Also, my apologies for the (lack of) formatting, all. I can only say: I'm working on it. :/
This is about as close as I can hew to the original format that Troas was producing. The link he provided at the end of his last one, by the way, was broken, so I clipped it out.
I know I made mistakes. Please point them out.
Also, feel free to help me edit this puppy or propose alternate forms of entries.
Let's do this together!
Oh, also:
Catastrophe(x1)+Other Event(x1)+Command Avatar(x3) (17): Event: The shackles of sunlight.
The Undead shudder for the grave, and are cut off from their divine source.
The three spheres coordinate their power, and channel it across the globe in a year-lone corona of sacred solar energy.
This sacred force fades after that time, however a strange thing has happened - a god of cataclysm is temporarily freed from his shackles, though placed in a different kind. The next six times he takes action*, those actions cannot be to help the cataclysm (or any evil thing), and are instead free to behave in his previous manner: notably, protecting, growing, and assisting the feathered serpentfolk. In exchange, he receives full benefits as if he were not a cataclysm god until that duration expires (most notably, he gets benefits if he misses rolls).
* Six actions can be defined as either of the following, based on your choice:
1) the next six turns that you take any action at all (in other words, you can take two or three or however many "actions" per turn, but six different times
2) the next six times you spend points on anything, whether it's all on one turn, or spread out over many
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Every vampire of course has some degree of combat training, when every member of the race needs to hunt for themselves it quickly becomes clear that they need to take some time to learn to do it right, especially when they don't want to be found out.
But there are of course some that take their martial training far more seriously, particularly among the Serpent's fang, even those who go so far as to see their immortality as a means to attain martial perfection.
As the great flash of the sun rolls across the surface of Sekai a great scream rolls out through the minds of the people, seeming to afflict them randomly across all races, some doubling over in pain for the sound while all around them most hear nothing, further more their are some who claim that out across the waters of tile 8 a mountain seems to explode, a great slithering shape rushing from it into the sky trailing shadows and bad dreams while others just beside them see nothing but a dark could rolling through the sky like any other.
Create sect [6] the Old Order
as the war against the vampire has raged on more and more has changed for the Couatl, the great priesthood who once held all power to guide the people has fallen more and more from their post as they have tried to preach the ways of detachment and self restraint to an increasingly decadent society. Their monopoly over the magical and psionic arts has waned, their political power shifted into the hands of the people. But when the dark and twisted avatar of their god runs screaming from the world they are their to hear it. The oldest priests of the great quiet temple come together to reach out with their minds into the void and see the truth that the corruption and pain dealt to it's great avatar has corrupted their god, making it turn against the world and work to spread fear that the great beast can feed off of the emotion.
The Old Order understands that the great flare of the sun has freed their god from this curse but not forever, even if it will not be until long after they are dead. The old order pushes more and more for others to join them on the path of detachment from this world that they feel will save them from what is to come.
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Adding a little,
Command race [4]
In it's time of clarity the Hordshyrd looks upon the ages of war created by the race of it's folly and despite their nature can not cast the Vampires down. Instead it sends subtle warnings of the great dangers they face and councils them to hide and wait out the hunt. Many do not listen, but those that do have many followers and fully half the meager population of vampires begin to drift further from the centres of population, hiding in the quiet parts of the world, still near enough to hunt but often learning to subside off of lesser beasts. Some make mistakes in this new life and become degenerate beasts of hunger, while others find refinement in the quiet life.
Command Race [4] infest the ancient dwarf halls of tile 20
The most prominent of these new hidden settlements soon becomes the once great halls of the short men of old, now largely engulfed by the drifting sand, the hallowed halls filled with the dessicated corpes so common in the desert. It is in this place that the Vampires come to a dark realization...
Advance race [5] - Necromancy
The Vampires beneath the desert sands soon begin to realize that by using rituals similar to the enchanting of objects they can enchant the corpses of the long dead or those of used up food to give them a semblance of life. This practice is rapidly adopted in the desert halls as a method of generating labour, shoring up defences and bolstering the meager numbers of the Vampires themselves, should war come to them.
Of course it would be highly difficult for the Aerodon hunters to find the home of the Serpent's Fang, as they ride far and wide on the backs of the great beasts, their wide travels having brought them in contact with even stranger beasts as well to be mastered and ridden into battle. They have no true solitary home, preferring to continue ever on like the nomadic humans that many were turned from, especially now that their fellows had begun to go into hiding, they found the demand for feed-slaves had skyrocketed and that they could make good use of the new magic discovered in the desert to better their own take as well.
Stock 131
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ME:
Stock: 38
Total: 38+19=57
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Updates: So, here are some updates on names we can start using, if we wish!
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Ido no Chi: the Well of Blood
Ningen: most of the humans (except Dudemeister's)
Anko: the demon-faced angler fish (no longer extant)
Kami: the various fey
Yaijin: the Yeti
What do you guys think?
... actually, Hordshyrd, that reminds me. I'm PMing you.
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Point-Buy Table
Action - 1st Age(+500 yrs/rnd) - 2nd Age (+200 yrs/rnd) - 3rd Age (+100 yrs/rnd) - 4th Age (+10 yr/rnd)
- Shape Land -/-/-/-/-/-/- 3 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 5 -/-/-/-/-/-/- 8 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 10
- Shape Climate -/-/-/-/- 2 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 4 -/-/-/-/-/-/- 6 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 8
- Catastrophe -/-/-/-/-/- 10 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 10 -/-/-/-/-/- 10 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 20
- Other Event -/-/-/-/-/- 10 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 7 -/-/-/-/-/- 9 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 6
- Create Avatar -/-/-/-/- 10 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 7 -/-/-/-/-/- 8 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 9
- Command Avatar -/-/-/- 2 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 1 -/-/-/-/-/- 1 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 1
- Create Race -/-/-/-/-/- 12 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 6 -/-/-/-/-/- 20 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 30
- Create Subrace -/-/-/- 10 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 4 -/-/-/-/-/- 12 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 25
- Command Race -/-/-/- 8 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 4 -/-/-/-/-/- 3 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 5
- Advance Civilization - 10 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 5 -/-/-/-/-/- 6 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 12
- Purify Civilization -/-/-/- 5 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 8 -/-/-/-/-/- 5 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 8
- Corrupt Civilization -/-/- 4 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 6 -/-/-/-/-/- 4 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 6
- Advance City -/-/-/-/-/-/- 8 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 4 -/-/-/-/-/- 5 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 8
- Purify City -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 4 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 5 -/-/-/-/-/- 3 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 4
- Corrupt City -/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 3 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 4 -/-/-/-/-/- 2 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 3
- Command City -/-/-/-/-/- 6 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 4 -/-/-/-/-/- 2 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 2
- Create Sect -/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 8 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 6 -/-/-/-/-/- 4 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 4
- Command Sect -/-/-/-/-/- 4 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 3 -/-/-/-/-/- 2 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 2
We are finished with the first age, so I suppose the chart should look like this:
Point-Buy Table
Action - 2nd Age (+200 yrs/rnd) - 3rd Age (+100 yrs/rnd) - 4th Age (+10 yr/rnd)
- Shape Land -/-/-/-/-/-/- 5 -/-/-/-/-/-/- 8 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 10
- Shape Climate -/-/-/-/- 4 -/-/-/-/-/-/- 6 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 8
- Catastrophe -/-/-/-/-/- 10 -/-/-/-/-/- 10 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 20
- Other Event -/-/-/-/-/- 7 -/-/-/-/-/- 9 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 6
- Create Avatar -/-/-/-/- 7 -/-/-/-/-/- 8 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 9
- Command Avatar -/-/-/- 1 -/-/-/-/-/- 1 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 1
- Create Race -/-/-/-/-/- 6 -/-/-/-/-/- 20 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 30
- Create Subrace -/-/-/- 4 -/-/-/-/-/- 12 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 25
- Command Race -/-/-/- 4 -/-/-/-/-/- 3 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 5
- Advance Civilization - 5 -/-/-/-/-/- 6 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 12
- Purify Civilization -/-/-/- 8 -/-/-/-/-/- 5 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 8
- Corrupt Civilization -/-/- 6 -/-/-/-/-/- 4 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 6
- Advance City -/-/-/-/-/-/- 4 -/-/-/-/-/- 5 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 8
- Purify City -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 5 -/-/-/-/-/- 3 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 4
- Corrupt City -/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 4 -/-/-/-/-/- 2 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 3
- Command City -/-/-/-/-/- 4 -/-/-/-/-/- 2 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 2
- Create Sect -/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 6 -/-/-/-/-/- 4 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 4
- Command Sect -/-/-/-/-/- 3 -/-/-/-/-/- 2 -/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/- 2
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1
Forest.
Fey race. They protect and help nature grow.
Create avatar (10pt): the trees in area 1 become a single entity.
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2
Plains
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3
A series of gentle rolling hills and low valleys with quickly fill during an age of heavy rains, creating a land of rolling grassland interrupted by many fresh-water lakes both great and small.
Metal skyship from another world crash-landed on the grasslands of triangle 3, carving a valley where a hill rose before and burying secrets of magic and technology from another world at the bottom of a crater tainted with extradimensional energies, magitech radiation and alchemical waste. Whoever unearths the vessel will find numerous bodies of a small, scaled humanoids with a few winged specimens as well as cargo hold of alien ores.
a large island in the middle of a deep ocean
cold climate
Fey continue to wander and help nature as they go.
Underneath in the magma - Anglerfish
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4
Jungles -_-
cold climate
Fey continue to wander and help nature as they go.
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5
Plains
cold climate
Fey continue to wander and help nature as they go.
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6
Boreal forest (largely pine and other needle trees some leaf trees)
cold climate
Fey continue to wander and help nature as they go.
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7
Forest. cold climate
Fey continue to wander and help nature as they go.
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8
Deep ocean, beach coastlines, and volcanic islands. Cold climate as the waters begin to freeze.
The Anglers expand into the deep ocean.
Fey continue to wander and help nature as they go.
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9
Plains
cold climate
Fey continue to wander and help nature as they go.
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10
A great deep ocean azure shores fading off to stygian deeps of cold black, dotted with craggy islands. Cold climate as the waters begin to freeze. Also, Sandy tropical islands.
Race: demon-faced anglerfish
They develop elaborate, articulating lures and they start using their bioluminescence for communication, as a hand for manipulation, and to shepherd other lesser species of fish into abyssal abattoirs.
Command Civilization(8): Build City
Using their newfound knowledge of the exploitation of thermal vents and volcanoes, the Anglers establish a series of colonies in the deepest ocean. Concealed by miles of water above them, where no sunlight ever penetrates, patchwork labyrinths of basalt, twisting chimneys of brimstone brine, and agricultural fields of tube worms develop.
Fey continue to wander and help nature as they go.
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11
A tropical swamp. The temperature drops back to temperate.
Race: Serpentfolk develop
Serpentfolk put their intellect to use inventing glyph-based writing allowing them to accumulate knowledge. advance civilization writing (1x)
Fey continue to wander and help nature as they go.
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12
Tropical Mountains
Deep rich rainforest forms up around the mountains, clinging to all but the tallest peaks. The section of rainforests becomes swamps closest to 10.
From the mangrove swamps of tile 11 into the rich eastern lands of tile 12, Feathered Serpent-folk leave the Serpent-folk to survive.
The feathered serpentfolk gather at one of the great mountains of the jungle highlands, beginning to inhabit what caves dot it's surface and building low structures of mud, thatch or clustering the tree branches to turn the trees themselves into shelters, and they call this place their holy city of Ka'i'do [First City!]
Advance city Ka'i'do
The feathered serpentfolk begin construction of a great pyramid temple, half carved from the mountain, half built atop it, work is slow, but generation upon generation they continue the great work handed down to them by the gods.
Command Race (8)
The begin construction of a great canal, leading from Ka'i'do all the way out to the coast, in the style of those built by the Colony Sophonts and indeed meeting up with them, and gaining their help in it's construction. Along with a great reservoir near to the city and a series of canals all throughout, allowing their allies to easily travel into the city and provide new routes for trade and even some degree of residency by the Sophonts, if any so choose.
Advance City[10] Ho'Ka'I'Do
The Sophont monoliths are strange towering constructions of strange beauty and deep meaning that escapes the Feathered Serpentfolk for now, they understand the importance inherent in them and make many copies to ensure that the knowledge survives. Although whether they will some day understand the secrets of their ancient allies or the monoliths will someday become simple pieces of art with all meaning forgoten remains to be seen.
As the Sophonts depart from their mission of sharing knowledge the great high psych-priest of the Feathered serpentfolk, his body withered and wasting, his feathers faded all to white, having lost even the strength to raise a spoon to his mouth but with the greatest mind of his people begins to weep, mystifying the younger folk around him, when they ask him why he has such sorrow he answers that it is because the Sophonts are leaving. Most who hear this think he simply means leaving their city, but those few who speak long to him in his final days some time later are given the impression that he did not mean they were leaving the city on that day but instead that they were going far further on some day that had not yet even come to pass, though he seemed to see it as clear as day.
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13
Swamp -_-
Cold climate.
Fey continue to wander and help nature as they go.
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14
Plains, mountains
Cold climate.
Fey continue to wander and help nature as they go.
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15
Plains
Cold climate.
Fey continue to wander and help nature as they go.
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16
temperate and frequently stormy. island-dotted deep ocean
Fey continue to wander and help nature as they go.
Underneath in the magma - Anglerfish
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17
island-dotted deep ocean, including forested islands
Cold climate.
Fey continue to wander and help nature as they go.
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18
A great high mountain range at the bottom of the world outmatching all others
A deep ice age, raging storms of ice and snow blanket the land and deep clouds cast the peaks into near constant shadow.
Yeti emerge.
Fey continue to wander and help nature as they go.
"The Lord of Ice, and also known as the Frozen One, recognizes his children. He brings forth massive icebergs from the sky. Squishing nearby villages who do not believe. The Avatar of the Frozen One, the black orb moves and it moves to the largest of these Icebergs on the highest peaks, waiting for the brave to be blessed by the Frozen One. Waiting for their sacrifices, to let this iceberg turn red with blood."
Catastrophe - 10 - in Tile 18.
The 'Well of Blood' is created, on the highest peaks, that the gods may be praised by sacrifices of the weak. If a god has subjects that bring sacrifices he or she gains power. Next round the god gains an additional d6. Much weeping and gnashing of teeth will be known in the world due to this new magical location.
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19
A great deep ocean azure shores fading off to stygian deeps of cold black, dotted with craggy islands. Cold climate as the waters begin to freeze.
Race: Colony Sophonts
Fey continue to wander and help nature as they go.
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20
temperate desert.
Races: Dwarf and Fey, though the Fey continue to wander and help nature as they go.
Creatures that are highly adept at survival in adverse conditions.
The dwarves begin to come together and purify as a society
advance in machinery (x1)
Create Avatar. very system of caves that their nation is becomes a living personification of the dwarves.
Shape Land (5 points): The desert of tile 20 becomes intersected with a long flowing river. Though it is still primarily desert, the banks of the river become fertile. It is named The River Dood by the simple humans that live in the region.
Advance Civilization (x4) (Stonework, Metallurgy, Agriculture, Architecture, Language and Writing) (30 points):
The humans living in the deserts of Tile 20, begin learning language and become adept at working clay, stone and sand. They use fire, and their simple tools improve from stone and flint, to bronze. Additionally the humans there master the art of farming, using the annual river flood to track time.
Villages made from stone spring up along the banks of the river Dood, the largest of which is name Meistro.
Create Avatar: (7 points) In tile 20 a line of rulers has been chosen, and their word is law. The Pharaohs of the line of Dood claim descent from the god Dudemeister himself.
Create Order: Priests of Dudemeister (6 points) Those most highly educated become anointed in the river Dood and become members of the Priesthood.
Advance Order (3 points): Invent Magical Writing The priesthood discovers the magical secrets of hieroglyphics, which they can use to create traps and change minds.
Command Avatar: Advance Civilization x2 (2 points): Advanced Mathematics and Architecture The line of Pharaohs teaches the Doods about Advanced Mathematics and Architecture spreads throughout the civilization.
Purify Civilization (Lawful) (3 points): With the rise of the line of Pharaohs, and the priest caste, the concept of Ma'at becomes more important in the day to day lives of the Doods. All about knowing one's place, and finding balance.
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M 1
With a blinding flash seen almost across Sekai and a screaming keen that rips through every corner of the world a great meteor strikes the atmosphere. The great skystone burns a great arc through the sky, slowing in it's pace and curling around the gravitation of Sekai as it does before finally coming to rest in a slow stable orbit. The night sky soon becomes dominated by this great ragged body, blackened from it's strike against the atmosphere and pitted with great craters from it's long ages among the stars but stil in places shining like polished brass.
