Lords of Creation (OCC) 17

[Zaleramancer]

The New Gods

Crav, God of Crafting, Industry and Earth.

        Heroes: Aox
        Avatars: N/A
        Mythical Beings: Golems
        Servitors: Architect
        Demi-God: N/A
        Religious Order: Nameless one.
        Artifact: N/A
        Minor-God: N/A
        Domain: Earth, Crafting, Industry
        Races: Durhian, Milteos
        Planes: World of Crafting
        Divine Artifact: N/A
        Major-god: N/A

Gilgamesh, God of Heroism and Conflict

        Heroes: Gilgamesh the Second, Lo-Kag, Rhogar, Naram, Emere, Thorn, Tirion, Atlas, Balasar.
        Avatars: N/A
        Mythical Beings: Dragons, Hippogriffs, Treants, Warp Stalkers, Minotaurs, Changelings, Goblins, Void Walkers
        Servitors: Spirits of Possible Heroes, Spirits of Healing, Spirits of Madness
        Demi-god: Sprites(x4)
        Religious Order: Council of Heroes, Colleges of Magic
        Artifact: Scabbard of Many Blades, Storm Matrix, Spell Scales, Staff of the Cosmos, Tempest Orb, Claws of the Hidden Flame, Spectral Slayer, Hercules Bands, Cursed Fangs, Water Candle, Cloak of Stars
        Minor-god: Sentinels (x4)
        Domain: Heroism, Conflict, Body
        Races: Dragonborn, Goliath, Genasi, Shardmind, Shifter, Humans
        Planes: Plane of Heroes, Plane of the Genasi, Plane of Trials, Plane of the Kingdom
        Divine Artifact: Well of Eternity, Nexus Eye, Muramasa, Golden Dragonscale Armor, Rune of Planes, Grand Mind, King's Monument (King's Treasury, Monument of Resurrection), Elemental Forge, Hero's Soul (Hero's Mark, Soul Gem), Dragon's Crown, Djinn's Lamp, Gate Stone, Moon Star, Chest of the Titans, Mirror Shield, Artifact Vine, Divine Armors(x9), Astral Tether
        Major-god: Yojimbo, Deva, Anima, Lore

Uburra-Namall, Goddess of Love, Beauty, Creativity and Inspiration

        Heroes: Revei the Brave, Mina the Sly, Zai the Thinker, Bo the Quick, Tyran the Strong
        Avatars: Madam Love Iaissavatra, Lady Goode Iaissavatra, Lord Sidius Iaissavatra
        Mythical Beings: Phoenix, Gryphons, Unicorns, Pegasi, Centaurs, Elves
        Servitors: Precious Sentries (Diamond, the North Sentry; Emerald, the South Sentry; Ruby, the East Sentry; Sapphire, the West Sentry; Amethyst, the North-East Sentry; Topaz, the North-West Sentry; Opal, the South-East Sentry; Beryl, the South-West Sentry), Angels (Michael, Ariel, Uriel, Muriel, etc)
        Demi-god: N/A
        Religious Order: N/A
        Artifact: Geranfeit'r (Mallet), Perincessai (Twin Tessen), Tereiein (Mace), Victoraiyein (Bo Staff), Babaraina (Sword), Soul's Vanity (Vai), Bowl of the Provider and Chalice of the Provider (Eda), Love Lock (Desra), Heart's Bane (Slomna), Writer's Block (Indiva)
        Minor-god: Vai (Pride), Prasim (Greed), Eda (Gluttony), Desra (Lust), Nasta (Wrath), Slomna (Sloth), Indiva (Envy)
        Domain: Love, Beauty, Creativity, Inspiration, Passion
        Races: Boquabians, Centaurs, Elves
        Planes: Plane of Love and Life, Plane of Creativity
        Divine Artifact: Plane of Creativity (necklace form), Vanity's Eye (Vai), Greed's Grasp (Prasim), Gluttony's Jaws (Eda), Heart of Lust (Desra), Wrath's Reach (Nasta), Sloth's Mind (Slomna), Envy's Eye (Indiva), The White Arsenal (Jassi), The Black Arsenal (Jissei), FellStrike (Khadai), The Heartbreaker (Uburra-Namall)
        Major-god: Khadai, Jassi and Jissei

 

