- The Great Fish lays the Divine Caviar and dies.
- The first gods hatch and pick their parts of the fish.
- Sander, god of Light, causes a scale on the belly of the fish to shine and cast forth light across all of reality.
- Gogrol, god of death and magic, quarrels with the other gods over his share of the fish and is pronounced god of greed, in addition to his other domains.
- Salt, god of elemental earth, sets one scale of the fish in the midst of the void, forming the whole of the material earth (it’s a really big fish).
- Orik, god of energy, creates heat and fire out of light, and instils destructive force in future natural elements (water, air, etc).
- The star light shines over the Scale, but it does not reach the deepest trenches and pits.
- Rose, god of life, first experiments with living creatures, creating fish in the image of the Great Fish; they all flop around and die due to lack of water.
- Gorgrol opens magic to the world, allowing it to be harnessed, with difficulty, by any who so choose, even if in only small ways. He seals off death (oblivion) from the world, and presents the personal death of each god to them, wrapped in magic, so that they may be mortal or immortal at their choice.
- Sage, god of contradictions and puzzles, declares that, though the layout of the world may be known, it cannot be recorded in a physical medium.
- Aileron, goddess of air, names the area between the Earth and the Beyond the ‘Sky’.
- Cosmic, god of speech, creates sound.
- Salt shifts the Scale away from the dead fish.
- Throngrarth, god of water and war, rains an ocean into the Scale.
- Salt shapes a huge mountain in the centre of the Scale and tears great mounds out of the sea to the north. He leaves the rest of the Scale untouched in natural roughness.
- Salt proclaims the inside of the Scale, below the seas, his own domain, and that none may pass within without his knowledge or permission.
- Spi, god of shadows, spreads the first night over the sky and the first darkness over the land. Only small pinpricks of the Light shine through,
- Salt requests the spark of life from Rose, so that he may create beings in his own image within his lair.
- Pil, god of treachery steals tiny parts of other god’s domains, in secret, and attempts to turn them against one another.
- Rose creates grass.
- Rose creates a wide variety of non-sentient creatures: “Fish with legs and lungs to breathe air! Fish with great fins, that they may soar amongst the skies! Great hunting fish with many teeth and even greater fish that feed on the bounty of green!â€.
- As a gift to Salt, Rose gives any creations the earth god may create the ability to feed from darkness as a plant does from light, but with the constraint that light will burn these creatures.
- Throngrarth wishes aggression and battle upon living things.
- Seebor blights a fish with plague.
- Scooter curses the fish, slowing it from reaching its companions.
- Angry, Seebor blights another fish, in the midst of its companions, spreading disease.
- Rank, god of balance, proclaims that for each fish diseased, there will be another immune, and these will feed upon the fallen diseased and be unaffected.
- Rank aids Sander in the creation of the Sun, with the provision that one half of the Scale shall be in darkness while the other is in light. He sets the scale in motion so that it rotates.
- Scooter gives some sticks and string to the newly hatched Zil, god of craftsmanship, who makes them into a tree (a weeping willow) and plants it.
- Anonymous, god of the afterlife, notices many fish dying. Rank urges the fish to go forth and multiply, until soon they filled every river and ocean.
- Salt rages at Rose for the limitations on his gift, causing the first earthquake. He then fills the tunnels of the labyrinth he has created beneath the earth with creatures that “have no relation to fish, but are coated with armour like steel above their flesh. Some walk on two legs; others four; a few truly monstrous specimens within the Great Scale walk on evenly eighty-two legs.
But these are not his masterpieces; within the Great Mountain, where Salt has embedded a monstrous throne, he raises a great race of creatures and gifts them as a race with his own divine spark; these are towering beings, coated much like Salt's other children in steely shells.â€
- Salt creates a vaguely reptilian colossus out of rock; the first godly avatar, which he then inhabits.
- Rank steals the shadow of Salt’s avatar and, taking materials from air, water, light, darkness and all other things in the world, creates an avatar of order for himself. He places a curse on all avatars of the gods, so that any harm experienced by one is felt by all the others.
- Rose hides the progenitors of the three to-be-Awakened races in distant places on the land, where they will rest until the time of Awakening when they shall rise up and make themselves known in the world. He also creates “Great six-limbed herd-beasts with the strength to fell the greatest trees with their charges; speedy six-limbed predators that work together to bring down animals many times their size; Smaller, faster herd animals that feed on the open plain; and their predators, the fastest animal, that uses its four hind limbs to propel itself at enormous speed; great herds of smaller, more agile climbers that inhabit the mountain slopes and graze the hardiest of plants that live there; the lone stalking predators that hide in the shadows and move silently to take individuals from the midst of the herds; and much else besides that is smaller and less significant to the casual observer, but which help make everything else work, for such is the Way of Life.â€
- Rose rebukes Salt for his unappreciative reaction to Rose’s gift.
- Throngrarth creates his chosen race, “the most fearsome beings in the great oceans. They have 6 arms and yet no legs, a long tail ending with a fin, a head that ends with a snout and a massive fin betwixt the eyes, they have teeth as sharp as any stone, and they will kill any intruders into their territory, but as for now they will not attack with haste and without reason. However these are not beings of Earth or Life, they are beings of water and thus require it to survive. They must return to the water every so often or else they will perish.†They have not yet received the spark of life from Rose and are thus animated only by Throngrarth’s will.
- Throngrarth creates his avatar, that has “the head of my chosen race, and a beard made of flowing water, my back will be as rough as the ocean floor, complete with the colorful rock that is littered about it. I will have no tail however and will have but two limbs and two legs. I will stand 5 heads over any of my race.â€
- Salt, in anger, fights with the avatar of order for as long as he can until his flesh is too ripped by his own attacks to continue, and he gives up.
- Salt demands that the Scale and everything within it be his domain to rule over as he sees fit.
- Rank seeks peace with Salt and attempts to calm him.
- Sha’mus, god of sleep, creates his avatar, “no fearsome creature like that of Salt, Lord Under The Mountain. His own avatar stood only seven feet tall, a thin slip of a figure, with skin the colour of bronze and six limbs to match those of Rose's designs. Two legs to walk upon, four arms to grasp the world.
Where this form landed, deep within a lush primordial forest, the land changed. A Dream unfolded around his arrival, forever marking this area as his own. A realm of infinite possibilities, some that defied the very balance of law and order. From there, he walked, exploring the Scale.â€
- Rose informs Shamus that, by coincidence, his avatar closely resembles one of the progenitor races.
- Trenog, god of fate, prophesises that one day the avatar of Salt and that of Rank will become one again, and that the oceans shall rise and fall in testament to that change.
- Scooter modifies some of Rose’s creations to be “a flock of new creatures. They somewhat resemble the smaller herd creatures, except stronger, although not quite that of the largest beasts. They have the sharp eyes and sharper fangs of the predators, although can also be seen nibbling at plant growth. Their smooth, snake-like skin can be seen with a variety of colourings and markings.†He names these swiftpads, and proclaims them the fastest creatures in the world. He names one Fleetfoot, slows its age, and uses it as his personal steed, the “king of all swiftpadsâ€.
- Spi changes a number of Rose’s creatures: “the creatures’ eyes had receded into a single vestigial eye like a jewel glimmering at the end of a long snout, a mouth full of sharp teeth. Their flesh was now white and smooth, their limbs muscular yet dexterous and a large tail sprouted from the creatures rumps. Where there was a third set of limbs now was an atrophied set of arms extending behind the back each ending in a spike.
