[OOC] Mid/High Casual - Divinus: The Deity Roleplay Mk.II

[Muttonhawk]

@Antarctic Termite All this stuff about androgyny in your CS and here I am thinking of this in my head:

[Antarctic Termite]

@Muttonhawk I am 100% hoping this happens in game.

[WrongEndoftheRainbow]

sneek peek.

[Antarctic Termite]

Alright, controversy time: here's the big girl herself.

Mater Lei is this universe's version of Amul'Sharar and Vowzra (with a little bit of Vestec thrown in). Other than the hidden Domain, she's mechanically identical to every other god, with slightly higher initial stats- her level starts at 3 instead of 1 and she has 12 Might worth of initial creations split between weapons, avatars, and portfolios. I'm probably not going to be all that active with her, so fast levellers should outstrip her without much hassle, though she has a fair depth of fighting experience.

Feel free to ask me for hints about her domain on Discord if you want to puzzle it out, it's not such a big secret. Just don't shout it from the rooftops once you know.

---

Mater Lei

Concierge of the Gods

'What then of your horns, o Mater? What are they?'

'The perfect excuse to blast doors I don't feel like opening.'

Dᴏᴍᴀɪɴ & Pᴏʀᴛꜰᴏʟɪᴏ

██████ (██████ | ██████ | ██████)

While Lei's Domain is a mystery, much is known of her portfolios. The most obvious is Automata, beings of clockwork and coiled springs, which she creates effortlessly and in great number. Another is strongly linked to books of fiction, of which she has a nearly limitless supply, and the contents of which she can realise as simulacra, forming not-quite illusory flora and fauna from words on a page. The third involves powerful transmutative magic, especially of her own body and environment.

Aʟɪɢɴᴍᴇɴᴛ

Chaotic Neutral

Pᴇʀsᴏɴᴀʟɪᴛʏ

Lei likes to be fancy. Not act fancy, just be fancy. Fond of dramatic entrances, an aura of untouchable smugness pervades most of what she does, which is usually exactly what you don't want her to do. Life's a game, when you're the Mater, and it's easy to get the impression that she wears her masks purely to hide the fact that she's about to laugh at you.

With all the petty spite of someone who enjoys tripping up passerby with her cane, Mater Lei placidly denies or subverts every request placed on the position she's been entrusted with, and happily cheats, tricks and lies her way through godly transactions. Fortunately, she's not malicious, and will bow out and call quits before she involves herself with serious trouble. Lei also tends to be polite, even helpful, especially in things of little (or extraordinary) consequence.

For all her easygoing strut, Lei isn't entirely secure in herself. She hides her anger well, but not perfectly, and fears both her task and her pantheon. She tells herself that she is safe, and can usually believe it, but there's only so much she can do. She fears, also, that someone may eventually see her face.

She also attends a lot of balls.

Gᴏᴀʟs

It is Mater Lei's belief, informed or otherwise, that the gods must be both the sole and the sovereign rulers of the universe. There can be no great power outside them, nor may any great power surpass them. For this reason, Lei guards the Vault from which the gods emerged and to which they may return, such that none of her nieces and nephews in the pantheon may wield power other than their own.

Lei isn't particularly stringent about this, though. The Door tends to stay perfectly well closed of its own accord, and she's known to let the pantheon loan or make use of other oddities in the Vault in order to perform feats that may otherwise have been beyond them, such as creating planets, travelling time, or altering the fundamental properties of the universe. The costs of operating such oddities are high, but so long as Lei doesn't have to pay it herself, she doesn't particularly care either. Her primary goal, after all, is simply to have a grand old time.

Aᴘᴘᴇᴀʀᴀɴᴄᴇ

Lei seldom changes form, but regularly her costume. From formal to semi-formal to casual*, Lei always has some outfit up her sleeve for the occasion, usually in the gold-grey-red colour scheme she's addicted to. She wears human flesh often, usually stealing the body of whichever pretty mortal girl she last ran into who happened to be wearing her colours*, sometimes returning it later and often keeping it (and the girl) for herself as an attendant. When the need arises to be small, she takes the form of a serpent.

