Zakaz's page

I'm good to go. The boards seem to be stable for me for now. Let's hope it's a permanent solution.

Funny, I can't access it at all from my phone. I can only post via laptop. This has created a massive drop in my own posting. Like 80%, no joke.

I'll be taking a more "balanced" track with Zakaz this next time, just so you all know. Still Lord of Predators, but more emphasis on natural balance.

I didn't create many concepts. If I could keep a kind of implied concept it would be Hunting and Gathering.

If it must be one, then I would save the Shard

For me, the Cull and the Shard.

Aped: Man, your finals must be five kinds of brutal to keep you this long.

The more I think of it the more I'm favoring some manner of soft reset. I like the world we have, even if I kinda messed it up. I like the creation we had going. It was different and cool Especially the Lake of Fire pre-Therein's arrival.

@ Therein: I would like to discuss keeping the Lake of fire. Maybe it can be damaged, but not destroyed utterly?

In any case, Beneath my Notice is a good suggestion, I feel. Maybe the Creator puts that in place because what we experienced recently was exactly how the previous universe ended.

Really, I'm neutral on this topic. This storyline is nearly at an end, I feel, and we could continue on with the lessons we have just learned in the front of our mind. Or not. I'm just enjoying a game with so much narrative freedom.

We don't have to. GM of Creation may just say that the fight nukes the world. Maybe the clash of life and death I just posted proves too much for the fabric of space-time. :)

14 hp remaining

The pair of gods deliver a smack down that could go down in the annals of the gods if there was such a thing. Most gods would have died twice under the destructive power brought to bear against Zakaz and his unnatural armor.

But still he stood.

And still he grew.

Storms from displaced air now swirled around his shoulders and his claws dug great canyons in the earth. His roar shook the sea and every living thing fled from his wrath. His blood drips from his many wounds and from those drips creatures of torture and nightmare spawn.

lets see the defense this time: 1d8 ⇒ 1
Looks like someone's gonna get rek'd
Earth Rending attack of desperation: 8d6 ⇒ (1, 5, 5, 1, 4, 4, 2, 2) = 24
Defence of Death: 4d6 ⇒ (2, 1, 5, 6) = 14

"Come and face me, beast god."

Zakaz's head snaps toward the god of death. His eyes hold a death that could make even Death shiver. Suddenly Zakaz pounces! His Starlight claws dig into Azrael's back as his rear claws rend at his midsection!

So what do we say to getting this thing over with (the fight) then pushing the big red button?

Oh, also I believe you were doing the multi diety combat wrong. Basically all dice are rolled at the same time. Then the total attack number is subtracted from the defense number.

If that's the case then this will be over soon by virtue of damage alone

I like the idea of scaling cost for domains. It will be a true challenge to reach elder god!

I also recommend proxy wars. I think this game was designed with less god vs god god combat in mind. Since we engaged in a lot of that we kinds forced some of the system's cracks into the light. I think if we focused more on the societies and people under our influence the system may work better. Maybe.

I would be sad to see you go, Shess. You are a good bad guy. :)

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not innocent of some of the problems that have plagued this game. It's very much different than the pathfinder I'm used to. I have played games like this before, but it's been a while and this style is something that takes some learning (and re-learning, apparently).

That said, I think the recent troubles have helped. I have certainly learned from them.

My question to the universal reset is: could we play refined versions of our current characters if we chose? Zakaz as the god of life has really grown on me and I'd like to keep exploring that if we go for v2.0

And yes, recruitment is still open, but we will be having more conversation about potential gods than we have had in the past. We've had some disagreements that have influenced how we are running things.

That's a mighty creative concept there. :)

Well, now you know. :)

What are your thoughts on evicting me from creation?

The rules are a bit hazy about the dagger, but that's in the future

For now, we should discuss getting me of planet, if not off plane. Tiss PM'd me about this as well, so we should probably get our ideas on the table.

Zakaz takes an absolutely brutal beating from the two younger gods. The combined blows would have been more than enough to crumple most other gods into nothing, but Zakaz was not most gods. He retreats momentarily and an inky blackness seeps from his wounds. It flows over his head, shoulders, and underbelly where it hardens into kind of maddening armor. It's form is as if pain itself seeped from him and took physical form. It is spiked all around and glistens in Therein's firey light. The helmet in particular seems to block off the ears and eyes and from is looks it screams "Crown of Suffering".

In an effort to even the odds, Zakaz creates two Relics, the Armor of a Tortured Soul and the Crown of Suffering, both adding to defence. 8ap total.

