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Myth Begins - Phase 2 (IC thread)
Aroused Bull
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Registered User regular
THE WIKI - password is "godspawn".
This is the game thread for Myth Returns. See here and here for some explanation of this game if you are unfamiliar with it (the second link is an overview of the game). If you want to join, go ahead and post.
This thread is for the actual IC playing of the game, so please keep your OOC talk either in the OOC thread or behind spoiler tags. This is to make it easier to read through the thread and see what's happening.
The game will begin once the introduction has been posted below. Kindly add any contributions you make to the Wiki.
Game Guidelines
If something isn't strictly according to the guidelines but the narrative would benefit from it, go ahead and do it. They're called "guidelines" for a reason.
Phase 1 – Creation
Birth of the gods, initial creation of the world. Any important paraphernalia – the sun, the stars, clouds, etc should be created during this phase. Plant and unintelligent animal life can start to be created now. The homes or servants of the gods may be created now or later. Continents and globally significant geographical features (like climate) can be vaguely described now or left unspecified.
Phase 2 – Genesis
Creation of the first intelligent and free-willed life. Racial characteristics, "gifts from the gods" or curses etc bestowed onto races.
Races may be settled wherever, taught particular crafts or abilities, reared up in competition of each other and otherwise raised from primitives to advanced beings. Peoples may be influenced to settle particular areas, build particular settlements, go to war, or do anything else on a scale of nations, all at the behest of the gods.
Phase 3 – Myth
Gods create heroes out of individuals and guide these heroes. Specific beasts, monsters or demons might be created to ravish kingdoms. Wars and trade and suchlike take precedence over settlement and development. Nations as a whole can still be influenced and things still occur on a similar scale, but more focus is on the great heroes and rulers rather than the bodies of people, and some players might take on the role of heroes influencing events rather than gods.
Phase 4 – Legend
Players now all take on the roles of mortal heroes and rulers, and the gods have only an indirect role in affairs. Scale is more on the great affairs and endeavours of individuals rather than those of societies. Players create legends for future ages.
Phase 5 – Age of Now
Roll up some PCs and go adventuring.
General Guidelines
Vagueness and specifics
Specifics should become more detailed as the phases progress. In general, things should be left vague at first, unless they are something on which a god lavishes special attention, to allow more wiggle room later.
For example: In phase 1, gods might create specific animals and describe their features while leaving geography vaguely defined at best. By phase 2, it would be necessary to describe large scale geography ("I settle my people in a rocky place beneath the mountains, devoid of trees"), and by phase 3 we'd be into specifics for some areas ("The army met the enemy at a narrow mountain pass surrounded by hot springs")
Moving godly cheese
You can mess around with other gods' stuff, but keep it relevant to your own god – a sky deity would not send earthquakes, for example – and be sensitive to other players. Don't override people, but seek compromise. Where necessary, the judge will intervene to settle disputes.
Picking domains
Try not to be too specific when you're picking your domains. A god of wintergreen scented candles not only will rarely have anything to do inside of his or her domain, but will also have more difficulty relating other things he or she wants to do back to candles. Likewise, try not to be too far ranging and push out other players for choices, or seize multiple domains and try and affect everything at once.
A narrow domain can be fine, so long as you aren't afraid to use it creatively. A god of sleep might seem limited, but you could put entire armies to sleep, send people visions in the night or make dreams flesh. Don't pick domains already chosen by another god, unless that player grants you permission (in which case that part of his or her domain passes to you).
Creating Races
Typically, major races should be relatively humanoid – that is, humanoid to make into a player character. Actual humans will probably be created at some point, so bear them in mind as a point of comparison so as not to make other races too weak or powerful. Minor and "monstrous" races can be as non-humanoid as you like.
All gods may create life of some sort, unless they choose to give up that right.
This is the game thread for Myth Returns. See here and here for some explanation of this game if you are unfamiliar with it (the second link is an overview of the game). If you want to join, go ahead and post.
This thread is for the actual IC playing of the game, so please keep your OOC talk either in the OOC thread or behind spoiler tags. This is to make it easier to read through the thread and see what's happening.
The game will begin once the introduction has been posted below. Kindly add any contributions you make to the Wiki.
