Give me an inch and I'll take 144k feet in circumfrence

[Viscount Einstrauss]

Normally I don't make topics to share my exploits, but today's just... well, I think it deserves some mention.

First, a disclaimer. My DM is pretty new to DMing. He's played plenty enough (under me, mostly) and has a decent grasp of the rules. We're good buddies, but he also wanted me around to help him get a better hold of the ropes. As such, I'm playing a character concept that is extremely difficult to deal with and roleplaying it rather seriously, explaining what I'm doing and how best to cope with it as a DM while I attempt to do it. My concept, as mentioned on these boards before, is to be a leader and lord of massive proportions, with a perhaps delusionary belief that I am destined to rule the world. The campaign setting, homebrewed, is based on an enormous material realm with several small planets all around.

Now, as the story goes, I was somewhat unwillingly sent to a mostly desert planet with the orders to take it over, by force, for a god that I don't worship. That last part's important- I'm a crusader, and I very specifically follow St. Cuthbert. In character, I'm none too pleased with this turn of events. I trot my loyal horse around the planet using a makeshift compass to discover the following- firstly, the whole planet is approximately 144,000 feet in circumfrence (I measured). There's a single structure, and inside is a rambling crazy man with intense alzheimers that claims to be the ruler of the planet. I learn from him that the presiding god is highly chaotic. There are several creatures, but they're all vermin living beneath the sands. Finally, the only water supply is a single oasis that travels around the planet at random. The DM's built this up mostly to attempt to railroad me into a showdown with the old man, I figure. Fantastic.

So, I use an item allowing me access to this planet to travel back and speak to the god that's pretty much forcing me to do this and, while saying in so many words that it's a hole, that I will require a new weapon for this. I ask for poison. The best poison available. A bunch of it, if at all possible. I'm given a divine poison, very potent and requiring very little, and decide to take that back instead. I travel around for a few hours, searching for the oasis. See, I figure I won't need a showdown at all if I poison the only water supply on the entire planet. I give myself the nickname Kefka. Only half the room gets the refference.

See, while he was attempting railroading, the DM submits to my line of thinking as to doing so- if you attempt it, you must accept that the rules of the railroading as you present them will not be changed once set. Thus, I poisoned the entire world and ended up the last living thing left on it in a day. As the only living thing, instead of travelling back to the very likely chaotic evil god that forced me into this mess, I proclaim myself king of the planet and name St. Cuthbert as the god of the planet. Being the only living thing there, my declaration thus wipes out any other claim to the planet other gods might have. I offer my domain in reverence and request portals to find other followers and lands in my holy crusade in his name. Since the DM's already set these laws in motion as to the structure of the universe and such, it's all agreed upon. I pop back onto the starting planet and begin instructing the loyal of St. Cuthbert into my lands, giving me at the end of the game today 102 subjects and an entire planet under terraformation and city construction. I will also never have to listen to the God of Railroading ever again since Big SC has my back.

I'm level 2.

As totally awesome as this is, I would like this to serve as a warning to new DM's. While I still say that railroading should always be avoidable, please consider widespread abuse when you construct your universe. I'm going to try to backpedal this to purposely weaken my character, such as trying to fight alone and not using my peoples' coffers for myself. Thank god for my altruistic streak is all I can say.

[Tengu]

I didn't know St. Cuthbert allows evil deeds to be done under his name.

[Viscount Einstrauss]

The creatures were all vermin and one crazy follower of a very chaotic god who very likely also populated the sand heap with said vermin. That's my story and I'm sticking to it :P

[Emperor Tippy]

Thats worthy of my group. I award you 1 internet. Good job. And good lesson for the DM.

[Tengu]

Guess that's okay, then.

A good example of a DM falling into a trap of being too soft on his players, I think - mostly the part about followers coming in from everywhere. I don't think if any god would care about a planet where's practically nothing.

I'd also comment on some specifics of this planet, but that'd kill a few catgirls.

[JackMage666]

The use of poison to dessicate an entire planet is most definately an evil act. Even if they were just vermin, and only one human yo knew of, you destroyed an ecosytem. Sorry, I think anyone would see this as an evil act, and Cuthbert wouldn't take too kindly to it.

[UglyPanda]

*Plays dancing mad*

I'm a bit confused as to why the crazy guy just didn't throw a rock at you and kill ya, but that story is just nuts right there.