All of Lei's faces are masks, made or stolen one way or another. In this way, though she may be highly expressive when she wants to be, her insecurities remain securely bound up inside her.

Lei's avatars are two, and rather different: Malkut, the radiant automaton, is a powerful being born of her more diligent side, not so prone to travel; and Alto, the harpy, is a lazy wanderer. These twin sons almost never appear in the same place, and generally keep to themselves.

Lei's dresses are innumerable, and rumour has it her wardrobe is a major demiplane.

Mᴜsɪᴄᴀʟ Tʜᴇᴍᴇ

*Models photographed are Choi Sora and Ikebana Katsu, respectively.

[BBeast]

@Antarctic Termite I didn't expect you to put Mater Lei on the same mechanical tier as the rest of the Pantheon, but I suppose it works. (She's like Vowzra in that regard, as you mentioned, except her authority is more formally recognised.) Of course, if it is decided to start the gods at a higher level, then Mater Lei's level should be increased accordingly. I'd be inclined to start her at at least Level 4, where the gods receive their full power, but that's up to you.

[Antarctic Termite]

@BBeast ...I think I missed all the detail on what level everyone's starting at.

i'll adjust accordingly

eventually

sometime

maybe

[BBeast]

@Antarctic Termite It hasn't been decided, and it depends on what state the initial world starts out at. My suggestion was to start with a mostly blank world and start the first gods off at Level 3, so they can get to Level 4 by Turn 2 and start making their own sentient races. Kho is entertaining the idea of starting with an already inhabited world and letting everyone start at Level 1 (because, being an already inhabited world, they don't need as great creative powers to start doing interesting things).

[Antarctic Termite]

@BBeast Personally I think it's better to start with a blank slate and level three gods. Better to let them establish all the terrain for themselves and do ecosystems from the ground up, rather than pasting over whatever someone decides is the default.

On the other hand, it does mean that if people want Earth fauna they'll have to create it themselves. Which is a good opportunity to make certain animals inherently magical or give them a fun backstory beyond 'they evolved', but will take a little extra work.

Similar but also important question: do we want to start with an all-land planet, an all-sea planet, or a mix? If the latter, what do the continents look like? We can use a random generator and go with whatever seems fun. It basically depends on how much water civilisation we want and early we want to bring a tonne of sailing / alternative long-distance transport in for the land dwelling folks.

[Antarctic Termite]

I'm proofreading and touching up the OP. Does anyone have any objection to me naming free points Miracles?

[BBeast]

I'm proofreading and touching up the OP. Does anyone have any objection to me naming free points Miracles?

@Antarctic Termite

Miracles sounds more powerful than Freepoints actually are, although aside from semantics about perceived power level it's a nice name.

[Double Capybara]

What is the point of the new system if all gods start at level 3? It is not like mk2 immediately had a world brimming with sentient life from the stsry either or that a level 1-3 god can't create a few species on a local level with time spreading them out later.

[Antarctic Termite]

What is the point of the new system if all gods start at level 3? It is not like mk2 immediately had a world brimming with sentient life from the start either, or that a level 1-3 god can't create a few species on a local level with time spreading them out later.

@Double Capybara

It could go either way. It depends on what we'd do with the 'demigod levels' if we started out on a blank world at level one. The only real difference between Mk. II rules level one start and Lite rules level three start is that more Might is flowing around from the get go, so turn one lasts longer.

Lite rules level one start will sort of be an inversion of what we had in Mk. II, where everyone did their huge planet-warping displays of power in the start and then mellowed out later. With Lite rules you'll be making flora and fauna first, cultivating a small number of sentient beings and then later on changing the landscape or using major powers to boost them once they're established. The first few turns will probably last quite a bit longer, because you're not just using all your Might to muscle past the low levels each turn.

Whether that's better or not is up to you all. Any thoughts?

[Muttonhawk]

I'll say this for anyone with characters in Alefpria, but @BBeast in particular due to Gerrick's journey starting.