He then charges back in, somehow becoming larger as he does so! The best that arrives back to the battle is massive even by the god's standards. The Planet he created nearly cracks under his weight, threatening even Lortimas's domain deep underground with exposure to the comparatively cold surface!
I spend my remaining 3 ap to gain the Madness (torture) domain and ascend to Intermediate diety!
Now if I'm not defeated and removed from this planet I'll probably destroy it via my mere presence. :)

let's roll!: 1d8 ⇒ 2
Ok, here we go! Zakaz's current dice spread is 3/6
Zakaz attacks Therein: 3d6 ⇒ (4, 4, 6) = 14
Therein defends: 3d6 ⇒ (3, 6, 5) = 14
That's 2 points.
Zakaz has 44 hp remaining with 6 defence dice

As mentioned in gameplay, the area where the tail of blood and corruption leads is just the torture chamber, not Shess' actual lair

Therein, I think you mean you create a relic. Artifacts can't be used by gods

Zakaz has officially gone mad. That song was awesome, and the encouraging plea as well. It seems, however, that you drew the last of Zakaz from his withdrawn state, only to have his suppressed by Shess's dagger (or whatever you guess is causing this). :)

Zakaz does not kill Tissari during her song, but it seems to be a close thing. As she and Therien speak, his eyes seem to light up again, but then he staggers under some unimaginable pain from an unseen source and his conscious mind is once again buried. His eyes die, leaving two pits like the cores of twin black holes.

1d7 ⇒ 6
Why yes, I am rolling to see how many dice go in each pool :)
For this round, Zakaz's dice are 6 attack/1 defence
attack Therien: 6d6 ⇒ (5, 4, 1, 1, 6, 4) = 21
Therien defence: 3d6 ⇒ (4, 4, 6) = 14

Zakaz lashes out at the Plasma lord. Even though the god was on his toes and ready, the Beastfather's stike is faster and his claws rip into the plasma god.
[ooc]I think you two get one round of combat with the dice as they are there before they change.[/dice]

Aka: it's a super nasty piece of work and someone will probably have to fight Shess to control it. That's why it's giving me +2d6 in combat

Ok, we have some confusion
Zakaz is at full health, though he did come choose to death many times and that could have alerted Azrael. His mind is definitely teetering though.
Also, he is currently on the surface, though he did loose a lot of blood underground.

But when Zakaz reappears, Tissari is instantly at his side, fiery tears streaking from her eyes. "Hey, big guy," she begins. "I... You know, generally, this is where I'd go off on some amusing tangent, or crack a joke. But... you're not in the best place for that right now, are you?" Tissari looks to the path that Zakaz has made to the Shard, a trail of blight and corruption ending only within the Shard's protective energies. "Something terrible happened. Something that none of us can describe, can feel, can even relate to." She sighs. "But we're here for you. Therien is here for you. The others will come, in time. Hopefully. Just... remember that you're not alone, Zakaz. We don't know your pain, though we can help you bear it if you let us." Tissari's eyes flash dangerously. "And I can bring the one who did this to justice."

Tissari almost immediately finds out why it's bad to take a wounded predator by surprise. He wheels and swipes in her general direction, leveling a mountain in the process. His roar of defiance shakes the trees all around. His silver-blue eyes that usually burn with life are flickering and sputtering.

In the echo, yes. The echo is what turns you onto the fact that he is recoverable.

Rejected is a strong word. Zakaz is currently incapable of manifesting shards of himself for fluff reasons. So, while you're free you take it as a rejection, Therien can feel that Zakaz isn't there. Just an imprint or scent of him is present, like smoke on the wind.

Zakaz does not respond. He is there. Felt, but not seen. An echo of himself pulses from the Shard and Therien realizes that this may be tougher than he expected.

Infusing vestige into the Shard as it seems to fit what I'm going for. 5ap spent. Zakaz is more walking around with 90 hp.

Ok, our plan in this:

This happening was originally conceived as a way to bring gods together against a threat to everyone, which Zakaz currently is. He is running on pure instinct and will find and attack everyone eventually if not dealt with. Think of it as a community event in an effort to reduce the internal strife levels we appear to be having as deities.

Zakaz must be defeated, the dagger removed.
What do you do?

Near the end of Therien and Tissari's little walk, things start to seem... Off. The Shard, that ever-glowing escarpment of creation-stuff itself, grows dull. The animals of the world become more aggressive. The Cull struggle even more.