Game Guidelines
If something isn't strictly according to the guidelines but the narrative would benefit from it, go ahead and do it. They're called "guidelines" for a reason.
Phase 1 – Creation
Birth of the gods, initial creation of the world. Any important paraphernalia – the sun, the stars, clouds, etc should be created during this phase. Plant and unintelligent animal life can start to be created now. The homes or servants of the gods may be created now or later. Continents and globally significant geographical features (like climate) can be vaguely described now or left unspecified.
Phase 2 – Genesis
Creation of the first intelligent and free-willed life. Racial characteristics, "gifts from the gods" or curses etc bestowed onto races.
Races may be settled wherever, taught particular crafts or abilities, reared up in competition of each other and otherwise raised from primitives to advanced beings. Peoples may be influenced to settle particular areas, build particular settlements, go to war, or do anything else on a scale of nations, all at the behest of the gods.
Phase 3 – Myth
Gods create heroes out of individuals and guide these heroes. Specific beasts, monsters or demons might be created to ravish kingdoms. Wars and trade and suchlike take precedence over settlement and development. Nations as a whole can still be influenced and things still occur on a similar scale, but more focus is on the great heroes and rulers rather than the bodies of people, and some players might take on the role of heroes influencing events rather than gods.
Phase 4 – Legend
Players now all take on the roles of mortal heroes and rulers, and the gods have only an indirect role in affairs. Scale is more on the great affairs and endeavours of individuals rather than those of societies. Players create legends for future ages.
Phase 5 – Age of Now
Roll up some PCs and go adventuring.
General Guidelines
Vagueness and specifics
Specifics should become more detailed as the phases progress. In general, things should be left vague at first, unless they are something on which a god lavishes special attention, to allow more wiggle room later.
For example: In phase 1, gods might create specific animals and describe their features while leaving geography vaguely defined at best. By phase 2, it would be necessary to describe large scale geography ("I settle my people in a rocky place beneath the mountains, devoid of trees"), and by phase 3 we'd be into specifics for some areas ("The army met the enemy at a narrow mountain pass surrounded by hot springs")
Moving godly cheese
You can mess around with other gods' stuff, but keep it relevant to your own god – a sky deity would not send earthquakes, for example – and be sensitive to other players. Don't override people, but seek compromise. Where necessary, the judge will intervene to settle disputes.
Picking domains
Try not to be too specific when you're picking your domains. A god of wintergreen scented candles not only will rarely have anything to do inside of his or her domain, but will also have more difficulty relating other things he or she wants to do back to candles. Likewise, try not to be too far ranging and push out other players for choices, or seize multiple domains and try and affect everything at once.
A narrow domain can be fine, so long as you aren't afraid to use it creatively. A god of sleep might seem limited, but you could put entire armies to sleep, send people visions in the night or make dreams flesh. Don't pick domains already chosen by another god, unless that player grants you permission (in which case that part of his or her domain passes to you).
Creating Races
Typically, major races should be relatively humanoid – that is, humanoid to make into a player character. Actual humans will probably be created at some point, so bear them in mind as a point of comparison so as not to make other races too weak or powerful. Minor and "monstrous" races can be as non-humanoid as you like.
All gods may create life of some sort, unless they choose to give up that right.
Aroused Bull on
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After an eternity of time or an instant, the egg hatched, and forth came the multitudinous immortal gods. Each, by naming their domain, so defined it and called potential into being from the void.
I, as first born, closest in spirit to the Celestial Bird, take my position as the Eternal, judge of everything. I will watch over all of the gods and keep them in balance, and should the gods have disputes that they cannot solve by their own means they may come to me.
I sear, I shine, I enlighten. I am the chaser-away of darkness. I am coldbane and bonefire. I take as my realm the hot light that bathes and burns the Universe that we will create. I am the Solar, and I am awake.
So second or third, somewhere down the line, something of a quite contrary nature clambered out of the Egg, a spritely little thing, and she was not like the Solar and she was not like the Eternal, no, but she was like them, too.
And she grinned and she fluttered in the emptiness, she twirled and twisted around the heat and the light, and she said, This is neat and this is fun, and just think, just imagine, how much more fun there is to come!
