God Game. IC

[Ra_Va]

In a universe filled with so much evil that had lived for too long, everything went dark. All that existed was a single spherical waste land and of it a river. From that river came beings of immortal power, The catch being simply they had to find it. To guild them was the first to come out of the river, Jareth-Anansi.

((ooc:Ok for the first week or so you all are claiming up to 100 followers of barbaric races, Claiming 1 Domain and claiming land. All are free))

[Croverus]

Whispers echo out from the river and a clawed hand rises up, grabbing the bank as a figure, looking old and burned, pulls itself out. Aware of his horrorid appearance he cloaks himself in a large hooded cloak, hiding his one glawed hand. His long nose sticks out and his other hand is gnarled and old and summon s branch, fashioning it into a cane to lean on. The figure is hunched over, like an old man. Lookign about with bright purple yes, the whispers continue as he seeks out some sleeping creature to observe.

[Killsauce]

A form like that of a lion crawls out of the river. He shakes himself dry and immediately gets to work obtaining the things he'll need in this world. First, he takes the mud from the river bank and begins fashioning a massive sword and armor. As he lets it bake in the hot sun, it turns to steel. He then dons the armor and sword and looks around to see if there is trouble.

[Hijax]

A portion of the river started to boil. Out of it plumbed a red gem. Seconds later, it changed form to a cloaked figure with the gem in a necklace. Tentacles flowed out of the head, and the form seemed to change every moment. On the end of some of the tentacles, eyes appeared, as the figure started moving. Ra'Hoak set off to find some sentients.

[Etcetera]

A glowing ball of light emerged from the river, slowly dragging wisps of shadow behind it. Over time these wisps formed a humanoid shape, with the ball of light at the heart, the shadows all but obscuring it.

[Fan]

Gorian Invictus, proud, and noble even on the day of his creation. He shoulders his massive frame out of the sludge, golden emblems gleaming as he took the material from the area around him to take his favored form. After his formation was complete, gold gleaming on silver steel, and long blonde hair cascading down to his shoulders like star light.

He then raised a gauntleted hand towards the sky, the cosmic rays of the sun itself congregating in his hand into a shape, a small hilt forming at first, building into that of a long sword. Beautiful, and terrible was it's shape. The edge, no thicker then a shadow, swished through the air as he brought his sword down in a swinging arc, leaving golden trails in it's wake.

"This will do."

He thought, sheathing his blade in it's magnificent scabbard, before trekking out into the wastes to find a group of mortals to guide.

[Ganurath]

A section of the river forks and remerges as The Lady Dominus ascends, the flow of the river resolidifying once the plated goddess is floating above it. With a blink she's gone from the river, having gone far to sandy deserts bordered by jagged mountains into which to cleave her empire.

"From the ephemeral discord of the sands, a pattern shall form, and that pattern will be Law." The goddess gestures upward with her scepters, and a series of sandstone buildings begin to form, the swell of power drawing in human nomads from nearby.

[Croverus]

Frederick Aghast became mist and floated in the sky as a whispy, black cloud, looking down for a suitable place to gather some dispicable humanoids who could do his bidding. He soon settled in an ancient swamp, filled with death and rot and he called to the local humanoids, dark gypsy people who made powders and potions that induced sleep and sickness. They would be suitable for his needs. He visited them in their sleep, turning what few peaceful dreams they had into nightmarish visions, killing a handful so that the others feared him and began to offer sacrifice in exchange of mercy. Their fear fed him, and their sacrifices pleased him. He called them his own. They called him the Nightmare.

[Killsauce]

Leonus stood up and ventured east, searching for a land and a people to guide out of their barbarism.

