'That's my name!!'

The Grand Bazaar

The Bazaar is a Sphere with no sun and no sky, but it does have lights- thousands and thousands of lights. A million million lanterns illuminate a million million streets, bordered not by walls or houses, but by stalls, tents and shacks, makeshift or otherwise, stacked on top of each other into a haphazard infinity. Endless canyons of shops and stores stretch in every direction, where billions of invisible hands peddle every good and service ever seen on the face of Galbar, and even elsewhere.

Sometimes wearing gloves, sometimes rings and bangles, sometimes nothing at all, the invisible hands barter, bicker and chatter into eternity, speaking without true language, their voices never distinct and never alone. From a distance, upbeat music plays- always from a distance.

It is said that if you can follow the beat to its source, you will find the Market God.

Sphere Orientation

The Grand Bazaar is a shallow Cthonic sphere and its borders are thin. Things leak into Bazaar, or are duplicated there: a rock, a flower, a missing sock, a fallen sword, a secret you forgot when you were twelve. When things are forgotten in Galbar, lost in some corner where they will never be found, they frequently pop up in Bazaar.

All these things can be bought, and nearly everything can be sold. Your money, your metal, your cow, your wife, your name, your soul, your firstborn son, all of it has a price, communicated through unintelligible jabber and finger-pointing. The invisible hands are shrewd vendors, and difficult to trick, but they will take rarities where they can get them.

Some natural connections exist between the Bazaar and other Cthonic spheres. In its lower depths, fighting mantids are sold, ants crawl over the Bazaar's messy floors and moths flutter around its lamps, creeping in from the Hive through cracks in the floor. Certain sectors hear the jabber and babble turn to mutter, where crude rations are traded for weapons from the Pit of Trials- a grim market with little adornment. It is said that if one follows the babble closely enough, one can hear a single intelligible voice, an unseen swindler beckoning you to Sanvadam.

Ultimately, most of the Bazaar is a reflection of Galbar, and prices and goods will reflect this. Things that are rare on Galbar will be rare in Bazaar, and things that require godly might to acquire on Galbar will require godly haggling skill to get from the Bazaar, not to mention the time spent, how you say, picking up what fell from the back of the Architect's truck, if you know what I mean. But there's a certain someone who can help you out there...

The Market Lord

The Market Lord is a god that can get you things. Boil away the niceties, toss aside the pretences, and it really is that simple: Chopstick Eyes can Get You Things.

Every material resource imaginable can be found in the Bazaar, be it livestock, minerals, food, wood, fuel or fabric. Any good you can put on a scale and weigh resides here, and will be gladly packaged for the right price. And though the currency of Bazaar may be inconsistent, the prices are always two steps ahead of the market on Galbar. If you intend to pay less, you can very well expect to get less. In fact, even if you pay more, you can still probably expect to get less.

Enter the Market Lord.

The Market Lord is the only being in all of reality to fully understand the ever-changing structure of the Grand Bazaar, the only creature who can always find her way in its maze. The Market Lord knows every bit of blackmail, has jotted down the password for every smuggler's den, is on first-name terms with the matron of every brothel, and she ALWAYS gets a discount. The Market Lord has tabs on everyone, and everyone is eager to pay their debts. The Market Lord speaks the unspeakable language of the invisible hands.

'...and even I can't always get a good deal around here, wouldnya believe it?'

Even beyond her Sphere, the Market Lord is king over her domain. Numbers that pass through her presence do not stack up, and cause does not always meet effect. Wherever there is wealth to be accumulated through trade, it accumulates in the Market Lord's accounts, and wherever mortals are profiting en masse, the Market Lord profits also. Every piece of gossip that passes through a selling-place has passed through her, and she knows the source and passage of every good.

Any place that a shop can be set up, the Market Lord has one there. She has always had one there. Perhaps you don't remember, but soon you will. And when she departs, you will forget again. Just like everyone else.

Who is the Market Lord?

