The Heavens Are Aflame - OOC
Primavera, Sandro Botticelli, 1482.
TL;DR Summary
In Character Summary
Out of Character Info
Primavera, Sandro Botticelli, 1482.
TL;DR Summary
- Fantasy World
- Each Player controls a deity in a pantheon; they may be part of the current pantheon, the child of a god recently raised to divinity, a human given divinity or part of the pantheon that came before and was overthrown.
- The father of the Pantheon is dead; a conspiracy brought him low. His position is vacant and being fought over.
- There is more than one dynasty of gods; there is a prior generation of exiled/outcast/overthrown deities and they are playable and they are powerful, particularly with the King of Gods overthrown.
- Some deities are the patrons of a city or nation, but this is not really a nation RP.
- Greco-Egyptian-Mesopotamian style pantheon; in the style of the Greeks, the Gods will be flawed, jealous, striving among each other and deceitful bastards for the most part; they may be divine, but they sure as hell aren't omnibenevolent. They are the tantruming child-kings of all they see, indulgent and spoiled.
- Advanced Standards; 2 paragraphs minimum - that is the actual standard for these RP's, despite rumors to the contrary.
- Active collaboration; suggestions welcome from players regarding setting and so forth. Creativity and initiative encouraged.
- Important: Keep the OOC civil, bring up concerns about other characters and players to the GM in PM and do not harass people to post, bring concerns to the GM in PM so he can handle it.
- This isnβt a nation RP. If youβre interested in proving strategic genius rather than creating a cool RP with a story, this isnβt your RP at all.
- Each Player controls a deity in a pantheon; they may be part of the current pantheon, the child of a god recently raised to divinity, a human given divinity or part of the pantheon that came before and was overthrown.
- The father of the Pantheon is dead; a conspiracy brought him low. His position is vacant and being fought over.
- There is more than one dynasty of gods; there is a prior generation of exiled/outcast/overthrown deities and they are playable and they are powerful, particularly with the King of Gods overthrown.
- Some deities are the patrons of a city or nation, but this is not really a nation RP.
- Greco-Egyptian-Mesopotamian style pantheon; in the style of the Greeks, the Gods will be flawed, jealous, striving among each other and deceitful bastards for the most part; they may be divine, but they sure as hell aren't omnibenevolent. They are the tantruming child-kings of all they see, indulgent and spoiled.
- Advanced Standards; 2 paragraphs minimum - that is the actual standard for these RP's, despite rumors to the contrary.
- Active collaboration; suggestions welcome from players regarding setting and so forth. Creativity and initiative encouraged.
- Important: Keep the OOC civil, bring up concerns about other characters and players to the GM in PM and do not harass people to post, bring concerns to the GM in PM so he can handle it.
- This isnβt a nation RP. If youβre interested in proving strategic genius rather than creating a cool RP with a story, this isnβt your RP at all.
In Character Summary
Aroesus, the King of the Gods is slain, the victim of a conspiracy among those he ruled and kept in line. The heavens rage and seethe with plots and anger, with ambition and lust as the many strive to overtake the throne he once held.
A prophecy of his demise prompted Aroesus to increasingly erratic and paranoid behavior, such as restricting other deities to his court in the palace of Krona on Lake Miphas in Hevas, the realm of the Gods. Always a ruler prone to authoritarianism and rule through strength, he started to become nervous of his own subjects, and began to spend his days brooding over the most trivial of imagined slights and became more prone to punishing others for crimes they didn't commit by sending them to the islands of Lake Sharzunates, the underworld equivalent of Miphas that is linked to it by the Great Nasan Falls, where beings of power were imprisoned for transgressions against the pantheon.
While there had always been jealousies against Aroesus and those desirous of seeing him deposed, there was now an impetus for a conspiracy. These deities came up with a plan; Aroesus, as his sanity dwindled, become more a creature of lust than he was before. Before, he was known to rape other beings and egregiously cheat on his marriage. But of late, Aroesus became obsessed with the young Lyrikes, the beautiful son of a nymph and a god, whom he sought to seduce. Lyrikes, no fool, used this adoration to his advantage to gain power quickly in the court, though he never quite became the lover of Aroesus. He always teased Aroseus, drove him mad with desire until he was willing to shower more gifts upon Lyrikes in his lust. This, of course, worried the other gods, who resented this newcomer, who was vicious to most of the others and was arrogant to the point of offending many; he did not lack for enemies, and he treated them harshly, largely by convincing Aroesus to condemn them to Sharzunates for various reasons.
When the gods resolved to kill Aroesus, they decided to do it through his greatest vulnerability; the young Lyrikes, whom so many of them loathed but upon whom Aroesus lusted for to the point of insensibility and blindness. These gods destroyed the soul of Lyrikes while keeping his body alive; they poisoned his body and sent him to Aroesus' chambers. When Aroesus took the suddenly receptive Lyrikes in a fit of lust, he felt the poison course through him, weakening him. That is when the other gods struck with blades crafted from the flames of mount Mithsurash, a great volcano whose fires were said to be all-consuming. Both Aroesus and Lyrikes were not merely killed, but their souls utterly destroyed so that, even in death, they could possibly be summoned forth to give account of what happened to them.
With the death of Aroesus, those beings imprisoned on the islands of Lake Sharzunates are freed, as are the gods who were functionally imprisoned within Aroesus' palace on Lake Miphas. There is no one strong enough to take the throne and govern, and therefore the gods are thrown into anarchy, with the many fragmenting and pursing their own agendas.
The gods themselves thunder away at each other. It has gone beyond words and into the realm of war; and as in heaven, so it is below in Lymaeus, with the mortals warring among each other as prophets and their followers murder one another in the streets, while armies march and burn the lands of their enemies with a religious fervor.