[brujon]

Terror sprout forth from the river and the air around him went dark. He pulled from the sky a mantle of darkness and wore it around his neck. From the darkness he then formed a shape, that of a scythe and spake:

"Despair, for Death has arrived"

He then proceeded to gather his followers and go to the south pole of the world, the furthermost, darkest and coldest region of the planet. There he formed his palace of bone, from the center of which standed a tower of Obsidian, as tall as the clouds. And from there he watched as his followers prayed for his mercy and aid. He said to them:

"Death spares no-one, but you are my flock. Breed and grow, this is now your home. In my land no crops will die from the cold and lack of light, and no cattle will die from thirst or starvation. In my land you will grow, breed, and then when you die you will serve me as my undead. Listen to me and i may let you live to see another day."

[Darth_Malevo]

A Gnome, it should be noted, is not very hydrodynamic. Which is to say, if you throw a Gnome in a body of water, it most likely will become part of the body of water. It would, in about twenty millennium, prove a very effective way of ditching a Gnomish corpse. However, the fact that it was a river that the first god of Gnomes emerged from would likely mean the end of the Gnomish race long before it could even get on its legs.

And it did, for about five minutes, as Flux tried to swim out of the river, drowned, was once more animated by the river, and then continued to drown ad nauseum until such a point that he eventually managed to drift ashore. After that point, naturally, he had gained a moderate hatred of water and a severe dislike of the fast-moving kind. However, he was on shore, if soaked thoroughly. After using a bit of minor divine energy, the radiation from which would make the land around that river barren for a millennium or two, to dry himself off the gnome did what every other godling did upon being born: Pick out a plot of land, mark it as his territory, and then fiddle around with it until screwing with physics stopped amusing him.

Covering his eyes, the god picked a random direction in the wasteland, which turned out to by directly west. Huh, cool! Well, at least he still was a being made up of divine electromatter, matter's badass grandma. Yet he was still alone, and when a god was alone, they tended to get quite bored. Which for him wasn't really a good thing, since he ended up doing stuff like what he did next...

"My children will be the gnomes, sharp of mind and fast to live as they are to change and better themselves, and will dwell on yonder landmass - why are there kittens...? Ahem. They will live on the plains, under hills and wherever they may find comfort."

And with that, it happened. The deity simply decided to do the simple thing: He didn't attempt to crack open the sand, or split the earth asunder, or make some grand show that would make the entire universe quake. He just kicked the ground and scruffed up about a hundred or so gnomes. Four of which ended up killing themselves in the first few moments of existence by forgetting to breathe.

A natural instinct that Flux had forgotten to include, but he repaired the damage soon enough. Then another two died as he realized that his followers were most likely quite hungry after being freshly generated by the world beneath them. And, true to the massive amount of curiosity he had imbued with the (For hilarity's sake, of course), they decided to sate this hunger.

However, eating several pounds of sand can kill a stubby little creature quite fast. Sighing, the Lord of Evolution looked to the western wasteland. This entire world sucked. Where was the death? Where were the cats that shot parasitic larvae into people? Where the hell were the lions, besides the godling with an animal fetish? This place was so boring!

He better fix that up.

Stomping his foot down, he marked his domain quite clearly: A giant freaking ring of fire. As would be sung by Gnomish musicians, Flux went down, down, down, into the newly made ring of fire.

And, once at the bottom of this momentary subatomic furnace, he made sure to perform the one move only a deity in the middle of his land shaping could do: He punched the bloody core of the earth, and flew the hell out of there (with the appropriate "whoosh" noises) as a mountain of lava flooded the circumference of his domain.

Unfortunately, making your people live on an island of fire sort of limits some things. As such, Flux began work on this giant lava-surrounded continent, one that would support countless cities of Gnomes in the future. An entire nation, if everything went correctly.

But that would be chronicled at a later date. Flux, after all, wasn't one to tip his hand.

