ERode

Revue of Annihilation [Faction-Ruling Demigods Vie for Ascension]

@OwO@Click This@Shovel@Theyra@Sanity43217@Izurich@Estylwen
OOC up. Billions must perish.

Revue of Annihilation

The Cast

Templates

CS Template

[Character Image]
Name
Race | Age | Gender | Height | Weight
0th Circle | Domain

[Insert basically whatever parts of their backstory matters for you, in terms of expressing their personality, the situation behind becoming Ichor-Blessed, and what they left behind in traveling to Oratorio. Three or so paragraphs will suffice, but cook more if you want.]

Path to Ascension

0th Circle Ichor-Blessed

Ichor: 0
Wealth: 0
Followers: 0
Resources: None.
Artifacts: None
Property: None.

Divine Protection of [Domain]
At the 0th Circle, you get one passive effect that all your followers benefit from. Try not to word things in an overtly mechanical or numerical way. Examples would be...

Domain of Travel - Walks faster, gets less tired.
Domain of Fire - Better at managing the heat of small fires.
Domain of Goats - Can imitate goat bleats more accurately.
Domain of GOATs - More likely to receive upvotes on the Internet.

I'll be working to modulate these over time. For the purposes of planning, the maximum you'll have in the very, very distant endgame would be 10 different passives, at least through natural means.

Starting Benefit
This should ideally tie in with your character's story in one way or the other. Pick one of the below.

Starting Capital - 300 Wealth. The trip to Oratorio was expensive, but you made it with a fat purse leftover.
Band of Brothers - 5 Followers. Those you met on the way were moved or manipulated by you to joining your cause.
Treasured Companion - 1 Paladin. You've granted your grace upon someone whom you trust deeply.
An Old Bond - 1 Market Stall. [Property] Your family knew someone who moved to Oratorio before, and they've done you a kindness upon your arrival.
Origin Relic - 1 Low-Level Artifact. Some potency remains yet in the relic that granted you a fragment of the Thousand-Faced God, and you've taken it with you.
Adventurer's Kit - 5 Supplies, 5 Gear, 5 Medicine [Resources] You've always wanted to be an Adventurer in Oratorio, and had prepared for this long before you became Ichor-Blessed.
Personal Refinement - Tier 3 capabilities in a particular craft or art. Before become Ichor-Blessed, you had already refined your skills to the limits of a mundane mortal.

Paladin CS

[Character Image]
Name [Tier 1 Paladin] [Job Title (usually two words. Can change over successive Tiers)]
[Single paragraph description of their personality, ideals, and backstory.]
Skills
One skill associated with either their Job, the Domain they serve, or a combination of both.
Grades
STR - I | END - I | DEX - I | AGI - I | MAG - I | LCK - I

Samples

Sample CS

Okyuta

Human | 19 y/o | Male | 5'9 | 128 lbs
0th Circle | Marriage

He was just a little guy in a small town.

Then his childhood friend gave him a ring.

WHAMMO, life transformed forever! Married and Godlike, how great!

Alas, the way to Oratorio was a dangerous one, and his fiancee was run over by a bull.

Good thing the Ring still has enough juice in it to do cool stuff!

Path to Ascension

0th Circle Ichor-Blessed

Ichor: 0
Wealth: 0
Followers: 0
Resources: None.
Artifacts: Ring of Yearning [Tier 1] - A ring that allows the wearer to see a phantom of their loved one when under stress.
Property: None.

Divine Protection of Marriage

Bond-Forming Memories - If in a relationship, both Followers have a propensity towards remembering the good times and forgetting the bad times.

Starting Benefit

Origin Relic - 1 Low-Level Artifact. Some potency remains yet in the relic that granted you a fragment of the Thousand-Faced God, and you've taken it with you.

Sample Paladin

Lilim [Tier 1 Paladin] [Chain Sorceror]

Bro was a former sorcerer-student who ended up fucking up a ritual and summoning something he shouldn't have. Now that something owns his soul, and he sought out the help of lotsa people to try to avoid eternal servitude. Only one, some suspicious weirdo called Okyuta, actually had a solution that seemed like it has merit though: just marry that something and gain an equal relationship with them that way. Now, he fights under the banner of the Domain of Marriage, in hopes of becoming a man worthy of that something's hand in marriage.

Dude kinda went nuts.

Skills

Bridal Bridle - Better at holding down individuals with restraint spells.