Mina, Goddess of Demons, Youkai, Fire, Shadows and Ice

        Heroes: Kagehana, Fubuki, Koriko, Kira (Succubus), Taro (Vampire), Nayotake no Hime (Human)
        Avatars: Mikoto
        Mythical Beings: Kitsune, Tanuki, Raiju, Nekomata, Tengu, Gargoyles
        Servitors: Hengeyokai
        Demi-god: N/A
        Religious Order: Secret Religion, Cult of Fur
        Artifact: Mirror of Potential, Cloak of Hiding, Hydra Dagger, Heart's Blood, Icefire
        Minor-god: N/A
        Domain: Demons, Youkai, Shadows, Fire, Ice
        Races: Imps, Foocubus,Yukionna/Yukiotoko Shadow-Scarred, Vampires, Lycanthropes, Zombies
        Planes: Plane of Gehenna , Plane of Spirits, Shadowscape.
        Divine Artifact: Ame-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi, Yata-no-Kagami,Yasakani-no-Magatama, Mugen-no-Magatama , Kagenobara, Kara no Magatama, Heart of Gravity, Twin Fangs of Fire and Ice, Heart of Magnetism, Illusory Labyrinth
        Major-god: Lily, Kyouko, Gravas Goddess of Water and Wind, Magnas Goddess of Lightning and Metal, Kyuuketsu Goddess of Wood and Blood, Suna Goddess of Sand and Glass, Illusia Goddess of Illusions and Temples

 
Mik Hael, God of Chaos and Monsters

        Heroes: Juggler, Archiver, Tamer, Acrobat
        Avatars: N/A
        Mythical Beings: Endreakians,Graciourum
        Servitors: N/A
        Demi-god: N/A
        Religious Order: N/A
        Artifact: N/A
        Minor-god: Dephos, Grace
        Domain: Chaos and Monsters
        Races: Fire Spirits, Water Spirits, Earth/Nature Spirits, Warrior Monks, Living Weapons.
        Planes: N/A
        Divine Artifact:Crystal, Gauntlet of Chaos, Gauntlet of Order, Cross of Mik Hael, Cloak of Shadows, Chakrams of Departure, The Chains, The Mask,
        Major-god: Big Evil Thingy.
        Other: Muffin.

 
Waverider, Goddess of Ocean and Sea Life

        Heroes: N/A
        Avatars: N/A
        Mythical Beings: Great Sharks
        Servitors: Undines
        Demi-god: N/A
        Religious Order: N/A
        Artifact: N/A
        Minor-god: Bazul, God of the Northern Sea, Coral, Goddess of Undines
        Domain: Ocean, Sea Life
        Races: N/A
        Planes: N/A
        Divine Artifact: N/A
        Major-god: N/A

 Haket, God of Sovereignty and Ritual

        Heroes: N/A
        Avatars: N/A
        Mythical Beings: N/A
        Servitors: Steel Giants
        Demi-god: Mela. Demi-Goddess of secretarial efforts
        Religious Order: N/A
        Artifact: N/A
        Minor-god: N/A
        Domain: Sovereignty, Ritual
        Races: Draemar,Dwarves
        Planes: N/A
        Divine Artifact: N/A
        Major-god: Drazel. God of Law and Legal Procedings

Zaya, Goddess of Hags and Black Magic

        Heroes: N/A
        Avatars: N/A
        Mythical Beings: N/A
        Servitors: N/A
        Demi-god: N/A
        Religious Order: N/A
        Artifact: N/A
        Minor-god: N/A
        Domain: Hags, Black Magic
        Races: Fish-Folk
        Planes: N/A
        Divine Artifact: Scrying Mirror
        Major-god: N/A

 
The Watchman, God of The Oppressed and Just Causes

        Heroes: Commander Shoving Another Down
        Avatars: N/A
        Mythical Beings: N/A
        Servitors: Watchers, Watchdogs, Witnesses
        Demi-god: N/A
        Religious Order: N/A
        Artifact:  Cloak of the Veteran (Current possessor: Aox)
        Minor-god: The Babysitter
        Domain: The Oppressed, Just Causes
        Races: Vandals
        Planes: N/A
        Divine Artifact: Spectropolis, The Equalizer
        Major-god: The Veteran, The Reasonable

New, Improved, Handy-Dandy Awesome Expanded Map:



Link to rules.

Link to wiki.

[Zaleramancer]

Zaleramancer wrote

How does magic work for them?

Zaleramancer wrote

You know, I don't think I ever elaborated on some of the other forms of magic I've been tossing around.

One of the biggest ones is a sort of Theurgic-Sympathetic magic. God Shadowing.. Like, gods have power. The things they do cause great changes in the world, and the world remembers it. A god leaves echos woven into the fabric of reality where they changed things.

And people can learn to resonate with these echos and imitate the powers of gods.

Clerical or priestly magic, basically. If you can think enough like the god of fire, then you can tap the echos and learn how to shoot fire everywhere.