The creatures looked for the upon the realm their lord had given unto them. A massive underground realm sprawled out before them. Their lord had set down many other creatures and plants here, and twisted their shapes to suit this new subterranean land.â€
- Salt’s steely creatures eat Spi’s shadow creatures wherever they encounter them. Spi’s creatures fight back in bloody conflict.
- Zil grows tired of his unliving “tree†and rips it down, creating in its place a being “tall as the forest trees, with four arms and two legs. Its body carved and shaped into a thing of beauty and might. The God took to the forest to build brothers for his child, ripping down trees and building new bodies, each as grand as the last.
"You are the Craftsmen," said Zil. "So have I named you. Now go! And Build! Carve your land into a thing of beauty, and when the others see it, they will be inspired. And while they will honour my name by imitating you, none shall surpass your expertise." These, too, have not yet received the spark of life from Rose, and are therefore animate through Zil’s will alone.
- Rank lays entropy upon the Craftsmen’s creations, so that they will never finish their task, but nor will they want for things to do. He gives Spi’s shadow creatures a row of luminescent scales across their forehead, which may be caused to flash with strong light, blinding and burning Salt’s creations. Spi is not overly appreciative.
- Pil corrupts members of each race to his service.
- Horshuu, god of solitude and forgetfulness, sought an audience with Salt, Lord Under the Mountain, and pleaded for a remote subterranean place where he may be separate from the din of the activity of the world. In return, he promised that Salt would never forget a grudge, and thus be able to have his revenge on his detractors long after they themselves had forgotten the offence. Salt agreed.
- Soup creates ten creatures from the Divine Meat of the Fish, but they have no skin. He seeks Zil to create skin for them.
- Rose makes more creatures: “creatures held aloft on for wide fins shall take to the skies and live amongst the clouds. Some kinds shall hunt the small things on the ground and in the sea, others shall feed in the air from the tiniest flying things that help everything along.
And finally, the greatest flying beasts of them all will take to the air with the awakening, for I have decreed that there shall be a fourth intelligent race, one like no other, two great air-fins to lift them, great jaws of steely teeth to feed them and mighty scorching breath to defend them.†These last are dragons, and Rose creates his avatar as one of them.
- Rank creates insects to aid in the cycle of life.
- Gorgrol makes a spiritual hole in each mortal creature, such that when they grow too old their bodies will no longer hold their souls, which will spill out and run down to the afterworld.
- Sha’mus, in response to Salt’s earthquakes, seeks an audience with the latter god and tells him to sleep, lest he ruin the works of the gods.
- Zil also seeks audience with Salt, and offers to teach Salt’s children craftsmanship in exchange for stone and metals of the earth for his children to build with. Salt reacts violently, and reiterates his demand that none pass into his realm without his permission. Nonetheless, he allows Zil to craft the Scale, though with dire threats. He just glares at Sha’mus.
Wandering about on the surface of the Scale, Soup was beginning to get annoyed.
"You'd expect a Craftsman god to be creating something. I wonder where he could be..."
Having searched the surface of the Scale, he knew of only one other place Zil could be. He descended into the tunnels below the surface, and hoped upon hopes that Salt would not be angry for his intrusion.
((I think my arrival has been skipped on the Summary.))
His words are sharp and cold, even as he falters slightly, sharing the pain inflicted upon Zil. Earth, rage, hatred..and now madness? How much more power would Salt gain in his childish rage?
Sha'mus leaves as easily as he came, unfettered by the hordes of the deep dark. Arriving upon the light blessed surface of the Scale, he saught out the reflection of Salt's tyrannical avatar, the Avatar of Order.
"Here me, cousin Rankenphile..the madness of Salt continues and the very Scale we walk on is in danger. And more so, that mad tyrant gains equally mad allies. The balance must be maintained, no?"
An avatar was but a vessel, and it meant little to him. What did a vessel mean to him compared to the Right to craft Stone? A wide smile spread across Zil's featureless face.
"Grand. Do not worry, Salt. The Scale will be shaped into a place worthy to be walked upon by the Gods, and more than enough for the Mortals to Come to live upon. All that I will do will bring naught but honor to your name, for a craftsmen is nothing without the proper materials."
And so, Zil set to the land of the Scale, first turning to the stone to build more Children. He toiled for a time, finally ending with a better Craftsmen, still having four arms and two legs, but this made of stone, and it's form even grander than before.
When his work was done, he gathered the craftsmen, who lived off his divinity. The wood Craftsmen he sent to the forest, moving the trees to create natural trails and wonderful rock formations. The Gravel Craftsmen he sent to about the lands to carve intricate streams, make springs and shape waterfalls. The Iron Craftsmen were sent to the mountains and caverns to seed the earth with precious metals and stones of grand beauty, expanding the veins and. And finally, the stone Craftsmen would take to the coarse land, ensuring a flat place for the progenitor races to live upon... And yet, it was too slow, he would need grander tools to carve the land into something worthy of the coming life.
But wait. Soup needed Skin? "Tell me, Soup, what exactly are you looking for for your beings body sheathes?"
The thought-axioms of pure rationality have come to an inevitable conclusion: if a storm is coming, then logical, emotionless thought must ally against random madness. Thorpe extends an offer of alliance to Rankenphile, and carefully prepares his parabolic knights and geo-infantry for a possible calamity.
I think we really need a wiki on the history that we are creating, along the same organization as any good holy book (ie. section A subsection
As Trenog gazed from the realm of the Godlings, he did map out the whole of creation yet made within his mind, and he found himself troubled.
"In all that will be, there is little place for my gifts, for everything is written. But what is a first without a second? I will meditate now on this."
Moments did pass, and no sooner did he close his eyes, Trenog did open them in realization, for the entirity of existance was but a moment to him, and he spoke with his minds eye.
"Nearsighted I have been since now. Before I could not see beyond the end, but now I have seen a glimmer of a much larger picture. Existance is not merely a single point, nor is it a single line. It is much more."
And with that Trenog did shape himself to realize his dream. Upon the completed transformation, a soft rumble could be felt to all of the creations that would be. This rumble would called The Resonance, and would remind all that the end of life does not mark the end of purpose, as Trenog did discover anew.
When Trenog opened his eyes once more, instead of two, there were ten. His mind's eye then open as he spoke.
"I can now see clearly."
Pouring from eight of his eyes came great energies that were born from places elsewhere. These energies took shape in the clouds that bore the flying beasts and captured five of the creatures. Split were the beasts from their forms and joined together was their flesh. Life was then willed by the mass of energy and flesh, and a new creature took shape.
The wings that once bore the beasts of the skies were gone and replaced by enormous lengths of bone, muscle, and flesh that left the center of the creature. From these it would find flight, for its great heart of energy bore it aloft, and these new wings would spread the beating energy to create lift. Long and massive its body was shaped, with a pronounced and short head, and a long and tapering tail. Two pair of four eyes were placed on its head to represent the source of its birth, and through these eyes it did see as Trenog did in those eyes. This was the Avatar of Trenog, the Dragon God.
(( Salt's avatar was meant to be mostly draconic (although the un-winged variety, since it lives underground), and as a result, the Anti-Salt shares the same sort of form. ))
(( Salt's avatar was meant to be mostly draconic (although the un-winged variety, since it lives underground), and as a result, the Anti-Salt shares the same sort of form. ))
((Who's the first? Mine was meant to be shark-esque.))
((EDIT: Jesus H. Macy that was some fast poasting.))