I am Cable, and I am the imagination of the universe.
"We are the third and thus we are three."
"Dream. I am Codail."
"Nightmare. I am Tromlu.
"Prophecy. I am Faistine."
Call us The Taibreamh.
"I am swelling. I am spreading. I am rushing. I am flowing. I am Svedre."
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Strong. Invisible. Playful. Fatal.
I am Rashiid.
But oh, oh no! That is not her fault, and it is not her problem, and if they're oversleeping, well, yeah!
They'll need something nice to wake up to! Something shiny, something thought-provoking! Something pretty and glamorous and --
Glamour! Cable likes that word. Cable stows it away in a safe place, away where nobody else can find it, and moves on.
Something pretty and glamorous and magnificent, something worthy of the gods!
And so Cable goes to her twin brother, 'cause that's the truth, yes, that we are twins? All us children born from the same egg!
So Cable goes to her twin brother, Solar, and although she means no foul she stakes no claim and asks for nothing, just picks at him little bit by little bit, flinging bits of his magnificent glow into the void.
When she is done, Solar is much smaller, and likely he is furious at his sister, but she says to him, Solar, look upon what we have done, you and I together, we have made a thing of beauty, we have made a glamorous thing, and all the gods from now until forever will look upon your infinite glow and they will smile.
And Cable herself smiles to her brother, and she says, I like them and they are like you, but they are not you, and I will call them stars.
Tara'lar was that nothingness, the eternal dark and the night, and just as soon as there was an infinite glow, he begat an even more infinite darkness to fill the space, a different kind of beauty born from the contrast.
And he turned to Cable. And he spoke.
"You will have your stars, sister Cable. They will burn brightly and they will burn hot and they will burn for age upon age. My rage at your transgression will feed them and they will grow, and they will warm the space around them. My anger at my lessening will feed them and they will grow further, and they will begin to bake everything around them."
Solar looked out at the field of stars -- bits of him separated from himself and scattered throughout Tara'lar's infinite darkness. And he spoke again.
"Know this, Cable. Eventually they will return to me and all will be as it once was -- as it was meant to be, and creation will scream with my light. Through your meddling you have begun the ending of things. So say I -- Solar, the First under Eternal, Shadowscorcher, Frostbane, the Severed Ender."
He paused for a moment and regarded the stars again.
"Still. They are rather beautiful aren't they?"
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"I am Daevak, Ruler of the Host, Collector of Things, Master of the Departed, King of the Servants. I am the Gatherer of Souls, I am the Harvest. War is my shield, Violence is my sword, Strength is my watchword. Bring to me the endings of your creations, the fragments of what you hath brought."
He laughed and laughed....
The Dreaming Lord's shape shifted in the infinite darkness, taking a more defined form. The Dreamer padded softly on four legs, sniffing for the currents of Svedre that ran the expanse of the universe. Codail began to run the currents. He passed his siblings at the egg shell and moved onward into the infant universe they had been born into. Stars exploded into violently into birth around him as Solar's power continued to wax and wane. The power of Cable was still heavy in the air, and the Dreamer took this inspiration and began to sing.
At first, his voice was the only one that echoed in the heavens. His words were primeval and his voice was soon joined by the other two. They sang in usion, voices blending together to the point that there was only one. This new voice echoed loudest of all. It sang to their mother, the Celestial Bird, in reverence and love. It's words spoke of a new world. A place for the infinite potential of life, an egg with the near limitless potential for life. Life begat life. The Dreaming Lord's song was to spread the gift of the Celestial Bird.
The song called forth the dreams of Codail and breathed life into them. What came out was the new world sung about in song. It flowed the eternal currents of Svedre, even as his water washed over the planet to give it life. The stars of Solar warmed it, espcially one, which it found itself instinctly drawn to, despite the promise of destruction. The muse Cable's theft had been the inspiration, while Tara'lar's infinite darkness was where the world rested. Rashiid's winds swept upon the world from the breath of The Dreaming Lord. And Daevak had been given a battlefield.
The world had been called.
The Dreaming Lord slept.