Grades
STR - I | END - I | DEX - I | AGI - I | MAG - I | LCK - I

Revue of Annihilation

𝕊𝕖𝕖𝕜 𝕚𝕥, 𝕤𝕥𝕒𝕣𝕧𝕖 𝕗𝕠𝕣 𝕚𝕥, 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕣𝕤𝕥 𝕗𝕠𝕣 𝕚𝕥, 𝕤𝕥𝕣𝕦𝕘𝕘𝕝𝕖 𝕗𝕠𝕣 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕤𝕖𝕚𝕫𝕖 𝕚𝕥.
𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝕟𝕠𝕓𝕝𝕖 𝕕𝕖𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕞𝕚𝕟𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟 𝕥𝕠 𝕔𝕙𝕒𝕝𝕝𝕖𝕟𝕘𝕖 𝕒 𝕤𝕥𝕒𝕣!

✦

The Thousand-Faced God was slain by the Perishing Star, and with their death, their divinity spilled out to the world, granting unto mortals the gift of magic. At the same time, the lance that slew such a deity pierced into the very heart of the planet, rotting it from within. From that hole, that Abyss, monsters rose, wrecking havoc throughout the lands.

Thus, the Godless Era began.

Civilization became patchwork as monsters infested the lands, cities and villages connected only by adventurers and merchants’ guilds. Few nations can boast a dominion over anything beyond what the eye can see, and with the fall of the divine came the end of divine mandates. Revolutions sparked by the arcane gift ended dynasties or caused the tyrant’s fist to tighten into a chokehold. Meanwhile, the city-state of Oratorio stands at the forefront of the Abyss, having built great walls around the giant hole to block off any monsters that may climb out from the labyrinthian structure that remained after the lance’s exterior had crumbled away.

Explorers plunge into its depths in search of great treasures, or to simply hunt the monsters within for their body parts, dense as monstrous flesh is in arcane power. It is this double-edged sword that had made Oratorio the powerhouse of a city-state that it currently is. But the monsters of the deeper layers can only be driven back, not slain, and the capability of the mortals remain limited still.

You, however, are different.

You possess a Spark within you. A single aspect of the Thousand-Faced God has been grafted upon your soul by fortune and fate, and it is in following the pull of the Spark that you’ve ended up in Oratorio. For within the Abyss, there is one more thing that can be found: Ichor, the radiance that kindles the Spark, that furthers your divine power.

Your blessing grants Divine Protection upon those who pledge to follow you.

Your favour grants Grace upon those whom you see fit to become your champions, allowing them to surpass the limits of their mortal forms.

Your presence grants Miracles subtle and overt, expressing a supernatural influence over the world in the absence of its God.

Through this sublime capability, gather followers and allies, capital and Ichor. Extend your domain and plunge into the depths. Be the guiding hand that grants glory and immortality to your paladins. Until the Spark becomes an Inferno and you claim that empty Throne. Until the End comes once more, and the Perishing Star arrives to claim the heart of another Divine.

But know too, that until you Ascend, you remain mortal.

And the Spark within your soul can be stolen by another still.

The Ichor-Blessed

Mortals whom, through a twist of fate or the clattering of dice, have encountered a relic possessing a fragment of the Thousand-Faced God. That fragment, that Spark, had transferred from the relic into their soul, grafting upon it the gift of a singular divine domain, the aspect in which their powers manifest.

The Domain of Wealth may grant business acumen and a propensity for uncovering treasures.

The Domain of War may grant tactical and strategic genius and the ability to seize the hearts of warriors.

The Domain of Water may grant the ability to read the waves and the clouds, to uncover wells in deserts.

Through this instilled divinity, one can share such blessings with followers. One can fragment their divinity to raise Paladins. Ichor strengthens your Spark, while Grace weakens it. Miracles alter the world, while Divine Protection safeguards your flock. Through hard work, your following will grow, granting you the ability to ascend further as an Ichor-Blessed.

But though your Paladins may be individuals possessing unnatural power, though you yourself may move the clouds with a wave of your hands or command armies numbering in the thousands, do not forget.

The easiest way to ascend as an Ichor-Blessed is not by gradually gathering Ichor from the Abyss or from your followers' Offerings, but by ripping it out from the beating hearts of your rivals.