At the counter of half a hundred stores in the Grand Bazaar is an entity named Chopstick Eyes.

Chopstick Eyes has been instructed to adopt the form of a woman, and she took to this duty with enthusiasm, even though 'she' had and continues to have only the most distant conception of what a human being is meant to look like. Her head is too big and her legs are too long. Her arms bend where they shouldn't, and often she forgets the proper number. Her mouth opens too wide and has too many teeth, all of which are much too sharp. Her hair is prehensile. It hides many knives.

Above all, Chopstick Eyes has chopstick eyes. Sticking out from her eye sockets where true eyes would be are dozens of thin wooden skewers, densely packed and filled with splinters. These are slightly mobile, shuffling around like the antennae of a shrimp, with the sound of splintery wood and flesh rubbing together, occasionally shedding or being plucked for use by their master. Occasionally, when Chopstick Eyes needs to store something small, she will skewer it on her chopstick eyes to be attended to later, or simply let the skewers pinch it in place in front of her face. The skewers can also be weaponised.

None of this is particularly human, of course, but Chopstick Eyes never really changes them, even when she makes contact with an actual human. There is something missing from her, perhaps not broken but certainly incomplete, some blind spot that prevents her ever noticing or correcting the abnormality of her body. Perhaps that's for the better.

Chopstick Eyes typically wears a cheongsam dress with a neat cut- colourful, and every day different, but nothing too flashy. It gives her the appearance of a regular front-of-shop employee. Her uniform does tend to change a little depending on what store she's minding.

Her favourite weapon is an oversized meat cleaver.

But who is she really?

Chopstick Eyes prefers to live in the moment. Neutral Good by nature, she's a generous and easygoing creature with a habit of seeing the good things in life and getting, really, really excited over them.

It is the firm belief of Chopstick Eyes that now is the only real thing to exist- the future is chaos, the past is missing, and even memories can only ever be re-lived in the moment. It is this thought that has led her to become something of a tasteful hedonist, an aspirant after every art. Song, dance, painting, sculpture, and games, and stories, and cuisine, and sex, and meditation, and ESPECIALLY acupuncture- all these things have value to Chopstick Eyes, and she will pay well for any of them.

Oftentimes, she'll even offer them to you, free of charge, so you can enjoy them too.

Fair trade matters to Chopstick Eyes, as it does to any good economist. She defends the Bazaar and its occupants from fraud and thievery, both in person and by arranging the endless maze, as is in her power to do. She considers it good and just to be good and just. However, she isn't always going to take responsibility for your idiocy. If Chopstick Eyes makes an offer for your flesh, don't accept it too lightly. She's handy with that cleaver.

Chopstick Eyes respects boundaries and generally respects the will of other gods. Not everything can be packaged in a store (though most things can), and Chopstick appreciates being able to see new worlds and new influences. What really matters is that we all enjoy this moment together, without getting too hung up on the future or the past.

After all, all things come to an end.

Àl͝l th̛in͞gs ̛sho̴u҉l҉d ̴com̴e t̛o an̵ en͏d.͘

Al҉l̀ t̛h͏̸̨i͞͞n҉҉g̕͡s̕ ̷̧̢m̧͟u̕s̨̛t̡̨ ̢c̸̢om̴e̢͢͏ ̕t̷͟o ̴̧an̷͡ ̵͝҉e̕ǹ̵̀d̡.͠

A̷̴͢l̷͏l̛͜ ̀͢͝͝t̸̵̨̕̕h̸̀̀́i̧͜͞͏n̴̛͜ģ̸̧͢s͟͡ ̵̨͘W̡̛͡҉̷Ì̵Ļ͡L̨͏̡͞ ̶̨͞҉̢c͢͠҉̷o̵̸m̛̛̕e͘͢ ͠͝͠t̴̀͏ó̀ ͏͢͠ą̵̸͜n҉͞ ̴͡͝͞e̶̡͢n̢͜d̕͘͜͞.̴̶

S̶̡̛̲͍̜̜͍̳͎̬̥̣̺̗̜͙̻̟͠O̸̶̴͚̦̦̯̘̳͇͙̮͍̥͈̬͞O҉̢̥̣̯̖̳̤̞̯̹̭̼̘̱̭̲͘͜N̢͚̠̻̯̼͚͚̟͈̫̼̭̲̫͕̹͔̣͜͜͝.̵̬͉̠͇̦͎̰̯͔͕̦͓̬̙͙̱̙̕͡ͅ

.