[Tengu]

The use of poison to dessicate an entire planet is most definately an evil act. Even if they were just vermin, and only one human yo knew of, you destroyed an ecosytem. Sorry, I think anyone would see this as an evil act, and Cuthbert wouldn't take too kindly to it.

I don't think if a character who's not a druid, ranger or otherwise environment-aware would care much about ecosystems. We're not talking XXI and late XX century here.

Submariner.

Sorry, I had to.

[Nerd-o-rama]

He killed one (evil? Definitely mad) man and some bugs because he was forced to by an outside Chaotic Evil entity. He then outsmarted said CE entity and claimed the planet in St. Cuthbert's name. That's about as St. Cuthberty as you get. The reason SC is LN, despite being opposed to evil, is because he cares far less about the methods used to defeat evil than other gods.

[Eldritch_Ent]

Hmm. While the initial act (poisoning the only well on the planet) might not have been lawful OR good, the end result (Bringing order and civilization to a chaotic Plane...t.... Probably evened it out in the end. (At least so far as cuthbert is concerned. He was always the militant one.)

[Viscount Einstrauss]

I suppose that does deserve some clearing up- I felt I had enough evidence to act due to things I found as I wandered around the desert and searched around that old guy's house. Firstly, I found his wife. I assume it was his wife, anyway. She was a corpse, apparently chained up and starved. I also found a dead silver dragon, one more corpse, and this explained to me how this planet survived without any vegetation and an entire population of scavengers (specifically, giant worms, rats, larger rats, and drider children, my biggest tip off that it needed cleansing)- they ate everyone that arrived by accident. Also, driders apparently popped in to collect their young (taken care of by the old man, somehow...) every few years. Something I suppose I'll have to correct soon.

This all came up due to my ceaseless questions about the insanity of this ecosystem. When he had to admit it made no sense, the whole "eats travellers" thing popped in, then the driders bit. It had to go.

[Eldritch_Ent]

Bah, Ecology- The mean reason one should populate barren desert planets with only undead/constructs...

[Belteshazzar]

Not only that but core Driders are incapable of reproduction. Not that this prevents cursed drider children but it does pose some questions.

[Viscount Einstrauss]

It's pretty questionable, but my character wouldn't have known that's not normal, being from a universe where apparently that's normal. I figure, hey, homebrewed. If there were actually full grown driders there and had tried to face them instead of poisoning the planet, I probably would have been spider food anyway. CR limitations and all, since I was already cornered into fighting the planet one way or another.

Come to think of it, perhaps the drider angle was how the DM was getting me to fight, since I was a devout follower of St. Cuthbert. Until I found the corpses and had a nice chat about drider children with the crazy old man, I'd been refusing to fight anything that didn't try to eat me first. It was probably driving him crazy that I spent most of the time on the planet just trying to find a way off that didn't involve the deus ex machina deity instead of following the plot.

[Dervag]

The use of poison to dessicate an entire planet is most definately an evil act. Even if they were just vermin, and only one human yo knew of, you destroyed an ecosytem. Sorry, I think anyone would see this as an evil act, and Cuthbert wouldn't take too kindly to it.

It is not a priori clear that destroying an ecosystem is an evil act regardless of what that ecosystem is, or what ecosystem you intend to replace it with.

Environmentalism as we know it is not a universal idea.

[Collin152]

It is not a priori clear that destroying an ecosystem is an evil act regardless of what that ecosystem is, or what ecosystem you intend to replace it with.

Environmentalism as we know it is not a universal idea.

Particularly when you throw magic into the equation.

[drawingfreak]

I'm a little interested in knowing how you cleaned up the water to make the planet livable once more...and about the terraforming.

[Viscount Einstrauss]

St. Cuthbert. I had invited the man himself there as an anchor in the material realm, with promises to find and bring as many followers from other worlds as I could muster. I asked for no wealth, gear, or abilities- I merely asked that the world be made suitable for inhabitance for the followers I would bring here, to make it a beacon of lawfulness in all the mortal universe. The first thing he fixed was the water supply. He also stopped it from moving and made it connect throughout the world with a few rivers. Then he began changing the sand into fertile dirt, though he left the planting up to myself and my people and he's going to take at least a year or two to completely change the sand to dirt like that.