And then Solar felt it. Previously, the waves of heat and light that coursed through the infinite darkness had been uninterrupted. That was no longer the case. There was a place that was void. It was absorbing heat and deflecting light. An imperfection in the silken heatweave of creation.
And he went to it, and he looked, and he saw.
Woven from the song of the Three-as-one was a pebble in space. A mote in the eye of the Eternal. A World. The concept and the meaning came into Solar's mind fully-formed. A new strain of music. A place to warm.
The Solar turned his mind to the star nearest the planet. He reached out and he touched it and he made it strong and he made it bright.
The star heated the newly-formed planet. The planet would grew warm, and warmer still. It would not be a cold planet. Even at the poles, winter would be short. Nearer the equator the nights would be warm and the days very hot.
The planet swung endlessly around its star, and Solar watched it go. It was a good planet, and the Solar was well pleased.
There it is. A little lump of... something. This is disgusting, what is it? Svedre cringed, it's mere existance is upsetting. It was moving around a star in a circle. Svedre hated circles. A beautiful spiral would be much nicer, but then it would either crash into it's star, disturbing the overal tide of space, or worse yet, break free. It might float off to where Svedre couldn't reach it. Argh, this is terrifying, why did this little THING have to ruin everything??
I suppose something could be done to remedy this. As much as every speck of Svedre's being screamed and cringed at the idea, focus was drawn in on this lump. It was hard and hot. Disgusting. Svedre pushed out a little of his very essense towards the planet and so the surface softened with moisture. There. That is a start. It's less of an abomination already! A bit of time and this little monstrosity might be tolerable.
But still, everything else was wrong. This would take even more time to remedy.
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So as he swept over the world, bringing with him the air all mortals must breathe, the winds of the north and the south and the east and the west, the whitest of clouds and the bluest of skies, he could not help but bring his anger at being slighted as well. And it was in the dark clouds that he placed his wrath. So while the world may enjoy its bright skies and playful winds, it would always fear the dark clouds which showered the world with destructive bolts.
"Well," Rashiid thought, "I certainly won't be forgotten again."
Svedre felt as if he was being lifted up. Up? That will take some getting used to. What's this now?
This part of Svedre struggled, and the newly formed clouds began to drift. This flowing was felt all around, and even the part that remained soaked into the ground felt a rushing over the surface.
Hmmm... That's nice.
Svedre was drawn in by this feeling and small pools began to form on this surface. This tiny little thing might hold some interest afterall.
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The figure turned her attention to the Egg that had birthed her, and with a dramatic gesture, several pieces of it dissolved into nothingness. A cackle full of menace escaped from her, and she thrust her essence in all directions. Several of Solar's stars were unfortunate enough to be in the path of her diffusion, and they perished instantly, unable even to return their light to Solar's essence.
The newcomer's essence halted its spread, and coalesced back into a central source, and she reveled in the destruction she had caused. Her mirth was short-lived however, and finally, she spoke.
"Too easy. Too simple. I have the power to obliterate all that you have created, and yet..."
Once again, she began cackling. "It would amuse me to play by your rules. Come against me, and despair, for I am Vizana, and my very essence is annihilation!"
This could not be allowed to continue.
Solar sneezed, and something new was born into the Universe.
"Come, Godling. Any of Us could instantly end all of this. We are what We are, and it is but dust, mere entertainment. Channel your energies elsewhere as you will, but I warn you -- do not again attack My essence without cause."
As Solar spoke, the cloud that he had ejected from himself grew and changed and glowed -- eventually it became obvious that there were specks of light in it. They were tiny, but they were growing.
Solar regarded the nebulous star-factory cradled in the darkness. In time, it would replace those which had been lost, and more. They would glow and grow and eventually Return to Him, and all would be as it had been at the beginning.
Once again, she gathered herself, and her essence shot towards Solar's new creation. But as it traveled, its progress became slower and slower, and Vizana re-formed some distance away from her target. Her essence flickered, and her exhaustion was apparent to all who saw her.
"This is not over, brother," she snarled. "My strength will soon return, and this grudge will be borne for millenia."
Vizana fled the site of her humiliation, and retreated deep within the bowels of the new world that was being shaped by her siblings.