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M 2
With a blinding flash seen almost across Sekai and a screaming keen that rips through every corner of the world a great meteor strikes the atmosphere. The great skystone burns a great arc through the sky, slowing in it's pace and curling around the gravitation of Sekai as it does before finally coming to rest in a slow stable orbit. The night sky soon becomes dominated by this great ragged body, blackened from it's strike against the atmosphere and pitted with great craters from it's long ages among the stars but stil in places shining like polished brass.
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M 3
With a blinding flash seen almost across Sekai and a screaming keen that rips through every corner of the world a great meteor strikes the atmosphere. The great skystone burns a great arc through the sky, slowing in it's pace and curling around the gravitation of Sekai as it does before finally coming to rest in a slow stable orbit. The night sky soon becomes dominated by this great ragged body, blackened from it's strike against the atmosphere and pitted with great craters from it's long ages among the stars but stil in places shining like polished brass.
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ARG! The racial entry is now too big...
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Fey
They protect and help nature grow. They have spread over all of Sekai. Peaceful so far, have not needed to protect nature very much at all.
[Advance race 10] Transmutation. The fey become closer to that which they care for. Many Fey develop in their own ways closer to nature. Thus the development of many individuals still in one race, many learn how to change their shape.
[Advance race 10] adaptation. The fey grow to learn how to best survive in the environments they live in, many know how to go dormant when natural hazards come through.
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Feathered Serpent-folk
Leave the Serpent-folk to survive.
ADVANCE CIVILIZATION (10) Feathered Serpent-folk, Basic Psionics
Communication between the Colony Sophonts and their neighbors, the Feathered Serpent-folk, continued to be difficult. They could observe each other and make assumptions about each others needs based on behavior, but any meaningful exchange of knowledge was impossible.
The memory pods changed this. Of course, Serpent-folk could not attach the pods to their own brains to access them. Something else happened; a dormant power awoke in a few Serpent-folk. They could sense the thoughts trapped inside the fist-sized pods. The art of psionics was founded. Even the smallest amount of will in living beings had barred this ability from being noticed, but the memory pods had no such defenses.
The Serpent-folk and Colony Sophonts could speak to each other for the first time.
Praised be to the great serpents when the strange ones were found, those odd few who could derive the intentions of the strange ones from below. Those who could develop these strange new psychic powers quickly became a new class of sacred diplomat-priests, serving as a link between the feathered serpents and the ones from below.
Advance civilization - Feathered Serpent-folk - Basic Ceramics
Over the many years the feathered serpent-folk have seen how the ground often grows harder beneath where a fire has been burning, but finally they have managed to develop how to use this for themselves. They have learned how to mix and purify the clay of the jungle-mountains, allowing them to make pottery and brick in the hot fires of certain jungle woods, and also how to replace certain stone elements of their weapons and tools with bits of ceramic, allowing them to be made more rapidly.
Using the new technological concept of exoskeletons gained from their allies the Feathered serpentfolk begin to experiment with the concept using their ceramics.
Results are disastrous.
As a side effect the begin to make ceramic jewelry.
Advance civilization Feathered Serpentfolk Basic metalworking - bronze and gold
after many years of watching certain stones bubble and melt in the great fires, leaving behind hard shiny spots, the Feathered Serpentfolk finally discover the means of working soft metals, applying them to their pottery, advancing their ceramic tools and streangthening their stone and ceramic clubs spears and macuahuitls.
Advance civilization Feathered Serpentfolk - Architecture
With the advent of metal tools the Feathered Serpentfolk finally have the means to apply the construction techniques taught to them by the Colony Sophonts to more practical means (their psychicly aided coral forming being at best a respected though impractical artform, given their remoteness from a proper environment for the coral) advancing their brick and wooden structures and allowing them to start greater construction projects.
As the world changes around them and panic begins to rise the feathered serpentfolk reach out into the world around them, exploring the dark mysteries that their priests have previously touched upon, discovering new ways to manipulate the energies of the world around them. Discovering... Magic.
Advance race 10pts
With the planet growing rapidly colder and the forest withering around them the Feathered serpentfolk begin to worry about their source of life and begin struggling to find ways to keep themselves alive.
Some who have watched the growth of plants over many years begin to find ways of cultivating some of the jungle fauna, convincing usefull plants to grow just as they once rooted out the weeds from the city, and begin to work to sustain their people. [Agriculture+1]
Others who have long hunted the great and small beasts of the jungle begin to capture some of the small beasts that they have hunted and stolen eggs from, keeping them safe from the changing world and holding them to be eaten later. Over the generations some animals breed true in captivity and become more complacent, starting to live in tandem with those who once hunted them and providing for many. [Animal husbandry +1]
Upon the awakening of the "Will of All" so close to them the psychic priests of the Feathered Serpent-folk grow deeply concerned, they can feel the power of this thing and understand it's potential to elevate their race or destroy them. Using glimpses of it's knowledge along with the construction and architectural knowledge they have gained, they gather the great ruling priests and convince them of a great plan to draw their race closer to their allies and secure their safety from this great new force.
Advance Feathered Serpentfolk Psyonics.
With the construction of the grande canal through their great city the feathered serpentfolk become able to more conveniently and widely practice their coral forming. Although still mostly just a novelty and art form only practiced by certain members of the Psych-Priests the increased convenience of the environment needed for the coral allows more practitioners and larger structures to be constructed, including some small buildings grown from psychicly directed coral.
However this increased practice of psychic artwork leads to the discovery of deeper wells of potential within the Serpentfolk mind, allowing for easier communication through psychic connection and even the ability to move objects remotely through the power of thought.
Advance civilization, Feathered Serpentfolk, Weaving
As the jungle evolution continues a new type of plant starts to come into dominance due to the layers of fluffy fibers that surround it. The feathered serpentfolk find this plant and begin to try using this to keep themselves warm as well, first by stuffing their hides and other simple clothings with it and later by discovering how to tsist it into long strands and then to join those stands into sheets of cloth.
The feathered serpent folk send a delegation of bright minds and sturdy hunters to help the Colony sophonts on their expedition, escorted by several members of the theocracy.
They return with grand tails of exploration, discovery, new places both near and far, as well as dark stories of the mysterious discoveries of the Sophonts in the strange structure on the great northern island. After initial attempts to help the Sophonts with their exploration resulted in the young Psych-Priest sent along degenerating into gibbering incoherency as his body wasted away almost before the other's eyes and several hours of intense illness among the other members sent along it was decided that the Sophonts should be left to explore the structure alone as they seemed more resilient to the effects of the structure. The feathered serpents instead focused on keeping the settlement secured and providing for the expedition off of the less twisted of the local life.
Much of this is overshadowed though by their reports of the experience of flight, the majesty, grace and feeling having captured the heart of the Feathered Serpentfolk, they begin attempts at finding their own way of flight almost immediately.
Advance civilization [10] Feathered Serpentfolk - Animal Husbandry
Being less mechanically apt and advanced then their Sophont allies the Feathered serpentfolk's experiments with flight take a different turn, rather than build great machines they begin attempting to capture the flight of those things which can already fly. They attempt to tie themselves to flocks of captured birds and other flying animals, never to any real success, where as the most foolhardy attempt to capture or ride the great winged beasts of the mountains and deep jungles, to even worse results.
The failure of these early attempts to fly does lead to great advances however; as the Feathered Serpentfolk realize that several types of birds and small flying dinosaurs (of those few varieties still surviving the ice age) can be tamed and taught to carry messages, allowing for longer range communication, especially for those without access to the psychic gift, and among the cooler headed of those who would capture the great winged beasts comes the study of how to tame and take care of larger land dwelling beasts for food and on occaision the use of their great strength in pulling heavy loads.
Advance civilization - feathered serpentfolk - animal husbandry
Following their quest toawards flight through the natural world the Feathered Serpentfolk begin their attempts to train fiercer animals, using them to hunt, protect their homes and livestock and in their seemingly endless border conflicts with the featherless serpentfolk.
In addition they begin to work towards teaching their large animals to better bear a harness or rider, allowing them to travel more easily and put their animals to work in a variety of ways.
Advance Civilization Feathered Serpentfolk - Fashion
During their new process of making fabrics the Feathered serpentfolk have discovered that washing them along with certain plants or minerals tends to cause them to take on different colours. Over the years they develop these dyes to greater degrees, beginning to vividly color their fabrics and hides, as well as the threads used to weave the fabric, allowing for the creation of plaids and similar patterns. Some even go so far as to dye their feathers or scales. The art of matching worn colors of clothing, scales, feathers and prodigious bronze (or gold for some) jewelry becoming a high art.
Command Race [8]
A message to gather, all members of the Feathered Serpentfolk are told to make a great pilgrimage to Ka'i'do. And so they do, bringing with them all they can manage of their belongings, livestock and food, the entirety of the Feathered Serpentfolk, save some pockets of lacking belief that stay behind. As they travel they invite some of the Colony Sophonts to come with them, telling them of the great message fo salvation they have been given.
Cataclysm [10]
Once the many distant villages have made their great pilgrimage to the Great city the whole of tile 12 is shaken by a great earthquake, the ground trembling and seizing, seeming to sunder the land itself for miles around the great city.
Other event [10]
Just as the Feathered Serpentfolk begin to settle down from the great earthquake the land shudders again, as the great city of Ka'i'do begins to rise from the land below, leaving a great cleft in the ground beneath that begins to immediately flood with water from the great canals, leading to an inground sea forming where the city just recently stood.
Other Event [10]
The great city continues to rise higher and higher into the air, floating up past the levels of the clouds to where the strong light of the sun still shines bright and strong. Here high above the world the air is even colder then down in the winter below, but the sun is strong and warm and the people soon come to see this as a blessing, something that will protect them from the winter that grips the land below.
Advance City [8] Advance Civilization x 2 [20] Magic (conjuration, evocation)
The first years in the sky city are hard, the days under the strong sun are warm but the nights grow colder then anything that they have experienced before, the start working with their magic, learning to use it to create fire and warmth to keep them safe through the dark nights, and to conjure food and simple necessities as they work to create farms that can sustain them on the few miles of land around the city that came with them and learn to draw water from the clouds to help sustain their great reservoir.
As time goes by and they learn to live well in their new situation the Feathered Serpentfolk celebrate, holding great festivals and renaming their city "Ho'Ka'I'DO" The great city beyond the clouds.
The Feathered Serpentfolk, now long detached from the world below, and only capable of communicating infrequently at best with their former allies are shocked by the sudden advent of the thought singing, suddenly so much more intimately connected they listen long to the new thoughts. To most it is simply lovely, but to some, mostly the more highly trained psych-priests it is deeply meaningful as well, allowing them to watch the rapidly advancing knowledge of the Colony Sophonts. Although the concepts soon race far beyond their grasp they are able to gain some understanding of the concepts on the nature of light, gravity and the orbits of celestial bodies.
Command Race [8] "Steal" Technology
The knowledge of gravity and orbits is quite fascinating to the Feathered Serpentfolk, but only raises more questions given their current situation. The concepts of the nature of light and the ways to manipulate it are turned to almost immediate use though, both in the construction of devices that allow them to watch the happening on the lower world using their existing knowledge of ceramics and the addition of their knowledge in dyes and colourings to create great works of coloured glass which on certain days of the year make their city shine in the sky like a mystic gem set amoungst the clouds.
As the watch and listen to their ancient allies advancing far below the Feathered Serpentfolk yearn to see the great works the Colony Sophonts have been constructing truly, with their own eyes, and this intense yearning is the final step towards something they have wished for for eons, the final capturing of flight.
Advance Race [10] Animal Husbandry
After so long the isolation and desire to see the world below are the last steps required to drive the Feathered Serpentfolk to the necessary recklessness required to draw in and capture the great carnivorous flying beasts of the mountains. It takes a long time, a great deal of effort and numerous tragic sacrifices but in time they manage to get the beasts to the point where they will bear a rider. Finally having this capacity for flight the Feathered Serpentfolk take full advantage, exploring widly around their high home and soaring through the towering wonders of the Colony Sophonts.
Advance Civilization[20] Psionics - listening to the stars, prescience
The feathered serpentfolk largely don't understand the colony sophonts concept of leaving but an occaisional pang of loss does ripple through the racial consciousness.
The Feathered Serpentfolk marvel at the singing stars their ancient allies have created, their light bursting into the sky before all others as night falls and their singing fills the mind. Some few among them begin to define out bits of meaning from the singing. Pulling astronomical information and recording greater learning about the stars. This advent of greater knowledge mingles with an emerging ability to predict the future, leading to the belief that the stars tell them of things yet to come.
Command Race [8]
As such the feathered serpentfolk begin flying out as far as their steeds will carry them, and constructing omens of warning or good fortune where they believe the stars have given warning, of course most of these warnings come from their prescience, but some come from warnings of events to come on Sekai, asteroids or volcanic eruptions. Whereas others will never occur on Sekai at all but are warnings meant for other worlds altogether.
The warnings built by the Feathered Serpentfolk are majestic and strange, towers of twisting glass, stone circles and cairns all covered by twisiting script in their written language. Which having split off from the Serpentfolks and been so twisted by isolation from other races and influenced by the math-language of the Colony Sophonts is next to indecipherable to every other race, leaving their constructions as vague and ominous warnings rather then the direct and concise warning they are meant to be.
Command Avatar [2]
The great serpent of H'oad-shed (can't get them to pronounce it right no matter how hard I try) appears once more before the Feathered serpentfolk, filling the sky above their city will colors only experience in the thought song and dreams, with a bellow of force it charges upward towards the brightest streak of blue.
Other Event [10]
As the great blue blurs drive down through the clouds and shake the very earth far below to the point that their high city begins to wobble and sway, the great serpent of god strikes the great blue flame ripping it to pieces and allowing it to crash to the ground all around the lake left behind by the raising of the great city, casting the lake in an eerie blue light. But the touch of the strange substance seems to pain the great serpent of god, making it lash out and cry in torment as it vanishes once more to the space between worlds.
Advance civilization x3 - Feathered Serpent-Folk - Psionics [15pts]
The feathered serpentfolk, puzzled by the strange silence of their god, have long since begun to turn their contemplations inward, discovering new heights of their minds capacity, the ability to move objects mearly by thought becomes commonplace, the ability to hear the thoughts of the plethora of new races being born out into the world brings new heights of knowledge and experience but also worry, coupled with dark glimpses of the future and a growing worry over the effect of the ancient apocalypse on their quiet god leads them to begin practicing detachment from the world around themselves, focusing on other avenues of potential.
Command race - Begin the quest for enlightenment [4pts]
Spoiler:
With the Aerodon's proposal, and the looming nature of the Vampires, the Couatl (I like this one. 6 letters, easy to remember) realise that they need to defend themselves. Until now, no earthly force could assault them, but now that the Aerodon consider the defense of Ho'Ka'i'do a priority, the Couatl realise that they need to better defend themselves. Working with ores brought from Earthhome, they eventually manage to fashion crude weapons and armors from impure iron, enough to halt a sword at least.
Advance Civilization (5) - Engineering
Spoiler:
Advance Civilization (5) - Stationary Weapon Platforms
Spoiler:
The Couatl, with their new found methods of working iron, devise a basic siege engine, the Ballista, and arrange a number of these weapons to be deployed in a defensive position on the edge of the floating island. A number of Couatl are trained in their use, allowing a militia-like first line of defense to airborne invaders.
Every vampire of course has some degree of combat training, when every member of the race needs to hunt for themselves it quickly becomes clear that they need to take some time to learn to do it right, especially when they don't want to be found out.
But there are of course some that take their martial training far more seriously, particularly among the Serpent's fang, even those who go so far as to see their immortality as a means to attain martial perfection.
As the great flash of the sun rolls across the surface of Sekai a great scream rolls out through the minds of the people, seeming to afflict them randomly across all races, some doubling over in pain for the sound while all around them most hear nothing, further more their are some who claim that out across the waters of tile 8 a mountain seems to explode, a great slithering shape rushing from it into the sky trailing shadows and bad dreams while others just beside them see nothing but a dark could rolling through the sky like any other.