I intend for Conata to stay in Alefpria after for about a decade or more after she arrives to catch up into the new turn. Anyone with the means to detect her may notice her doing whatever good she can on the streets where the bureaucracy and the absent ruler are failing.

She'll not be there forever, but Yorum is taking a long time and Xos is next on the list, so feel like I should inform of the overall plan.

Hell, if you want to collab, we even have the year count to catch up with the temporal inconveniences!

[Cyclone]

@Muttonhawk

[Muttonhawk]

@Cyclone I've got, like, 2 of 9 scenes done, dude. I'm doing what I can :P

[Double Capybara]

I just finished reading a book and want something new, any media similar to Divinus? Creating a god made me want to get into something mythological.

[Antarctic Termite]

@Double Capybara The God-given Constitution of the United States of America.

*distant eagle cawing*

[Kho]

I just finished reading a book and want something new, any media similar to Divinus? Creating a god made me want to get into something mythological.

@Double Capybara

I once read a really cool book on Norse mythology. It kind of went through the important Norse legends in something of a chronological order, so everything built up towards the end: Ragnarok. It was really quite cool. Can't remember the name of the book though.

[Kho]

<Snipped quote by Double Capybara>

It could go either way. It depends on what we'd do with the 'demigod levels' if we started out on a blank world at level one. The only real difference between Mk. II rules level one start and Lite rules level three start is that more Might is flowing around from the get go, so turn one lasts longer.

Lite rules level one start will sort of be an inversion of what we had in Mk. II, where everyone did their huge planet-warping displays of power in the start and then mellowed out later. With Lite rules you'll be making flora and fauna first, cultivating a small number of sentient beings and then later on changing the landscape or using major powers to boost them once they're established. The first few turns will probably last quite a bit longer, because you're not just using all your Might to muscle past the low levels each turn.

Whether that's better or not is up to you all. Any thoughts?

@Antarctic Termite

We could always excuse the extraordinary power used by Level 1 lite-gods at the start by saying that much of it had to do with Fate and Mater lending them the power necessary to create an entire universe to their liking. So the basic laws etc. of the universe will be created by the gods as with Mk.II
It might mean that Turns 1 and 2 will be a bit slow as the gods will be limited with regards to the sentient life they can create. Unless Mater creates a basic intelligent species with which the newborn gods can go about playing and developing into different species.

[Double Capybara]

I checked the Mega-Summary and both Hain and Elementals showed up in Turn 3 on this Divinus, and I wouldn't say MK2 turns were slow. People would probably create areas, servants, monsters, equipment, little biomes, so on. Though I do think with Free it would be fine if Mater made a base sentient species. What I find more important though is land, as it will help to keep the flow of RP with the pace of Free, however, I find that what sort of initial planet we should have could be better discussed when Freevinus has its own thread.

Anyway, I should have said Kap Gam's opening move will be to create a source for souls, which obviously will help anyone to create their species or whatever. A small god can create a local population and them spread them, its what Toun did and Hain are everywhere.

I am torn on my opinion over the initial "world building" scene happening or not, they are always so confusing and full of things and likely to somehow both stale up and go out of control at the same time, its a pattern with all three Divinus. Wonder how that would go with free, but I would advise for a strong hand of Mater, if we are allowing gods to create the world, one wish and you are out of the room or something like that.

---

Edit:

I think it could work if the world initiated as a cold desert or just water or seas of sand, the cool gods congregate in one area, create a small oasis of life, each one flexing their divine muscle, and then from there, life spreads to the rest of the planet. The outcasts, shy, and edgy, could go and make their own areas with pool tables and punk music, send just an ambassador, or act in the shadows.

Such area would work in a similar way to the initial "nothingness" of the previous divinus MKs, except once it is done and the world has life, this original land could become a permanent "godly land", legendary to mortals, coveted by many gods, so on. (though it would take some turns, or for example, if there is no god of seas, it could stay permanently as a land where sand separates continents instead of water, so on)