The Paladins

Mortals who have bound their lives to serving an Ichor-Blessed. A fragment of a Spark serves to ignite their soul, and from that point onwards, they have the potential to become heroes. The proof of their deeds is seared upon their back, and they possess Skills that grant them an advantage over unmarked mortals, Skills born from the legends that they had craft for themselves.

Most importantly, however, Paladins universally gain more strength from overcoming trials and tribulations. So long as they survive, so long as they’re successful in their endeavors, greater deeds are ascribed to them, and greater Grace can be bestowed upon them. Their potential is crystallized by hardship and the Ichor-Blessed’s will, until they truly are heroes.

Zealous loyalty, however, is not part of the relationship between the Paladin and the Ichor-Blessed. Though the Ichor-Blessed possesses the ability to sever their connection to a Paladin, fundamentally rendering the Grace within them inert, Grace, once given, can not be retrieved.

Thus, it is a dangerous thing for an Ichor-Blessed to manufacture terrible trials too overtly for their Paladins to oppose, no matter how much character can be built through suffering.

Oratorio

It is at once a city and at once a fortress, the frontier and the capital. Great walls surround the Abyss, that labyrinth formed from a god-slaying spear, but perhaps greater darkness lingers within the city itself. No king rules Oratorio, only a coalition of guilds, organizations, academies, and gangs, and with neither law nor order, the rules that govern the city fluctuate from block to block and are too-often a mutable thing.

So long as you have either strength or money, you may act as you wish.

So long as you have neither, you’ll be nothing more than a cog for another.

Great disparities persist on all levels and Oratorio is a cesspool of brewing tensions, prevented from breaking out into open warfare only by the knowledge that the first to draw their sword may very well be charged at by all sides and swallowed whole. And yet, people still travel to the city, still dream of the heights they can rise. For within this merciless meritocracy, a lucky break can send you to heights you’ve never dreamed of. And if you fail? Well, the worse that can happen to you is still only death.

As the Ichor-Blessed enter this city though, whether to start their own following within the backstreets or to seek out existing guilds to join and then coup, it is inevitable that Oratorio will change.

Map

Oratorio is a three-layered city where social stratification is incredibly visible.

The Outer Layer (denoted with 'O') comprise of those misfortunate souls who've just entered Oratorio and found themselves with little left except for their bodies, their labour. In featureless, blocky buildings with hardly any concern for health or personal space, the people here make do with what little they can get. The most needy of them all live in the Underpass, taking shelter in the covered route that newer Adventurers take to go from the Outer Layer into the Adventurers' District.

The Royal Road (denoted with 'G'), of course, is an elevated cityscape where the houses are spacious and beautiful, the wares are luxurious, and the people beautiful. There are guarded pathways heading uphill that'll bring you up to the Royal Road, and the guardsmen present, under the directive of the Guilds who employ them, regularly filter out anyone simply doesn't look like they belong. The elevated nature of the Royal Road is why the Underpass exists to begin with: recognizing that there is a need for movement between the Outer Layer and the Adventurer's District, civil engineers built covered pathways for people to travel through, and those same pathways became the last place where the desperate and unhoused can rest.

The Adventurer's District (denoted with 'A') feeds, supplies, and occasionally is home to those who seek to make their fortune within the Abyss. Plenty of options for entertainment exist there, as well as merchants who will happily exchange coin for materials. There is a bawdiness present, of course, an atmosphere that makes people hopeful and excited. But there are churches present too, who perform funeral rites at a discount if you bring in multiple people. There are couriers too, who specialize in delivering the last words of the fallen to family and friends. There are clinics, perpetually understaffed and overcapacity.

Why Were We Reincarnated as Orcs?!

Sausage party incoming huhuhuhu.

If you think the bigger orcs will play along with this immediately, Zeroth, might be good to switch to the PMs for a bit of collabing, actually.

Why Were We Reincarnated as Orcs?!

Esfir watched as offers turned into violence, the orcs squabbling over who was first in line. There was a time, perhaps, where she’d be magnanimous. She couldn’t eat 60 alone, after all, and what was cooked would only grow worse when left for the next day. Sharing fostered a sense of community, and communal ties were the bonds that kept them all above the surface.

Perhaps if she were fifty years younger.