Create sect [6] the Old Order
as the war against the vampire has raged on more and more has changed for the Couatl, the great priesthood who once held all power to guide the people has fallen more and more from their post as they have tried to preach the ways of detachment and self restraint to an increasingly decadent society. Their monopoly over the magical and psionic arts has waned, their political power shifted into the hands of the people. But when the dark and twisted avatar of their god runs screaming from the world they are their to hear it. The oldest priests of the great quiet temple come together to reach out with their minds into the void and see the truth that the corruption and pain dealt to it's great avatar has corrupted their god, making it turn against the world and work to spread fear that the great beast can feed off of the emotion.
The Old Order understands that the great flare of the sun has freed their god from this curse but not forever, even if it will not be until long after they are dead. The old order pushes more and more for others to join them on the path of detachment from this world that they feel will save them from what is to come.
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First shape land and shape climate at 15, the plain becomes a scorching hot volcanic desert 5pts
Create race fire giants, these gigantic titans have skeletal features and are covered in fire 12pts
Advance race; fire giants 8 times, 1 in academics to give them writings, 2 in fire magic, 2 in necromancy, 2 in metalworking and 1 military tactics 80pts
Create avatar; The Emperor Dragon, a dragon so large it even dwarfs the fire giants, this creature is their leader and ruler of all the fire giants, a wise and crafty creature that has direct connection to the god that created the fire giants 10pts
Advance undead fire giants:
Necromancy x6
Illusion x6
Evocation x6
Transmutation x6
Conjuration x6
Military Tactics x6
advance the frost-fire undead giants 29 times: military magic x3, poison magic x3, parasitic magic x3, disease magic x3, necromancy x8, military tactics x3, iron working x3, cold-fire working x3
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The Yeti
Among the great mountains at the bottom of the world, from out of the eternal ice and snow they come, perhaps evolving from some strange shaggy beast, perhaps simply coalescing from the snows themselves. The come, their bodies completely covered in shaggy white hides of thick matted fur, only the palms and fingers, flats of their feet and toes showing the dark blue-black skin that also dominated their squinting heavy jawed faces, filled with large blunt teeth. They quickly come to a dominant position in their environment of giant lumbering herds and ruthless predators through the use of higher problem solving and through fashioning a variety of simple tools from bone. the seem to need no warmth, reveling in the cold and living in caves of packed snow or naturally forming in the mountains more out of a sense of community and for protection against predators then the cold.
Corrupt Civilization - Yeti
Upon the arrival of the strange dark object amongst the storms and clouds of the sky most of the Yeti are fearfull, hiding from it and cursing it for it's strangeness but some few others delight in it's arrival and begin to make sacrifice to it.
Corrupt Civilization Yeti -1 (up to -2 total)
As the endless winter begins to spread across the land the dark cults of the Yeti begin to spread, rapidly becoming the dominant power amongst them, slaughter and blood sacrifice become the law of the land.
[Advance race - 10] Avatar present, yetis gain supernatural abilities to form and create ice within seconds to minutes, depending on mental aptitude of each individual Yeti.
Also: Advance race, the Yeti have not forgotten the great god of ice and snow, even if the other races have grown used to the cold, and over the centuries since it's first appearance they have grown in stature more and more until now they tower above most other races, their largest matching or even exceeding the size of the fire giants.
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Aerodon
When the world became cold, the vast majority of land based life died out. As with any mass extinction, new creatures move in to fill the void. The Aerodon were once batlike, small, blind animals with little to no organisational structure. During the big freeze, however, only the more intelligent, communal Aerodon survived. Continually evolving, rapidly growing in size to adapt to the Apocalyptic conditions, they eventually gained sentience. Covered in layers of hollow fur, with strong muscles and an ability to eat almost anything, the remaining Aerodon are masters of changing to suit the terrain.
Advance Race (5) - Echolocation
Finding that the ice reflected sound in a controlled manner, some Aerodon found that they could know where they were even in flight, by making small noises and receiving the feedback. This allowed controlled flight even in tight spaces, no longer requiring the Aerodon to crawl everywhere to avoid harm via hitting a wall.
Advance Race (5) - SuperAudio Network
Due to the advanced audio capabilities of this race, and the rather unforgiving nature of life during the Snowball, the Aerodon managed to work out a method by which they could swiftly communicate threats, information, and even idle chatter to each other. By utilising nearly focused "beams" of sound, information could be communicated silently to nearby Aerodon. This essentially means that relevant information, once received and broadcast, becomes part of each individual's knowledge.
Stockpile (0)
As a race of oversized, sentient bats, i assume that the bats would have become locked into caves inside the mountains with the ice arriving. Once the mountainside ice has melted, the Aerodon will burst forth into the world. At the moment though, they are isolated.
Advance Race (5) - Linguistics
As a race, the Aerodon have no need for language communication beyond warnings and basic information sharing. However, this back and forth of information eventually caused the species to create a standardised set of sounds and respective meanings to be shared among each other. As their audio capacity is quite considerable, this brings with it the ability to learn and master many different languages - which the race does not know exist...
Change Climate (4) - Tile 14 - Return to tundra like mountains
In the aftermath of the cataclysm, the first places to recover from the ice sheets are in the upper atmosphere. The great, grinding Glaciers of the mountainous region due East of Ho'Ka'i'do lose more and more moisture to the biting winds, eventually melting almost entirely. As a result, the Aerodon begin to experience the mixed feelings being outside brings - initially the Aerodon fear the endless sky, a feeling they are not used to...
As their home is in the mountains, once the caves begin to open up and the world begins it's journey to normality again, i would assume that any vaguely intelligent, durable, and notably flying species would explore the immediate area for threats.
However, having been underground for centuries, and being totally blind, you have a similar situation to that of a dwarf out in the open... what if he falls up?
Create Avatar (7) - The Chamber of Echoes
Maintaining the mountains as their spiritual home, the Aerodon hollow out a cave inside, smoothing and refining the walls for one purpose - The maintaining of history. Inside this cave, the Elder Aerodon sing their stories, utilising the same beams of sound used to transmit data to their fellows. The cave bounces the sound around, amplifying slightly, in order to allow the stories to be maintained for millenia, if not forever. Good Aerodon can distinguish individual songs from the noise, concentrating.
One effect they did not intend, however, was that the echoes resonated with each other, and produced new songs. These songs could be anything from small nuggets of advice to entire scientific principles. The Aerodon are initially baffled, but decide that the Chamber has developed some kind of link with their God, who has decided to give them a helping hand in life.
The information contained and produced within, however, requires some base knowledge of the subjects, so the Aerodon cannot make use of it's capabilities for anything more than knowing what rocks will cause you to be ill. For now...
Command Avatar (1) - Produce History of the Planet
As the echoes inside the cave resonate, one Aerodon finds himself hearing a song he does not understand. Upon bringing his brothers into the chamber, they collectively discover that the cave has given them a complete and working history of the world, and has described in detail about each individual race and where they are now. Finding that the Feathered Serpentfolk are relatively nearby, the race decides to enter the stage, and take their place in the world. Quietly.
Advance Race (5) - Immune to Telepathy
Possessing no eyes, the thick skull around their brains eventually develops a special kind of marrow. This marrow not only provides a cooling system to the brain, it also prevents telepathy that isn't overpowering. Primarily to prevent detection by their prey (Certain kinds of mind reading mammalian rodents, certain birds), it also allows them to concentrate on their primary senses even more than previously.
Command Race (4) - Integrate with the Feathered Serpentfolk
Deciding to go against the "civilized" route presented to them, the Aerodon decide that it would be best to remain unnoticed as sentient beings for now. However, curious to meet these beings, 50 or so Aerodon plan to go to them and pretend to be animals - allowing themselves to be captured for use as mounts or beasts of burden. Lack of eyes may prove to be a problem, but then, might also prove to be useful.
(Move to Ho'Ka'i'do (tile 12?) and pretend to be animals. Telepathic immunity allows this disguise to be maintained until the Aerodon prove otherwise.)
(I am also aware that this allows for no possibility of direct communication between the Aerodon and any remaining Colony Sophonts. This could be interesting...)
Command Race (4) - Settle In
Due mainly to the Feathered Serpentfolk showing no signs of treating them as anything other than the animals they are masquerading as, the Aerodon settle in. The architecture is quite strange at first, but a few of the more adventurous members enjoy flying throughout the peaks, spaces and the occasional bridge when they aren't being utilized. The Aerodon come to learn the serpentfolk's language, teaching it through the Audio Network back to the Chamber of Echoes to be catalogued. In all, a very successful integration attempt.
Advance Race (5) - AudioKinetics (part 1)
It is no secret that sound is merely a way of interpreting energy. While their brothers were off discovering the world, several Aerodon back in the mountains learned from the chamber
(further 1 point spent here)
that the Aerodon would be the masters of putting this theory into practice, in addition to telling them how.
With enough power, sound could become movement.
In time, and with some training, several Aerodon succeeded in learning how to move small objects remotely. Not very far away, maybe a few feet away, but noticeably moving. This then became a skill many young Aerodon coveted, and the few that could succeed were hailed as prodigies. But with no practical purpose, why should it be maintained?
the idea is that sound is the vibration of molecules, and that with enough vibration, the material itself vibrates. That is about as far as it has proceeded at this point.
Command Race (4) - Reveal Oneself
The Chamber of Echoes commands the Aerodon to reveal themselves to the feathered serpentfolk. While aware of the stress that having a hidden sapient race in their city would cause, the Chamber reveals only the Will of FFVIIGuru, and thus it must be carried out. The Aerodon reveal themselves to their "owners" in private, then either remaining or fleeing based on their reactions. In time, all Aerodon will return to the Chamber to hear the Will of God.
Command Race (4) - Join Forces
The Aerodon have already proven themselves to the Feathered Serpentfolk in the form of beasts of burden, but not as combat steeds. A small flight will take place around the Feathered Serpentfolk's home, showing off the agility and speed of reaction that the Aerodon can pull off. This is not the only skill the Aerodon wish to show off, however...
Advance Civilization (5) - Pyraudio
The Aerodon eventally refine their audio capabilities to the point where the vibrations in the air actually cause flames to spontaneously appear in the path of the sound. This ability is somehow lost upon transformation into a Vampire, however, for unknown reasons.
Create Avatar (7) - Tornadon
At certain points in history, a God has been required to provide a symbol to their people. A focal point for worship, a bastion of hope, and a wall against the darkness. In a ritual described within the Chamber of Echoes, a child was conceived, created of pure sound fused with divine energy. Tornadon was named thus because he touched the ground a mere once - and spent his time on it flapping anyway. His development was the fastest seen by any Aerodon. By the time he could navigate the whole of the mountain, he had breathed fire, spoken to his mother in the Feathered Serpentfolk tongue, and had caused entire caves to shake with his voice.
His primary feature, however, was his practically limitless control of the air around him. Even when sleeping, he generated a small field of moving air, enough to keep himself aloft. And when angered, fellow Aerodon could only struggle to stay aloft, nevermind direct themselves.
Command Avatar (1) - Tornadon, Go!
When Tornadon heard of the display to be made near Ho'Ka'i'do, he insisted on going. What convinced everyone was the stillness of the air around hi as he made his request. None doubted that here was the presence of their god, their master. He left at once, to convince the Feathered Serpentfolk that there was more than just their own god, more to life than seeing themselves in a mirror.
His God, FFVIIGuru, had told him this much. He had also revealed the truth about the Serpentfolk and the Colony Sophonts. About how the Serpentfolk were in awe of this ancient and decrepit race, this once majestic civilization, and how with their leaving, the serpentfolk too, had faded. Only the spur of the Aerodon, and Tornadon himself, could cause them to rise from the ashes.
Advance Civilization (5) - "Holy..."
As a race, until now the Aerodon have never had a definition for the presence of God. It is only with the emergence of the Vampires, these strange bloodthirsty creatures, that the Aerodon finally take holiness and give it a meaning. They find that those who spend time in the Chamber of Echoes are immune to the vampire taint, and that Tornadon himself is the antithesis to these creatures - lovers of dark, enclosed spaces, crawling to wherever they can feed. They extend the Chamber to create the Hall of God (7 for create avatar), a place that creates this same holiness, at a cost. All who enter must have slain a vampire. All who leave must have the will to do so again.
Command Race (4) - Create City - Earthhome
A great and wondrous cavern, created around the Chamber of Echoes and the Hall of Heroes, the Aerodon have hollowed out the majority of this cavern, leaving only the mound in the center. The sun shines freely through the large opening in the ceiling, giving the mountain a volcanic quality from the exterior. The walls are covered with small openings large enough for Aerodon to squeeze through, each leading to rooms of different utility and size. The mountain is, essentially, their home nation.
Command City (4) - Raise Army - Flight of Heroes
And thus, the world has an Anti Vampire strike force (approx. 250 adult Aerodon - 50 Pyraudio experts, 150 standard Aerodon, 30 officers, 12 captains, 3 commanders, other assorted Aerodon) All are immune to the curse, having spent time in the Hall of Heroes, but none have been left unharmed. These brave warriors stalk the halls of Earthhome, seeking out the evil wherever it lurks. Soon, all vampires previously in the mountain are either dead once more, or fled.
Shape Climate (4) - Little Bright Up Here
Near the top of Earthhome, the stars and forgotten Sophont instruments in the sky seem to give an almost perpetual light to the room. Evidently the Aerodon cannot see this, but it's enough to cause any vampire discomfort, if nothing else.
Used - 38
Stockpile left - 50
Feathered Serpentfolk
Willing to donate points to anyone for use by the Feathered Serpentfolk IF they ally with Tornadon and his fellow combat Aerodon. After all, vampires need combatting, and I like the Serpentfolk. They've only really begun their story, the Aerodon want to assist. But I don't feel comfortable dictating the whole relationship. Give and take ^^
The Aerodon and the Feathered Serpentfolk have entered a tentative alliance. Neither being able to fully be aware of each other's abilities, they cannot fully trust each other. On the one hand, the Serpentfolk cannot sense a mind in the Aerodon, but on the other, the Aerodon cannot see the wonders the serpentfolk have produced. However, they get along, and some Aerodon permanently nest in Ho'Ka'i'do, again trading service for lodgings, but now as workers rather than beasts. In all, both races come off better, providing a flying workforce for the Serpentfolk and a second home for the Aerodon.
create sect (6/12, see spoiler) - The Council of the Sky
The Aerodon and the Feathered Serpentfolk decide that the time for an official alliance is nigh. As a mutual effort, the two races create a council room in both Ho'Ka'i'do and in Earthhome, with both councils meeting regularly. In this fashion, the two races can coordinate efforts with relatively little difficulty.
reason for split cost:
I intend for this sect to be a marginally less powerful, but two way sect. i.e. me and Hordshyrd can now POLITICALLY control things the races do. If anyone has an issue with me costing it at 6 points, feel free to bring it up and I will adjust my total accordingly.
Command Sect x 2 (Raise Army & secure Ho'Ka'i'do) (6) - The Sky is Not Enough
cleansing Ho'Ka'i'do:
Together, the Aerodon and the Feathered Serpentfolk decide that the vampire menace is growing too powerful to rely on the isolation of Ho'Ka'i'do as a defence. As a result of this decision, a joint army is raised. The Serpentfolk provide siege engines, weapons of war and provisions for the standing force, while the Aerodon send a regularly replaced contingent of warriors from the Hall of Heroes to the floating city. The heroes work with their new benefactors to swiftly eliminate any vampires remaining on the floating island, some plummmeting to their deaths.
Command City (4) - Refine Earthhome
insert lengthy defensive montage:
The Aerodon decide that, as the floating city of their allies is not safe in the sky, nor are they safe in the ground. They shore up any defensive oversights, strengthen garrisons, and even Tornadon helps out a little, moving rocks into place by the sheer force of the wind. As a result, all vampires must enter Earthhome in one of two ways - through specially designed tunnels in the base of Earthhome, far from sleeping posts, or falling from the open ceiling and directly into the Hall of Heroes.
Advance Civilization x 4 (20)
Aerodon Armor
The Aerodon cannot create their own armor. Lack of hands. The Feathered Serpentfolk decide to assist them with this. Every Aerodon Hero is assigned a smith, who keeps the Armor repaired and gleaming. Not too heavy, not too stiff, and not too smooth, this armor makes little to no noise when moving, and seems to absorb noise that occurs nearby
Aerodon Pyraudio Refinement
With the further challenges to Pyraudio mastery generated by the strategic customisation of Earthhome, the Feathered Serpentfolk provide a training ground for young Aerodon. In doing so, they also inadvertently help young Aerodon try new tricks. Fire walls, thin beams, even fireballs are attempted, and in some cases, mastered.
Aerodon Martial Combat
Until the Heroes began their purges, the Aerodon never needed to actually fight anything. When the Vampire purges began though, the Heroes pioneered combat, and have since taught the Aerodon how to do the same, leading to a highly effective militia-like presence.