...But until then, let's just enjoy the sunlight.

Music

DUMMY!!

@Strange Rodent brought it to my attention that there was a better fit for the Market Lord, actually.

Codeword

Entropicalicious entropicadoodle! OwO

In general I think you would do well to put more weight behind the concept of 'darkness of the soul and darkness within beings' rather than just the physical lack of light. Your sheet does hint at this in a few places, though. What if you added this to your Sphere? Right now all your Sphere does is color inside the lines with a black crayon. Sure it's fitting that your Sphere can claim to be the source of darkness between the stars, but could you think of an effect more meaningful? As things are, Galbar would literally be the exact same if your Sphere didn't even exist, so you're not using it to its potential.

On to Portfolio, then--darkness is good and it makes sense, but I'll reiterate my suggestion that you focus more on the subtler emotional meanings of the word. Concerning abilities, the one that you call Darkness Mimicry definitely constitutes a new form, but it's not overpowered and so it'd only cost 1MP, which gets discounted to 0MP because of your Portfolio. So you can start with this additional form for free, but just note that it is a separate form and is subject to the rules concerning separate forms, namely that it takes time to switch and that you can't instantly shapeshift in combat. Absolute Darkness is great; it's what I expect from a Darkness Portfolio. Darkness Attacks is not good. We think it's too vague and broad. BBeast had a good line, " From the Power Wiki entry, it is normal attack magic painted black. Just like Vestec's chaos magic was normal attack magic painted all the colours at once. It rubs me wrong because it really has nothing at all to do with darkness...Melantha would of course have the power to manipulate Darkness in more mundane ways, but darkness is immaterial and incorporeal so should be useless for physical attacks."

Though this might not go on your sheet, I would also like you to think about things that you'll have Melantha do early on. In the Age of Creation, how will she "spread darkness" to further her ambition? There's certainly potential, but I just want you to have a few ideas ready so that you aren't stuck twiddling your thumbs on the first few turns.

Sheet rejected for now, but consider it accepted upon removal (or significant change) of the Darkness Attacks part. We'd also really like to see some more stuff for your Sphere and perhaps a slightly different angle on the Darkness Portfolio.

It's clear that you've made substantial effort here, as is attested by the emotion and detail. I really do appreciate that, but I'll be blunt and say that there are still major issues with the sheet itself and with the design that need to be addressed.

I'll start off with the grammar. As a way to jokingly lighten the mood of an otherwise serious review whilst also trying to help by pointing out the errors I see, I usually have a 'mandatory nitpicking' line that I put in these reviews. But in your sheet, there are just too many grammatical mistakes to list. Normally I can just brush off typos or grammatical mistakes (I'd be a hypocrite not to; I hate editing and proofreading my own stuff, and I'm sure that sometimes it shows) but in the case of your sheet there are so many that it became distracting. This is troubling because it is indicative of what we might expect from your IC posts, and I'm sure you're aware that this RP is going in the Advanced Section. RPGuild's own description of the section spares me the words, "Must make a dedicated effort to minimize typographical errors and to use good grammar."

Now, if you didn't proofread, then obviously doing so would be a start. If it's still a struggle, there are programs like Grammarly that some people have had great success with. Double Capybara in particular has stated that Grammarly was a great help; maybe Capy can tell you about it on the Discord.