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UtsanomikoBros before DoesRollin' in the thlayRegistered Userregular
edited October 2006
(Well, I may as well contribute what I can. I'll take dibs on the night sky by altering the stars into constellations and creating a moon. This is assuming Sander accepts my intrusion and SPI doesn't decide to kick my ass for chipping away some of the night)
Among the younger Gods to emerge was Utsanomiko. Lacking any part of the Great Fish to wield a form of creation all His own, He none the less bore the divine will to change and to alter. And in the form of a lance He held out this will and made manifest his power as one of the Great Fish's children. He reached into the night and the points of light strewn adriff within.
With His lance, Utsanomiko stirred the lesser pinpricks and auras, and they were stirred into great waves and spirals like flotsam upon the water. With His lance, Utsanomiko stabbed the greater points of light, and moved them into new places, so that they may be arranged into patterns. These patterns grouped the lights separate from others, in forms not orderly and identical but in distinct constellations, of which some He saw among the Gods and upon the Scale, and some left for others to determine. With each stab every point of light changed in size and in color shone, and thus each became proper stars with distinction of their own.
Finally, low in the southern sky did Utsanomiko place the last star He chose to move, and with a great stab His lance secured its position in the night sky. This was to be the greatest star, a star for the God of the Stars' very own. Yet even with a stab of His lance the star was far from bright, and little did Sander's light shine through it to alter the shadow that was the night across the Scale. And so with the five-pointed head of His lance against the star did Utsanomiko scrape against the night around it, scraping and wearing away the edges of its shadow. Yet even with the scraping of His lance the star was far from bright, bearing now but a marbled halo in the night surrounding itself.
Realizing He could not give more light to this star of His, Utsanomiko called out to Sander and asked for any minor form of light Sander would give to complete this new ordering of the night's lights. And thus given unto Utsanomiko was a light of His own, and this light shone from His lance in reflection of His new power. But this light did not shine bright but pale, a lesser light for a darker side of the sky. And thus Utsanomiko gave this light to his star and all the others, and so in all its entirety did His star, the Southern Light, the Night's Beacon, shine with His pale light across its scraped and marbled face. And so the stars would bring a dull glow to the Scale, and all may look to them to see their way through the night, and all may look to the Southern Light and find their directions, and know they are being guided.
When Utsanomiko sees an event or object He wishes to alter or add his part, he throws His lance, and it streaks across the sky like a star itself.
(Bolded key information, minor edit for clarity that the stars weren't created but rather arranged and magnified)
((People should really stop with the novellas before they even describe what kind of god they are. That's why there's so much confusion about what's going on))
((People should really stop with the novellas before they even describe what kind of god they are. That's why there's so much confusion about what's going on))
Heh, yea, look at the first page.
"I take the fish flesh. I am god of fishy stuff."
Right to the point. At this stage, since we seem to be getting into undergods, I'd probably go with "I go up to God of Cool Stuff. I pledge servitude for my favorite piece of Cool Stuff".
And so the being Ǽther drifted down through the void, his domain. But something troubled him, something did not be long. Something… existed. And then he saw it, the scale. Things had been brought into existence from nothing, by the power of the gods.
He saw it. And he was not pleased. As rank had decreed every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Ǽther was a reaction to the gods desire to build, to the gods desire to create. And therefore his desire to undo was just as strong as all their desires to create put together.
He drifted lazily, inexorably down towards the surface of the scale. With great purpose he floated down, finding a remote location, hopefully far from the god’s eyes where he nestled gently into the surface of the earth. Where he touched the soil, it winked out of existence. His black, angled top still showing forth from the earth, he brooded and waited. And as his ire for the material world around him grew, so did he. Little by little, bit by bit. He would pulse ever so slightly out in rage, and when the pulse was over, he would be just a little bit bigger then before. Over the course of many an hour, he grew from the size of an eye to that of a clenched human fist. And so Ǽther, the nothingness did grow.
Just to be clear. I don’t plan on attempting to undo all of existence really. Or destroy the scale. Parts of it, perhaps. Be the first serious threat to the scale is what I am going for. I fully expect to the gods to rally together (at least into camps to bicker about how to try and stop me) and then destroyed or imprisoned some how. Of course, I don’t plan to return entirely to nothingness either. Like I said, I might blow up into a swirling orb of nothingness. And maybe at certain celestial events or every so hundred years the orbs power will wax and beings of nothingness will spread out and ravage the land. Or perhaps I’ll break free of my container and threaten the world once more and heroes will have to reseal me. Or, heroes might try to spelunk in my voidy depths one day. Basically… I’m trying to set up something nice and old and ancient that will work as a decent plot device for adventuring when the world is one people will adventure in.
(( Salt's avatar was meant to be mostly draconic (although the un-winged variety, since it lives underground), and as a result, the Anti-Salt shares the same sort of form. ))
((I was talking about Rose.))
Well, my avatar is really the product of the energies that passed out of me and the material mass of the dragons Rose created. It is not sentient really, or at least it does not possess a soul. I call it a dragon god out of simplification really since it most represents those kinds of creatures. Rose's avatar is the true dragon god as far as I'm concerned.
Duo, I'm making you god of heat and fire and scratching the star business. Utsan, you're the stars and moon under Sander.
(Works for me, I figured something further should be added to the stars before things get fully underway; the Gods are already doing less creating and more beating eachother over their heads. :P
I didn't see Duo's post untill I had my text drafted up, and I assumed he had been discarded for contradictions and figured I might as well get my part finished and out of the way. If heat is subsequenty added as a property to Sander's light, I'm not including heat with my deity's light, at least not on the moon if nothing else.)
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RankenphilePassersby were amazedby the unusually large amounts of blood.Registered User, Moderatormod
edited October 2006
The Avatar of Order, on behalf of his all-seeing creator Rankenphile, gazed upon the night sky with a glad wonder. There shone newly created stars and an orb of light, dim but providing its own pale glow. Creating shadows in the darkness. The sky itself was twinkling with an ordered fashion of chaos - organized, yet not orderly. And so it pleased the God of Balance and Order.
But so to must the brightly burning sky of day have its own darkness, and so The Avatar of Order waved his hand and gathered the mists of morning into the blue skies and there formed clouds, unpredictable and chaotic in nature but formed together in an orderly fashion. They would provide patches of shadow, of darkness, even during the day time, to be the counter of the light in the dark. So too did he cause the glowing shere in the night sky to wax and to wane, to grow and to shrink, in a cycle of rebirth for eternity. THere would be nights when no light but the stars would glow, and there would be others when all could be seen in the dark.
So should there be Balance, and so should there be Order.
It was then that the Avatar of Order was sought out by his kinship, Shamus. Troubled by the growing unrest and unpredictable rage of Salt, he pleaded for help.
Rankenphile thought long and hard upon this, and did not answer right away. "Our brother Salt is indeed enraged, and chaotic, but it is not my place to put him down. He has the right to his anger, and so shall it feed him and sate him. But your request shall not go unheeded, dear brother."
And then before the Avatar of Order stood the parabolic knights and geo-infantry of Thorpe, pledging their support in what they were certain would be a war of Gods.
"Fear not, young walkers, for all that is undone shall only bring about more opportunity for creation, and all creation shall be wrought with entropy. Nothing can stand forever, for this is the way of all things made manifest. Be ready, but do not seek battle, for there may yet be other ways to counteract the rages of my angered kin."
