@Dark Cloud Bolas is another pretty typical example of a New God. A narcissistic, genocidal, megalomaniac. Becoming a New God is the worst thing to ever happen to him, because he went from being a big fish in a tiny pond to a tiny fish in the ocean.
@Dead Cruiser The problem is he used his Oldwalker ooga booga to repair the whole rift bullshit in Dominaria and then decided to get strong on the worship of a plane full of morons.
@Dark Cloud Anyway the path to ascension as one of the New Gods has many roads. In most cases it involves divining the Secret Name of God from some arcane science, magical study, deep meditation, or uncovering a lost secret somewhere on your home world.
Okay here's the CS template and a quick sample character to get an idea of what I'm looking for. The main things that will get me to like your character are creativity, a good theme, and tonal consistency, and so I've left the best instructions I think I can manage to achieve these things in the CS.
Name: Pretty obvious stuff, put whatever name your character goes by.
Sobriquets: New Gods often have various lofty titles and impressive nicknames, put them here.
Appearance: Images and descriptions both fine, having both is preferable, I would rather not get into photos/faceclaims here.
Aspect: This is the first complicated part. Every Key of Creation (the metaphysical object/knowledge that gives characters their divine power) has a particular aspect associated with it, which your character gained by learning one of the Secret Names of God. These names are typically something like FLAME, BLADE, GLORY, TOWER, BEAST, MIND, or DIAMOND. Something iconic yet provocative of a particular idea. This is the divine aspect your character inherited upon their asencion, and has symbolic implications toward their power. For example, the aspect of TOWER is associated with ruin, disaster, failure, and endings, so a New God with that aspect becomes most powerful after having just been defeated. Try not to make your character's powers and aspect coincide (so don't give a character with fire powers the FLAME aspect), but use it to give your character a new dimension. Also give the aspect a COLOR, which will determine the color of your character's aura/ki/chakra/mana/etc. PM me with questions if this isn't clicking, I know it's confusing.
World: What world/universe is your character from? The two terms are basically synonyms in this setting. Just talk about whatever you think is relevant, such as possibly its most defining features, its history, and what state your character may have left it in. Your character's aspect should have some influence on the world they are from.
Race: What species is your character? Describe them and their general traits here. Humans can just write "human," unless there is something particularly unusual about them on your world. The only limitation I'm setting forth here is that your character must be sapient and have a living soul in order to be one of the New Gods. If you want to play some kind of Angel or Devil, PM me.
Legacy: This is the backstory section, but I imagine our characters have a lot in common so I'll outline the minimum information I want: give me an overview of their rise to power (whatever that means for them), their motivation for attaining divinity (or what their original goal was if it was acquired accidentally), how they attained their Key (usually by somehow divining one of the Secret Names of God), and what they have been doing either on their home world or in Heaven (the ruin-dimension at the center of the multiverse filled with the titanic corpses of the Old Gods, where many New Gods have been squatting) since their ascension. If you want your character to start the RP ascending and do the fish-out-of-water thing in the RP, that's also okay by me.
Might: What was your character's claim to fame originally? Were they a wizard, a warrior, a citizen-soldier, a poet, a scholar? Describe their skills, talents, and abilities here, and how their newfound divinity has exaggerated and influenced this power. Really try to be creative here, since your character is meant to be one of the mightiest champions in the multiverse. You can also describe any armies or other resources under your God's command, as those interested in that sort of thing can amass wealth and levies easily.
Path: Here I want you to describe your character's goals, ambitions, or overall intentions for their own future. Where are they going, if anywhere? What are they doing with their divine power, if anything?
Feel free to format or add anything as needed, as long you keep everything that I've put forth.
Here's a sample character that I probably will not play.
Name: Zodraz Roa
Sobriquets: Sorcerer-King, The Master of Destiny, Fateweaver
Appearance: Zodraz is a staggeringly tall for a human, nearly twelve feet high, with skin turned deep, brick-red. His face is stern and austere, eyes that burn with divine starfire, and wild hair the color of molten copper. Azure-feathered avian wings erupt from his back, his pinions lined with staring, mystic eyes, and his feet have become birdlike talons with scything black claws. He adorns himself in armor of gold and ivory, decorated with the feathers of birds of paradise, and carries a gilded, long-handled axe that burns with arcane flame.
Aspect: Zodraz bears the aspect of DESTINY, which gives him unique insight into the currents of time and the winds of fate. However, his mastery over the future and its secrets also makes him slave to them, as he can easily become irrevocably tied to an undesirable future, which Zodraz often marches toward with fatalistic melancholy.
World: Zodraz originated on a world called Ea, where mankind was nearing extinction due to a magical disaster many ages in the past. Magical beasts and terrifying predators hunted humans as prey, with only those tribes that knew secrets of magic able to defend themselves. Since Zodraz united the tribes of his world, they live in well-defended cosmopolitan cities and study magic and science to further the enlightenment of all people.
Race: Originally human, Zodraz has altered his body with magic and flesh-alchemy into the winged, clawed giant he is now.
Legacy: Born among one of the nomadic witch-tribes of Ea, Zodraz spent his earliest years clinging to survival in the wastes and deserts, fleeing from magical predators, and learning scraps of magical lore from the elders of his tribe. He showed great promise with magic from an early age, and by the time he was a man easily eclipsed his elders in power. However, he was dissatisfied with life as a scavenger, and set out alone into the wastes to carve a new existence for himself. While everyone in his tribe thought this was suicidal, he survived his lonely journey and met another tribe, integrated himself among them and learned their magical secrets as well. This brought him to realize that each tribe had a different piece of a very large puzzle, which when complete would allow him to learn the secrets of Ea's magic.
Zodraz spent many years wandering the world, meeting tribes, learning their magical lore, and teaching them what he had learned in his journey. In time, he had united every nomadic tribe on Ea to form a single, glittering bastion on their world, which was the first city founded by the Sorcerer-King. More followed in time as the people prospered and multiplied, and soon all of Ea was unified in a single magocratic society. All the while Zodraz continued to study magic, meditating deeply on what he had learned from the many tribes and from the ruins of Ea's old civilization. The puzzle was almost complete, but he was missing the final secret of Ea's past. On one of his astral-projected forays into the collective consciousness of his world, Zodraz came upon an amazing revelation wherein he was able to find the last clue he was missing: the Secret Name of God, which was DESTINY.
This revelation ripped Zodraz from the astral plane and deposited him in Heaven, complete with a Key of Creation. While initially suspicious of the other New Gods, he quickly formed a kinship with the mystics and scholars among their number, and his magical knowledge and power exploded with the influx of wisdom and secrets from other worlds. Since then, Zodraz has split his time between searching out more divine and cosmic knowledge, including those secrets plucked from the future, and continuing to rule over Ea as its God-King.
Might: Zodraz is a supremely powerful sorcerer, preeminent among the New Gods for his mastery of the Red Art of Dominion as well as the White Art of Royalty. His ability to perceive the currents of time and see their destinations is much envied among his peers, as are the many Devils sworn into his service. Zodraz is no slouch in martial affairs either, as he has modified his own body with transformative magic and forbidden alchemy to become terrifyingly powerful, and he has trained himself to wield a two-handed axe with terrific efficiency.
Path: Zodraz continues to walk the path of Royalty, studying and meditating on the remnants of the Gods to deepen his understanding of the Multiverse, and its ultimate destiny. However, he often finds himself preoccupied with the administration of life on Ea, where he is worshiped as God-King.
The ever evolving concept of how things are achieved. It's the ever shifting possibility of the future and the discovery of new ideas or furthering the efficiency of technologies and sciences. He who holds dominion over such fields has the potential to shape the future.
World
Sol IV
Sol IV was the last planet to survive before the sun of Sol I died and in their desperation the people sought ways to prevent their worlds from dying through any means possible. Slowly their experimentation became less than ethical yet to the people ethics would not save them only scientific progress could possibly lead to their salvation. Yet not even their genius could prevent the end of their inevitable demise.
Race
Artificial Life Form
Within the machine hides the mind and soul of a living being, whom once callee himself human yet no longer does that term properly apply so he is simply just a soul and a mind within a machine body. After the man successfully transferred his very being into the shell he currently inhabits, the achievement unlocked the Key of Progression and shunted him from Sol IV.
Legacy
He Who Entered The Machine...
Orren Vos was a scientist who studied robotics and artificial intelligence, however his status amongst the scientific community was low and none of his research was highly regarded. It drove him mad and resolved his determination to perform a risky procedure on himself, resulting in his subsequent transformation into a machine.
With the success of his transition Orren Vos unknowingly gained the attention of an Old God by whose own aspect was Progress, yet the gaze was not of negative intent but conceit at the achievement of a mere mortal who ascended to a higher form of being, which was something that denoted a higher knowledge for such technological advancement by a human being. Orren Vos was overcome by an unseen force and his very being was somehow different and more powerful than before with the true name of a God stored in his mind...
Might
Power Of The Machine...
Orren Vos was a brilliant yet insane scientist when he was once the man he had been before his ascension beyond his mortal shell. He knows almost everything about technology and artificial intelligences, as well as the skills to make things no sane individual would even perceivably consider to create. He was an inventor and loves to make things with metal and wires, and eternally seeks to perfect himself and his inventions. And his newfound power over such things granted him the tools to achieve such desires, possibly exceeding the expectations entirely. Orren Vos soon discovered he could create metallurgical materials and shape them into the form he desired, and could even grant life to the machines he made. All artifice would answer his command without question for he was the master of the future. He was the apotheosis of Progress, and the future would bend to his will.
@ZAVAZggg Okay the simplest way to understand it is if you know what a Planeswalker is as the Key is essentially the equivalent of a Planeswalker's Spark.
@ZAVAZggg Okay the simplest way to understand it is if you know what a Planeswalker is as the Key is essentially the equivalent of a Planeswalker's Spark.
I don't play MtG, and the part that confuses me is the fact that these Keys are supposed to add something new and can't just act as a natural growth of some pre-existing thing or experience, etc.
So I'm taking it that the divine words/aspects are not already decided, we'll decide our own?
Can we play as a character who took one from another, previous New God?
My thought right now is a character who was loved(or at least desired) by a sorcerer on their own world. and was given immortality and invulnerability by them(this sorcerer could not bear to witness my character grow old and less beautiful, and beseeched the abstract ideas of time and change to spare them). A New God invaded their world to add it to His empire, but was not able to destroy my character, who plucked the star from His very brow and took it for themselves.
EDIT: second question, is there a set number of those aspects? I believe in K6BD it was seven, but obviously that may depend on how many characters are wanted.
Becoming a second-generation New God is a bit fraught, but doable.
The only issue I have with this idea would be that immortality and invulnerability are very difficult commodities to come by, even for New Gods much less just a regular sorcerer. Remember how much effort Mottom has to go to just to maintain her "youth"?
So this is my sheet as it currently stands, if anyone's curious.
The Broken King
‎ Appearance Since becoming a god, ANYM has shed any remnants of the mortality and humanity he once had save for its most basic shape. His skin has become a segmented grey expanse marred by ancient metals and the technology of old, his face a mask of golden death with the mark of a royalty long since lost floating high above, and eyes twin flames of purest blood. Where ANYM's flesh does not cleave unto itself, there lies coil upon coil of inflamed muscle. Crimson worms that tumble forth to bind the framework of synthetic flesh and artificial bone, undulating with every thrum filled beat of his divine heart. Move downwards from here and one shall find a tattered robe adorned with spikes carrying empty skulls, the memories of a petty conquest having reached its brutal end. Thus is it gone, yet never truly forgotten... ‎ ‎ ‎ Aspect ANYM's aspect is MEMORY, that which governs the remembrance of people, places, eras, and things long since lost and forgotten by most. This grants ANYM the power to summon the Chosen, an umbral mockery of the army he led while naught but a mortal king, the Spire, an ephemeral fragment of his former throne made manifest in the present reality, and the Law, the physical embodiment of the memories stolen from the victims of his conquest and thus a terrible weapon indeed. This is not why it is feared, however. Rather, the Law is feared because of what it does when striking or piercing a target. Upon rending flesh and breaking bone, the Law will erase one of the target's memories in order to impart one of its own. These are always hellish in nature, as they are usually the final moments taken from one of the many people either ANYM or those acting in his name have killed, though they can be blocked or removed by those in possession of the proper techniques.
In taking up this aspect, however, ANYM has also taken its weaknesses upon himself as well. He is no longer capable of remembering anything but the atrocities he's committed and the consequences they had, with even new memories becoming twisted into mockeries most cruel. Food and drink are like unto coal mingled with blood in his mouth, the recollection of their true form forever eluding him, while pleasure has given way to wicked pain. ‎ ‎ ‎ World The from which ANYM hails has been forgotten and destroyed, only remembered by the King himself in bloodied bits and pieces. From what little moments of clarity he still has though, it could be said that the planet he came from was a beautiful place once, with deep cerulean seas and verdant grasslands. He vaguely recalls that people like him lived there at some point in time. People with families and lives, hopes, fears, and dreams, albeit not anymore.
He made sure of that. ‎ ‎ ‎ Race Human. ‎ ‎ ‎ Legacy This is the backstory section, but I imagine our characters have a lot in common so I'll outline the minimum information I want: give me an overview of their rise to power (whatever that means for them), their motivation for attaining divinity (or what their original goal was if it was acquired accidentally), how they attained their Key (usually by somehow divining one of the Secret Names of God), and what they have been doing either on their home world or in Heaven (the ruin-dimension at the center of the multiverse filled with the titanic corpses of the Old Gods, where many New Gods have been squatting) since their ascension. If you want your character to start the RP ascending and do the fish-out-of-water thing in the RP, that's also okay by me. ‎ ‎ ‎ Might What was your character's claim to fame originally? Were they a wizard, a warrior, a citizen-soldier, a poet, a scholar? Describe their skills, talents, and abilities here, and how their newfound divinity has exaggerated and influenced this power. Really try to be creative here, since your character is meant to be one of the mightiest champions in the multiverse. You can also describe any armies or other resources under your God's command, as those interested in that sort of thing can amass wealth and levies easily. ‎ ‎ ‎ Path Here I want you to describe your character's goals, ambitions, or overall intentions for their own future. Where are they going, if anywhere? What are they doing with their divine power, if anything?
@Dead Cruiser If you have a full-stop problem with it, that's alright, just let me know so I can work something else out.
The idea was inspired by Baldr, in Norse mythology, whose mother made every thing(with one exception) in the world promise never to hurt him, leaving him(almost) invincible. It creates drawbacks that are outlined in the bio I'm writing, and from a meta-gaming standpoint he has at least one specific, tangible weakness I can think of(along with certain strategies to deal with him).