That aside, I'll now move on to the Portfolio. A god of Time/Possibilities/Fate is extremely difficult to pull off. In Divinus we had one guy make a god called Vowzra that was a god of Time that saw the future, but this only worked because Vowzra saw many possible futures, was incredibly cryptic, and the guy who wrote Vowzra was the GM. As you have it, Possibilities seems incredibly vague and I truly don't think you'll be able to make it work. If You have ideas then by all means we GMs will hear them and provide more feedback, but for now I would strongly suggest changing your Portfolio to something more manageable and concrete like Luck or Probability.

This leads us into the Sphere. I clearly see the imagery between a spider's webs, N'Chaera's arachnid appearance, and 'threads' of Fate or possibility. The metaphor there is nice, but this falls apart in terms of practicality when you say that it's less than an atom thick; you can elaborate more upon your intent by that phrase, but it seems like it may as well not even exist. And for effects it's the source of meteorites and supernovae--what? Why? How? I don't even see how such things connect at all to Possibilities, a spiderweb, or N'Chaera. One of my fellow GMs pointed out that you spent more time describing what Noc isn't rather than what it actually is; perhaps that's the problem. Maybe you need to start with a more concrete idea as your foundation for a Sphere, and then build up a god and Portfolio from there.

I hope you don't take this personally or feel that I'm unfairly harping on you. All three of us GMs would be more than willing to continue working with you or to give you further feedback on new ideas or any changes, but for now the sheet has to be rejected.

I'm glad to see the recent edits to your sheet. The shift from Word to Speech as a Portfolio helps immensely and nullifies most of the qualms that we had with your sheet.

Overall the new Portfolio is quite nice; you have clear powers and uses for it that will eventually arise, though I encourage you to start thinking now about what you'll do on the first few Turns. Because your Sphere is quite empty and won't need stuff to fill it, perhaps you can spend your FP on something like a big canyon full of creepy echos on Galbar.

On the topic of Spheres, Sanvadam is cool and very thematic; it can actually compete with the Maze and the Pit (the best of them) for most hellish place to get trapped. However, it seems like we could still just remove it from the canon without impacting Galbar in the slightest, which means you should give it some sort of more meaningful interaction so as to make your Sphere live up to its potential.

To everybody else reading this, that's my new criteria: if I feel like I could just delete your Sphere and the RP would go the exact same and Galbar wouldn't be any different, I'm going to complain that your Sphere should have more stuff going on. Of course, Spheres can be fleshed out IC, but a rudimentary idea of what sort of impact they'll have on the universe if something worth figuring out and telling us beforehand.

Personality wise, you're treading on very thin ice IC if he insults the Architect to his face, but OOC I don't mind. Just warning you

What I do somewhat mind is the seeming hypocrisy, because right after saying that Vakk would insult the Architect to his face, you claim, "That is not to say that Vakk is without fear, for it he is confronted by a foe that he knows is radically stronger than him, he will become a coward. Yet, this is a rare emotion as he never expects something other than the Architect to be more powerful than him..."

If Vakk fears the Architect, why would he insult him to his face? Fix that little paradox, please.

Despite these issues, overall your sheet seems pretty good now. You have a unique character and a unique niche and I look forward to seeing what you can do IC, so good job.

Your sheet's accepted contingent upon somehow fixing those lines regarding the Architect. This acceptance also comes alongside those substantial suggestions regarding the Sphere.

It's clear that you've made substantial effort here, as is attested by the emotion and detail. I really do appreciate that, but I'll be blunt and say that there are still major issues with the sheet itself and with the design that need to be addressed.

I'll start off with the grammar. As a way to jokingly lighten the mood of an otherwise serious review whilst also trying to help by pointing out the errors I see, I usually have a 'mandatory nitpicking' line that I put in these reviews. But in your sheet, there are just too many grammatical mistakes to list. Normally I can just brush off typos or grammatical mistakes (I'd be a hypocrite not to; I hate editing and proofreading my own stuff, and I'm sure that sometimes it shows) but in the case of your sheet there are so many that it became distracting. This is troubling because it is indicative of what we might expect from your IC posts, and I'm sure you're aware that this RP is going in the Advanced Section. RPGuild's own description of the section spares me the words, "Must make a dedicated effort to minimize typographical errors and to use good grammar."