From the fragments of the shell he took a piece and lofted it above the new thing that was made. He took a piece from the new thing that was made and mashed the two pieces together, striking it with a mighty blow. The small fragment, cracked and splintered, rough and crude began to circle the new thing that was made. This, he thought, this is the home of the harvest.
"Brothers and sisters, here lies Aesho, the land of those worthy."
This was his kingdom, and he smiled. It was rough but strong, barren but challenging. It was a place of strength. He laid along the jagged ground and gazed at his brother's work...
So she went to her brother Solar (because although he did not agree with her, she was convinced that he had as much love for the stars as she did), and she told him her thoughts, that she could not imagine why one would want to undo what they had done, there was so much more to be done, and didn't she see that we were all equal, that anything she tried to undo we would just do again?
Cable sighed and floated off again, this time to meet with the Vizana inside of the world. And she floated down and gently smiled and enacted the godly equivalent of laying hand upon shoulder.
She said to Vizana this: You are my sister and I love you dearly, but I don't have patience for your antagonism, and so, I will tell you this; for every dream that you snuff, every hope that you crush, every bit of misery you enact, I will bring a dream to bloom, I will fulfill a hope, and I will grant a joy. You will never succeed, my lovely twin sister, for as long as I am here. I won't let you.
And so, with the godly metaphor of a kiss on the forehead, Cable smiled to her sister and left.
The tiny pools that lay on the surface pulled themselves together as one, and noticing a rather large crater where Daevak had torn away a chunk of land, rolled into its depths.
"Mmm... room to move. Room to flow. Room to grow."
Svedre breathed in deep and the pool shrank into itself slightly. After a short pause came the exhalation, and with it the pool swelled out to fill the crater. Svedre splashed happily at the edges and rolled back and forth across it's great width.
"Yes, this will do quite nicely."
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As he gazed upon the planet, he saw the changes that Svedre and Rashiid and Daevak had wrought. He saw the sweeping winds and terrible storms. He saw the great ocean that reflected and refracted the light so jauntily. He saw the rugged moon and pondered the meaning of worthiness. It was an alien concept. He watched the song of the three-as-one and wondered if it was as they had intended.
Solar watched and thought: It is so plain. But he could not think how to adorn it.
He heard the promising words of his siblings, the threats and the gentle musings but Tara'lar could hear the non-words as well. Floating in the darkness of secrets were fears, rages and hidden joys, all on the edge of non-sound, and hearing them he knew it was time.
Pillaging a part of the shell, Tara'lar began to weave, the shell disappearing as it flowed between his hands. Thus his own creation had begun to form. A place of secrets and darkness to exist as part of the orb. For he knew what was to come for the orb. Their universe had whispered its greatest secret to Tara'lar: Life.
Dust and clods of earth are fragile. They cannot stand the full force or fury of the gods. In order that creation not be undone by the divine quarrels which come and go with time, the Eternal deemed it necessary to create a place of meeting, a neutral realm where the gods could settle their disputes and so avoid the total destruction of the fragile planet they had created.
Any material of divine hand would be as vulnerable to destruction as the little planet on which the deities worked. That which existed before the gods, though - unless tampered with, this could survive as long as they, through time unmeasured until all other things came to a halt. With this in mind, the Eternal gathered up what remained of the fragments of the Celestial Egg. The greatest of these, the concave shard which made up the base of the Egg, he set motionless in the void. Around this, the many smaller shards of the shell - splintered by the exploding force of the birth of the deities - he set in a ring, distant from the central fragment yet closely packed together. These he set in motion, so that they spun silently through space about the great central bowl.
This place was the Cradle - located in the gods' birthplace and from the material from which they were born. Here any god could meet, and here they could build whatever homes or constructions they wish, should they so choose - it was their playground. Yet no mortal will ever set foot on the central fragment, for as long as the shards spin. It is for the gods alone.
The others don't understand the way things are supposed to be, that has become clear already. As sickening as the thought was it had become obvious that the perfect existance Svedre desired simply wasn't going to be possible whilst his brothers and sisters were mucking around. Svedre couldn't ignore them but she wasn't going to go out of her way to listen to them. Of all of them, Rashiid and Tara'lar might understand, but explaining things is just so tiresome.