Instead? Esfir took one of the juicier sausages, one sizzling with extra globules of fat, the casing on the verge of cracking and popping, and jammed it right in the mouth of the Runt that had managed to squeeze themselves between the clashing titans and was making some inane offer about giving a penis-shaped mushroom. As they chewed on reflex, the old-souled Runt focused on her core just a bit, trying to envision that strange energy feeding out of her and mixing with her emotions, her gaze. If her Intent towards that Tatzelwurm had been an explosive burst, this one was just a trickle, enough so that her voice had an edge to it, one that demanded attention and forced a pause in the action.

“Oi, break it up, you! While you’re slapping each other ‘round, the sausages are going away!”

She made a show real quick, taking a bite of a Tatzelwurm Sausage for herself. It was heavy in flavor, even if the flavour wasn’t anything that could be described as meaty. No sugar, no salt, no spices would do that. But it was sausage all the same, a miracle that transformed organs and blood and other undesirables into something edible and filling.

“I need to eat too, so I won’t be giving them all away, but look at these things. Big, strong orcs like you could eat them all and still be hungry!” Especially when they all wanted it. “So here. All of you can have some as a taste, and if you like it? Bring me a big beast with big guts. The bigger the better. A pot of water too. Gotta boil it up real proper.”

She was already cooking the next batch, spreading the links out over the flames.

“And I’ll make sausage for you boys, ones as big as my arms, so long as I get my share of the meat.”

Her gaze settled on the Runts that came over. Compared to grown orcs, whatever they brought over could not compare, but their hands were smaller, their minds more pliable.

“You bunch can get some too too, if you do what I tell you to.”

Skills

• Ingestion - After consuming a required amount of biomass from a particular Creature, 1 of that Creature's Skills can be copied at its lowest Rank.
• Frost Arc - Rank I - An expanding spray of icy cold, over 10 feet in one direction and 5 feet wide at its furthest edge. The cold is more intense the closer the target is to the origin, reaching its lowest temperature within a span of about 2 feet. It constantly expends Magic Power the longer the cone is maintained.
• Murderous Intent - Rank II - Focus hatred and the desire to kill through the subtle senses. A creature that is weaker than you must exert its willpower or be Intimidated (Intimidated creatures suffer reduced speed). A creature that is already Intimidated, Shocked, or Unaware may instead become Fearful and be unable to act for 5 seconds. Creatures that are stronger than you can only be Intimidated by this Skill if they are already Shocked or Unaware, but their willpower threshold is higher. At Rank II, creatures weaker than you will be made Fearful instead of Intimidated. If they are already Intimidated, Shocked, or Unaware, the effect of Fearful will be extended to 10 seconds. Creatures that are equal to you will suffer Rank I effects.
• Empty Skill Slot

Equipment and Inventory

• Swaddling Pelts - Equip, Clothes - Old animal skins used to keep an Orc baby warm as they sleep. Once the Runt is old enough to start hunting, these are usually just enough to cover the parts that need the most covering.
• Antler Bracers - Equip, Armor - A type of bone armor used to protect the arms. Materials such as fangs, teeth, horn, antler, etc can be quite tough, but typically aren't as hard as metals. They are somewhat resistant to physical damage, though less so against Blunt impacts. Light Defense Boost!
• Sharp Rock - Equip, Weapon/Tool, Material Component - A rock with a slightly sharp edge. Useful as a primitive knife or chisel. Can be thrown.
• Flint Hatchet - Equip, Weapon/Tool - A sharper edge than a Stone Hatchet of equivalent size, but lighter and more brittle. Requires more strength and proper alignment to get a good chop, but most wood will be cut faster.
• Borrowed Antler Pickaxe - Equip, Weapon/Tool - A pickaxe made with a sturdy piece of wood and a sharpened antler. Can harvest softer stones and some ores! It can be used as a piercing weapon, even on hard shelled creatures, but it wasn't designed for that. High Quality. On Loan from Bowbh.
• Jackalope Spear - 2H Weapon - A decent, if primitive spear. Not suitable as a throwing weapon due to its weight, but made of tough, sturdy materials. Jackalope horn is surprisingly sharp, almost as much so as metal.
• Stomach-Bag - Small bag, improved from an Elwet's stomach.
• Rotleaves x5
• Rotleaf Seedpods x6
• Gizzard Sparkstone
• Elwet Feathers
• Raw Chalcopyrite Ore x3
• Bufonite x3
• Tungem Branch x3
• Jackalope Point x3
• Broken Jackalope Point x2
• Pimplestool Mushroom x2
• Crushed Pimplestool
• Mushroom Shreds x3
• Mycellium Lash x2
• Frayed Mycellium Lash x2
• Cracked Tatzelwurm Fang x1
• Tatzelwurm Fang x2
• Tatzelwurm Claws x3
• Cracked Tatzelwurm Claws x2
• Tatzelwurm Coilbone x1
• Crushed Tatzelwurm Eye x2
• Harpy Tooth x1
• Harpy Talon x3
• Broken Harpy Talon x1
• Harpy Wing Membrane x2
• Harpy Screech Valve x1

@Zeroth

Why Were We Reincarnated as Orcs?!