Feathered Serpentfolk Bond
With recent generations, Aerodon are born with or near Feathered Serpentfolk. Whe this happens, an extraordinary thing happens. The particular Aerodon and Feathered Serpentfolk do not suffer the same lack of telepathy that the rest of their respective races suffer from. Over time, a sizeable number of Aerodon and Serpentfolk are paired, leading to a mutual attachment between the races.
Aerodon action
Advance Civilization (5) - Mining
As the Aerodon need no light, can control the sounds they make, and eat the rocks, they make ideal miners. Over time, they discover that the metal ores in rocks are slightly less flavoursome than earth and rock, and so these are left behind. A few Aerodon decide to take the ore to the Feathered Serpentfolk, to see what they make of the strange nature of this kind of rock.
Feathered Serpentfolk actions
Advance Civilization (5) - Metalworking
Command Avatar (1) - Tornadon Shall Not Rest
Realising the threat growing on the world below, Tornadon takes it upon himself to keep the threat at bay. He immediately sets off to discover what the Vampires are up to on the world below, but cannot find any information relating to long term plans, only to immediate raids and recent deaths. He pursues each case with fervor matched only by the Heroes hatred of this abomination of a race, even going so far as to allow humans, until now ignored, to assist him. Sleeping in the air below Ho'Ka'i'do, he maintains a near constant watch on the events occuring.
Command City (6) - Army of the Aerodon
Create Avatar (7+2) - Ductoridon
With any army, a general must exist. In times of strife, only the best can become generals. With a god with a vested interest, the best shall exist. Ductoridon, from a very young age, showed his aptitude for using the right tools at the right time. Sacrificing brute strength for intelligence, he matered both pyraudio and basic combat skills while still a fledgeling, and by the time he was an adult he had raised himself to such a level that only Tornadon was above him in standing. Utilising his aptitude for adapting tactics and long term strategies, he took over the Army of Earthhome with a combination of political movement and sheer skill, assuming the mantle of leader of the joint forces of the Aerodon. With his leadership, both Earthhome and Ho'Ka'i'do have their defences bolstered fully, and the leadership chain of the Aerodon becomes much more streamlined. Losses due to the metals created by the Vampires reduce, and defensive lines are held stronger. (two points for command avatar spent above)
Other Event (10) - Tornadon and Ductoridon
As these two avatars have wildly differing views on the vampires, they inevitably come to loggerheads. Tornadon wants to hunt down vampires, Ductoridon doesn't want to compromise security levels in either settlement. The Chamber of Echoes, and by extension, FFVIIGuru, puts the argument to an end by enforcing the following solution - Tornadon will inherit a unit of Heroes specifically for directing as he so chooses, but when the inevitable war breaks out, Tornadon and his unit will fall under Ductoridon's leadership. Both avatars ceding to FFVIIGuru's rule, Tornadon takes 30 of the most proficient Heroes to form a special unit, who have the primary intent of hit and run tactics, with surveillance being a secondary concern.
Other Event (10) - The Serpent's Fang
Until now, the Aerodon have been largely unaware of the Serpent's Fang, assuming that all Vampires were in some way capable warriors. However, the Human cult inform Tornadon of the Serpent's Fang's existence upon his next visit. This piece of information proves to be vital to Tornadon, as he then decides to target vampires working further afield. Attacking small groups of vampires far beyond the area he previously worked in, he finds greater success in eliminating entire collections of vampires, although he still cannot find that most elusive of places - the home of the Serpent's Fang.
Command City (6) - Psionic Monitor
With the raid on Ho'Ka'i'do, many of the Couatl decide that they must assist their Aerodon protectors with more than just smiths. They gather their psionics, and set up a rota. At all times, at least 20 Couatl monitor the air around and below the floating city, maintaining constant knowledge of each other. In the event of an attack, the Aerodon and Couatl will know. Even if a vampire gets past the sentries, if one is killed, then the alarm will be raised anyway. All information is relayed to an Aerodon officer in the center of the floating city via his paired Couatl, so that he understands the full threat.
Ductoridon is a name based on the Latin for Strategy and the Greek "odon".
Stockpile - (54)
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Create Race (6x12= 72): troll, sphinx, true dragon, Dwarf, Gargoyle, Storm giants, cloud giants, hill giant, lizardfolk, Medusa, minotaur, pseudodragon.
Create subraces of Fey (4x13= 52): Elf, Dryad, Redcaps, nymph, saytr, sprite, treant, unicorn, Adlet (wolf humanoid), Kami, Leshy, woodling, merfolk.
Also races coming from other planes (create race 6x12= 72)): Angel, Archon, Couatl (warm forest), Demon, Devil, Eladrin, Genie, Guardinal, mephits, mind flayers, naga, and Shae.
Any other fey anyone else can think of?
Later races:
centaur, catfolk, Doppleganger, Azer, Delver, Grey Render, Harpy,
The great destroyer, the god of murder, Troas the Frozen One, woke up once more, he knew that life had to grow again. He let the others warm the planet, though pity the fool who would think to take his mountain from him.
Many lesser gods came to being through one manner or another and let the world flourish. Many races came to sentience and begin to develop. The fey coming out of hibernation or just surviving one way or another grow and develop. Many subraces of the fey emerge into the world.
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The come out from the forests and onto the plains, the strange race of monkey things that have long harassed passers by from their positions high in the trees. Adapting to life of the plains with a guiding hand now and then from a playful diety guides them quickly into becoming a new fully developed race.
They are originally referred to by the name of the creatures they were, called the Hu-Folk, however due to early conflicts in their fledgling language they come to call themselves instead the 'humans'
Polytheism - Create sect x6 36points
The newly formed "humans" are certain that their higher existence is a result of the actions of a higher power, however conflicts quickly rise as to which one, some claim it is the great serpent Hordshyrd, Others that they have been raised up by the great dragon, first gifter of life to the world, Drejk, others that it was the god of knowledge and the great works Umbral Reaver, or the great watcher and god of righteous order Tacticslion, others that it is the god wreathed in fire and smoke, source of the great glow in the south Ulgulanoth others that it is the god nearly as young as themselves, FFVIIGuru and still others say that it is the great god of blood and murder, who wishes them to bring pain to the world, who seems to now draw life in as once he stamped it away Troas, first and lord of the gods.
Spread - Command race x12
Fueled by religious differences, a curious nature and a high rate of birth the humans begin venturing out into the world, settling communities far and wide as they go, they travel west into the deep jungle [4] mostly stopping as they reach the great sea, but some few after undergoing immense struggle manage to make it to the great continent of Lakeland within that great sea[3]. Others go around the great sea, travelling into the great swamps [13] mountainous tundra [14] and searing desert [20] of the south. Others further west to the lush land [12] and endless tropic swamp[11] until they are once more halted by the sea. Still others moved east from their first land, back into the forests [1][7][6] from whence they once came and beyond to the plains and fertile lands [2][9]. Finally inhabiting a large part of the world.
Create Sect (6) - Cult of Tornadon
This'll be fun:
With his recent vigil, Tornadon inspired many humans into assisting him. As the first Aerodon to be witnessed, the Humans are inspired to create a new religion, dedicating themselves to the wishes of this new "wind god". Creating statues of his appearance, the humans most closely relating themselves to Tornadon see themselves as his prophets, and tell stories of the creature saving villages and smiting predators where they stand. In time, the culture of this cult evolves such that religious gatherings are conducted only on a new moon, when there is no light, so as to replicate Tornadon's complete blindness.
Command Sect, Command Avatar (3, 1) - Providing a Figurehead
As he is currently the only one looking to the human lands, Tornadon is also the only one to notice that he now has a human cult following. This distresses him somewhat, as he does not feel like worshipping a creature that truly exists is worthwhile. However, he does decide to pay the cult a visit. Upon arrival, he is greeted by a large number of cultists, foremost among whom is the "Voice", or ruler of the cult. He is deemed to be the spokesman of the flying embodiments of holy noise, and is thus naturally assumed to be the only one suitable to converse with this huge creature.
Naturally, he is scared witless. However, seeing as this is a tool that could be used in his favour, Tornadon convinces him that everything is ok, and works to set the cult onto more productive and safe method of worship - viz. finding vampires and eliminating them. However, being only few, they instead provide Tornadon with information on the world below.
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In time the feathered serpentfolks suspicions seem to become confirmed, the great serpent, messenger of their great lord appears above Ho'ka'i'do on a night where the moon is hidden in shadow, it's scarred and corrupted form seeming to be formed of nightmare and intimately wrong in a sickly parody of the way it had once looked like such a bright dream of unimagined wonder. The great messenger rages out against the world, letting out tormented cries that pierce the mind then raging out into the night trailing blood that turns the night sky red. At first this seems to be enough of a horror in and of itself, but in time it is shown that there is a darker twist, some of those who were caught in the blood of the great beast as it tore through the night become sensitive to the light, burning under it's shining gaze and huddling inside through the day to avoid it's sting. and even worse they are soon found preying upon their fellows, feasting upon the blood to drive back their constant hunger and the wasting of their flesh. Worse still it is not only are the Feathered serpentfolk affected, but almost all the higher races across the land feel the touch of this dark malignancy after the dark red night. It is this that shows the Feathered Serpentfolk that their god is truly lost and twisted beyond their reach.
Create subrace - All races - Vampires [All remaining points]
After the red night as historians are quick to name it, only a few races know what it is to be free of the dread of bloodthirsty killers in the night. Human, serpentfolk, even the fey are cast under that dark shadow, the newest of the races, dwarf, medusa, even true dragons hardly know of a time when they did not need to cast protections across their windowsills in the dark of night and shudder in the dark, afraid of what lurks out of sight. Few are the races who seem impervious, the fire giants, already suffused by necromancy care little for these new upstarts, the great Yeti of the far south, guarded by the cold an apathy for blood and the direct presence of their dark god seem untouched, and the outsiders who flit between this world and those beyond go unaffected.
And all know and blame the great lord of feather and scale, the damnable Hordshyrd who visited this horror upon them.
The Vampires themselves are wrecked by infighting, they are varied and disparate, the focus more on what differences they have then what similarities, and it is only through desperation to avoid the prosecution of their formers, the iron grip of some few great and powerful and a common acceptance of the similar god of their cursed glory that they begin forming together into a nation in the shadows, sharing what knowledge they had from their former lives or have stolen from their former peoples.
Corrupt Civilization Vampires
The Vampires slowly build themselves a proper civilization of strict hierarchy, mostly based on age, and rife with intrigue in the hopes of raising position past simple age. They exist in the shadows all across the world, building parasite communities around their former races and reviling in the pain and terror they cause.
Command Race Plunder ancient technologies x 5
Following the guidance of visions thrust into their dreams the vampires seek out the ancient sites of the dead races, the cave city of the dwarves, the swamp city of the kobolds some of the less sunken ruins of the Colony Sophonts as well as the leftover landlocked remnants of the Feathered Serpentfolk. The learn a fair deal about the chemistry and construction methods that these races knew while they still walked the earth and take advantage of them to keep themselves hidden and secure.
Create Sect
While exploring the ruins of the feathered serpentfolk towns around the great lake of tile 12 (really should name that) some of the vampires discover the saddles and tools used to tame and ride animals, with the help of one of their own who was a great beast rider among the Feathered Serpentfolk before his change, they manage to tame a breed of particularly vicious giant reptile, founding an order of lizard riding warriors called "The Serpent's Fang" who separate themselves from the typical hierarchy, offering position based on service rather then age, power or influence. Many flock to their banner, subordinating themselves to the rigid set of rules for the order and acting as the military and slaving arm of the Vampire society.
Advance civilization x2 - Vampires, magic, blood magic
The vampires, pressured by the new attacks by the Aerodon, begin dabbling in the secrets of magic taken from the Feathered Serpentfolk, quickly realizing the mystic potential of blood, in particular their own, and how the living can be effected by the use of magic and blood as one, they quickly learn to manipulate and control lesser animals like rats and other vermin, allowing them to keep tabs on the actions of the Aerodon and the rest of the world, from a safe distance.
Initially the vampires try to maintain their parasitic hiding, but when pressured by the highly effective Aerodon holy-hunting parties they begin to flee from the lands where the bat-creatures are prevelant, watching them from afar and occaisionally directing the Serpent's Fang to make raids and strikes against them whenever their defences are found lacking.
The vampires do their best to hold to the shadows and go unnoticed, although even with the most cautious of methods knowledge of their existence spreads, it goes rather slowly, mostly as myth and legend, often quite innacurate and often started by the vampires themselves to distract or terrify their prey from the actual dangers.
The major exception to this trend is the Aerodon, who have been wholely enlightened of the truth by their god and set out against the vampires. This leads to the lands around the Aerodon becoming free of vampiric presence, though perhaps not vampiric influence. those vampires that manage to flee the Aerodon attacks begin to move out, feeding of sentient races different than their own, resulting it strange intermixes of the blood, the future effects of which can only be guessed.
The Feathered Ones see the coming of the Aerodon into their full existence with some trepidation but generally acceptance, having had strange allies in the far distant path and lived in peace with the Aerodon for so long that they know they can be trusted now.
The high theocratic magocracy of the feathered serpentfolk has worried since the night of the red moon about the corruption evident in the avatar of their god and the sudden changes in the apparent nature of the Hordshyrd itself. Many have taken to adopting a path of detachment, seeking higher knowledge and wisdom in the self without the encumbrance of the outside world. When the Aerodon come to raise the call for war, many of the feathered ones, particularly the old suggest against it, but the young being ever rash and adventure hungry are quick to pick up the cry and ride out to face an invisible foe in the unknown corners of the world below.
Command race [4] Steal Technology
Having kept a close eye on the workings of their so called 'holy' enemies the vampires soon catch wind of this new advance in the use of metals, it's strength second only to the cast off shards of the Colony sophonts, and actual capable of being worked into different shapes. Soon a mission is dispatched and at the cost of a dozen or so fletchlings a trio of spectacular young smiths are stolen, tortured, interrogated and eventually turned, winning the secrets of the working (though not acquiring) this new metal.
Advance civilization - metalworking, enchanting
Over the next few hundred years the three iron brothers work tirelessly to improve the shapes and quality of their metallic workds, eventually forming high quality iron implements, all designed to case the greatest damage possible. As a general rule the Vampires tend to wear little or no armor, generally only keeping a bit of added protection over their hearts in order to keep themselves fast and quiet.
During a particularly raucous night to celebrate the forging of a fine new weapon the vampires discover that by drenching the newly formed weapon in blood while chanting a mystic mantra over it caused elements of the spell to be draw into the blade along with the deep red of the blood. The effects of this first mysterious success are best left unrecorded, but soon the process becomes widespread, creating a variety of effects, but seeming to have the common side effect of creating a palpable aura of fear or dread around the object.
Armed with their new powers the Vampires begin pushing back more firmly against the crusade, especially those among the Serpent's Fang.
Command race [4]
In it's time of clarity the Hordshyrd looks upon the ages of war created by the race of it's folly and despite their nature can not cast the Vampires down. Instead it sends subtle warnings of the great dangers they face and councils them to hide and wait out the hunt. Many do not listen, but those that do have many followers and fully half the meager population of vampires begin to drift further from the centres of population, hiding in the quiet parts of the world, still near enough to hunt but often learning to subside off of lesser beasts. Some make mistakes in this new life and become degenerate beasts of hunger, while others find refinement in the quiet life.
Command Race [4] infest the ancient dwarf halls of tile 20
The most prominent of these new hidden settlements soon becomes the once great halls of the short men of old, now largely engulfed by the drifting sand, the hallowed halls filled with the dessicated corpes so common in the desert. It is in this place that the Vampires come to a dark realization...
Advance race [5] - Necromancy
The Vampires beneath the desert sands soon begin to realize that by using rituals similar to the enchanting of objects they can enchant the corpses of the long dead or those of used up food to give them a semblance of life. This practice is rapidly adopted in the desert halls as a method of generating labour, shoring up defences and bolstering the meager numbers of the Vampires themselves, should war come to them.
Of course it would be highly difficult for the Aerodon hunters to find the home of the Serpent's Fang, as they ride far and wide on the backs of the great beasts, their wide travels having brought them in contact with even stranger beasts as well to be mastered and ridden into battle. They have no true solitary home, preferring to continue ever on like the nomadic humans that many were turned from, especially now that their fellows had begun to go into hiding, they found the demand for feed-slaves had skyrocketed and that they could make good use of the new magic discovered in the desert to better their own take as well.