[Croverus]

Having sufficeintly influenced the dark gypsy humanoids he began to gather a hundred of them or so, twisting their minds and convincong them to slaughter all the others for the benefits of the Nightmare. After poisoning, hacking, burning, and sacrificing their friends, family and neighbors. After only a hundred of the humanoids remained, their minds were twisted into dark perversions of their former selves. Frederick Aghast grinned to himself and came to tehm, twiting their flesh to match their minds. They were twisted and broken in appearance, but abnormally strong and fast, highly resistant to all kinds of diseases and poisons, and could bring a person's fears to life. He called them his children, his Dream Eaters. He tasked them to begin harvesting the gnarled trees of the swamp and build huts that floated on the swamp. He gathered up several corpses and fashioned them into new shapes, giving many of them frightening eyes, terrible claws, massive fangs, deadly poisons and other horrible things that would scare humanoids. He released these creatures into the swamp and told his Dream Eaters to hunt the beasts for food and clothes, and use the bones and claws of their prey as weapons, and to gather the venoms and poisons and to collect plants to mix and make chemicals that could alter states of mind.

[Hijax]

Ra'Hoak Settled upon a race of mountain-dwelling humans, appearing in the minds of a handful of them. This instantly caused utter madness to consume their minds. He laughed at this. So perhaps a more subtle approach would be needed. With that in mind, he fashioned a book containing his teachings from the skin and intestines of the people he just drove mad. He imbued it with much malign power, and let one of the humans find it.

[Darth_Malevo]

Flux stared at his giant ring of fire, admiring the fact that- on the second day- his gnomes had already begun experimenting with the element of boiling hot lav. Mostly this was by seeing who could get the closest to this giant geographical feature whilst Flux tidied himself with constructing the rest of his landscape: Deserts, jungles, so on, so forth. All, of course, bound into the land with the equivalent of a divine stapler and a spraycan of astral energy for the paint scheme. To the mortals that were currently tossing one of their number into the lava, everything was just magically appearing beyond the scope of their primitive brains.

But that was fine, too. As he quickly shaped a mountain with a castle-sized hammer and chisel (The concepts of which he had just invented a mere four seconds ago), he may- or may not- have accidentally butchered a couple billion Jurassic creatures. Nothing too important, mind, but it was still a minor "Oops". He had expected the giant creatures to terrorize the Gnomes for a cheap laugh, then become extinct in a series of Gnomish BBQ huts. A giant clump of rock wasn't exactly what he had planned, but hey, you gotta break an entire genus of creatures to...

Uhh...

Right. Lifting the mountain up with sufficient leverage and other such silly concepts, the God of Evolution swept the bones of billions of extinct giant animals beneath the land, locking them away to do whatever it is that fossils do when they're shoved underground for countless eons.

All in all, this land was shaping up. Unfortunately, the mere presence of a lake of fire didn't amuse him for very long. Sacrifice was good and all, but these bloody things were running into it like lemmings. Or, at least, the smart ones were telling the dumb ones to do it. Darwinism at its finest, really, but he still wanted the dumb ones to die for his amusement!

Reaching out of his boundaries for a moment, the god scooped up a large quantity of ice from the polar caps. This may, or may not, have resulted in an ice age in the future, but what did he care? He had planned for every eventuality anyways, and a bit of ice would be nice to add into his drinks every so often. Crumpling the ice up, he spread it out along one of the basins he just spent the last few hours structuring. Letting several million megatons of ice flow freely, he watched with glee as an arctic climate was partially established. The wildlife and such would spawn later, but for now it was simply setting the diorama of life for his personal enjoyment.

[Croverus]

Frederick came to his chosen Dream Eaters and taught them how to meditate, falling into a trance-like state that would allow them to better control the Dream Scape. They gladly experimented with this power, entering each others' dreams and learning through trial and error hwo to actually hurt one another. To keep them from destroying themselves he taught them to look outward and travel through the dream scape for long periods of time to find other creatures to butcher. For a time, wild beasts and humanoids that were unclaimed by any god were their prey. Content the could sustain themselves and adding one last touch to his domain by thickening the swamps, making them more hostile, and raising some mountains around the swamps, he blanketed the whoel are with a mist that made seeing and hearing difficult. It mimicked the properties of a raw dreamscape in this way. He chuckled and then floated off to see what the other beings of divine power were up to. Maybe some of them had mortals with tasty dreams. His presence remained hidden from the others as he fully moved to the dreamscape and travled thusly, so that he coudl visit mortal creatures that slept and terrify them with nightmares, or visit any god that chose to sleep.