Time to start the sausage economy.

Revue of Annihilation [Faction-Ruling Demigods Vie for Ascension]

If you want, you could swap it over for just a generic 'Resistant to mind-influencing effects.' Bit of a strange Skill to manifest from either a Dragon Brawler or a Paladin of the Stars, but I don't have problems with it either way.

Will kick up the OOC and Discord tonight. IC will probably be up sometime past the 15th.

Revue of Annihilation [Faction-Ruling Demigods Vie for Ascension]

@Izurich Yup, works out. Congrats on being the first.

@Stern Algorithm At this stage, probably set it as a generic danger sense where you know someone is in trouble but you don't know directions. Give it a vague kinda limitation on range too, or you'll have half your followers being unable to sleep at night because the other half are constantly sending danger pings due to adventuring in the Abyss.

Saint Valerius Academy - A Knight/Noble Fantasy

I've read a book recently called A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians, where the background history of it basically manifests from something along the lines of...

Nobles kept power and Kings justfified Divine Mandate by being massively powerful wizards who fought in wars where magic was flung and shit. Got to the point where the abuses of dark magic (necromancy, vampire shit, mind control) made things out into a Dark Age that was ultimately resolved by basically exterminating anyone with a hint of having such potent powers and then suppressing the magic of commoners utilizing cuffs that burned their flesh in response to attempts at casting magic.

Nobility could totally persist in a world like that, where peasant revolutions are less like "they have the military on their side so it'll be a tough one, but we can power through" and more like "we're literally fighting Fire Jesus on his home turf; this is gonna suckkkkk". And you can toss in some good ol' noble eugenics to constantly breed bloodlines with high magic potential and voila, thar ye go.

And then our characters, who are basically the next generation of traditional Noble-Knight rules of the world, are the ones that have to grow up in a world where technology/magitech has finally caught up to the powers of their bloodline inheritance? Gonna take a bit more to puzzle things out though, because admittedly, the book that I read was set during the French Revolution, while this setting is a good bit beyond that.

...

On a side note, because I'm a sucker for drama, it'd be nice if the Noble-Knight pairings aren't set in stone. Have there be a process for swapping out one Knight for another Knight-student n such. Or have the opportunity to be a solo Noble or a mercenary-kinda Knight.

Saint Valerius Academy - A Knight/Noble Fantasy

Speaking generally, I think we can just treat this in the standards of modern shounen anime?

Violence is A-Ok, and characters are allowed to explore their sexuality, but no on-screen sex, no portrayals of drug use by characters, and I feel like we can all agree that sexual harrassment and assault is super fucking awkward to just flatout write out in public? Generally I don't make a distinction in terms of the age of the characters myself; I just default to that sorta ruleset no matter how old the kiddos are.

I personally say 'one hit = loss' for the Duel setup though. Like, considering the presence of poisons and curses and all, just a scratch upon your Noble's pretty face could have massive consequences. Don't want the Knights to start approaching their actual bodyguarding careers with the reflex of "Nah, I can let two hits pass".

For TTRPGs, it largely just depends on whether or not you want to have stats to begin with. I'd say that flat modifiers and extra dice could exist together though. One indicates that a skill is more consistent, while the other one indicates that a skill is more risky. Could have people's natural dice pool exist in tiers too, so say, a beginner Knight naturally rolls with a 2d6, while a more experienced Knight naturally rolls with a 3d6.

The plot itself will definitely have to be figured out though. Right now, the state of the world itself seems kinda nebulous, so it's personally hard for me to imagine what would happen to the school. Like, what do Nobles do? Why are there Knights, rather than professional bodyguards with guns and shades? If there are Nobles, does that mean monarchies are still in place for powerful nations? What's America doing? etc.