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demon-faced anglerfish
They develop elaborate, articulating lures and they start using their bioluminescence for communication, as a hand for manipulation, and to shepherd other lesser species of fish into abyssal abattoirs.
Anglers are located solely in the deepest ocean depths, under at least 2 km of water. They have an extreme sexual dimorphism; all active members of society are female fish, with gaping maws filled with needle-like teeth , and a robust arm growing out of their foreheads, between their eyes. The arm ends in a central pad with six long, dexterous fingers. Each fingertip is bioluminescent, and can be made to grow brighter or dimmer. Originally used to lure prey, these luminous ends are now mainly used for communication between females. Males of the species, on the other hand, are non-sentient, much simpler in body form, and are nearly a tenth the size of the female. They bite into and latch onto any female they find, and then fuse with them, losing all bodily form until it is subsumed into the female. She then uses the male to fertilize her eggs. A large portion of socio-economics in Angler culture revolves around the growth and trade of males, which are treated much like cattle or luxury items. High status members display and adorn the numerous males attached to them.
Advance Civilization(10): Vulcanoculture
The Anglers discover fire. Or, more precisely, the thermal vents and abyssal volcanoes of the deepest ocean trenches. They learn how the energy feeds the chemosynthetic world in the depths, how to tap into the power source, how to feed the tube worms, how to harvest hot stones from the glowing extrusions of the magma upwellings.
Advance Civilization: Magical Evolution
The Anglers start dabbling with transformative magics, delved from power sources deep underneath the ocean floor. It allows them to develop more and larger lure-hands, as well as being able to start seeing from their bioluminescent tips.
Advance Civilization: Telekinesis
This deep well of transformation also teaches the Anglers how to move things with their mind, and how to swim and maintain buoyancy in all manner of densities. They still prefer to remain in the deepest ocean trenches.
Advance Race: Magma Travel
With the recent advances in telekinesis and physical hardiness, in conjunction with vulcanoculture, the Anglers learn to survive the dangers of lava, and can now swim in the vast fiery ocean beneath the world.
Command Race x2: Fleeing the oncoming cold, the Anglers retreat into the submarine volcanoes, and begin to spread from there into new regions, underneath the world, on chthonic currents of magma. They move into regions 3 and 16, underneath the world.
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Serpent-folk
Serpent-folk put their intellect to use inventing glyph-based writing allowing them to accumulate knowledge. advance civilization writing (1x)
advance civilization writing (1x) - invent mathematics.
Serpent-folk invent pottery. While burning their pottery they discover that certain pieces of stone and clay when heated boil and can be mix to produce very strong material that is shiny bronze. (two advancements for 20 points)
Serpentfolk start to capture swamp gases in pottery and bronze jars and pipes and burn it in stoves and ovens to produce either very hot flame or to provide efficient heating and source of eerie light. (10 points for an advancement)
Their second advancement is combining mathematics, writing and observation to analyze and describe processes taking place during production of pottery, bronze and burning gas to develop chemistry. (10 points for an advancement)
Serpentfolk spend their time inventing abstract mathematics (10 points), geometry (10 points) and engineering (10 points).
With advent of advanced sciences they follow to build a proper city in their home swamp triangle of 11. (8 points)
Next, they develop system of gas-based heating for the whole city. They also build multiple refineries providing steady supply of gas for the city with redundant systems and safeties protecting the city from going off in the great ball of fire if something goes wrong. They also build underground fish, slug and insect farms to keep a steady supply of reserve food. (four city advancements for 32 points)
With gas-based infrastructure they expand their knowledge of metallurgy to produce higher quality bronze (10 points) and proceed to develop their first weapons - flaming gas spewing firelances (10 points)
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Colony Sophonts
In the primordial depths, wildly varied forms of life struggle and compete. While most of the world saw the emergence of single-bodied multi-cellular life, the dominant morphology in this region was colonies of related but distinct organisms, each serving a different role in a clustered superorganism. Evolutionary pressures amongst predatory colonies led to an increase in neural connectivity between colony members. Higher forms of cooperation proved superior, especially with the capacity for learning and tool use.
The Colony Sophonts are analoglous to Earth's colonial siphonophores. Each individual zooid performs a specific role in the colony:
Feeding parts, with instinctual animal-like instincts they pass on to the collective; all parts have their own digestion and waste processing organs and the feeding parts simply deliver nutrients to each colony member.
Prehensile tool-using tendrils, largely insensate on their own. They evolved from the paddle zooids as increased capacity to manipulate the environment became a valuable trait.
Paddle-like motor limbs, the simplest of the colony organisms.
And to organise them all, the sapient brain and core sensory organism. The brain zooid is unable to survive on its own and directs the activities of the colony's parts.
To reproduce, a Colony Sophont buds an additional brain zooid and populations of the other zooids, then divides into two separate colonies. Each has the same memory and continuity of self as the original, although particularly ancient memories degrade over multiple generations of fission.
The logical intelligence of a Colony Sophont is comparable to that of most hominids, although its social intelligence is almost entirely absent; the evolution of Colony Sophonts produced intelligence without any society. Each Colony Sophont is a nation unto itself. They have no concept of language and cannot even communicate with other colonies.
Advancements: Construction (x1)
The soft-bodied Colony Sophonts are limited in their growth and range of body plans until the development of construction techniques using coral structures. While the Colony Sophonts have no means of communicating with each other conventionally, they can observe each other and mimic useful behaviors. Their budding reproduction method also means learned techniques are passed on to offspring.
More sophisticated and sturdy Colony Sophonts begin to dominate the ocean, using the coral structures as armor and artificial skeletons for their soft zooid colonies. Groups of manipulator and paddle zooids wrapped around long segments of coral act like muscles around bones, similar to conventional limbs.
Colony Sophonts, Expand To Tile 12
With their increased sturdiness and mobility, the Colony Sophonts begin to venture into the wetlands adjoining the mountains. Woody plants serve as substitutes for their familiar coral structures where their populations move into more terrestrial environments. The total lack of language does mean that cooperation between Colony Sophonts only exists between close relatives that share memories of a common goal. As they bud off more offspring, those more distant from the ancestral goal form independent groups.
The Colony Sophonts encounter the feathered serpent-folk. Each Colony Sophont is a monstrosity of coral, wood and flesh and with no capacity to recognize intelligence outside itself, may seem an unthinking evil to the serpent-folk. Likewise, the scaly vertebrates may seem like nothing more than animals to the colonial meta-organisms.
Will the Colony Sophonts and serpent-folk learn to recognize each other's bizarrely different ways as intelligent, or are they destined to destroy each other?
ADVANCE CIVILIZATION (10) Colony Sophonts, Memory Pods
The lack of language was an ongoing problem for the Colony Sophonts, limiting their capacity to develop technologically. While their ancestral memory could create lineages of scientific genius, the complex skills learned over so many generations could not be shared with other members of the species.
That is, until the evolution of the memory pods. It began with an attempt to bud an additional brain zooid to create the core around which an offspring would be built, but a mutation prevented the zooid from maturing properly. The underdeveloped zooid could only absorb memories and skills from its parent, but had no agency or intelligence of its own. The Colony Sophont found that it could generate more stunted zooids to store memories in and other Colony Sophonts could access those memories by incorporating the tiny zooids into their own networks.
Finally, the Colony Sophonts had a way to communicate with each other, and with that, the foundation of nationhood was born.
Colony Sophonts, Trade Technology (Construction for Mathematics)
The Colony Sophonts prefer to occupy the ocean and wetlands, while their Feathered Serpentfolk allies dwell on higher ground. There is little need for conflict as they do not compete for territory or resources. In these peaceful times, using the gifts of memory pod and psionic thought exchange, the two races share their sciences with each other for mutual benefit.
The Colony Sophonts teach the Serpentfolk about their construction techniques, even so far as sharing the concepts of exoskeletons (although without the means, Serpentfolk don't have much use for this yet). In return, the Serpentfolk advance the Colony Sophont concepts of mathematics.
ADVANCE CIVILISATION (10) Colony Sophonts, Architecture
The advancements allowed by a deeper understanding of mathematics encourage the Colony Sophonts to attempt more ambitious construction projects. Their structures reach greater heights and sturdiness and they begin building great waterways wherever water meets land. These serve as roads for the largely aquatic species, and large rafts allow them to move materials quickly between their settlements and those of the Serpentfolk.
ADVANCE CIVILISATION (10) Colony Sophonts, Astronomy
Living on the surface has allowed the Colony Sophonts to turn their eyes to the stars. With the mathematical knowledge gained from the Feathered Serpentfolk, they chart the mysteries of the void beyond this world.
They establish a calendar based on the measurement of the stars and the rotation of the planet around its sun. The very first New Year's Day is marked, and they celebrate it along with their Serpentfolk friends.
ADVANCE CIVILISATION (10) Colony Sophonts, Machinery
Invention is the child of necessity, and the awkward Colony Sophonts have discovered creative ways to make their lives easier in the transition to land. The combined technologies they have mastered thus far, in conjunction with their experimentation with artificial body plans to support their squishy forms, leads to increased engineering prowess.
The Colony Sohponts begin creating geared structures out of wood and stone, including pumps for their canals. On a smaller scale, their artificial skeletons become more sophisticated, adding levers and wooden springs to enhance their physical abilities. The first mechanical catapult is inventied... by accident. Its inventor is praised posthumously.
ADVANCE CIVILISATION (10) Colony Sophonts, Metalworking
The drive for better materials for their mechanisms drives the Colony Sophonts to investigate the potentials of metal ores. Metal parts enable them to produce finer and stronger mechanisms. The application for war remains somewhat alien to the Colony Sophonts, as they have difficulty understanding the need for conflict; their own population is generally self-limiting and their strange mindset makes it hard for them to consider their feathered allies could ever be a threat.
ADVANCE RACE (10) Colony Sophonts, Chemistry
As the cold encroaches, the Colony Sophonts begin working harder and faster on ways to keep warm. Especially with their aquatic lifestyle, they require heating methods that aren't dependent on oxygen. This rush of experimental science results in many explosions, most of which are documented on memory pods. The Colony Sophonts advance in their understanding of chemistry.
ADVANCE RACE (10) Colony Sophonts, Basic Rocketry
Wow, that one went really high! Controlled explosions in tubes prove inadequate for providing sustained heating underwater, but they do make those tubes fly really far! Some Colony Sophonts, more for the sake of curiosity and entertainment than anything else, work on better and safer ways to launch their fireworks into the sky.
ADVANCE RACE (10) Colony Sophonts, Aerodynamics
The chemicals are only one part of the equation. Colony Sophonts, already good with the concepts of body plans and efficiency of different shapes in different situations, quickly improve their primitive rockets to be more stable in flight and to arc correctly if desired. Their unwarlike minds fail to realise the military application of accurate long range explosives.
ADVANCE CIVILISATION (10) Colony Sophonts, Basic Automation
With their increasing mastery of mechanical science, the Colony Sophonts invent devices to make mundane processes swifter and more precise. This includes machines such as large-scale mechanical looms and metalworks. Though this is sufficient to create a printing press, the idea of thought being stored in written form has yet to occur to them; they still use memory pods for storing and sharing information.
CREATE AVATAR (10) The Will of All [triangle 19]
The development of an advanced society with no written or spoken language has been a very strange one. As the Colony Sophont civilisation spreads further, the need for centralised information becomes ever more important. Collecting newly budded brain zooids from all over their territory, they fuse hundreds of them together to form a single vast entity, a being containing the totality of their culture, history and science and able to comprehend the ocean of information its consciousness swims in. Although Colony Sophonts individually have no psychic powers, the incredible collection of fused minds awakens an unfathomable well of psionic power.
Though the Colony Sophonts have no real concept of names, the Feathered Serpentfolk are almost immediately aware of its massive psychic presence and name it 'The Will of All'. It connects the Colony Sophont nation with telepathy, allowing them to speak to each other directly at last. The creature truly has no motivation of its own, but amalgamates the desires of all Colony Sophont minds and memory pods it touches into a single internal discourse. When the nation is together in their need, the Will of All is a tremendous force, but only when they are united will it act in its full capacity.
The completion of the Will of All sparks a great renaissance amongst the Colony Sophonts! What amounts to a biological Wikipedia boosts their cultural and scientific progress tremendously.
ADVANCE CIVILISATION (10) Colony Sophonts, Material Science
Being an aquatic intelligent species presents many challenges in the field of material science. With the help of the Will of All's capability to collate and analyse information, the thinkers of the Colony Sophont nation develop an improved understanding of matter and how to alter it for various purposes. Most importantly, they are able to develop rust-proof metals and waterproofing for other useful materials.
ADVANCE CIVILISATION (10) Colony Sophonts, Control Pods
Emerging from the commonplace memory pods, a chance mutation brings about the existence of the curious control pods. While largely similar to memory pods, instead of simply storing information, their small tendrils are able to twitch and coil upon pre-programmed conditions or telepathic command via the Will of All.
ADVANCE CIVILISATION (10) Colony Sophonts, Controlled Combustion
Further experiments with rocketry improve the Colony Sophont understanding of combustion and leads to methods to control the rate of burn and its energy output. This allows their rockets to have finer control of their trajectories and reach greater heights. It also allows them to build primitive engines, though these are little more than curiosities at this stage.
ADVANCE CIVILISATION (10) Colony Sophonts, Improved Machinery
Colony Sophonts already had a keen grasp of kinetics, due to their unusual forms, and their rapid advancements in the areas of material sciences, engineering and chemistry permit even greater levels of innovation. The Will of All assists the progress, collecting all the developments from all over the Colony Sophont nation so that their scientists can access any desired information. Finally, the Colony Sophonts are able to create complex mechanisms with waterproof parts, able to perform useful functions such as timekeeping or calculation.
COMMAND CIVILISATION (8) Colony Sophonts, Gift Technology
Seeing that scientific progress is limited by their worldview, the Colony Sophonts collectively agree to gift a breeding stock of control pods to the Feathered Serpentfolk; the psychic abilities of the Serpentfolk can easily command the small zooids, and the Colony Sophonts are eager to learn what such a different civilisation will do with them and what uses they might be put to.
Command Race, trade tech,
The great Psych priests of the Feathered serpent folk feel an odd disturbance among the stars, which is confirmed at length by the Mago-priests as well. Knowing little of the stars they send emmisaries to their allies who have long kept watch of the heavens learning from them how to make note of the stars and their movements, sharing in kind their methods for cultivating plants and raising animals for food. And with this new knowledge of the stars they take note of something unusual a star running across the sky and seeming to grow brighter across generations.
With a blinding flash seen almost across Sekai and a screaming keen that rips through every corner of the world a great meteor strikes the atmosphere. The great skystone burns a great arc through the sky, slowing in it's pace and curling around the gravitation of Sekai as it does before finally coming to rest in a slow stable orbit. The night sky soon becomes dominated by this great ragged body, blackened from it's strike against the atmosphere and pitted with great craters from it's long ages among the stars but stil in places shining like polished brass.
Aside from that the Gift of the control pods seems to perplex the Feathered serpentfolk, but knowing they have some great potential they begin to farm them to ensure a steady supply, soon learning how to implant them in simple devices where they can shift counterweights and carfully balanced objects, allowing for automatic doors, operating on pre programmed systems or by command of the psych priests.
CREATE SECT (8) Colony Sophonts, Explorators
While most of the Colony Sophont civilisation spends their efforts internally, devising greater and more majestic technologies through their link with the Will of All, a small group looks outward into the yet untapped mysteries of the world beyond their borders. As usual for Colony Sophonts, the group does not have a name; rather, they know each other by mental sensation passed between the Will of All or through memory pods. Soon enough, however, the Feathered Serpentfolk come to call them the 'Explorators'.
ADVANCE CIVILISATION (10) Colony Sophonts, Natural Telepathy
Early ventures into the further parts of the world presents unusual problems. The Colony Sophonts had become used to the ease of communication using the Will of All. As they test their limits away from its telepathic network, the Explorators discover they can duplicate its communication powers at short range amongst each other. This discovery is rapidly spread back through the nation through memory pods bred with the telepathic ability.
ADVANCE CIVILISATION (10) Colony Sophonts, Basic Flight
Using large gasbags from simple but vast organisms that float on the oceans, combined with improvements in materials and machinery, the Colony Sophonts take to the skies. Their airships are strange, organic things made from living creatures and with mechanical supports, reinforcement and engines attached. The Explorators are greatly enthused by this development and commission a great airship to take them far across the world.