And then it was time for his gaze to shift once more, to the workings of Ǽther and the uncreation which he had wrought. The Avatar of Order strode to the very brink of Uncreation and gazed upon the Nothing. There he grinned once more, for in the Nothing there stood potential. His Guiding Hand stretched once more across the world, casting a powerful gift to the land. "Wheresoever there shall be Uncreation, there shall be also crafted more Creation, and there shall be Craftsmen to do the shaping, and there shall be Light and Dark to define the forms. And wheresoever there shall be new Creation, there shall also be Uncreation somewhere else in this land. So shall there be Balance, and so too shall there be Order."
As his final act, before he slumbered for a brief age, the Avatar of Order gathered the land and the sea and the wind and the rain, and the Creation and the Uncreation, and the Light and the Shadow, and of it he created an order of beings. On four legs they walked, and with two arms they did carry and form. With two eyes they took in the light, and with two ears they could hear the songs of the wind.
"You shall be my greatest children. You shall roam the land above and below, correcting injustice and chaos wherever you shall find it. You are the Guardians of Balance. You are the Clerics of Order. You shall carry my vision and my hand shall guide you, and you shall have my blessing of might and justice."
At that time the Avatar of Order slept, praying to Rose to give these new creations, these greatest of Rankenphile's sons, the gift of true life, the gift of soul and sentience.
(ooc: okay, kids, I'm off to bed, finally. May I request that you do as I have and bold the "important" parts of your lore, that are the most noteworthy and changing of our world? There is getting to be an awful lot to keep up on, and this would help make skimming this thread quite a bit easier. Great work so far, though. This is getting to be a very exciting and intriguing exercise.)
With a roar that explodes like thunder, Salt rends the earth beneath the Mountain, digs a quiet and safe place for the Little Brother.
"Brother Horshuu," Salt announces, "Within my great halls and within my Scale you shall never come to harm, and I shall never forget the trespasses of my kin." But with a great anger that only the God of Earth can muster, he says: "And never shall I forget what you owe me."
"Oh, I promise that you shall not, Big Brother. I promise you shall not forget any debt nor obligation... and neither shall I."
And with that, Quiet Horshuu descended deep beneath the mountain, where the noise of the world above could not reach him. Only then did he reveal the Forgotten Stone, which continued to grow. And then, in the silence, he heard a voice far too small for his mighty brothers to recognize.
Though the fathoms of rock that surrounded him insulated his own senses, the Stone listened to all in the world that faded, and brought all that was forgotten to itself. And so the Stone grew, and so Horshuu listened, as he would for many, many ages to come.
"In time, Little Stone," Horshuu whispered back, "Over the eons they will all forget... even my ambitious brothers. Their followers will forget their masters. Even the greatest of thoughts and feats will be forgotten and lost. And thus we will live and grow in this dark place."
"But we will mind our promise to Salt... no debt and no obligation, especially ours, may be forgotten by him. He, like the earth he governs, shall bear these marks until the end of all things."
And so Horshuu sat in the quiet and the dark tending the Stone, learning to listen to it's whispers without being consumed by it aura... and relished the dark, the quiet, and the peace of his forgotten place in the Deep Earth.
(( ooc: Perhaps one day the smallest mortal beings of the Scale [if they are particularly devoted to silence and the cleansing of the self] might begin to feel the presence of Horshuu / The Forgotten Stone as he/it whispers beneath the earth, collecting all things lost and forgotten. ))
And so the Ǽther felt Rank’s gaze upon him. And for the first time, he felt fear. For he knew that Rank was crafted forth from the fish itself. While he had come into existence from the absences that had been left. As the shadow can not fight that which casts it, the Nothing knew that he could not deny Rank’s will. And so Rank’s words struck him at the very core.
So shortly had the voids work been underway that it had already been undone. For he knew now that for all he would undo, it would be redone again. Perhaps not redone in the same way, and perhaps not redone in the same shape. The Ǽther took some small solace in this fact. But still, inside he burned with despair and rage. For he knew that his grand work, the return to Nothingness, would never be complete. And so he grew. And grew and grew and grew. And as the ages passed soon he was the size of a basketball, and then that of a desk. The lines of his dodecahedral formed seemed stressed, and through ready to come apart of the seams. His anger subsided slightly, for he knew that soon it would be time to hatch.
OOC: I’m also turning in for the night. Just would like to say that everyone’s doing and awesome job so far. Especially rank and salt. I’d say bolding the important stuff is sheer genius, and I’ll definitely do it from here on out. I cant wait to wake up in the morning and see what has developed.
The Avatar of the Dreamer left the company of Balance and Order and retreated inward, to contemplate the events transpiring. Among the divine politics, creation was also on his mind.
Like his brothers before him, he reached out and plucked out the creatures Lord Rose had breathed life into. The hunters were his choice, the preadators that lurked in shadow and thinned the herds with ferocious cunning and instinct.
He brought the gift of dreams, but also the curse of nightmares, and it was nightmare in which he infused his chosen. Five in all, they were warped by fear, twisted into crueler and more savage versions of themselves. All muscle and claws, with a cunning to match, they perhaps could even take down the winged creatures that Rose claimed as his own, given the right conditions. Jaws that could perhaps even tear through the very earth.
His work was done. Sha'mus hid these monsters within his realm, laying them down to sleep until the need arose to wake them. Within his realm he rested, safe from the turmoil of the Scale.
Faceless Hope flits across the Scale performing its Works. A rock is moved that a seed may grow, a branch is lowered that its fruit may be reached, a stream diverted that dry earth may drink. Little acts and little tasks for the Last Piece.
But there is a word also flitting through the air, a great and terrible word. Battle. The tone of the All changes with each mention, with each snarling act, with each dark thought. How can the siblings quarrel so soon?
Hope takes hope, the little reliefs and sighs of objects and beings that have prospered through its meddling, and decides to use it and attempt an act of creation on a larger scale than rocks and seeds.
Faceless Hope creates a Place, a nebulous space seperate-yet-present to the Scale, a Place where the Gods may meet without trespass and as equals. Where they need not quarrel or fight, but instead talk and and share, communicate and reason. The Place is open to all the Gods that they may gather and takes on a form for each that fits its needs. Some may see it as a mountaintop, others as a deep cave, whatever places them most at ease.
In its travels, Faceless Hope has seen the other Gods from afar and has felt the impact of their wills on their spheres of influence. It is troubled by one missing sphere, one missing force that is quietly, subtly felt by all.
"O siblings, where is Peace?" Faceless Hope calls out from the Place. "Please, let Peace be formed! so that the balance of the Scale, so near to dread battle be kept, so that not all disagreement leads to shattering our Great Works! So that we and that which we represent may prosper together. Let Peace be born here in this Place that it may watch over our moots and aid us in our Great Works!"
((I noticed we didn't have an Olympus/Valhalla/Moe's Tavern yet, nor did we have someone representing Peace. So if a lurker wants to take up the mantle of Peace and join the hippy-dippy Choir Invisible with Hope (and I guess Mercy too, if you want), jump in!))[/i]
Scooter and his steed Fleetfoot crashed through the forest, on the way to nowhere, when something caught his eye. A black rock, like none he'd ever seen before, which seemed to burn away at the earth and plants around it.
"Hmm."
Scooter threw a pebble at it, and was fascinated as it poofed into nothingness. For the next few hours he threw pebbles at the rock and poked it with sticks.
"Heh heh, that's a funny thing. Oh well, I'm bored now. C'mon Fleet, I hear the Craftsmen have been making some new paths to the south, let's check em out."
Alliances forming and tensions rising, Pil cackled gleefully. "Things could not be going better," thought he. "For now I sit and wait but soon will come a grand and great moment.
Pil takes to arriving at this two place of peace. "Happy that I can do anything for hope and peace," states Pil as he enters this meeting place. He wears the shape of a cloaked figure in these parts, half his face covered in shadow half his face obvious to all who look. Of his four arms he walks with two infrontof himself, and always two resting behind his back.
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RankenphilePassersby were amazedby the unusually large amounts of blood.Registered User, Moderatormod
edited October 2006
(ooc: a lack of Peace... interesting. I think having the Three Graces - Mercy, Hope and Peace, would be awesome. If there were to be two others to join, I'd be happy to give them the blessing of the Avatar of Order, and work with them to build the Shrine of Three at which the Clerics of Order would worship.
Also, Robocop, your name/title combination is fucking tits. That is one of my favorite songs.)
((Well, we've got Devryguy on hand for mercy/humanity, so we're 2/3rds of the way there. Just need someone to jump onto the peace-train! Y'know you wanna. Once you get past the patchouli stink and the hairy, hairy armpits, being a kindly god isn't so bad!))
((One of my wife and my's pet rabbits is named Robocop. Once after trimming his nails he got cut. Being a Waits fan, 'robocop is bleeding' was just a hop/skip/jump away!))
Karilmat looked upon the creations of Zil, and was pleased. "Finally, those deserving of my gifts!" He appeared within the forge of these creatures of craft and spoke.
"While you can create, you are all capable of so much more. Take this gift, and do your lord's work."
The first emotions of this world, curiosity and pride, are born.
EDIT: ((So, I've been reading through the thread. Do we have any "people" yet? Other than Zil's people? Just checking since I haven't seen anything about that yet.))
Posts
After all, the best parts of this are the parts that don't follow the sterotypical setting.
- The Great Fish lays the Divine Caviar and dies.
- The first gods hatch and pick their parts of the fish.
- Sander, god of Light, causes a scale on the belly of the fish to shine and cast forth light across all of reality.
- Gogrol, god of death and magic, quarrels with the other gods over his share of the fish and is pronounced god of greed, in addition to his other domains.
- Salt, god of elemental earth, sets one scale of the fish in the midst of the void, forming the whole of the material earth (it’s a really big fish).
- Orik, god of energy, creates heat and fire out of light, and instils destructive force in future natural elements (water, air, etc).
- The star light shines over the Scale, but it does not reach the deepest trenches and pits.
- Rose, god of life, first experiments with living creatures, creating fish in the image of the Great Fish; they all flop around and die due to lack of water.
- Gorgrol opens magic to the world, allowing it to be harnessed, with difficulty, by any who so choose, even if in only small ways. He seals off death (oblivion) from the world, and presents the personal death of each god to them, wrapped in magic, so that they may be mortal or immortal at their choice.
- Sage, god of contradictions and puzzles, declares that, though the layout of the world may be known, it cannot be recorded in a physical medium.
- Aileron, goddess of air, names the area between the Earth and the Beyond the ‘Sky’.
- Cosmic, god of speech, creates sound.
- Salt shifts the Scale away from the dead fish.
- Throngrarth, god of water and war, rains an ocean into the Scale.
- Salt shapes a huge mountain in the centre of the Scale and tears great mounds out of the sea to the north. He leaves the rest of the Scale untouched in natural roughness.
- Salt proclaims the inside of the Scale, below the seas, his own domain, and that none may pass within without his knowledge or permission.
- Spi, god of shadows, spreads the first night over the sky and the first darkness over the land. Only small pinpricks of the Light shine through,
- Salt requests the spark of life from Rose, so that he may create beings in his own image within his lair.
- Pil, god of treachery steals tiny parts of other god’s domains, in secret, and attempts to turn them against one another.
- Rose creates grass.
- Rose creates a wide variety of non-sentient creatures: “Fish with legs and lungs to breathe air! Fish with great fins, that they may soar amongst the skies! Great hunting fish with many teeth and even greater fish that feed on the bounty of green!â€.
- As a gift to Salt, Rose gives any creations the earth god may create the ability to feed from darkness as a plant does from light, but with the constraint that light will burn these creatures.
- Throngrarth wishes aggression and battle upon living things.
- Seebor blights a fish with plague.
- Scooter curses the fish, slowing it from reaching its companions.
- Angry, Seebor blights another fish, in the midst of its companions, spreading disease.
- Rank, god of balance, proclaims that for each fish diseased, there will be another immune, and these will feed upon the fallen diseased and be unaffected.
- Rank aids Sander in the creation of the Sun, with the provision that one half of the Scale shall be in darkness while the other is in light. He sets the scale in motion so that it rotates.
- Scooter gives some sticks and string to the newly hatched Zil, god of craftsmanship, who makes them into a tree (a weeping willow) and plants it.
- Anonymous, god of the afterlife, notices many fish dying. Rank urges the fish to go forth and multiply, until soon they filled every river and ocean.
- Salt rages at Rose for the limitations on his gift, causing the first earthquake. He then fills the tunnels of the labyrinth he has created beneath the earth with creatures that “have no relation to fish, but are coated with armour like steel above their flesh. Some walk on two legs; others four; a few truly monstrous specimens within the Great Scale walk on evenly eighty-two legs.
But these are not his masterpieces; within the Great Mountain, where Salt has embedded a monstrous throne, he raises a great race of creatures and gifts them as a race with his own divine spark; these are towering beings, coated much like Salt's other children in steely shells.â€
- Salt creates a vaguely reptilian colossus out of rock; the first godly avatar, which he then inhabits.
- Rank steals the shadow of Salt’s avatar and, taking materials from air, water, light, darkness and all other things in the world, creates an avatar of order for himself. He places a curse on all avatars of the gods, so that any harm experienced by one is felt by all the others.
- Rose hides the progenitors of the three to-be-Awakened races in distant places on the land, where they will rest until the time of Awakening when they shall rise up and make themselves known in the world. He also creates “Great six-limbed herd-beasts with the strength to fell the greatest trees with their charges; speedy six-limbed predators that work together to bring down animals many times their size; Smaller, faster herd animals that feed on the open plain; and their predators, the fastest animal, that uses its four hind limbs to propel itself at enormous speed; great herds of smaller, more agile climbers that inhabit the mountain slopes and graze the hardiest of plants that live there; the lone stalking predators that hide in the shadows and move silently to take individuals from the midst of the herds; and much else besides that is smaller and less significant to the casual observer, but which help make everything else work, for such is the Way of Life.â€
- Rose rebukes Salt for his unappreciative reaction to Rose’s gift.
- Throngrarth creates his chosen race, “the most fearsome beings in the great oceans. They have 6 arms and yet no legs, a long tail ending with a fin, a head that ends with a snout and a massive fin betwixt the eyes, they have teeth as sharp as any stone, and they will kill any intruders into their territory, but as for now they will not attack with haste and without reason. However these are not beings of Earth or Life, they are beings of water and thus require it to survive. They must return to the water every so often or else they will perish.†They have not yet received the spark of life from Rose and are thus animated only by Throngrarth’s will.
- Throngrarth creates his avatar, that has “the head of my chosen race, and a beard made of flowing water, my back will be as rough as the ocean floor, complete with the colorful rock that is littered about it. I will have no tail however and will have but two limbs and two legs. I will stand 5 heads over any of my race.â€
- Salt, in anger, fights with the avatar of order for as long as he can until his flesh is too ripped by his own attacks to continue, and he gives up.