"No, I think I'll be fine over here for now."
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For a shadowy seed was born... a seed which grew into a creature that had hardly form nor shape, that constantly grew and changed with the gentle and steady decay that constructed its being.
Thoughts, too, passed into the void... and a mind, a consciousness became to form in this entropic and incorporeal ether... it coalesced, and began to think thoughts of its own.
I am I awake? it thought, drifting through the void, it's presence feeling the resonance of entropy ever building it.
Perhaps I have a name... do I? No, I have only those that have been forgotten... no form to truly call my own, for I am made of that which was lost...
No, but I must... for I can think that I might.
Time passed and the thing became more aware of itself... becan to realize that it was awake, that it thrived.
I am the forgotten, the lost, and all which was thought destroyed... I am that which is made of the wasted energy of those who are and will be erased from the vain minds of those to come... yet I am still here.
Time passed and the tiny thing grew as time passed... and it found more thoughts gathering unto it.
I am the un-remembered, the un-existing, the un-energy...
I am Entropos.
In the corner of his mind, the Solar noticed something spun out of the shards of Eternity and a new word entered his mind. Home. An interesting concept. His mind centered itself on one of the tiny shards spinning around the cradle, and he took it into himself. He set his mark upon it and it changed. It would be his place of rest and contemplation. In it he built a picture of himself. Billions of tiny pinpricks of light sprang into being. The stars themselves. The pieces of him scattered throughout the void were mapped in that place. His star factory. The pebble-in-space. A tiny copy of the universe. Infinity balanced on a piece of celestial shell.
As Solar burned and was sundered, her heat and fire that dissipated gathered unto Entropos.
As Cable ever though and imagined and dreamed, her fleeting thoughts that passed out of her consciousness were absorbed too, by Entropos.
As Visana attempted to annihilate with a very touch, that which was obliterated became one with Entropos.
As did the crashing of the tides of Svedre, the howling winds of Rashiid, the dissipating thunder of Daevak's roar, and the song of the Dreaming Lord after all had faded, making room for more.
No, nothing is wasted, thought Entropos... no, all persists in me, though there be nothing left that another may sense.
Entropos grew, and his mind became more ponderous, his form more concrete.
And yet... and yet... always his attention was drawn back to the tiny pebble-in-space. The Svedre and Rashiid-wrapped rock that seemed, somehow, to be more important than everything else that the Gods had made.
He returned to it, and looked. It was so still. Bare rocks, empty air, sterile water. Nothing moved. Nothing saw. Nothing... strived.
And so, Solar reached out, and dripped his searing sweat onto the rocks of the world. And he created the seventeen Sar, who were the Eldest Under the Gods. Giant crystaline spheres, they spun through the air, dancing like flames. Capturing the heat and the light of the day and projecting it as they chose, they would reflect the glory of the Solar across the globe. They would travel the pebble and act as they chose. Free will. The Solar thought that Cable might approve.
As the Sar moved out across the world, the Solar raised his voice. "My Kin, my Kin, Hearken. I have created something new in the Universe. The Sar are my creatures. They reflect my glory, and they have minds of a sort. I ask that you not douse them or snuff them out without reason. They are the seventeen Sar, and they are my children, and there will never be more. Come now, if you Will, and see what I have wrought."
The sphere was now imbued with Tara'lar's image, though an almost audible worry resounded as Tara'lar finished wrapping, the sphere having taken on a sullen countenance. Ak'tal, the Place of Secrets, tugged at the light of the orb, drawing bits of it into the darkness and creating a high-pitched hum from the newly created Sar, that rumbled the sphere. The darkness shuddered.
"Hhhh... hhh... hhh... looks like I was a little late. Oh well. Let me observe what by siblings have wrought in my absence."
Gomac flew across the void, past thousands of glorious sparkling motes, undiminished in beauty by their small size. He landed on the Cradle and marvelled at the dizzying dance of the shards, and what the shard itself had become. A flickering light on one of the shards caught his attention, and he saw the miniature universe of Solar. If the others are capable of such grand craftsmanship, mused Gomac, surely I could also take up such a task?