COMMAND SECT (4) Explorators, Explore! (move to tile 12)
Led by a Colony Sophont whose mental signature (name equivalent) is 'Tasting Green Shellfish Under A Waning Moon' (or 'Tasting Green' for short), the Explorators prepare to embark. There is a great ceremony, with Feathered Serpentfolk invited, to celebrate the start of their adventure. A few Feathered Serpentfolk are recruited into the expedition party and are the first of their kind to witness the marvels of the flying machine.
Several weeks after launch, the airship sets down in the Feathered Serpentfolk homeland to resupply and trade. Tasting Green gives them a map of their land as seen from above, highlighting interesting locations that might have gone unnoticed from ground level. The airship takes a detour to one peculiar mountaintop spire, but the severe cold prevents the airship from ascending high enough to reach it. The Explorators move on, occasionally landing to investigate local flora, fauna and geography.
Tragedy strikes the expedition. Junior Explorator Winding Kelp is found dead, savaged by predatory beasts. Recovery of its memory pods reveals that Winding Kelp had been following the beasts to observe their behaviour and feeding habits. The large, squishy Colony Sophont had discovered to its misfortune that the beasts found zooid flesh quite tasty. The expedition reinforces camp security and makes to depart in the morning. Winding Kelp's surviving memory pods are distributed amongst the other Colony Sophont crewmembers to honour its passing.
COMMAND SECT (4) Explorators, Explore! (move to tile 11)
Troubled by the loss, the Explorators make fewer landings as they move away from known territory. As the airship passes over the swamp they take note of the signs of civilisation. Still in mourning, the explorators choose to let their only interaction be the appearance of the airship in these unknown peoples' sky. The expedition moves on without incident.
COMMAND SECT (4) Explorators, Explore! (move to tile 3)
The airship has been away for several months now. The crew begin getting restless, barely able to sense the distant Will of All. Tasting Green, with the help of some of the Feathered Serpentfolk (who are not having the same problem) manages to maintain order. Nevertheless, there is still a lingering homesickness felt throughout the crew.
The expedition makes a remarkable discovery! A strange structure is sighted from the airship, one that looks as if it fell in place rather than being built there. The Explorators make a landing and move to investigate. The initial approach is stymied by small populations of strange, mutated beasts. They are recognisable as related to other natural animals the Explorators have documented, but bearing frightening deformities.
COMMAND CIVILISATION (8) Colony Sophonts, Create Settlement (tile 3)
In preparation for an extensive survey, the Colony Sophonts start budding offspring. The plan is to create a permanent settlement here to act as a research base. The Feathered Serpentfolk amongst the crew help to erect structures and defend the new settlement against the mutated beasts but few wish to stay.
COMMAND SECT (4) Explorators, Explore!
A sturdy defense is established and the Explorators are free to investigate the shattered hulk with minimum threat from the local monstrosities. With every step, the Explorators discover new wonders of this mysterious ruin. It is nigh incomprehensible, but the further they go, the more they realise that this is not an ancient building but some kind of heavier than air vehicle. Samples of partly functioning technology and unnatural materials are returned to the base for study.
The interior holds its own dangers. Ancient defenders and degenerate scavengers kill two more of the Explorators before the crew can secure the site. Fearing death, most of the Colony Sophonts assigned to explore the wreck start budding backup memory pods. At first, they begin reporting unusual feelings of missing memories, or in stranger cases, memories of things that clearly never happened... at least, not on this world.
Tasting Green starts acting erratically, venturing into the ruin more and more often, and against schedule. Many of these times, it goes in without a team. The others fear their leader has gone mad. The signs get worse as Tasting Green starts preferring a strangely humanoid form, structuring its zooids into materials scavenged from robotic husks found in the ruins.
Finally, Tasting Green enters the wreck and does not return. The Explorators that had suffered from hallucinations and altered memory begin hearing a call like that of the Will of All... so familiar yet so very alien. They follow Tasting Green's madness, disappearing into the hulk for longer periods.
Fearing the infectious insanity, the remaining sane members of the expedition gather up as many materials and technology as will fit on the airship and make for departure.
COMMAND SECT (4) Explorators, Return (move to tile 11)
The last of the Explorators pilot the airship on a swift course back toward their homeland, leaving the terror of the alien wreck behind them. Again, they pass over the swampland settlements without encounter. Fewer stops are made, limiting landings only to those necessary for resupply.
COMMAND SECT (4) Explorators, Return (move to tile 12)
The airship arrives over Feathered Serpentfolk territory and lands to drop off those that wish to go to be amongst their people again. The airship remains there for two weeks, allowing the crew to recover before their return to the Southern ocean.
COMMAND SECT (4) Explorators, Return (move to tile 19)
The Explorators arrive at their home, to a grand reception. The initial cheer at their return is turned to sorrow at the loss of so many brave Sophonts. A great stone monument is built to remember their sacrifice. Although, to anyone else, it looks like a giant mass of stone tentacles and stuff.
The salvaged technology is regarded with caution, but the innate curiosity of the Colony Sophonts quickly brings them to study the artifacts with eagerness. Although there are a few incidents where a researcher expressed difficulty with memories, a repeat of the tragedy at the original site does not occur.
ADVANCE CIVILISATION (10) Colony Sophonts, Powered Flight
The success of the airship itself encourages craftsmen to build more of them and experiment with other modes of flight. Using techniques involving advanced materials learned from study of the artifacts, they are able to develop fixed-wing aircraft capable of sustained flight, and of water takeoffs and landings.
ADVANCE CIVILISATION (10) Colony Sophonts, Electricity
Another development from the artifacts, the Colony Sophonts learn to harness the natural force of electricity. Hydroelectric powerplants are designed and built to provide plenty of this newfound power to the nation and simple electrical devices soon feature in many Colony Sophont homes.
ADVANCE CIVILISATION (10) Colony Sophonts, Computers
Using electrical impulses on some of the more inscrutable artifacts produces remarkable results. The devices awaken and are soon identified as powerful computational devices that do their tasks using electrical signals rather than complex gears. The Colony Sophonts reverse-engineer the computers and begin producing simple computers of their own.
ADVANCE CIVILIZATION (10) Colony Sophonts, Lens Technology (Light Bending)
By carefully perusing the ancient data kept within and preserved from their ancient computers and the copies made thereafter, combined with their own observations of light and how it interacts with both water, air, and other transparent substances, the Colony Sophonts discover a unique method of bending and altering the light... and by extension, allowing them to see through much greater distances than before. The careful application and alteration of some of the ceramic technologies the serpentfolk had developed allow them to create extremely advanced and complex lens structures. Soon, bizarre towers filled with beautiful lenses rise high from the seas throughout the Colony Sophont's regions.
Initially used with advanced sculpting techniques to create elaborate towers for the purpose of artistic "Light Bending" (the creation of incredible, but delicate and shifting "structures" of beauty from light), it is quickly utilized for exploration and science. It is during this time that they spy the Lunar Orb, and realize that it's a true celestial body - and potentially inhabited. By careful and continued study, it becomes clear, quickly, that it is not currently inhabited and can't sustain life... at least not yet.
ADVANCE CIVILIZATION (10) Colony Sophonts, Distant Projection (mutation)
After realizing the potential of natural telepathy and the disturbing lack of the Will of All's presence when far enough away, the Colony Sophonts begin a more aggressive breeding strategy, strengthening and increasing the range of their telepathic communication - and, by proxy, the range of the Will of All - substantially. This increase in range, sensitivity, and power also encourages a flurry of activity and creativity - the Sophonts create a new form of performance art based on telepathic projections that their feathered serpentfolk allies quickly dub "thoughtsong" - a method of communicating thoughts, emotions, sensations, and even visualizations to create an local artistic event, similar to other races' vocal performances called "singing". This increase in telepathic ability also created with it a marked increase in electrical energy and output capability of the Colony Sophonts.
ADVANCE CIVILIZATION (10) Colony Sophonts, Innate Computation (mutation)
Along with their increased telepathic ability and electrical output, the Sophonts complete a powerful coup - a further mutation of the memory pods. This mutation grants the Colony Sophonts an extremely advanced ability to interface with each other, run advanced mathematical calculations rapidly, and index and retrieve information in a far more organized and efficient manner with the memory pods. The Will of All multiplies the individual Colony Sophonts' abilities many, many times, allowing for complex and fascinating thought processes never before realized by the Colony Sophonts as their data is analyzed in an entirely new way.
The Sophonts quickly develop three related but esoteric artforms from this new thought process filtered through their aquatic thought processes - math-forming, codex-spiraling, and index shifting (a kind of performance art). These artfomrs are extremely alien to the Feathered Serpentfolk and difficult to comprehend, but are named by them anyway. These artforms, when combined with their more traditional thought patterns, allow the Sophonts to create advanced and highly projections based off of relatively little information.
ADVANCE CIVILIZATION (10) Colony Sophonts, Localized Will
With the Explorators planned expeditions occasionally going beyond the comfortable borders of the Will of All's telepathy range, the Colony Sophonts utilize their newfound computational skills to develop a method of helping a local selection of Colony Sophonts stabilize a distant groups' disturbing and potentially deranging distance from the Will of All. This allows them to generate a minor, temporary, and non-physical "Will of All" out of the local groups collective computational ability whenever they would otherwise be beyond the Will of All's telepathic range. This minor aspect of the Will of All would think and behave similarly to how the Will of All would, even without all of the Will of All's knowledge and memory. This would help stabilize and sustain any Explorators that wonder too far until they can return.
ADVANCE CIVILIZATION (10) Colony Sophonts, Advance Theory of Gravitation, Density, Energy, and Movement
As the Colony Sophonts continue to build their flying ships and make their observations, they begin to expand upon their earlier realizations about the differences between the "heaviness" of air and water, how difficult it is to move one or the other, or within one or the other, and taking careful note of the fact that everything always goes "down". Delving into the ancient secrets once locked in the computers and now the Will of All, combined with their own observations, they begin to realize that the moon itself is a body that circles Sekai, which, itself, circles the sun, which, itself, circles something else - all increasingly bigger objects (though, of course, they have no name for these things - they simply are, as noted within the Will of All's memory and computations).
Using these observations, they create extremely elaborate and advanced theories based on the principles of gravity, density, movement, and energy. It becomes clear in a moment of genius amongst the Explorators that there will be far and away many more difficulties they will have to face in actually reaching the lunar orb than previously thought, including supplies on the barren rock. The first thing they will need to overcome is their own weight.
ADVANCE CIVILIZATION (10) Colony Sophonts, Recycling Systems
The first idea the race explores is the concept of Recycling. Careful observation of the methods and function of the world around them reveals to the Colony Sophonts that natural systems are effectively one, large recycling system that takes waste and transforms it into usable material again.
The Colony Sophonts work hard at imitating this system, but creating a shorter (and smaller-scale), thus faster, variant for long-distance trips with little to no supply stations. This technology proves to be extremely effective, allowing the Explorators to travel much faster and farther with fewer stops more successfully. The ships are able to be made smaller and sleeker as well as a result, also increasing the speed and distances able to be traveled.
These technologies were applicable even the Colony Sophonts' own self-crafted shells, creating potent and lighter exoskeletons capable of assisting the Colony Sophonts in their individualized tasks.
This new technology even permits a successful minor expedition to the desert, though the Explorators do not interact with any of the natives there, avoiding them at all costs.
ADVANCE CIVILIZATION (10) Colony Sophonts, Artificial Low-Resource Supply Production and Storage
The Colony Sophonts' success was only the first step. The secondary element to the natural cycle is the production of sustainable supplies. The Colony Sophonts again bent their collective minds to the task of finding methods of taking low-resources and creating a semi-sustainable resource production out of it all, with little in the way of supplies.
With a sudden influx of supplies, the Colony Sophonts found they quickly ran out of room again, due to the low-mass, but high-volume their usable supplies tended to require. Thus they developed extremely efficient storage methods to gather the artificially generated supplies and keep them quasi-indefinitely.
When combined with the Recycling technologies, the Supply-Production and Storage technology was developed into a physical artform that would be known to the Feathered Serpentfolk as "Cyclical Essence" - a physical art from derived from math-forming, codex-spiraling, and index-shifting but placed in the physical world based on their technology to create pleasing, but also practical and highly utility-focused forms. It is later described by those few Feathered Serpentfolk who comprehend it as a form of "creation and keeping through energy and movement", a mystery handed down by scholars and thinkers for ages.
Cyclical Essence comes to define Colony Sophont ships and their exoskeletons, redefining their art and sculpture in a fundamental way.
ADVANCE CIVILIZATION (10) Colony Sophonts, Launch Systems
With the advent of Cyclical Essence, the construction capabilities of the Colony Sophonts come to the fore. Using their advanced materials science, powerful artistry, and deep understanding of the natural cycles, energy, gravitation, and movement, they begin the centuries-long task of crafting a usable system that will launch them beyond what their calculated range of "air" is into what they expect to be a complete void. The scaffolding created heavily utilizes their aesthetics in the sculpting, light bending, and advance material sciences.
Through trial and very, very painful error, it is discovered that the calculations required are so complex that only the Will of All is capable of making them with any degree of accuracy.
After several disastrous early attempts, the Colony Sophonts content themselves - for now - with launching various crafted items with no living creatures in order to gain feedback and other information.
COMMAND CIVILIZATION (8) Colony Sophonts, launch near-Sakai probes and data-relays, and gather and record all the information generated
Using their lens and computer technologies, with their light-bending math-forming, and codex-spiraling artforms; the Colony Sophonts are able to launch extremely elaborate constructions into the sky, generating vast amounts of information that is relayed back to the Sophonts. They also discover the limits to such launched items, and that many fall and are destroyed.
Eventually, however, they succeed in placing a large number of relatively stable objects in the sky that send information down to the planet, leading other races to wonder at these "moving stars". The Colony Sophonts begin to realize exactly how vast Sekai actually is, much less the region beyond it. The Feathered Serpentfolk will come to refer to these as the Celestial Eyes.
ADVANCE CIVILIZATION (10) Colony Sophonts, Sekaian and extra-Sekaian mapping
Using their advanced celestial eyes, the Colony Sophonts generate advanced maps of every portion of the globe. Additionally, they begin charting and mapping all of the near-Sakai objects (including the lunar surface and asteroids that are farther out), learning exactly how large a task lies before them.
Undaunted by the danger before them, they begin searching for locations for a good new colony beyond Sekai itself. Realizing there is dreadfully little in the way of supplies, and that even their Cyclical Essence will only take them so far, they also carefully locate and map the moving elements of smaller rock and ice formations that circle through the night sky.
ADVANCE CIVILIZATION (10) Colony Sophonts, Extra-Sakaian Mining Techniques (Lunar and Astroid Sculpting and Transport)
Realizing the desperate need for more readily accessed materials than were currently available for any long-term viable living arrangement, the Colony Sophonts begin looking for ways to acquire those. Using their advanced sensory probes and relays to find many useful materials in the extra-Sakaian bodies they've carefully mapped, they begin to tackle the problem of how to acquire them.
Applying careful observation of these celestial bodies, and the forms and movement of their probes and relays, the Colony Sophonts begin learning that, surprisingly, things behave in non-gravity in environments in some ways similarly to their own aquatic ones, though without the pressure. Combined with their advanced theories and art forms, they begin forming (strictly theoretical) techniques that would not only allow them to mine celestial bodies for needed materials, but scuplt them into beautiful and pleasing (and, most importantly, mobile) shapes, and move them across the distances of void and near-weightlessness without expending much energy or resources.
COMMAND CIVILIZATION (8) Colony Sophonts, Develop extra-Sakaian Colonization Program
Having finally perfected all the basic individual elements to launch a viable long-distance extra-Sakaian colonization program, the Colony Sophonts begin working in earnest to develop all the techniques together in order to create a full-fledged colonization program, carefully factoring in all of the variables, challenges, and using both their conventional thinking and computational style to analyze all the available data they've collected for exactly such a project.
Through a large amount of testing, trial-and-error, and careful study, the Will of All is able to perfect the techniques necessary to launch Explorators and their carefully constructed ships beyond the rim of the world - most importantly, while all of them survive process and the re-entry. The careful study of these non-living tests create a viable program for the living Colony Sophonts.
They prepare for the final push to attempt to acquire the ultimate example of the intelligence, determination, and will: colonization beyond their original world. The Explorators prepare for their ultimate exploration.
From their new vantage point, they believe, they can learn far more about the world more efficiently, as, with their ability to see everything below enables tremendously rapid development, as well as secure themselves from a cataclysm by existing in more than one place.
The first step, they determine, however, is to make a potentially-habitable place for them to live before attempting to move there.