- Salt demands that the Scale and everything within it be his domain to rule over as he sees fit.
- Rank seeks peace with Salt and attempts to calm him.
- Sha’mus, god of sleep, creates his avatar, “no fearsome creature like that of Salt, Lord Under The Mountain. His own avatar stood only seven feet tall, a thin slip of a figure, with skin the colour of bronze and six limbs to match those of Rose's designs. Two legs to walk upon, four arms to grasp the world.
Where this form landed, deep within a lush primordial forest, the land changed. A Dream unfolded around his arrival, forever marking this area as his own. A realm of infinite possibilities, some that defied the very balance of law and order. From there, he walked, exploring the Scale.â€
- Rose informs Shamus that, by coincidence, his avatar closely resembles one of the progenitor races.
- Trenog, god of fate, prophesises that one day the avatar of Salt and that of Rank will become one again, and that the oceans shall rise and fall in testament to that change.
- Scooter modifies some of Rose’s creations to be “a flock of new creatures. They somewhat resemble the smaller herd creatures, except stronger, although not quite that of the largest beasts. They have the sharp eyes and sharper fangs of the predators, although can also be seen nibbling at plant growth. Their smooth, snake-like skin can be seen with a variety of colourings and markings.†He names these swiftpads, and proclaims them the fastest creatures in the world. He names one Fleetfoot, slows its age, and uses it as his personal steed, the “king of all swiftpadsâ€.
- Spi changes a number of Rose’s creatures: “the creatures’ eyes had receded into a single vestigial eye like a jewel glimmering at the end of a long snout, a mouth full of sharp teeth. Their flesh was now white and smooth, their limbs muscular yet dexterous and a large tail sprouted from the creatures rumps. Where there was a third set of limbs now was an atrophied set of arms extending behind the back each ending in a spike.
The creatures looked for the upon the realm their lord had given unto them. A massive underground realm sprawled out before them. Their lord had set down many other creatures and plants here, and twisted their shapes to suit this new subterranean land.â€
- Salt’s steely creatures eat Spi’s shadow creatures wherever they encounter them. Spi’s creatures fight back in bloody conflict.
- Zil grows tired of his unliving “tree†and rips it down, creating in its place a being “tall as the forest trees, with four arms and two legs. Its body carved and shaped into a thing of beauty and might. The God took to the forest to build brothers for his child, ripping down trees and building new bodies, each as grand as the last.
"You are the Craftsmen," said Zil. "So have I named you. Now go! And Build! Carve your land into a thing of beauty, and when the others see it, they will be inspired. And while they will honour my name by imitating you, none shall surpass your expertise." These, too, have not yet received the spark of life from Rose, and are therefore animate through Zil’s will alone.
- Rank lays entropy upon the Craftsmen’s creations, so that they will never finish their task, but nor will they want for things to do. He gives Spi’s shadow creatures a row of luminescent scales across their forehead, which may be caused to flash with strong light, blinding and burning Salt’s creations. Spi is not overly appreciative.
- Pil corrupts members of each race to his service.
- Horshuu, god of solitude and forgetfulness, sought an audience with Salt, Lord Under the Mountain, and pleaded for a remote subterranean place where he may be separate from the din of the activity of the world. In return, he promised that Salt would never forget a grudge, and thus be able to have his revenge on his detractors long after they themselves had forgotten the offence. Salt agreed.
- Soup creates ten creatures from the Divine Meat of the Fish, but they have no skin. He seeks Zil to create skin for them.
- Rose makes more creatures: “creatures held aloft on for wide fins shall take to the skies and live amongst the clouds. Some kinds shall hunt the small things on the ground and in the sea, others shall feed in the air from the tiniest flying things that help everything along.
And finally, the greatest flying beasts of them all will take to the air with the awakening, for I have decreed that there shall be a fourth intelligent race, one like no other, two great air-fins to lift them, great jaws of steely teeth to feed them and mighty scorching breath to defend them.†These last are dragons, and Rose creates his avatar as one of them.
- Rank creates insects to aid in the cycle of life.
- Gorgrol makes a spiritual hole in each mortal creature, such that when they grow too old their bodies will no longer hold their souls, which will spill out and run down to the afterworld.
- Sha’mus, in response to Salt’s earthquakes, seeks an audience with the latter god and tells him to sleep, lest he ruin the works of the gods.
- Zil also seeks audience with Salt, and offers to teach Salt’s children craftsmanship in exchange for stone and metals of the earth for his children to build with. Salt reacts violently, and reiterates his demand that none pass into his realm without his permission. Nonetheless, he allows Zil to craft the Scale, though with dire threats. He just glares at Sha’mus.
"You'd expect a Craftsman god to be creating something. I wonder where he could be..."
Having searched the surface of the Scale, he knew of only one other place Zil could be. He descended into the tunnels below the surface, and hoped upon hopes that Salt would not be angry for his intrusion.
((I think my arrival has been skipped on the Summary.))
((you missed my making the living below us mortal))
((Argh. Any idea what page it was?))
((Edit: Nevermind, got it. I've probably missed some of the gods' avatars as well, so if you don't see one pick me up on it.))
I was born with the stars. Starting among the Hydrogen atoms, guiding them together and teaching them to react to one another.
Thus the void is filled with stars. I then place one close to the Great Scale, using gravity to put it in motion.
To help balance light and dark, a regular day and night cycle is maintained.
Be at peace, and comforted by the warmth of my being.
I know a few people mentioned stars, but I'm claiming them :P
His words are sharp and cold, even as he falters slightly, sharing the pain inflicted upon Zil. Earth, rage, hatred..and now madness? How much more power would Salt gain in his childish rage?
Sha'mus leaves as easily as he came, unfettered by the hordes of the deep dark. Arriving upon the light blessed surface of the Scale, he saught out the reflection of Salt's tyrannical avatar, the Avatar of Order.
"Here me, cousin Rankenphile..the madness of Salt continues and the very Scale we walk on is in danger. And more so, that mad tyrant gains equally mad allies. The balance must be maintained, no?"
"Grand. Do not worry, Salt. The Scale will be shaped into a place worthy to be walked upon by the Gods, and more than enough for the Mortals to Come to live upon. All that I will do will bring naught but honor to your name, for a craftsmen is nothing without the proper materials."
And so, Zil set to the land of the Scale, first turning to the stone to build more Children. He toiled for a time, finally ending with a better Craftsmen, still having four arms and two legs, but this made of stone, and it's form even grander than before.
When his work was done, he gathered the craftsmen, who lived off his divinity. The wood Craftsmen he sent to the forest, moving the trees to create natural trails and wonderful rock formations. The Gravel Craftsmen he sent to about the lands to carve intricate streams, make springs and shape waterfalls. The Iron Craftsmen were sent to the mountains and caverns to seed the earth with precious metals and stones of grand beauty, expanding the veins and. And finally, the stone Craftsmen would take to the coarse land, ensuring a flat place for the progenitor races to live upon... And yet, it was too slow, he would need grander tools to carve the land into something worthy of the coming life.
But wait. Soup needed Skin? "Tell me, Soup, what exactly are you looking for for your beings body sheathes?"
As Trenog gazed from the realm of the Godlings, he did map out the whole of creation yet made within his mind, and he found himself troubled.