Paean has an order of priests who derive power from this type of magic. They're all excellent at manipulating biological systems, and most of them can even change shape- given time. The Seythr, or Sea Witches, use this to mimic Waverider, but a certain degree of their power also comes from just shoving energy around to make electricity.

There's also some priests in the Iron Kingdom who use a form of singing magic that's suspiciously like how Hazet prefers to work miracles.

Draemar sorcery has had a load of talking about it already.

Then there's the Witches formerly known as Hags. Their "spells" are more like metaphysical objects than like processes like normal magic. For them, spells are like tools in a toolbox.  It's sort of similar to Draemar Sorcery, which isn't surprising since the Hags were the ones who gave the Draemar pointers. But Draemar sorcery is mostly tied up in the physical and is generally very straight-forward in logic. With sorcery, the words you chant and the signs you make are just there to give you something to focus on.

With Witchy spells, those are what trigger the spell. No triggers, no spell. A sorcerer who's been bound and gagged can still use magic, just much more slowly. A Witch who's spells all require talking is screwed over if she can't speak.

The actual triggers vary mostly depending on the power of the spell. A candle-lighting spell might just require a snap of the fingers, while a CURSE UNTO THE SEVENTH GENERATION might only work when the target of the spell has killed a member of your family. Most Witch spells tend to work on narrative logic. They work like stories.

Of course, not all triggers are things that Witches can control.

A Witch may have a spell that makes many enemies a laughably easy fight.. but makes one enemy an avatar of destruction. They may have a spell that greatly empowers any weapon they ritually bestow upon a person with royal blood, or a spell that lets them identify the true heir to a throne. They may be able to drink dragon's blood to learn the language of the birds.

But... since their magic works on narrative laws, it usually means that more powerful spells are harder to make work.. and harder to pay for.

Spells are sort of like objects. They may not physically exist, but they can be bought and sold, lost and stolen, created or destroyed. Just knowing about a spell, or how it works is not enough for a witch to use the spell. They have to have it.

They can shove spells into physical objects, generally when they want to sell them to people who aren't witches, since it's only theoretically possible for a non-witch to actually own a spell. Longstanding traditional teachings from Zaya make them slow to trust anyone with power they have a monopoly on. Of course, giving someone an spell-in-a-can item that wears out in a few months doesn't count. Plenty of people buy insect repelling beads or good-dream pendants or light-orbs. They're easier to maintain than items made with sorcery, since you don't have to be able to use magic to keep them going.

Am I rambling? Yes. Yes I am.

[Celadon's Penultimate]

Zaleramancer wrote

How does magic work for them?

Some magic is obviously easier than others. Some elves have a better talent with Aggressive Magic while others have better talent with Passive Magic. And some magic may only be done at certain times (during a certain season, during a certain solstice, a certain equinox, under a full moon, on the thirteenth birthday, on the birth of the first child, on the wedding day or night, etc.). Some magic is difficult or impossible for anyone of a certain mindset (Pan Polyglossa, a spell for Omnilingualism, occurs almost exclusively within Passive-Talent Elves; Retro Familia, a spell for Ancestral Communication, is only possible for Elves who have experienced the death of at least one grandparent/great-grandparent, etc.)

And overall, only about 10% of Elves per generation will ever develop the capability to make up their own spells, or do magic without the use of spells, gestures, potions, charms or rituals. And of these 10%, about a third will actually suffer negative backlash for trying to employ such tools to do magic. Typically, the greatest portion of this 10% tend to fall among the rulers.  

Not to mention, there are obviously forbidden spells, potions, charms and rituals. The reasons for which they might be off-limits may range from being sexually indecent (ie Lascivius, which enlarges the sexual organs), to being socially inappropriate (ie Ex Flatulens, which causes subjects to pass really loud and smelly gas, and Opprobrius, which causes subjects to only speak in profanity) to being life-threatening (ie Vitrificus Totalis, which turns the foe into glass by a touch). And most full-on rituals are reserved for the elders, who are well-versed in the arcana of old.

Not to mention, depending on who they worship, and different interpretations of their Arcana, different animals, plants, items, objects, foods, potions, places, times, etc, are revered, while others are reviled. For example, during Love's Moons (ie the month we would equate with February), it's like a month-long Victorian Valentine's Day ceremony. No hanky-panky except for the purpose of bringing forth children, and if children DON'T result from when you ARE intimate, then the society looks down on you with pity. They'll be polite and say it's not your fault, but in the back of their heads, you did something wrong.

[Tsubasa & Wen Tien]

Does anyone need any explanation for Môsôorikan Magic since you're going through different types of magic?

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

I would.