COMMAND AVATAR (2) Will of All; Send Explorators into the Void
The Will of All focuses its incredible mental energies into creating a set of analyzed systems to successfully launch half of all extant Explorators into the void, in such a manner as to make their journey and efforts not only viable, but successful.
COMMAND SECT (4) Colony Sophonts (Explorators); Explorators, Sekaiform the Moon (and explore)!
The Colony Sophonts gather almost half of their developed Explorators for their greatest mission: ensuring the survival of the race and improving their information-gathering techniques by a large margin. The drift through the void is harrowing, horrifying, and nearly maddening for many, but with the records from the previous expedition, and the Localized Will projection, the Explorators manage to find and secure the various extra-Sakaian bodies they required to place long-term colonization into possibility. The Colony Sophonts utilize many of these materials along the way, perfecting their previously only theorized artform, and creating new ships that have never experienced the drag of a planet's atmosphere or waves before. Many of these are carefully aimed toward the moon, aggregating in a large body near, around, or even on it.
After the first mission was a minor success, a second was quickly sent. Again and again into the harrowing void the Colony Sophonts launched themselves, gathering wasted product from across the star system, and beginning to gain a terrifying understanding of just how vast their "world" truly was - and how tiny they were compared to it.
Over the course of almost five hundred years, the Colony Sophonts gathered and directed materials toward the moon, creating an ever-more-potentially livable locale. The sky over the planet Sekai beings to fill with many new, closer stars, some of which occasionally crash, though most that do burn up long before reaching the ground.
COMMAND CIVILIZATION/SECT (12) Colony Sophonts (Explorators), Colonize the Moon (and explore)!
The Colony Sophonts are prepared at last. Loading up a large number of potential breeding and resource-creation and sustaining technologies, they launch to the moon itself. The launch, landing, and set up go surprisingly smoothly.
SHAPE CLIMATE /SHAPE LAND(15) The Moon (triangles 21, 22, 23), habitable (by Colony Sophonts) Satellite (21 and 22) and Mobile lanetoid-Ship (23)
Having carefully studied how celestial bodies interact, they have successfully shifted the conglomerate, larger moon they are crafting from it all into a stable orbit, one that will not decay. With all this in place, the Colony Sophonts quickly construct a stable, powerful planetoid capable of sustaining their population, and permitting a powerful growth of their people. In addition, they create the first of what may one day become their ultimate gateway to the stars - a planetoid that is a ship (triangle 23). This ship orbits the moon which orbits the planet.
Though it takes nearly five centuries, the unwavering skill, intelligence, and determination of the Colony Sophonts create their own habitable second home - a home above the world of their origin -, and a gateway to even more.
CREATE AVATAR (10) Will of All (moon, 21)
The achievement of recreating the moon in their own image is a phenomenal one, but cost the Colony Sophonts much. They spend almost as much time recovering from the attempt as they did in their efforts to create their second home in the first place. However, the moon is highly uncomfortable for all those who are there during their stay - it is simply too far from the Will of All. As this information is passed to the Will of All with the cyclical visits and rotation of living arrangements on the part of the Explorators, it generates a solution - creating a second Will of All.
Taking many supplies and nascent brain zooids into the heavens, the Colony Sophonts utilize their Localized Will to train and grow the new Will of All into an adult. The moon now also has a Will of All.
COMMAND AVATARS (4) Will of All(s), Commune, Become One
The second Will of All matures and grows, becoming full and powerful as the first. The Two begin communing with each other over great distances, and the differences between their thought process are effectively purged - they become akin to a singular entity, though each half is only updated when the moon passes overhead (otherwise being too far away). The Colony Sophonts are, at long last, one again.
COMMAND SECT (12) Explorators, Explore! (And make peaceful contact with sentients, and share information and rudimentary technology with the Feathered Serpentfolk!)
As their society recovers from their intense efforts to colonize the moon, and their population grows (or re-grows) and stabilizes in both of their homes, the Colony Sophonts begin taking advantage of their new station, examining the world from above very carefully and transferring it slowly to the world below; After collecting as much information as they can, they set their Sekaian Explorators to move across the whole earth in their flying ships, landing in every region (except where tragedy struck once before) to examine, gather samples, and leave. They purposefully keep their contact with any sentient races brief, but successfully study at least individuals of all of them thoroughly.
The final leg of the Explorators' journey ends in a stop at the Feathered Serpentfolk's new city. There, they visit their long-time allies, and use the advent of Thoughtsong (delighted that they have learned such techniques as well) to teach the Feathered Serpentfolk about many of the wonders they've seen and created. Though much is completely beyond the comprehension of the Feathered Serpentfolk, the most rudimentary of the concepts, how the Colony Sophonts used them, and what they used them for, are clearly taught, though often quite mind-bending for the Feathered Serpentfolk to wrap their heads around. The ideas and concepts of having a Will of All when there is no Will of All (and there being two Will of Alls although only one), turning numbers and thoughts into reality, ensuring that all things move in cycles, and ascension into the heavens to ensure eternal survival are all explained as much geography and mapping of Sekai, its moon, and the void beyond (though this is nearly impossible with three-dimensional map-structures).
The Explorators would sculpt several (very bizarre-looking) monuments within the flying city to better illustrate and teach what they are explaining. It... only helps a little. Still, the vast explosion of information and powerful, alien teaching (which nonetheless has application in their world) heavily influences the Feathered Serpentfolk's art and culture.
After their extended sojourn in the floating city, the Explorators finish their journey across Sekai. The information they've gained floods the Colony Sophont culture, and is stored in both of Will of All's locations. From this point forward, many smaller expeditions are regularly sent out across Sekai for updates and additional information.
COMMAND RACE (8) Gather More Celestial Resources
The Colony Sophonts, upon seeing the success of their previous two expeditions, send out their forces to gather more resources from the regions beyond their Cradle Planet. They gather a vast amount of resources two and a half centuries, once again nearly doubling the original size of the moon.
SHAPE LAND (6) Two New Planetoid-Ships (moon, 24, 25)
From the materials gathered, the Colony Sophonts form and craft two new planetoids - two new celestial ships to take them to the deepest reaches of reality and beyond. Their efforts going smoothly, they complete these Great Ships within two more centuries.
ADVANCE CIVILIZATION (10) Colony Sophonts; Advance Celestial Eyes (technology, mutation)
The Colony Sophonts utilize their excess resources and all their technology to modify their Celestial Eyes by implanting a highly-specialized variant Colony Sophont without the normal memory or paddle zooids, but maintaining information processing, computational skill, and telepathic communication abilities, creating a powerful suite of information-gathering and telepathy-augmenting living devices that are self-sustaining systems based on the Colony Sophonts' Cyclical Essence design and philosophy; this new development with which they can explore their cradle-planet far more rapidly and thoroughly before, organizing their landing parties efficiently and avoiding many obstacles with these powerful devices.
SHAPE LAND (3) Colony Sophont Celestial Eyes (no actual triangle, spread across the sky)
The successful development and deployment of the Colony Sophont's newly augmented Celestial Eyes within a mere twenty years enables them to effectively instantly explore and catalogue the entire planet. Utilizing their skillful artistry of lightbending and sculpting, they create beautiful displays for those on the moon and on the planet (though races other than the Colony Sophonts tend to find the moving stars somewhat disconcerting somehow, even if extremely beautiful). Their feathered serpentfolk allies sometimes also call these the "Bright Array" or the "Singing Stars" (the latter due to the errant wisps of thought-song occasionally received from these devices, granting extremely accurate, but often bewildering pieces of information; the former because they often array themselves in various mind-bending patterns as they transfer light and information). The world of Sekai is filled with the Colony Sophonts' telepathic communication and the skies are filled with their Celestial Eyes and light bending. These are also used to speak and share with their Feathered Serpent allies, though poorly as the Celestial Eyes are not, themselves, sentient.
COMMAND RACE (8) Colony Sophonts; Additional Celestial Eyes (no actual triangle, spread across the sky... of other worlds)
The success of the Singing Stars is such that the Sophonts begin creating much larger arrays, and using the lunar Will of All's computations, send them en-masse to other worlds, and even the sun, such that they create stable orbits and begin gathering information. This project is long and on-going, however, as the void is very large, and the gap between worlds are enormous. The sudden explosion of Thought-song information from the Celestial Eyes is wondrous and bizarre beyond comprehension to the Feathered Serpentfolk. This is a project that the Colony Sophonts will continue performing more or less "forever". It is not a discrete one-and-done thing. Thus, it's a "command race" instead of a "shape land".
ADVANCE RACE (8) Subspace Long-Range Telepathy Enhancement (mutation)
Having tested their own limits with their celestial resource-gathering, the Colony Sophonts recognize the limitations inherent in their telepathic communication and communion. Taking and analyzing the data their Research Stars have acquired old from triangle 3, they discover methods of delving deeply into reality, and beyond it. In doing so, the brain and memory-pod zooids alter and become capable of utilizing these alternate frequencies of reality to commune and communicate with each other, regardless of distance. NOTE: While the Celestial Eyes also gain the benefit of this mutation, they make for a poor method of communication, lacking sentience at all - thus anything that would come through them, while exceedingly accurate, would be hopelessly bizarre and nearly incomprehensible without the benefit of sentience like that of the Colony Sophonts, or at least a somewhat similar technological and scientific progression and understanding; some kinds of non-sentient computational devices could, in theory, communicate with the non-sentient Celestial Eyes, though the interface and translation protocols would need to be carefully considered and implemented to do so. That said, communication could likely be performed to the Colony Sophonts, but receiving anything back would be quite difficult.
CREATE AVATAR (30) Will of All (one each in M23, M24, and M25)
The Colony Sophonts spawn incredibly vast numbers of their brain and memory zooids to create additional incarnate manifestations of the Will of All, synching up all five localities to create a singular mind in preparation to launch themselves deeply into the Void beyond.
COMMAND RACE, COMMAND AVATAR (14) Spread to the Void, the Planets, the Moons, and the Stars!
The Colony Sophonts, at long last, have completed all their preparations. In a strangely solemn communiqué with the Feathered Serpentfolk, the Colony Sophonts bid them the closest concept they have to a true "farewell" - that of separation and loss, an emotion similar to love, but strongly associate with death. And with this, the Colony Sophonts send three planetoids - with more zooids of all forms than have ever existed on their cradle world - to the void and beyond to learn, explore, and settle all things, leaving behind many wonders and uncertainties for all they have touched. The Feathered Serpentfolk might not understand - after all, the Sophonts are still around, even sharing information with them. If queried, they can only explain that "we have left" - something very peculiar to those who see them when they explain this.
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Dwarves
Creatures that are highly adept at survival in adverse conditions.
The dwarves begin to come together and purify as a society
advance in machinery (x1)
The dwarves dig deeper into the earth creating a single massive city spanning their whole race, they manage create new methods of agriculture that allows them to specialize, rather than live as a race of underground hunter, gatherers.
Purify: The dwarves comes together even further
Total advances 4, 2 purify, 1 avatar
COMMAND AVATAR (2) the Dwarven Cave System
Teach advanced mining, chemistry, industry, metalworking, engineering (and machinery) and weaponmaking; taken partially from the visiting Colony Sophonts Instead of being a discrete once-only effect, it is presumed that each turn until the cataclysm all the points that would be rolled go into this purpose. The exact amount of advancement will be determined at the time of the first cataclysm.
COMMAND RACE (8) Dwarves; Steal technology and advancements from the visiting Sophonts, adapt for the world below
ADVANCE CIVILIZATION (10) Dwarves; Chemistry, Engineering (and machinery), Industry, Metalworking, and Mining (taken partially from the occasionally-visiting Colony Sophonts)
The dwarves' own deity progresses them directly in tremendous advancements across the board... advancements taken from the bizarre alien visitors that occasionally slither creepily through the chasms. Still, their carvings and maddened whispers have kernels of truth and power - genuine, lasting power. Over the centuries and millennia, the dwarves slowly replicate elements they discover from the Sophonts, taking their technology and applying it properly. Aided directly by their god directly, the mysterious caverns around them train them how to survive on their own in the depths, against the coldness.
The very caverns around them teaches of the coming need for weapons, and drills them in their basic use to ultimately defend themselves against any that might stand come against them. The caverns themselves warn that the dwarves might not always have its protection.
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drop
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: The First Age
Lawfull-Good
N/A
Neutral-Good
Balthe Snyder: deceased
-Long dead god of the dwarves
-The bones in the desert
Chaotic-Good
Yellowdingo
-Transient god of the fey
-Keeper of the woodlands
-The sleeper in the boughs
Lawfull-Neutral
Drejk
-Bringer of the first folk
-God of the scales
-The alchemical paragon
Umbral Reaver
-God of Technology
-The Great Innovator
True-Neutral
Tacticslion
-The silent god
-Watcher of the world
Wrong John Silver: deceased
-The god of the deeps, who sleeps at the heart of the world
Chaotic-Neutral
Hordshyrd
-Twister of the land and flesh
-God of Change
Lawfull-Evil, or possibly Neutral-Evil
Troas, The Frozen One
-First among the gods
-Leader of the Pantheon
-Bloody God of the endless winter
Chaotic-Evil
Ulgulanothe
-Bringer of the dead
-God of fire and smoke
-The patient ember
EDIT: see, I got one thing properly formatted!
The rest is going to take me a while.
It's worth noting this post, when updating the above at some point in the future:
Polytheism - Create sect x6 36points
The newly formed "humans" are certain that their higher existence is a result of the actions of a higher power, however conflicts quickly rise as to which one, some claim it is the great serpent Hordshyrd, Others that they have been raised up by the great dragon, first gifter of life to the world, Drejk, others that it was the god of knowledge and the great works Umbral Reaver, or the great watcher and god of righteous order Tacticslion, others that it is the god wreathed in fire and smoke, source of the great glow in the south Ulgulanoth others that it is the god nearly as young as themselves, FFVIIGuru and still others say that it is the great god of blood and murder, who wishes them to bring pain to the world, who seems to now draw life in as once he stamped it away Troas, first and lord of the gods.
EDIT: Also, as an update in general, it's going to take me a lot - and I mean a lot - of editing. I am no longer able to really post the races. There's just too much going on with the current style, I'm afraid. The forums won't let me post them.
So, to that end, the next time I update the world, it's going to look substantially different than it currently does.
Oh, also noting which gods are dead...
EDIT 2:... okay, that's done. Now I need to place some gods in somnolence. But... it'll take me a while to tally up all their points, set the threshold, and get that whole thing started. So I'll work on that soon enough. Perhaps some of them have the time, still, to emerge and do something!
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drop
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Reminders:
""
On each Starday (Saturday) or Sunday, I will roll 2d8+4 for each day of the coming week (half for the current cataclysm god): Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Any day a god misses their daily roll, they can claim that roll instead. There is no limit to the number of gods that can claim a given roll.
For example, suppose I roll at the beginning of the week (getting a "7" on Tuesday, and a "10" on Thursday), and gods A and B miss Tuesday, while gods B and C and D and E miss Thursday. The gods A and B can both take Tuesday's roll (each getting 7), while the gods B, C, D, and E can all take Thursday's roll (each getting 10).
A god may always choose to rely on the Theorem of Divine Stability if they so-choose, though it grants none of their normal benefits (such as the Rising Ebb of Divine Spark) and averages just a little lower than normal.
Unclaimed points expire at the next week's roll on Sunday (though, obviously, grace will be extended for those who, say, miss Friday and Saturday or something). If you declare you're going to miss stuff in advance (by letting us know, for example) you can be considered to have claimed them each week at the next roll instead of losing them.
If I should miss a week, Drejk, Hordshyrd, or Umbral Reaver are all viable "secondary" rollers. They may deem tertiary rollers.
""
The Ido no Chi, the Well of Blood, in Triangle 18 becomes the Pool of Quiescence as well, and an avatar of myself. Those gods who have fallen somnolent (deemed "quiescent" due to not having posted recently) are removed here, where they remain until their "life force" gives out (at which point the god dies and moves into the God Mount) and all active gods are empowered by a proportionate amount equal to the Pool's threshold or the god wakes (at which point they regain power equal to a proportionate amount of the threshold).
Those gods who have not posted between two world updates are considered to have have fallen quiescent or somnolent; their essences and all of their power are stored into this singular pool.
This pool represents their total "life energy" remaining, as well as the "threshold" of the pool. Whenever a deity falls to somnolence, they add their current points to the threshold.