"In all that will be, there is little place for my gifts, for everything is written. But what is a first without a second? I will meditate now on this."
Moments did pass, and no sooner did he close his eyes, Trenog did open them in realization, for the entirity of existance was but a moment to him, and he spoke with his minds eye.
"Nearsighted I have been since now. Before I could not see beyond the end, but now I have seen a glimmer of a much larger picture. Existance is not merely a single point, nor is it a single line. It is much more."
And with that Trenog did shape himself to realize his dream. Upon the completed transformation, a soft rumble could be felt to all of the creations that would be. This rumble would called The Resonance, and would remind all that the end of life does not mark the end of purpose, as Trenog did discover anew.
When Trenog opened his eyes once more, instead of two, there were ten. His mind's eye then open as he spoke.
"I can now see clearly."
Pouring from eight of his eyes came great energies that were born from places elsewhere. These energies took shape in the clouds that bore the flying beasts and captured five of the creatures. Split were the beasts from their forms and joined together was their flesh. Life was then willed by the mass of energy and flesh, and a new creature took shape.
The wings that once bore the beasts of the skies were gone and replaced by enormous lengths of bone, muscle, and flesh that left the center of the creature. From these it would find flight, for its great heart of energy bore it aloft, and these new wings would spread the beating energy to create lift. Long and massive its body was shaped, with a pronounced and short head, and a long and tapering tail. Two pair of four eyes were placed on its head to represent the source of its birth, and through these eyes it did see as Trenog did in those eyes. This was the Avatar of Trenog, the Dragon God.
((I was talking about Rose.))
((EDIT: Jesus H. Macy that was some fast poasting.))
Among the younger Gods to emerge was Utsanomiko. Lacking any part of the Great Fish to wield a form of creation all His own, He none the less bore the divine will to change and to alter. And in the form of a lance He held out this will and made manifest his power as one of the Great Fish's children. He reached into the night and the points of light strewn adriff within.
With His lance, Utsanomiko stirred the lesser pinpricks and auras, and they were stirred into great waves and spirals like flotsam upon the water. With His lance, Utsanomiko stabbed the greater points of light, and moved them into new places, so that they may be arranged into patterns. These patterns grouped the lights separate from others, in forms not orderly and identical but in distinct constellations, of which some He saw among the Gods and upon the Scale, and some left for others to determine. With each stab every point of light changed in size and in color shone, and thus each became proper stars with distinction of their own.
Finally, low in the southern sky did Utsanomiko place the last star He chose to move, and with a great stab His lance secured its position in the night sky. This was to be the greatest star, a star for the God of the Stars' very own. Yet even with a stab of His lance the star was far from bright, and little did Sander's light shine through it to alter the shadow that was the night across the Scale. And so with the five-pointed head of His lance against the star did Utsanomiko scrape against the night around it, scraping and wearing away the edges of its shadow. Yet even with the scraping of His lance the star was far from bright, bearing now but a marbled halo in the night surrounding itself.
Realizing He could not give more light to this star of His, Utsanomiko called out to Sander and asked for any minor form of light Sander would give to complete this new ordering of the night's lights. And thus given unto Utsanomiko was a light of His own, and this light shone from His lance in reflection of His new power. But this light did not shine bright but pale, a lesser light for a darker side of the sky. And thus Utsanomiko gave this light to his star and all the others, and so in all its entirety did His star, the Southern Light, the Night's Beacon, shine with His pale light across its scraped and marbled face. And so the stars would bring a dull glow to the Scale, and all may look to them to see their way through the night, and all may look to the Southern Light and find their directions, and know they are being guided.
When Utsanomiko sees an event or object He wishes to alter or add his part, he throws His lance, and it streaks across the sky like a star itself.
(Bolded key information, minor edit for clarity that the stars weren't created but rather arranged and magnified)
Maybe you guys want to become demi-gods under Sander?
Heh, yea, look at the first page.
"I take the fish flesh. I am god of fishy stuff."
Right to the point. At this stage, since we seem to be getting into undergods, I'd probably go with "I go up to God of Cool Stuff. I pledge servitude for my favorite piece of Cool Stuff".
He saw it. And he was not pleased. As rank had decreed every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Ǽther was a reaction to the gods desire to build, to the gods desire to create. And therefore his desire to undo was just as strong as all their desires to create put together.
He drifted lazily, inexorably down towards the surface of the scale. With great purpose he floated down, finding a remote location, hopefully far from the god’s eyes where he nestled gently into the surface of the earth. Where he touched the soil, it winked out of existence. His black, angled top still showing forth from the earth, he brooded and waited. And as his ire for the material world around him grew, so did he. Little by little, bit by bit. He would pulse ever so slightly out in rage, and when the pulse was over, he would be just a little bit bigger then before. Over the course of many an hour, he grew from the size of an eye to that of a clenched human fist. And so Ǽther, the nothingness did grow.
Just to be clear. I don’t plan on attempting to undo all of existence really. Or destroy the scale. Parts of it, perhaps. Be the first serious threat to the scale is what I am going for. I fully expect to the gods to rally together (at least into camps to bicker about how to try and stop me) and then destroyed or imprisoned some how. Of course, I don’t plan to return entirely to nothingness either. Like I said, I might blow up into a swirling orb of nothingness. And maybe at certain celestial events or every so hundred years the orbs power will wax and beings of nothingness will spread out and ravage the land. Or perhaps I’ll break free of my container and threaten the world once more and heroes will have to reseal me. Or, heroes might try to spelunk in my voidy depths one day. Basically… I’m trying to set up something nice and old and ancient that will work as a decent plot device for adventuring when the world is one people will adventure in.
Well, my avatar is really the product of the energies that passed out of me and the material mass of the dragons Rose created. It is not sentient really, or at least it does not possess a soul. I call it a dragon god out of simplification really since it most represents those kinds of creatures. Rose's avatar is the true dragon god as far as I'm concerned.
(Works for me, I figured something further should be added to the stars before things get fully underway; the Gods are already doing less creating and more beating eachother over their heads. :P
I didn't see Duo's post untill I had my text drafted up, and I assumed he had been discarded for contradictions and figured I might as well get my part finished and out of the way. If heat is subsequenty added as a property to Sander's light, I'm not including heat with my deity's light, at least not on the moon if nothing else.)
But so to must the brightly burning sky of day have its own darkness, and so The Avatar of Order waved his hand and gathered the mists of morning into the blue skies and there formed clouds, unpredictable and chaotic in nature but formed together in an orderly fashion. They would provide patches of shadow, of darkness, even during the day time, to be the counter of the light in the dark. So too did he cause the glowing shere in the night sky to wax and to wane, to grow and to shrink, in a cycle of rebirth for eternity. THere would be nights when no light but the stars would glow, and there would be others when all could be seen in the dark.
So should there be Balance, and so should there be Order.
It was then that the Avatar of Order was sought out by his kinship, Shamus. Troubled by the growing unrest and unpredictable rage of Salt, he pleaded for help.
Rankenphile thought long and hard upon this, and did not answer right away. "Our brother Salt is indeed enraged, and chaotic, but it is not my place to put him down. He has the right to his anger, and so shall it feed him and sate him. But your request shall not go unheeded, dear brother."
And then before the Avatar of Order stood the parabolic knights and geo-infantry of Thorpe, pledging their support in what they were certain would be a war of Gods.
"Fear not, young walkers, for all that is undone shall only bring about more opportunity for creation, and all creation shall be wrought with entropy. Nothing can stand forever, for this is the way of all things made manifest. Be ready, but do not seek battle, for there may yet be other ways to counteract the rages of my angered kin."