"If I am to become one of the sides in this endeavour, I must embody a need."
Ascending from the cradle, leaving behind small wakes of energy from his incomplete form that warped and terraformed parts of the Cradle into soil, stone and ore, he noticed that the other gods were paying an awful lot of attention to a small pebble, spiralling around what he assumed was another of Solar's creations. He decided to investigate.
What he beheld was of great interest to him. Svedre and Rashiid whirled and flowed across the surface, while Sar- that was what he had heard Cable call them- hummed and spun in an erratic dance. Tara'lar's insinuated darkness was soaking the planet.
"What could I possibly contribute to such a place?" Gomac mused, then a problem struck him.
The orbits were all wrong. The pebble was only facing the sun on one side, and because it was hanging in space it would surely be drawn into the sun, just as the moon would be drawn into it soon, if they weren't sunconsciously held there by the will of the gods. So Gomac thought. With such oversights and unforeseen problems, someone was going to have to maintain stability.
Alighting on the planet, he struck it with a deal of force. The crust cracked and split neatly, creating eight plates. His first stage completed, Gomac burrowed into the planet, spreading and transmuting soils, stones and ores, reaching it's cold core.
It would need heat. With heat and force, he calculated, he could take the burden of maintaining its position in space away from the gods and into the laws of nature he had observed. Taking inspiration from Cable and Solar's antics, he focused his leftover immaterial energy into heating the core of the planet. It boiled and boiled and boiled until he had created a baking core to keep the planet going.
Next, he emerged from the crust again, once more between the plates. This movement rocked the plates and threatened to disrupt the flow of Svedre's works. Quickly, he stabilized them. They would move still, but very slowly, using the currents he had made in the mantle while journeying through it.
Heaving off the planet, he spun it and gave it momentum, as well as extending some force to Aesho. The two precious celestial entities would twirl around the sun in a neverending dance, without need for the other gods to continue exerting their will upon them. He noted that the light of the world and the shadow where Tara'lar's shadow was strongest were swirling across the surface, so that each was equally dominant in all areas of the pebble in the long run. Contemplating the effects he had had upon the planet during his visitation, Gomac mused and, after a time, declared to his siblings:
"I am Gomac. I will ensure that this majestic creation is strong and stable, and as such I lay claim to the domains of Clarity of thought, the Earth and its many forms, and... and..." He let out a yawn, spurting out clouds of dust and matter that formed nebulas in the far reaches of the void. "...and Rest, for the strengthening and healing that shall come with it. Now I must retire briefly..."
Departing the pebble, he drew one of his nebulas close, as well as a tiny shard of the Egg. Swirling and combining the two, he compressed them into an orb roughly the size of Solar's observatory, but with a greenish hue. The surface was coated in a green stone, over a medley of ores and minerals. Setting it into motion around the Cradle, he crafted a home on its surface.
He would call this domain Holis, and he would rest and meditate on its surface, providing counsel to those who asked. The gods were proud and stubborn, he reflected, and so maybe... maybe he should create someone capable of sharing his contemplative gifts. He would think about it for now. Gomac laid back on the surface of his beloved Holis, and gazed at the pebble in the distance, so insignificant but so majestic. Yes, he would think about it.
"What is this thing that rouses me from my slumber?"
Primal looked at the Sar and was mystified by their freewill.
"What a good thing this is, a thing with the ability to think like a god. I should make something too, something that can create and change and grow. In fact, I shall create many of them with different shapes and abilities so they may interact and in doing so can cause each other to change."
Primal exerted his will on that spinning rock and caused many creatures to spring forth of different sizes and shapes.
"I shall call these animals, and all though they may not have the same force of will as the Sar they shall spread all across this rock and be forever changing and adapting, or they will die to those who do."
"My work is not done though, something seems to be missing. Of course! Why should only my animals be able to change, spread, and interact?"
Primal once again called forth something new, but these creations didn't seem to move or have much thought at all.
"I shall call these plants, they will provide a living place and food to creatures who choose to take it from them. The plants themselves will get their strength from the land that supports them, they shall draw their power from what Gomac has granted this planet."
Primal looked down on his work and he was pleased.