[Tsubasa & Wen Tien]

Môsôorikan magic is magic that was taught by the gods of Mina's pantheon to mortals and it shows in the fact that all of the spells use fairly large amounts of mana in comparison to say Draemar Sorcery.

Môsôorikan magic has three different categories for where the spells that users cast fall into: Manastrike, Stride, and Pacts. These categories may be expanded later due to roleplaying.

Manastrikes were demonstrated when Aox went to Môsôoriku and went to the University of Elements. Manastrikes are fairly simple as the practitioner simply forms a sphere of mana and throws it at some target. Later on Manastrikes were the inspiration for Pitching as that is what Horizons had seen Kagehana and Hikaru doing in an empty arena.

Manastrikes are the simplest spells for most people to learn as the lightstrike (the weakest Manastrike) takes less energy than even breathing does, however being able to use the different strikes by changing the energy put into a blow is a matter of perception and by that token, there are only a few who can progress beyond using only one type of Manastrike.

Stride on the other hand is more difficult as it is forcing the mana in your body to flow in unnatural ways. This can be closely linked to chi, but as mana is not lifeforce, there is a different risk associated to it than with chi. Stride utilizes the breathing patterns from the incantations and the practitioner's will to change the flow of the mana within the body for a desired effect. The effects of the lower level Strides are going to tend to be the same and have the same general level of power while the higher leveled Strides tend to end up being fairly unique though there are some similarities between even those.

Pacts are a different form of Môsôorikan magic altogether. Pacts are divided into two categories: Blood Oaths and Contracts.

Contracts are a twisting of Eternian magic and thus are more prone to being counterspelled (since there are more ways to upset the flow of mana that form them), but they force both parties to follow the contract made on pain of losing something specified in the contract by both parties.

Blood Oaths however are a different story altogether as they can only be employed between two people who share blood. Whichever side breaks any part of the contract first will die a gruesome death as the power employed in the Blood Oath absorbs the raw power in the world around the oathbreaker to fill the oathbreaker's body with more mana than they can withstand and use to kill them.

[Philote]

@Vault: This is where the specifics of my plan break down.

In your next post, feel free to single out a few people from the list that catches Watches attention and give some more details to them. People she either likes and wants to work with, people she doesn't trust, etc. Whatever you want to do.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Male Vandal, and Hags are extinct. I'll treat the Hags as just 4 witches.

Also, now it looks like I've gotten caught up in Phi's pace. Ihihihihihi.

[Philote]

I was unsure about the whole male Vandal thing so I just took a guess.

What happened with the hags? I don't remember. How are they different from the witches?

I'll try to reply later tonight, I have an exam to take first. I'm glad you're enjoying this experiment, you really blew the group description out of the water.  

Also the Vandal list includes Watches in the count of four. So three Vandals besides her.

[Tsubasa & Wen Tien]

I find it quite interesting too, and realized that I'd forgotten that I'd named the water-aspected Lycanthropes of the Cult of Fur the Drowning Dogs (Sounds better than 'Drowning Spirits' either way).

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Zaya died, and since she was the god of hags they all want with her. Witches are different, they're just a type of spellcaster that's modeled after them. ZAle wrote a short post featuring one at the beginning-ish of the thread, the whole thing's transcribed on the wiki.

[Zaleramancer]

The one who showed up in the post I made was a woman covered in black scales with snakes for hair.

Witches tend to look like whatever. Most of them look like normal people, except for their silver eyes. Or whatever other traits amuse them. Horns or claws or funny coloured skin or what have you. Fins sometimes.

If they don't like how they look, then Paean is always a sucker for a sob story.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

So they basically are a race unto themselves, just one that you can opt in to.

[Philote]

I wonder if I should exchange them for that shark race Zale's hero was way back when in the tournament since the Witches are not a technical race it sounds like.

[Tsubasa & Wen Tien]

The Sharks aren't a race either, they're truthfully a group of mythical creatures that can choose to walk on land due to Bazul talking the Watchman into making it possible.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Escape measure, in case Bazul ever did something that really pissed Waverider off. Besides, I'm not sure there are that many of those guys. Four might be a significant chuck of their population.

[Philote]

Can the Undine walk on land? Or is there some other fishy-land race Zale has that I can substitute?

[Tsubasa & Wen Tien]

That would be the Sea-Folk. Waverider's only race that she created.

They can't walk on land but Midas could give them that ability as part of a deal.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

Undine can walk, but they're also super dumb. Fish and Wavefolk require water to live, and can only stay a limited amount of time out of it.

[Philote]

Alright, I'll just leave it as the Witches then. I'll update my post so that it makes sense.