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In Quarrel's End, the Male tells Mirri, Something is wrong. Life is wrong, imbalanced. All life is fighting itself.
Mirri looks into the Hive and sees. Cull all over the world are fighting their prey. Creatures designed to run now turn and attack. Creatures designed to hide ambush instead. Several species of carnivorous plants are encountered and, for the first time, the trees them selves begin to fight amongst themselves. They animate and move, wading through the land like a duck does water. They attack trees of a different kind and their fights sound like thunder from afar.
Use Create monsterous life several thousand tines to create carnivorous plants that can eat just about anything including people.
3 ap to create Greater Life: Ents, though they are not currently the peaceful creatures we know.

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Deep underground, beneath the Shard, Zakaz endures. He is bound in chains of shadow, cut off from the world. All his aspects are contained. He roars and trashes, but his strength is greatly reduced and he cannot overcome his chains.
Time passes. The world goes wrong as Shess experiments. Using his infernal dagger he brings Zakaz to the brink of death and back again, and again, and again. The pain rolls through Zakaz, assaulting his sanity on every side, but he resists. The power of the Shard keeps him strong.
So the pain goes up a knotch. Then another. And another. Soon it is straining even his sanity. His blood covers the walls and from it sprung all manner of thorny vines, dangerous plants and thick briars. The cavern in which Shess does his work becomes a living monument to suffering and pain.

---------------------------

Time passes Zakaz sees red and IS pain. His life is a living nitemare. Every waking moment is nothing but a fight to remember who he is, every breath a struggle. He staggers back into the world scared and broken. His pelt ripped and hardened by a million precision cuts, his claws sharp from constant struggle. He stumbles his way about the world in blind agony. Nonetheless power radiates from him, a tainted power that corrupts all it touches.

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The Shard seems to be the only place where this is not the case. The protective and regenerative energies of Creation keep Shess's evil at bay and it is here that the gods can feel Zakaz return. He does not manifest here, but he is felt, like an echo carried on the breeze. The god news is that the god of life exists still. The bad news is he may need to be stopped by force.

[Ooc]Zakaz is in possession of the Dagger of Shess.

(So, just realized that I want getting updated on the gameplay thread. Catching up now.)

I'm also a big advocate of talking more. Most of the issues that have come up relate directly to not communicating about them beforehand, especially when they are not beneficial or even hostile.

Re: What I've created
I have used the Create life and Create monstrous life actions literally millions of times, canonicaly. If you need some species of animal or beast to be there you can assume it is. If you really want to create a specific species, you can. Except for Orcas. I did specifically make those. And maybe sharks, but I can't remember.

Right. And I completely negated that. Plausible, yes. Fair to you. No. I should have taken your clear intent and put forth effort of my own to counter you or otherwise included that in my narrative. Perhaps the first large scale inter-species was would have started. Who knows? But I shouldn't have just brought two more in and basically ignored your effort.

I have a suggestion going forward on how we can handle curses and the like. I suggest we leave the true effect of the curse up to the cursed. For example:
-Someone creates shoes. Zakaz is offended.
-Zakaz spends one AP and says, "I curse their eyes so they cannot make shoes!"
-other god decides that this curse takes the form of severe far-sightedness and spends 2 ap to technically reverse the curse via the invention of precision eyewear.

The point is Zakaz didn't decide how his curse manifested. He simply informed the other player that they must now add this misfortune to their narrative. This lets the creator of the race maintain narrative control over their creation. However, there must be a universal understanding that when a god acts agaist you, you cannot handwave it in your narrative.

An example of handwaving is from me. Shess spent ap to censure my Crested in Quarrel's End. I simply brought in two more. Plausible, yes. Fair to Shess? No. I should have made it harder on myself than that.

Thoughts?

The Cull have helped in many ways as they have lived among the humans. While not necessarily stronger than a human, their perfect coordination and instant communicating has made the difference in many construction projects and emergency situations, especially when the Crested summon help from the innumerable Swarm. The Cull in general have adapted quickly to a more vegetarian, or rather omnivorous, existence and have come in handy when many helpers are needed.
The Itara and humans have learned that, in spite of the hive mind, the Cull do have a concept of individuality, barely. The Swarm have almost no individuality and their death goes almost unnoticed among the others. But as they go through their four metamorphoses they gain more and more of a loosely defined personality. For example, the female is a purebred ambush predator and has done much to protect the settlement. The male, however, is almost a statesman and is the liason for the Cull. They still have no name and struggle with first person pronouns, but the difference is notable. As is their complete inability to comprehend funerals and significant personal loss, especially if that loss is of a young person.
It is the male who has the first and probably most contentious detail of the agreement. The Cull cooperates with the human through the Cull-Mirri. If the Cull cooperates without the Cull-Mirri, which one of the Human will join us?

Giant is a strong word, but ya, I did burrow pretty aggressively. Whether he could find you even with that clue is still an open question. I chalked it up to my predatory senses.

Yes. Every Saturday at noon EST (GMT-5)

All my deeds should be listed.

That's completely reasonable.

Yes, it was my mistake as well to not bring told to the whole table. Shess and I worked this out over PM and we probably shouldn't have. Lessons learned.

As for finding me, the place where I am now is shielded from divination and teleportation effects by a god who specializes in such things, so finding me is going to be difficult.

I will lay out our plan here as soon as I can so everyone can get on the same page and we can see if there are any other hiccups we missed. Going into the hour 10 to hour 15 part of my working day now so it may take a while

The relic was an item that he and I discussed before your arrival, actually, and I didn't think to bring it up for discussion when you made your decree. We've been talking about this event for a bit and that detail skipped by me. Apologies.

This game is about communicating, you're absolutely right. More so than most others. You were right to call us on it. I didn't mean to cross you I just failed to see your perspective on it beforehand.

You would know someone did something that affected your domain and what the effect was as soon as it happened, yes, just not who because of his ability One With Shadows.

The relic does skirt the line. Shess could decree that his relic was immune to your decree's requirements, but then everyone would definately know he exists.

I think I agree that it doesn't violate the decree, barely. If he was putting them someplace extraplanar to keep forever then he would be. The daggar just delays the souls.
Now, you would have to do some searching to find us. Shess has abilities that prevent him from being known specifically when he spends AP, so you would know that a god is preventing souls from reaching you, but you wouldn't know who, just as I didn't know who turned my Cull to stone.

Round 1
Zakas is on the defensive. 1/4
Z attack: 1d6 ⇒ 6
S defence: 4d6 ⇒ (5, 2, 5, 1) = 13
2 damage to Shess, 28 remain

Z defence: 4d6 ⇒ (5, 6, 4, 2) = 17
S attack: 7d6 ⇒ (3, 1, 1, 5, 3, 5, 6) = 24
7 damage to Zakaz, 63 remain

Round 2
Zakas is on the defensive. 1/4
Z attack: 1d6 ⇒ 1
S defence: 4d6 ⇒ (1, 3, 5, 3) = 12
2 damage to Shess, 26 remain

Z defence: 4d6 ⇒ (5, 3, 6, 2) = 16
S attack: 7d6 ⇒ (3, 6, 4, 1, 5, 1, 6) = 26
10 damage to Zakaz, 53 remain

Round 3
Zakas is on the defensive. 1/4
Z attack: 1d6 ⇒ 2
S defence: 4d6 ⇒ (1, 2, 1, 5) = 9
2 damage to Shess, 24 remain

Z defence: 4d6 ⇒ (3, 6, 1, 3) = 13
S attack: 7d6 ⇒ (6, 1, 3, 5, 2, 3, 4) = 24
11 damage to Zakaz, 42 remain

The cavern dances and flares with divine radiance in purple. Zakaz does his best to retreat, trying to find steady ground from which to attack. His defence just isn't up to the task, however, and he takes several wounds that would have been grievous to most gods. He was not most gods, however, and the power of being the Progenitor of life itself allows him to take the punishment. The relic was the key. He had to neutralize it...

For the next the rounds Zakaz shifts his dice to 3 attack /2 defence. It will likely end in the next the rounds.

7d6 ouch. We can roll multiple rounds, that's fine by me. Zakaz is on the back foot so his dice are misty going into defence at the moment. I'll have a post up soon unless you beat me to it.

Zakaz fumbles like oncoming thunder, I am the Progenitor, Beastfather, Lord of Creative Chaos. You have made your maze in the world I formed from my own cocoon in the beginning. I helped form the Universe itself with my Roar. I am Life. I am The Apex Predator.

He pauses as his titles echo in the Earth.
And who, skulking plotter, are you?

Also, please keep in mind that our world doesn't have to tow the pathfinder line. The decree that all things must die could easily apply to undead and outsiders when it comes to old age

Looks like Zakaz is going to have some work to do with all this evil creeping until the world. After this Shess thing, that is. :)