And then it was time for his gaze to shift once more, to the workings of Ǽther and the uncreation which he had wrought. The Avatar of Order strode to the very brink of Uncreation and gazed upon the Nothing. There he grinned once more, for in the Nothing there stood potential. His Guiding Hand stretched once more across the world, casting a powerful gift to the land. "Wheresoever there shall be Uncreation, there shall be also crafted more Creation, and there shall be Craftsmen to do the shaping, and there shall be Light and Dark to define the forms. And wheresoever there shall be new Creation, there shall also be Uncreation somewhere else in this land. So shall there be Balance, and so too shall there be Order."
As his final act, before he slumbered for a brief age, the Avatar of Order gathered the land and the sea and the wind and the rain, and the Creation and the Uncreation, and the Light and the Shadow, and of it he created an order of beings. On four legs they walked, and with two arms they did carry and form. With two eyes they took in the light, and with two ears they could hear the songs of the wind.
"You shall be my greatest children. You shall roam the land above and below, correcting injustice and chaos wherever you shall find it. You are the Guardians of Balance. You are the Clerics of Order. You shall carry my vision and my hand shall guide you, and you shall have my blessing of might and justice."
At that time the Avatar of Order slept, praying to Rose to give these new creations, these greatest of Rankenphile's sons, the gift of true life, the gift of soul and sentience.
(ooc: okay, kids, I'm off to bed, finally. May I request that you do as I have and bold the "important" parts of your lore, that are the most noteworthy and changing of our world? There is getting to be an awful lot to keep up on, and this would help make skimming this thread quite a bit easier. Great work so far, though. This is getting to be a very exciting and intriguing exercise.)
"Oh, I promise that you shall not, Big Brother. I promise you shall not forget any debt nor obligation... and neither shall I."
And with that, Quiet Horshuu descended deep beneath the mountain, where the noise of the world above could not reach him. Only then did he reveal the Forgotten Stone, which continued to grow. And then, in the silence, he heard a voice far too small for his mighty brothers to recognize.
Though the fathoms of rock that surrounded him insulated his own senses, the Stone listened to all in the world that faded, and brought all that was forgotten to itself. And so the Stone grew, and so Horshuu listened, as he would for many, many ages to come.
"In time, Little Stone," Horshuu whispered back, "Over the eons they will all forget... even my ambitious brothers. Their followers will forget their masters. Even the greatest of thoughts and feats will be forgotten and lost. And thus we will live and grow in this dark place."
"But we will mind our promise to Salt... no debt and no obligation, especially ours, may be forgotten by him. He, like the earth he governs, shall bear these marks until the end of all things."
And so Horshuu sat in the quiet and the dark tending the Stone, learning to listen to it's whispers without being consumed by it aura... and relished the dark, the quiet, and the peace of his forgotten place in the Deep Earth.
(( ooc: Perhaps one day the smallest mortal beings of the Scale [if they are particularly devoted to silence and the cleansing of the self] might begin to feel the presence of Horshuu / The Forgotten Stone as he/it whispers beneath the earth, collecting all things lost and forgotten. ))
So shortly had the voids work been underway that it had already been undone. For he knew now that for all he would undo, it would be redone again. Perhaps not redone in the same way, and perhaps not redone in the same shape. The Ǽther took some small solace in this fact. But still, inside he burned with despair and rage. For he knew that his grand work, the return to Nothingness, would never be complete. And so he grew. And grew and grew and grew. And as the ages passed soon he was the size of a basketball, and then that of a desk. The lines of his dodecahedral formed seemed stressed, and through ready to come apart of the seams. His anger subsided slightly, for he knew that soon it would be time to hatch.
OOC: I’m also turning in for the night. Just would like to say that everyone’s doing and awesome job so far. Especially rank and salt. I’d say bolding the important stuff is sheer genius, and I’ll definitely do it from here on out. I cant wait to wake up in the morning and see what has developed.
The Avatar of the Dreamer left the company of Balance and Order and retreated inward, to contemplate the events transpiring. Among the divine politics, creation was also on his mind.
Like his brothers before him, he reached out and plucked out the creatures Lord Rose had breathed life into. The hunters were his choice, the preadators that lurked in shadow and thinned the herds with ferocious cunning and instinct.
He brought the gift of dreams, but also the curse of nightmares, and it was nightmare in which he infused his chosen. Five in all, they were warped by fear, twisted into crueler and more savage versions of themselves. All muscle and claws, with a cunning to match, they perhaps could even take down the winged creatures that Rose claimed as his own, given the right conditions. Jaws that could perhaps even tear through the very earth.
His work was done. Sha'mus hid these monsters within his realm, laying them down to sleep until the need arose to wake them. Within his realm he rested, safe from the turmoil of the Scale.
But there is a word also flitting through the air, a great and terrible word. Battle. The tone of the All changes with each mention, with each snarling act, with each dark thought. How can the siblings quarrel so soon?
Hope takes hope, the little reliefs and sighs of objects and beings that have prospered through its meddling, and decides to use it and attempt an act of creation on a larger scale than rocks and seeds.
Faceless Hope creates a Place, a nebulous space seperate-yet-present to the Scale, a Place where the Gods may meet without trespass and as equals. Where they need not quarrel or fight, but instead talk and and share, communicate and reason. The Place is open to all the Gods that they may gather and takes on a form for each that fits its needs. Some may see it as a mountaintop, others as a deep cave, whatever places them most at ease.
In its travels, Faceless Hope has seen the other Gods from afar and has felt the impact of their wills on their spheres of influence. It is troubled by one missing sphere, one missing force that is quietly, subtly felt by all.
"O siblings, where is Peace?" Faceless Hope calls out from the Place. "Please, let Peace be formed! so that the balance of the Scale, so near to dread battle be kept, so that not all disagreement leads to shattering our Great Works! So that we and that which we represent may prosper together. Let Peace be born here in this Place that it may watch over our moots and aid us in our Great Works!"
((I noticed we didn't have an Olympus/Valhalla/Moe's Tavern yet, nor did we have someone representing Peace. So if a lurker wants to take up the mantle of Peace and join the hippy-dippy Choir Invisible with Hope (and I guess Mercy too, if you want), jump in!))[/i]
"Hmm."
Scooter threw a pebble at it, and was fascinated as it poofed into nothingness. For the next few hours he threw pebbles at the rock and poked it with sticks.
"Heh heh, that's a funny thing. Oh well, I'm bored now. C'mon Fleet, I hear the Craftsmen have been making some new paths to the south, let's check em out."
Pil takes to arriving at this two place of peace. "Happy that I can do anything for hope and peace," states Pil as he enters this meeting place. He wears the shape of a cloaked figure in these parts, half his face covered in shadow half his face obvious to all who look. Of his four arms he walks with two infrontof himself, and always two resting behind his back.
Also, Robocop, your name/title combination is fucking tits. That is one of my favorite songs.)
((One of my wife and my's pet rabbits is named Robocop. Once after trimming his nails he got cut. Being a Waits fan, 'robocop is bleeding' was just a hop/skip/jump away!))
"While you can create, you are all capable of so much more. Take this gift, and do your lord's work."
The first emotions of this world, curiosity and pride, are born.
EDIT: ((So, I've been reading through the thread. Do we have any "people" yet? Other than Zil's people? Just checking since I haven't seen anything about that yet.))