriidiisk said:
    Name: Pactli (from the Nahuatl "Cipactli")
    Symbols: Crocodile, Mist over Still Water
    Category: Death
    Variety: Rebirth/Resurrection
    Domain: Fog
    Methods of Worship: Sensory-Deprivation Meditation
    Favored Foes: The Ruinous Powers/Nurgle
    Blessing Thematics: Fog, Stealth/Ambush, Torpor

    Incorporates the Seed of Fog
    -Tied to Fog via Domain
    -Tied to Slumber via ritual effects (see Numb) and description of afterlife ("place to rest and recuperate for a time")
    -Tied to Numb via ritual effects (fog "to lull them into unnatural sleep or numb them with the chill of death until all that remains is to wait to die")

    The Lizardmen's god of death was formed in the wake of their arrival on Mochantia - forged from the shattered husk of the Mind Fog that had so bedeviled the Communion for long millennia, to guard against the Ruinous Powers in turn. Pactli is a silent, patient hunter; hidden power lurking just beyond sight like the great river crocodiles of Lustria that she is made in the image of. Death is silence beyond the concept of sound, darkness beyond the touch of light, and as such she whispers to her priests as they sit in trance in spaces that mirror that void, speaking in the space between heartbeats.

    Lizardmen are the scions of the Old Ones, crafted to be their great instruments upon Mallus and to be beyond the frailties of age and degeneration. There is no afterlife for them as the younger races would understand it; a soul left to languish beyond the veil in perpetuity is a waste when its experience could still be retrieved and returned to serving the Great Plan. Pactli instead guards a liminal space, a fog-shrouded realm where the souls of the Lizardmen can rest and recuperate for a time before they might rise once more - reborn from the spawning pools, just as fog condenses back into water. And for any who would be so foolish as to attempt to breach that realm, there is no sure path but the one Pactli leads; invaders might wander for an eternity, adrift in the fog... easy prey for the god of death, and for the dead themselves.

    In the mortal realm, Pactli's blessings allow the faithful to stalk their foes with unnatural stealth, to wait in utter silence and stillness for the perfect moment to strike. Her fog can be called forth to swamp a battlefield - to confuse the enemy and make them see enemies where allies stand, to lull them into unnatural sleep or numb them with the chill of death until all that remains is to wait to die, or even just to provide a shroud under which the Lizardmen can hunt with impunity. Finally, for a short time, Pactli's fog can be called upon to invoke even the dead who are yet to rise again to terrify the enemy and drag them across the veil to the crocodile's waiting jaws.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    Finally we have Pactli, something I've immediately taken a liking to because the name's easy to spell :V Kidding aside, Pactli seems to be a mix of Tlanalotl's reincarnation focus and Nantli'atl's 'fog crocodile' dealio. This isn't an afterlife that perpetually guards its soldiers, instead it allows them to recover from the ordeal of death before recycling their souls through the spawning pools (or perhaps, like with all death gods, through direct resurrection given time and research). 3/3 on the Fog Seed connection, nice and neat stealth focus that compliments the lizardmen's reptilian patience, overall a pretty well-crafted god right here.

    As I said, these were just my impressions of the various gods - I like all the concepts I've seen thus far, they all fit pretty well with the slightly-alien nature of the lizardmen and their odd view on death (and creation).

    Reminder that you can approval vote for as many different gods as you'd like to.
     
    Last edited:
  • Apocrypha
    • My issue with Micqeuctli is that the Lizardmen don't seem to have a conception of gender, at least as it pertains to themselves. While they obviously know gender exists, they don't seem to have one, they have spawning pools, the motherhood of a queen bee feels almost... Irrelevant. Perhaps not the primary relevance of that god, but it sticks out to me as odd.
     
    [X] Micqeuctli, the Buzzing Corpse
    BEEEEEESSSSS!!!!!
     
    Rockeye said:
    My issue with Micqeuctli is that the Lizardmen don't seem to have a conception of gender, at least as it pertains to themselves. While they obviously know gender exists, they don't seem to have one, they have spawning pools, the motherhood of a queen bee feels almost... Irrelevant. Perhaps not the primary relevance of that god, but it sticks out to me as odd.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    It's very likely that I wouldn't make so much of a reference to her as a queen in the gendered sense so much as the hierarchical sense - a protective sovereign is much the same as a motherly queen, after all.
     
    Reader mode
    You must login or register to reply here.
    Remove ads
    Back
    Top