This was due to a rule placed earlier by the DM that a god's power over a mortal world is directly related to the percentage of followers he has there. Since it's been 100% since I finished with the poison, he's been rather effective.

[dyslexicfaser]

Tricky.

And - though I can't assume to know Cuthbert's mind - having a place (a planet!) whose dominion is entirely his would be a hell of a feather in his cap at the next divinity poker night.

"So, what have your followers done for you lately? Oh... burned out an cult to Erythnul? Nice, nice... you remember that Einstrauss guy? Conquered a planet in my name. Yeah. Top that, Heironymous."

You could probably get him to perform at magic shows and children's parties after that if you ask, at least for awhile. Him devoting special attention to you is pretty much a given.

Depending on how the universe's rules work, you might even be able to improve your god's status and power from such a huge coup.

[drawingfreak]

Hmm, not sure that the god'spower=percentageoffollowersonworld is smart idea just for this reason. I think it should be numbers/severity of the follower. *shrug* Maybe that's just me.

[Viscount Einstrauss]

For balance reasons, I agree. But the DM had good story reasoning for this. See, a deity's power here is directly related to his total follower count (or the follower count of all deities for overdeities), while the manifestation power is directly related to how many living souls on a plane are willing to accept the deity in question's appearance. For example, in Greyhawk under these rules, the most powerful deity to mortals would probably be Pelor, being the most widely worshipped and thus most capable of acting without the need of a mortal avatar such as a cleric. However, under these same rules, his total power there would be limited to things like appearing in dreams, parlor tricks, maybe bringing a man back to life once every decade, etc, because too many other living souls would oppose his intrusion.

[Citizen Joe]

You realize that this 'planet' is only like 14 km in diameter. That's about the size of the Martian moons, and those are just captured asteroids.

[Viscount Einstrauss]

Why, yes. It's puny. I rode around the whole thing on horseback twice in one day. The second time is actually when I measured the place according to how long it took me on horseback (6 hours on a walking heavy warhorse, uninterrupted because it was getting retarded killing ordinary vermin with trample attacks). I only managed this rate because gravity is halved, and even that is rather generous considering that it should be practically nil if we applied real physics. Also, it was about 80% desert and one oasis that took an average four hours just to relocate every ten minutes, there were two suns perfectly opposite each other that left the world in permanent daylight (still a problem, actually), the ground was crawling with all kinds of vermin with a taste for intelligent creatures (according to the soul count, around 2 million critters... somehow. The soul thing is a whole 'nuther story), the whole damn thing was practically the total inverse of my alignment, and I was sent there unwillingly.

It was a dump. I'd say my total xenocide was a marked improvement. St. Cuthbert's terraforming and my subjects' construction of a small city there is pretty much a total makeover.

Yeah, I can finance that, by the way. Long story involving the deck of many things, a fantastic charisma, and subjects that are basically zealots following me only because of my favor with our common god.

[Kurald Galain]

I found that a very interesting story.

Just one question - if this planet is so important, what prevents any random other god from invading it by force by now? Or yesterday?

[Zincorium]

I found that a very interesting story.

Just one question - if this planet is so important, what prevents any random other god from invading it by force by now? Or yesterday?

Well, given how it was explained, a god's power on a planet is equal to the number of worshipers they have on it.

If you don't have any worshipers calling upon you to begin with, you probably can't even see the dang place. The warped-in food sources probably don't last long enough for it to blip up on their god's radar.

[Kami2awa]

Hmm. While the initial act (poisoning the only well on the planet) might not have been lawful OR good, the end result (Bringing order and civilization to a chaotic Plane...t.... Probably evened it out in the end. (At least so far as cuthbert is concerned. He was always the militant one.)

Plus your act can be undone with a few castings of Create Water.

[Hecore]

Seeing as how the Gods powers work I don't think it'd be possible to take over the planet -- I'm sure the Chaotic God that was worshipped by the old man would have at least attempted to stop your plans.

[Murderous Hobo]

So what ever happened to the poison you put in the Oasis? Shouldn't it still be poisoned?

[Kurald Galain]

So what ever happened to the poison you put in the Oasis? Shouldn't it still be poisoned?

The god cured it, he mentioned that.

[Murderous Hobo]

The god cured it, he mentioned that.

Can you point it out because I'm nothing seeing it.

Much obliged.