[Killsauce]

Leonus, seeing the way Frederick was abusing the poor mortals of this world, decided to take action. After finding a small band of people who were trying to survive in a desert, he decided they would make excellent followers. He taught them to find water and make shelters against the sandstorms. He also taught them to hold sleep vigils which would allow a person who was awake to wake up any who were caught in a horrific dream. Then, he fell asleep and awaited Frederick's appearance.

[brujon]

Terror saw that his flock were growing in numbers, and it felt good. It was time to teach them the way of necromancy, for that is the way his mind worked. He gathered them all in a circle, and selected the weakest and the sick, the ones who didn't worship them properly, and showed his flock what it meant to be unfit for his rule. He killed them in the most various manners, dissecting each one of them at his leisure and teaching his followers what was more and less vital to sustain life. He took much pleasure in that endeavor. Then, he animated them as most varied types of undead. Ghast, Ghouls, Mummies, Vampires, Devourers, Skeletons, Zombies, Spectres, Ghosts and Liches... He showed to everyone their weaknesses and their strenghts, their uses and their flaws. He showed how to command them, and bestowed blessings of undeath into his followers. He rationalized, if life is in itself a road that unnerringly leads to death, why couldn't he turn it into a road into undeath? He smiled into that possibility. So he selected the most prolific learners, and bestowed upon them what is in essence a blessing and a curse. Each year they lived, their corpses would become more and more undead-like. When they reached the 30's, they would age no more, at the 40's, they would no longer need sleep or sustenance. And when they reached 50, their bodies would cease to function normally, and the process would be complete. Beautiful. They would seem wrinkled and old and pale, like a vampire, but would not fear the sun, nor would they hunger like ghouls. This design appeased him. He chose to call them his "Eternals".

They were the only ones allowed into his inner sanctum, and no more Eternals would be appointed until one of them was to be destroyed. Below them, the Mummie Lords and their Mummie apprentices would be their archbishops and bishops, taking care of the divine, Liches would take care of the arcane and be advisors and researchers. Vampire's were the military leaders, with Devourers ranking directly below them, then came the ghasts, then ghouls. Spectres and Ghosts would be the policing force, spying on the activities inside and outside the land. Zombies and Skeletons would take care of menial tasks. The pure humans would be their leaders, and the most promising ones would be selected to become priests or scholars, when they would be finally lead to undeath.

It was frighteningly beautiful. The system worked perfectly... No-one could see the Ghosts and Spectres, and they ignored any physical restrictions... They could be anywere. This caused terror and fear. And the Reanimator was pleased. As long as there were fear of reprisal, all was to go well. The Reanimator penned numerous tomes on the mechanics of life and death, the creation of undeath, and the fundamentals of necromancy, and placed them all at a library which was in the center of his graveyard-town. He valued learning greatly, and so wanted it to be well-localized.

He shaped the land further, creating chains of mountains around his empire, which would keep invaders out. There were ways of crossing the icy, barren and hostile mountains, but Terror kept it close... He didn't want to have intruders easily walk in. He then stopped to gather more of his strenght, for this was just the beggining for him.

[Croverus]

Frederick didn't take long before he arrived in Leonus's dream. He observed from the dreamscape as Leonus dreamed, able to see through the dreamscape's mist far better than the other gods. He waited for Leonus to start to actually dream, as he was aware that this god had not started dreaming. Frederick could wait, he had all th etime to wait for the god to start truely dreaming and lose himself in those dreams. As he waited his back straightened, and he flexed hsi clawed hand patiently.

"Sleep deep, lion. Dream... dream of things you enjoy. Things that put you at peace... Loosen that armor, that big steel armor. Its so uncomfortable. You need to relax. Be at peace..."

[Hijax]

As the humanoid tribe that Ra'Hoak had taken under control grew powerful with the knowledge in the Book, he refined the mountains they lived in, erecting lakes and rivers of lava, warped forests, goo-like lakes, and populating the land with a plethora of aggressive creatures.

meanwhile, the Book was teaching the tribe about His power and how they could channel it. soon the tribe was ruled by a small, elite group of priests. The other tribesmen served like slaves, while the priests controlled the wild animals of the mountains. Good, this was how he wanted it to be.

He then looked over the world. He saw the conflict of Leonus and Frederick. He saw Flux leading the gnomes, and the small creatures amused him, damnit they would look good on fire.

Lastly, he saw Terror and his empire of undeath. Now that was something there. Undead creatures were cool. He did a bit of necromancy himself, but nothing compared to this guy. Interesting...

[Killsauce]

Leonus began to dream in earnest and the following happened.

He saw his people, starving and thirsting in the desert. He saw them cry out "make us like you, that we may know you.". He saw a large city begin to draw itself out of the sands. It was made of marble and towered like a vast pyramid of connected buildings with one magnificent tower in the center. From the top of the tower flowed a great spring, which the tower chanelled upward and over the edges. The water flowed from the roof of the tower to were it was collected in basins and ran, by force of gravity, down throughout the city. Finally, at the base of the city, and around it, the water was used to irrigate crops and water livestock. Around the city a great stone plataeu grew which was ring shaped and provided a natural wall against enemies. It opened in one end and massive marble doors grew up to allow the populace to shut out enemies in times of war. The people themselves also began to transform. They took on the features of lions, like their god. A special class(those who's manes were reflective gold, like that of Leonus) became the priestly class. The administered in the temple that was the central tower. They worked in the base and Leonus would live in the top, where only the high priest(an albino, always) could go. As he dreamed thus, so it was and unknown to him in the dream world, Leonus' sleeping body in the real world was lifted up in the top room of the central tower as his city was ACTUALLY taking shape and the people were ACTUALLY transforming.

It was at this point, however that Leonus remembered his purpose for dreaming and left this vision, lest Frederick would profane it. Here he went on to dream the various and random things that occur to a person in the late hours of the night.

(p.s. I'm choosing war as my first domain)

[Croverus]

Having missed the chance to spoil such a lovely dream, Frederick approached Leonus, appearing as a youngling humanoid, whos origins seemed rather plain. He spoke in a child's voice. He appeared as if part of the dream, just as Leonus's people had appeared to him as a dream. Only Frederick did not appear in the real world at all.

"Hey mister. You look big and strong. What's your name? I'm Freddy."

[ArlEammon]

(I think I should drop oout. I haven't posted much of anything.)

[Darth_Malevo]

Flux, having taken a brief power nap after establishing a freaking working arctic climate, awoke to find the sight of some little undead critter nibbling on his big toe. Honestly, he didn't mind zombies: Especially when one got to blow their brains out with a ballista bolt. But having one attempt to eat your dreams through your divine big toe was kind of, well, lame. Really, what sort of undead abomination would try to eat a man's dreams? They were all fluffy and filled with unicorns and rainbows (Flux's were, anyways, not that he'd ever admit it. Even on his dying...temple?).

Totally lame. But hey, Flux was just the guy in charge of what came before undeath: That funky process of evolution and-

Were his Gnomes actually trying to build a hole in the ground? Granted, most of them were getting pulled away by the Tiggers he designed (One half tiger, one half explosive trigger. What else were you expecting?). To his own amusement, quite a few of them got blown apart when the self-destructive species got hit with makeshift spears. But, to their credit, the Gnomes learned fast: Making javelins out of their pointed sticks, they quickly made sport of the sight of about two hundred pounds of muscle going up in a miniature sun.

So, all in all, it wasn't that bad. Hell, some of those things even exploded quite- Oh, hell, the undead thing! In his amusement, he had forgotten all about the undead thing. Shaking his foot, he shooed at the little monster. "Skit! Skit! Go on, go boy!" He said, eventually just smothering it in a long stream along one of the unfinished zones of his continent. He had begun to make some sort of ocean of youth or something, but that would have been silly! Who in their right mind would want to be young?!

The giant, gaping canyon there now was much cooler. And deadlier, too! With all the jagged rocks along the side, it'd allow for some totally gnarly flying if he ever got around to giving his species wings. And near-divine vision. Really, he would, one of these days. When them getting exploded and- in turn- exploding others stopped being amusing.

Scratching his head, the long-nosed godling contemplated just what he had built thus far. He had ice, he had fire, he also- unwillingly- had some water and unintentionally built a gigantic mega-canyon. Man, stuff with being a godling sure did get complicated if you didn't know what you were doing. But Flux still had a plan, however unexpectedly it was working out. Watching the tiny holes the Gnomes were building, Flux sighed, reaching down into the earth for a moment to invert it.

With a quick "Screw off" to physics, Flux turned the tiny little Gnomish pits into above-ground huts. For extra emphasis, he made an extra-special divine message. Momentarily possessing one of his followers, he made the Gnome into a hand puppet. A practice that would become common when Gnomish prisons came into effect, but was quite an unwelcome and new experience for Tibby the Gnome.

Having the Gnome hover a few feet in the air (because god hands had to be the biggest of all), the not-so-simple anatomy of the creature was told to stave off death for a bit while the god did his schpiel. "Right!" He declared, his divine voice echoing throughout the tiny Gnome's body, "Listen up you bunch of idiots: Build up, because I sure as hell am not going to include a bloody darkvision trait in you guys. I mean, the level adjustment alone would set you all back some major civilized milestones. I'm not looking to make dwarves here! I'm looking to make- Ah, there we go. Listen, I gotta run, but basically: Try to screw around with underground stuff again and this will happen to each and every one of you."

Slipping his hand out of the Gnome's backside, Flux watched as the divine energy overload of such an instant and dramatic possession overtook the tiny frame. With a mighty explosion, Tibby took out about several city blocks in a catastrophic burst of astral energy. On the upside, the lost popultation would be recovered. Eventually. On the downside, there was a giant gaping hole in the middle of this tiny hut village. Oh well, at least they'd get the message of not screwing around with underground building. Maybe they'd even build a monument is godly heads up?

Or they'd make a mud statue of the exploded Gnome flipping him off. Nice. Being a god sure had its rewards, huh?

[Hijax]

Ra'Hoak watched his people grow more yet. The priests still ruled the masses by force, and executions were held every week. He loved being a god.

He now decided to choose a true leader of the tribe. From the priesthood he chose the most skilled one. He spoke to him and said "Of all the priests i have chosen you, you shall be my prophet, and my speaker on this world!" and he granted him eternal life, mighty unholy power, a horrid, warped appearance, and a bad breath. He bestowed upon him the power to alter reality, to corrupt and to pervert that which was natural and good.

(i claim corruption as my first domain)

[Killsauce]

Leonus studied the child for a moment. I am Leonus youngling. What are you doing out here by yourself.

[Croverus]

"I'm lost. My mommie and daddy left and they never came back. Can you help me find them?"

The youngling was wearing a simple piece of cloth that barely hung on his shoulders. His eyes were very expressive yet innocent, a sense of inexperiance filled them.

[Killsauce]

Sure come with me. Do you know where you last saw them?

[Croverus]

The boy points as the Dreamscape mist pulls away and reveals a dark forest.

"I saw them run into the trees."

[Killsauce]

I'll go in. You stay out here where it is safe. ((OOC where did everyone else go?))

[Hijax]

((OOC: i dunno. i am here still if something should happen, but i am not willing to keep being the only one to action in the real world))

[Ra_Va]

((OOC: NEXT TURN))

Slowly humans gain more knowledge and go through natural evolution slowly forming complex societies. Their gods gain more control over them. However a black specter starts killing people. It is unknown what and who it is. the only thing that is for sure... it is only killing politicians.

[Killsauce]

OOC, Am I still in the dream sequence with Freddy?

[Croverus]

OOC Killsauce, I'lls end you a PM tonight about what happens in the dream that will involve what we discussed, then you'll "wake up" from the dream.