The world itself trembles, as old enemies see their opportunity to reclaim their right and take revenge upon their oppressors and tormentors, new enemies see the opportunity to attack the structure where it is weak and cause it to crumble, and meanwhile the Gods themselves wrangle among each other, divided and distracted.
A prophecy of his demise prompted Aroesus to increasingly erratic and paranoid behavior, such as restricting other deities to his court in the palace of Krona on Lake Miphas in Hevas, the realm of the Gods. Always a ruler prone to authoritarianism and rule through strength, he started to become nervous of his own subjects, and began to spend his days brooding over the most trivial of imagined slights and became more prone to punishing others for crimes they didn't commit by sending them to the islands of Lake Sharzunates, the underworld equivalent of Miphas that is linked to it by the Great Nasan Falls, where beings of power were imprisoned for transgressions against the pantheon.
While there had always been jealousies against Aroesus and those desirous of seeing him deposed, there was now an impetus for a conspiracy. These deities came up with a plan; Aroesus, as his sanity dwindled, become more a creature of lust than he was before. Before, he was known to rape other beings and egregiously cheat on his marriage. But of late, Aroesus became obsessed with the young Lyrikes, the beautiful son of a nymph and a god, whom he sought to seduce. Lyrikes, no fool, used this adoration to his advantage to gain power quickly in the court, though he never quite became the lover of Aroesus. He always teased Aroseus, drove him mad with desire until he was willing to shower more gifts upon Lyrikes in his lust. This, of course, worried the other gods, who resented this newcomer, who was vicious to most of the others and was arrogant to the point of offending many; he did not lack for enemies, and he treated them harshly, largely by convincing Aroesus to condemn them to Sharzunates for various reasons.
When the gods resolved to kill Aroesus, they decided to do it through his greatest vulnerability; the young Lyrikes, whom so many of them loathed but upon whom Aroesus lusted for to the point of insensibility and blindness. These gods destroyed the soul of Lyrikes while keeping his body alive; they poisoned his body and sent him to Aroesus' chambers. When Aroesus took the suddenly receptive Lyrikes in a fit of lust, he felt the poison course through him, weakening him. That is when the other gods struck with blades crafted from the flames of mount Mithsurash, a great volcano whose fires were said to be all-consuming. Both Aroesus and Lyrikes were not merely killed, but their souls utterly destroyed so that, even in death, they could possibly be summoned forth to give account of what happened to them.
With the death of Aroesus, those beings imprisoned on the islands of Lake Sharzunates are freed, as are the gods who were functionally imprisoned within Aroesus' palace on Lake Miphas. There is no one strong enough to take the throne and govern, and therefore the gods are thrown into anarchy, with the many fragmenting and pursing their own agendas.
The gods themselves thunder away at each other. It has gone beyond words and into the realm of war; and as in heaven, so it is below in Lymaeus, with the mortals warring among each other as prophets and their followers murder one another in the streets, while armies march and burn the lands of their enemies with a religious fervor.
The world itself trembles, as old enemies see their opportunity to reclaim their right and take revenge upon their oppressors and tormentors, new enemies see the opportunity to attack the structure where it is weak and cause it to crumble, and meanwhile the Gods themselves wrangle among each other, divided and distracted.
Out of Character Info
So this was set up largely on a request for a Gods-themed RP, so I am posting the interest check first and I'll work on the mechanics, and even specific names (I've got code for a programmable name generator that spits out Greek and Persian-style names, using the consonant and vowel patterns of the names in those languages) if there is sufficient interest to do so (and I will share the code with you, of course.) I prefer to use the Greek body of mythology as the root of this, or at least for the flavor of it all, because the Greek gods were petulant, flawed beings, often hubristic as all getout and there's the whole cycle of son killing father and father killing son, not to mention the scorned women and the general insanity. The Greeks, in my mind, have the richest mythology, and that's what makes them the most fun.
Each player will come up with a deity that has a portfolio, though there can be some portfolio overlap between gods (a source of great conflict) not to mention the concept of deposed gods, up and coming usurpers (former half-mortal sons, powerful spirits and so forth) that will create a lot of strife within the realm of the Gods. The intent here, of course, is to create a war among gods, and more than likely create immense suffering among the hapless mortals as well. It's not so much good versus evil as everyone having a point of view and feeling justified in it...if everyone was a self-sacrificing paragon of virtue, this would be no fun. The fatal flaws will be the most important aspect of the characters.
The idea is that there will be alliances and conflicts from within and without, as each being strives to get on the throne or get someone they support on the throne so that they enjoy the position of power from which to keep the others in line. With interest, there will be a fleshing out of the realm(s) of the Gods, as well as a rough idea of what the mortal world is like, though the mortal world is obviously very secondary to the realm of the Gods...though the possibility of a Trojan war scenario, where the gods wrangle over mortals, is highly possible.
Each player will come up with a deity that has a portfolio, though there can be some portfolio overlap between gods (a source of great conflict) not to mention the concept of deposed gods, up and coming usurpers (former half-mortal sons, powerful spirits and so forth) that will create a lot of strife within the realm of the Gods. The intent here, of course, is to create a war among gods, and more than likely create immense suffering among the hapless mortals as well. It's not so much good versus evil as everyone having a point of view and feeling justified in it...if everyone was a self-sacrificing paragon of virtue, this would be no fun. The fatal flaws will be the most important aspect of the characters.
The idea is that there will be alliances and conflicts from within and without, as each being strives to get on the throne or get someone they support on the throne so that they enjoy the position of power from which to keep the others in line. With interest, there will be a fleshing out of the realm(s) of the Gods, as well as a rough idea of what the mortal world is like, though the mortal world is obviously very secondary to the realm of the Gods...though the possibility of a Trojan war scenario, where the gods wrangle over mortals, is highly possible.