Each somnolent god has its own "life energy", but all start out with a total equal to the pool's current threshold. A deity loses "life energy" each round (3d6 for most gods). When that deity reaches 0 life energy, they are moved to the God Mount; they are dead, and an amount of energy equal to a proportionate amount of the total "Somnolent Pool" is then distributed to all gods across the world. The threshold does not decrease for the death of a god. (For example, if the Pool of Somnolence has four gods, and a threshold of 200 points, and one god dies, all gods immediately gain 50 points. The threshold remains at 200 points.) Additionally, all gods' rolls forever increase by 1d6 automatically, as normal for the Well of Blood.
If a god who is somnolent awakens, they rise forth from the pool and gain a portion of the pool's threshold equal to the amount that otherwise would have been generated instead of rolling for their points that round. (For example, if the Pool of Somnolence has four gods, and a threshold of 200 points, and one god awakens, that god immediately gains 50 points. The threshold becomes 150.)
If a god dies, they can restart the game at any time by rolling dice as normal. They immediately come back to life with the amount that they rolled, as if they had started the game for the first time.
The Herald of All is necessarily immune to this effect - it doesn't exist until called upon to act on behalf of the other gods. All other gods are subject to this, even Troas and Tacticslion.
If Troas or another god decides to be "hasty" - wishing to destroy a somnolent god earlier - they can do so by spending one "Other Event" per god (or, in my case, one "Command Avatar" per god) to do so. This results in effects identical to that as if the god had died normally.
""
This artifact-avatar determines who a god is associated with and who they are not.
Gaining an Association: A god can pay twice the cost of creating a sect to gain an association with a given race; this does not create a new sect. If a race has no associated god or a dead god, the cost is half this. If the race has a somnolent god, the price is as noted, however half the points spent are added to the somnolent gods' "life force" and the threshold of the pool of quiescence.
If the race is a sect, the prices (and values) are as given, although you must also have the permission of at least one other god strongly associated with a sect in order to take advantage of that Association. In this case, the payment is made to the god in question. An association can still be made by time and effort as normal - a challenged Association in that case, however, would be reviewed.
Association can always be transferred from one willing god to another. This costs nothing, and can either end the "givers" association or not, and the gods' option.
Multiple gods can be associated with a given race.
Losing an Association: A god can withdraw their association from a race (casting that race adrift and eliminating any sects they have within it) in order to gain 2d8 power immediately.
If a god does nothing with their association in a given age, or they die, the association is considered nullified and must be re-made.
Benefits of Association: in general, the benefits of association are nebulous - effectively, you are considered the "ruler" of a given race - the first among equals. The benefits are, at present, little more than formal acknowledgement of this fact. Thus, if you wish to affect another race, you should probably talk to the associated deity first.
That said, other effects or events that depend on association can generate significant power for a god.
Additional: Instead of spending double the points to create a sect, I am capable of utilizing this effect via Command Avatar ability instead, though I can only do so for one race per world update.
This avatar-artifact is not a loophole to gain more points than expended.
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drop
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ME:
Stock: 57
Total: 57+19=76
Somnolent Gods' loss (Threshold: 619)
Troas:
yellowdingo:
ulgulanoth:
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drop
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ME:
Stock: 76
Total: 76+21 = 97
Somnolent Gods' loss (Threshold: 619)
Troas:
yellowdingo:
ulgulanoth:
Sorry, Guru! I know how that goes!
EDIT: And yay! My divine stability came in handy! That's exactly what it's for! I'm sorry the lousy part has to go along with it, though.
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drop
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ME:
Stock: 97
Total: 97+17 = 114
Somnolent Gods' loss (Threshold: 619)
Troas:
yellowdingo:
ulgulanoth:
I haven't rolled on Friday?
Nope! But that just means you can grab the "divine stability" roll!
Goldday/Kin'yobi (Friday, March 21): 2d8 + 4 ⇒ (7, 7) + 4 = 18
<also called Fireday; outsiders sometimes confuse this with the other Fireday, above>
Grab 'er, Drejk, for 18 points!
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drop
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Also, now is the second time ever for rolling the theorem of divine stability!
Theorem of Divine Stability
Sunday/Nichiyobi (Sunday, March 23):
Moonday/Getsuyobi (Monday, March 24):
Fireday/Kaiyobi (Tuesday, March 25):
<>
Waterday/Suiyobi (Wednesday, March 26):
<>
Woodday/Mokuyobi (Thursday, March 27):
<>
Goldday/Kin'yobi (Friday, March 28):
<>
Earthday/Doyobi (Saturday, March 29):
<>
Hordshyrd (being the current god of cataclysm) gets only half the listed points if he claims any. (That will shift at the end of this age to someone else.) Because he is currently not the god of cataclysm, Hordshyrd can gain the full benefits until he takes six full actions or six posts'-worth of actions that don't lead toward the cataclysm. He has five left.
A reminder of what this is:
1) If, at any point in the rest of the week, anyone who has missed days pops in, they can claim the points generated from these dice rolls.
2) Similarly, in the future, anyone can claim these dice rolls instead of making some of their own.
3) If a particular poster fails to claim any of these dice rolls, before the beginning of the next week's "rolls", that poster generally loses the rolls (though a small window of grace is granted to people who miss Fireday and/or Starday, naturally, as otherwise those rolls may well be useless).
4) The purpose of this is to ensure that people no longer miss rolls, unless they miss a large span of time.
Ok, grabbing the roll for Friday...
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drop
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ME:
Stock: 114
Total: 114+18 = 132
Somnolent Gods' loss (Threshold: 619)
Troas:
yellowdingo:
ulgulanoth:
|
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Claiming points for 3 days = 21
With the passing of the last tingle of the sun's great flare drifting from the atmosphere the great twisted serpent slips back into contact with the mortal and divine planes, once more locking it's deity in servitude and casting it's red shadow across the globe (metaphorically that is.)
Advance race Vampires - Enchantment Magic - Illusion Magic
With the return of the great serpent the vampires make a sudden leap in their innate magical abilities, becoming able to project distractions and befuddle the mind, allowing them to easier attract prey and distract their predators. However the terror they so delight in when feeding remains.
Command race -Vampires - Increase slave trade.
With their more isolated and secretive existence the vampires have had to hold larger and larger stocks of feed sentients, but with the return of their directing dreams they have begun to realize the potential of their slaves for more, starting to take more and more in order to use them for more general purposes, as labour and entertainment as well as for food.
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drop
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ME:
Stock: 132
Total: 132+17 = 149
Somnolent Gods' loss (Threshold: 619)
Troas:
yellowdingo:
ulgulanoth:
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
At first, it was just an astronomical anomaly, a mistake, perhaps. A star was no longer visible. Of all the countless millions, one hardly mattered except to the most attentive of stargazers. Months later, another vanished, then another. Before long, a gap grew in the cosmos, a fathomless void. Far, far from Sekai, something terrible was happening to the universe.
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Advance civilizations - bows - combat tactics
A sudden spark of inspiration is fostered in the mind of one of the human tribesmen, it guides him to begin using a long strip of hide with a rock as a sling to better hunt prey, the idea spread across the human tribes and advances and soon all across the world there are tribes of humans are using the sling or bow to hunt, to defend themselves and to turn on other settlements to better their own lot. In scattered attempts to defend themselves from vampire or great beasts and in numerous raids against all sorts of foes the humans learn to use these simple weapons to spectacular effect, compared to the simple stone and wood tools they use otherwise.
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drop
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ME:
Stock: 149
Total: 149+18 = 167
Somnolent Gods' loss (Threshold: 619)
Troas:
yellowdingo:
ulgulanoth:
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drop
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ME:
Stock: 167
Total: 167+20 = 187
Somnolent Gods' loss (Threshold: 619)
Troas:
yellowdingo:
ulgulanoth:
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drop
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ME:
Stock: 187
Total: 187+17 = 204
Somnolent Gods' loss (Threshold: 619)
Troas:
yellowdingo:
ulgulanoth:
Will it work correctly?
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drop
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ME:
Stock: 204
Total: 204+9 = 213
Somnolent Gods' loss (Threshold: 619)
Troas:
yellowdingo:
ulgulanoth:
Huh. Seems I missed a day, or something. Welp! That's what the Divine Stability is for! Huzzah!
Based on it saying "Wednesday" and then "Yesterday", I'm going to presume the day I'm missing is Thursday (Woodday/Mukoyobi/Oathday), granting me an additional 13 points.
Total: 226
Also important for the missing day:
Somnolent Gods' loss (Threshold: 619)
Troas:
yellowdingo:
ulgulanoth:
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drop
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Command Avatar (x3)/Other Event (x1)/Catastrophe (x1): Drain the dead god! <20 pts>
Hordshyrd and Tacticslion both lose 100 points. These must be used by the Avatar of All to empower Hordshyrd. (Tacticslion also donates an additional, say, 8 points.)
The three orbs align once again, and, gathering their power, find their maddened friend. Having squandered his brief moment of freedom, they find his failure suspect, and collapse their efforts into stymieing his diabolical plans... while hopefully reminding him of who he once was. And so they steal... in order to give. Transferring this drained power into the Avatar of All, they request that it act in Hordshyrd's stead, enacting the plans once made by friends in a brief moment of lucidity.
Remaining Total: 98
EDIT: Transferring 50 more, for a total remaining 48...
Stock: 258 points
OTHER EVENT (7): Guard Triangle Three from obliteration, by claiming the stones from the sky
Unbeknownst to all, under the rain of destruction from the sky, mysterious rocks impacted the world did not harm the ship from beyond reality. Instead, upon interacting with the powerful extraplanar energies within it, they encased it, resonating with the starmetals already there, becoming one with it in mysterious magic.
The cataclysm broke open the valley below the ship, however, the mighty destruction fractured the land below the stones, and the ship sank deep into the earth... where it survived. And where it met what would one day become its children, the Anko, or demon-faced Angler fish.
()
CREATE AVATAR (7) the Mother (of Gankijiyuutsu)
An ancient, corrupted remnant - the results of an experiment and exploration gone terribly awry by one race no long part of the world (having traveled to the stars), and another that resides high above it -
a massive, pulsing conglomeration of flesh, with elements taken from the dead creatures from beyond this reality, from beings that were created from many entities to generate a singular creature, and from a mutated off-shoot of a serpentine race; all combined with ancient magical technology from another world, and strange rock from beyond this one, finally finishes its gestation and is fully realized. Using its innate telepathic power, it connects to the remnants Celestial Eyes above the world and... it understands them. Though they are mad, non-sentient, shattered, and fragmented, it comprehends both their pain and their information. It processes these, and harnesses the magical otherworldly energies within itself, to see across all of the planet at once. And what's more... it remembered. It recalled all the events seen from above, all things that occurred for many years, as it had sat, waiting, and gestating. And it recovered more memories from within its own depths. It creates within itself places for birth and careful experimentation and control - deep wombs of new life from which to create all sorts of beings.
()
CREATE SECT (4): Children of the Mother
Some Anko find this ancient being within the depths of their magma-filled swimming and recognize its power. They begin to worship its holy presence as a source of enlightenment, information, and glory.
COMMAND RACE (4): Anko all become Children of the Mother
The worship of the Mother quickly floods the society (such as it is) of the Anko, and all soon become adherents of her philosophy. Soon, all the males of Anko continually swim into the Mother, to become absorbed by her, and to begin making most new generations of Anko literally the children of the Mother as well as figuratively. Soon, they begin changing fundamentally. The Mother accepts them, and adopts them within itself, blending its ancient power and nature with their own.
CREATE RACE (-already paid by Tacticslion above during the "Mysterious Task"-): Gankijiyuutsu
Augments and grafts - living appendages, both individual (though non-sentient) and dependent are placed upon the Anko, granting them great power, but twisting the way they look (and occasionally fracturing some of their minds). And yet, this makes sense to the fish - the Anko have always been a single creature that comes from two, as their males must fuse with and be sublimated into the female, never having sentience or independent thought. And those that accepted the alterations of the Mother became powerful indeed.
As the centuries progressed, more and more Anko came to the mother, and entered into the mother, to become changed, and greater when they were reborn. And, soon enough, these changes to the newest generations of their offspring.
()
COMMAND AVATAR (1)/CREATE AVATAR (1)/OTHER EVENT (7)/SHAPE LAND (5): Having seen the destruction wrought by a singular deity, and understanding the inevitability of a second great cataclysm, the Mother begins to search for (and locate) a new place, both for herself and for her people.
The Mother moves through the depths of the world, finding the dead remnants of the Cave System Avatar that once was the embodiment of the dwarven people. She quickly, thoroughly, and fully (secretly) insinuates and conjoins herself to this avatar, creating an even greater avatar, and suddenly having enormous birthing chambers for her spawn.
Witnessing the terrible power and horror of the vampires that exist there, she decides to arm her children well against their depredations, with all the power of ancient races long since died out.
COMMAND AVATAR (1)/COMMAND SECT (x60) (180)/ADVANCE RACE (5): Take all data and information/steal all advancements from the ship, the anglers, the colony sophonts, the dwarves, and the slumbering serpentfolk; also integrate the hardiness and "togetherness" of the dwarves
COMMAND AVATAR (1)/COMMAND SECT (x10) (3)/ADVANCE RACE (5): Take the advancements of the vampires as well, and integrate them into the new race, as well as allowing them an innate ability to float through (and breath) the air as well as magma or water. Unfortunately, replicating elements of the vampires instilled some of the creatures' tendencies, which translate oddly into the new race - they become extremely solitary, though disinclined to be opposed to others.
The Mother begins quietly and secretly absorbing and processing all the information from the remnants of the races that infest her new, greater existence. Even as she grows in presence and nature with none the wiser, the generations of her children seem ever-more-removed from the Anko and Colony Sophonts they descended from (though she generates a few of these, too, for preservation, as well as new dwarves - she doesn't bother with the serpentfolk or feathered serpentfolk as they continue to survive - all within suspended animation deep within herself for release later at the slightest hint of her will).
In triumph, she finally finishes her mightiest work: the Gankijiyuutsu, the eyes of magical light. A fiercely powerful race with six hand-like stalks, each of which branch into "hand-like" structures with glowing "eyes" at the end of the fingers all around, each representing and perfectly encapsulating a different mystical or technological innovation (and, importantly, defends against it) allowing them to perform impossibly powerful deeds; and a massive gaping maw to impale and destroy their undead foes on their ancient primal teeth.
These neutral Gankijiyuutsu have abandoned paths of aggression for philosophy and reflection. They avoid the company of other creatures (even other Gan) in favor of solitary meditation; a Gankijiyuutsu philosopher is usually willing to spare the life of an intruder (though with the expectation that he will help the creature by discussing a particularly complex ethical or philosophical question). Some few choose to live beneath various communities, and they may manipulate events in these cities, although generally their actions are intended to stimulate and study a particular social, political, or economic situation as opposed to providing the Gan with power or wealth.
OTHER EVENT (10): The Mother and her spawn will wait until Hordshyrd is no longer a cataclysm and then immediately become his (one of) avatar(s)/associated people(s), if he so chooses, or defaults to a player of his choosing otherwise.
Remaining Stock: 0 points
Notes for later!
EDIT: Ahahahah! Spoiler fail! Well, it's fixed now!
Today, the beholders are solitary, egocentric creatures that have not advanced a culture of their own.
... a chaotic neutral-style offshoot, while others will be more along the lines of,
Some have remained among the daelkyr and the dolgaunts, while others have started their own followings among the Cults of the Dragons Below.
... combined with Faerun's tendency to associate them with Bane, creating the lawful evil ones.
The "Great Mother" of beholder lore will translate to the "mother" avatar I mentioned before (though it will not be lawful evil - eventually, it will merge with the destroyed avatar of the cavern-complex that used to house the dwarves, akin to the Great Mother's existence as a layer in beholder lore); while the "dragon below" cultists will likely worship your brutally destroyed serpent-avatar; and the "Bane"-style beholders will likely follow either Troas or ulgulanoth (or a twisted interpretation of the Great Mother), while the various daelkyr/dolgaunt-style "I am the artillery!" might work with ulgulanoth's undead giants or the vampires.
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drop
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ME:
Stock: 48
Total: 48+13 = 61
Somnolent Gods' loss (Threshold: 619)
Troas:
yellowdingo:
ulgulanoth:
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drop
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ME:
Stock: 61
Total: 61+12 = 73
Somnolent Gods' loss (Threshold: 619)
Troas:
yellowdingo:
ulgulanoth:
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drop
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I, uh, don't know what happened with my dice yesterday. So... I'm just going to re-roll them.
ME:
Stock: 61
Total: 61+21 = 73
ME:
Stock: 73
Total: 73+19 = 92
Somnolent Gods' loss (Threshold: 619)
Troas:
yellowdingo:
ulgulanoth: