What is the essence of a god?

[TheUnknowable]

Beneath one of the great pyramids in Giza archeologists found a giant stone carved with hieroglyphs and other symbols. Because it was radiating a type of radiation they had never seen before a group of physicists hauled it to a nearby lab and began studying it. During one of the experiments the stone began to glow, then a short time later it vaporized, releasing a wave of energy which caused monsters from Egyptian mythology and the ancient Egyptian gods to start appearing. The area was quickly overrun by mythological creatures. Then some of the gods then traveled to Greece. Beneath Mount Olympus they found a stone similar to the one that released them into the world and destroyed it, releasing the Greek gods as well.

Shortly afterwords a man began to tell people around Europe that they could fight back against these monsters if they absorbed the Essence of a monster, a glowing crystal that, when absorbed by a human grants them its abilities. "The Norse Gods will soon awaken." he told the people, "but I will help you fight back. Just join me." He left a phone number where he could be contacted and, when the people called him he gave them an address of a warehouse in London. There he gave them the Essence stones from one monster each and taught them to absorb the essence. While he was finishing with the latest group of would-be monster fighters a group of soldiers repelled through the skylight, followed by Ares. He's come to stop us before we stop them from retaking the planet.

[Zardoric]

Interesting. I would definitely be interested.

Questions. Are there going to be "Essence Bearers" (for lack of a given name) on both/all side of the conflict? Are the different mythologies going to fight each other? Will the mythological spread grow beyond/be pushed beyond Europe? Will we see the rise of Atlantis and the Atlantian Titans? How much of the world will be affected/will react?

[TheUnknowable]

@ZardoricSince there aren't any demigods around to fight the humans for them at this time, the gods will give loyal people monster essences too. We're just playing the human side of this.

At this point they are more concerned with conquering the humans than fighting each other, hence why the Egyptians would free the Greeks. Eventually, if they do well enough, infighting might errupt, but at this point they have a common enemy.

Mostly they'll just awaken the monster/gods in other areas. Also, I haven't mentioned it yet, but their power and that of monsters come from focus areas. One was the great pyramids, one was Olympus. Because they use the energy from these focuses, they try to stay near them. Otherwise they can't recharge and slowly lose their power. This means that they will rarely spread from an area with a focus.

I'm not sure what I'll do with Atlantis. I do know that some of the Greek Titans will make an appearance eventually, though.

Northern Africa is almost completely conquered, and Europe is in the process of being conquered. Any area that is under invasion is in chaos, and conquered areas are becoming monarchies with either a god or their puppet representative in power. The rest of the world is mostly unaffected at this time.

[Zardoric]

At this point they are more concerned with conquering the humans than fighting each other, hence why the Egyptians would free the Greeks. Eventually, if they do well enough, infighting might errupt, but at this point they have a common enemy.

@TheUnknowable

The only problem I have with this is the even just within their own pantheons, gods fight and disagree. The personality clashes between the personalities of the different pantheons (Egypt's focus on worshipping the dead and high structure vs. Greek's Worship of nature and moderate vs. Norse's worship of war, death, and catastrophe with little structure) would make them fall away from each other moderately fast. And that is just those three. Of course, different gods from different pantheons are likely to get along perfectly well, even becoming friends and working against their own pantheon.

[TheUnknowable]

<Snipped quote by TheUnknowable>

The only problem I have with this is the even just within their own pantheons, gods fight and disagree. The personality clashes between the personalities of the different pantheons (Egypt's focus on worshipping the dead and high structure vs. Greek's Worship of nature and moderate vs. Norse's worship of war, death, and catastrophe with little structure) would make them fall away from each other moderately fast. And that is just those three. Of course, different gods from different pantheons are likely to get along perfectly well, even becoming friends and working against their own pantheon.

@Zardoric

Sure, there are disagreements, but not full-out war. They've had a thousand years or more in another dimension to learn to put up with each other and now have a common enemy so the infighting is at a minimum. Now, getting them to do a joint operation is asking a bit much unless they have a history of working together, but not attacking each other's armies or getting in the way of another god's war effort without a good reason is generally the way they do things.

I'm thinking of the different gods as different countries, where they'll work together against a common foe, but they'll still argue against each other and do things differently in their territories.

Do you have a different idea how I should handle them?

Also, I think I'll have Atlantis be an artificial island which floats because of the Focus on it. When the Focus was silenced, it sunk and most of its demi-god inhabitants died. Of course, the players won't know any of this.

[Zardoric]

Makes perfect sense then.

Nice plot with Atlantis, maybe have Poseidon find it and awaken the focus and therefore the Island again sometime during the campaign?

[TheUnknowable]

CS idea

Name:

Nickname:

Appearance:

Age:

Gender:

Height/weight:

Essence/Powers: (ranks have a rating of, in increasing level, H-A, S, SS, and SSS. H is human level, so it's the assumed level unless otherwise stated.)
Monster type: Power (rank)
power 2 (rank)
etc.

Personality:

Bio:

Equipment:

Other:

Sample CS

Name: Sherman "Sherme" Mercure

Nickname: Icarus

Appearance:

Age: 30ish?

Gender: Male

Height: 1.72m (5'8")

Weight: 84 kg (185lbs)

Essence/Powers: His are far higher than yours for now, but you'll find out why during the second battle. Please limit yours to a max of Rank F.
(Unknown type): Speed (A)
Reaction (A)
Strength (G)

Personality: He wants to protect humanity from the rising threat of gods and monsters, and would give his life to protect them. He won't allow himself to become friends with anyone who hasn't proven themselves in a fight out of fear of losing them.

Bio: No one knows where he came from, but just after the gods were first seen he appeared on YouTube, offering to give people the powers of the monsters if they swore to protect others and fight back against the threat. Over the month since the threat appeared he has been all over North Africa, the middle east, and Europe creating resistance groups by giving people powers.

Equipment: running clothes/shoes, khakis, a button-up shirt, dress shoes, belt, a laptop w/ a webcam, good microphone, 600 Euros in cash, various monster Essence crystals, combat knife

Other: Sometimes works with another youtuber named "Cosmic Egg", an American who uses his intel gathering abilities to learn about the gods/monsters and what they are doing, and sometimes makes videos about them. He recruits resistance fighters and "Cosmic Egg" secretly finds them missions.

[TheUnknowable]

@ZardoricI wasn't sure which god should awaken it, but Poseidon does makes the most sense.

[Zardoric]

With appearance, add Age, Gender, Height, and Weight, and allow for a description. (Quicksilver? Really?)

Also add an 'Other' or 'Extra' section for people to add additional details the normally don't fit.

EDIT: Seeing as Poseidon was the main god they worshipped...

[TheUnknowable]

With appearance, add Age, Gender, Height, and Weight, and allow for a description. (Quicksilver? Really?)

Also add an 'Other' or 'Extra' section for people to add additional details the normally don't fit.

EDIT: Seeing as Poseidon was the main god they worshipped...

@Zardoric

He's a speedster. It was the first image that popped into my head. At least it's not the OP one from Xmen: Days of Future Past. His name doesn't give away his identity, does it? The characters will just know to call him "Icarus" until he befriends them, then he'll ask them to call him Sherme.

According to a Roman historian, who would have followed the Greco-Roman pantheon. I was thinking of making it more of a united nations for the gods to use as an official channel for airing grievances. Poseidon would be the Greek representative to it.

[TheUnknowable]

I just thought of something. I said that there weren't any demigods around to help the gods conquer the planet, but technically there are demigods on Earth. They are just the descendants of the gods that got left behind or stayed here on purpose (like the rebels that sealed the Foci), so it's highly unlikely that they'd help.

Most of them wouldn't have had any powers before the Foci were unsealed either, as the only two ways to catalyze the formation of an Essence crystal in the chest is to absorb a monster's or, for a god, demigod, or monster, to absorb strong human emotion. The Foci absorb the emotional energy of millions, especially faith, and feed it to anyone that can absorb it in the area.

Without a Focus they have to absorb it by being in very close proximity when someone experiences that emotion, and can only recharge their Essence crystal by absorbing more. For this reason many gods that got left behind started cults so that they could absorb energy from a few devout followers.

[TheUnknowable]

@ZardoricSomeone else has expressed interest in this RP in the OOC page. If you are still interested I could start it with just the two of you playing.