His siblings gathered themselves about a rather dull looking rock. A perfect place to begin his work. Always just out of his siblings’ sight, he traveled to the rock to get a closer look.
Upon seeing Primal’s creations, he was intrigued. Their actions were not directly controlled. Still, they were limited in their behavior. These creatures only took action when the need arised. They did not take pleasure in their actions. His creations must not be so dull. Hidden from view, they would hunt, one would never know when they would strike. Also, they wouldn't just hunt for survival. His creations would realize the joy of eliminating their prey. Discreetly, he spread his designs throughout the planet.
This was interesting. He projected his thoughts onto the surface of the planet to watch more closely.
Upon arrival, he noted a startling variety of creatures. Hundreds-thousands- perhaps millions of creatures, animal and plant, large and small, all competing and living, changing, breeding.
"Hmm. Maybe I should take a shot at this."
Borrowing a few specimens of a small lizardlike creature, he brought them back to Holis. There, he took some of the Jade from his mesa, and used his power to combine the two. What stood before him was a lizardlike creature maybe 1 1/2 meters in height, seemingly formed of grey and green rock. Its skin was a pattern of Hard, rocky scales, and it had a semi-bipedal gait. Gomec was pleased with this transformation, but did not feel that this was the one to share his appreciation and understanding of the universe with.
Well, not the understanding, anyway. He looked at his jade lizards, and smiled.
"Your consciousness is not what I require in acolytes of wisdom, but I shall give you another gift instead. This universe is truly a thing of wonder and beauty, and you shall be aware of this. You will hold each new phenomenon in awe and investigate it with joy. With such insatiable curiousity will come great danger, so you shall be incredibly sturdy and long-lived. It will take a lot of effort to eliminate you, my Rotac." He then waved his hand over the creatures, and they barked and chased their ponderous tails, like giant pups.
Two Rotac he kept on Holis, and terraformed parts of the sanctuary so that it would be better suited to support life. His creations would subsist on rocks and minerals, and while they would be long-lived, they would not bear many young. The rest he returned to the planet, to breed and prosper.
With his new companions, Gomac sat on the Jade Mesa once more and gazed across at the tiny dot in the void, and watched his creations live.
Contained energy. Potential energy. He watched a Sar, startled by some creeping lizard thing, incinerate a few square miles of forest. Potential energy could be released in pleasing ways, it seemed. This "life" might have possibilities after all.
A few microseconds later, a new sort of plant began to grow on the pebble. It was fibrous, quick-growing, and extremely flammable. He called it Wickwood and encouraged it to grow wherever it could. If the Solar had possessed a mouth, he would have smiled.
Now, he thought. Where had those salamanders gone? He had big plans for those salamanders.
So he selected the most beautiful of the birds, and made them divine. Their feathers were so white they glowed. Their wingspan was the length of the tallest tree. And he told them, "You are the Veeth, and you are my flock. You shall fly with divine grace, and of all living creatures only you shall be unscathed by my destructive powers. You shall fly through the storms and twisters as if they were a gentle breeze, and my lightning shall only make you glow brighter. You are loved and protected, and any who harm you shall feel my wrath. Now fly across the planet, and move with a pride only the gods have known."
From the darkness emerged a new god. He... rather it, was a mass of spinning gears and spockets, an infinite number of crankshafts and pistons, a collosus formed out of machines belching black smoke and steam. This was Molior, the grim craftsman.
And with a gigantic mechanical hand he placed a single gleaming gear into the void. And with a low booming voice that sounded like the grinding of a thousand gears in unison (and probably was):
"This, this is the first. The first of many. The first of ORDER"
And as he spoke, the gear grew, like a plant. And where there was one now there were 2, and then three. Soon there were more than one could easily count, along with a multitude of other mechanical parts that grew along with them. And then, all in unison they began turning, powered by some unseen arcane source. The machine had come to life. A mechanical sphere hanging in the void.
"ORDER has come, and it shall be known to all as "Prothus""
Molior then fell silent, with only the endless sound of gears and machines to indicate that he was still very much active.
"No, not listning, nothing's happening."
But the annoyance festered and grew within Svedre as more disturbances were brought into being. Alongside this frustration grew a being deep within his oceans...
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