Now, if you didn't proofread, then obviously doing so would be a start. If it's still a struggle, there are programs like Grammarly that some people have had great success with. Double Capybara in particular has stated that Grammarly was a great help; maybe Capy can tell you about it on the Discord.

No debate here. Must admit, grammar was never my strong point.

That aside, I'll now move on to the Portfolio. A god of Time/Possibilities/Fate is extremely difficult to pull off. In Divinus we had one guy make a god called Vowzra that was a god of Time that saw the future, but this only worked because Vowzra saw many possible futures, was incredibly cryptic, and the guy who wrote Vowzra was the GM. As you have it, Possibilities seems incredibly vague and I truly don't think you'll be able to make it work. If You have ideas then by all means we GMs will hear them and provide more feedback, but for now I would strongly suggest changing your Portfolio to something more manageable and concrete like Luck or Probability.

Actually, I was originally planning for her to go after for Imagination. But GoldenEagle took dream. And yes, I am planning for her to go after luck right now. So yeah, point taken.

This leads us into the Sphere. I clearly see the imagery between a spider's webs, N'Chaera's arachnid appearance, and 'threads' of Fate or possibility. The metaphor there is nice, but this falls apart in terms of practicality when you say that it's less than an atom thick; you can elaborate more upon your intent by that phrase, but it seems like it may as well not even exist. And for effects it's the source of meteorites and supernovae--what? Why? How? I don't even see how such things connect at all to Possibilities, a spiderweb, or N'Chaera. One of my fellow GMs pointed out that you spent more time describing what Noc isn't rather than what it actually is; perhaps that's the problem. Maybe you need to start with a more concrete idea as your foundation for a Sphere, and then build up a god and Portfolio from there.

I hope you don't take this personally or feel that I'm unfairly harping on you. All three of us GMs would be more than willing to continue working with you or to give you further feedback on new ideas or any changes, but for now the sheet has to be rejected.

Yeah, actually, the word choice in there is all intentional. The realm itself is model after quarks and gluons, particles that shouldn’t be even 1/10th of an atom, hence the “less than an atom thick.” And yes, I do intention for Noc to be almost unrealistic for its meddling with the alternate universes. I my mind, alternate universe are like particlesthat popping in and out of existence, exist for a few nano of a second before smashed by another antiparticle. Thus, in this way, the Galbar universe is at least equivalence in term of physics and chemistry. But because it is based on gluons and quarks, something that are still very limited in understanding, I found it is much easier to define Noc as what it is not rather than what it is.

Next in line, supernova. Now, don’t quote me on this, if anything blame my professor, but I guess in some extreme case, where a particle would popped out into existence near an extremely large black hole, the gravitational attraction of the black hole would be strong enough to pull the antiparticle away from the particle, thus, I guess, in someway, violate the law. But hey, it ain’t fantasy if you can’t interpret the mechanic. And from here is where I pull my bullshitery. Noc, in a way, act as a mean to stop these alternate realities from their miniscule lifespan. And when these particles don’t get destroy, they released energy. Due to itself being a world yet pounded into something so small, the energy is mainly released in light, hence the supernova. Meteorites, on the other hand, are also alternate realities. But what stop them from being a supernova is because of the whole lotta bullshitery that I am working on. But yeah, I can understand how it cause confusion.

Overall, point taken.

_{T I T L E S}

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_{G E N D E R}

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_{A L I G N M E N T}

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_{V I S A G E}

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_{S P H E R E}

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_{P O R T F O L I O}

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_{P E R S O N A L I T Y}

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_{M U S I C P I E C E}

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_{C O D E W O R D}

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