Turn 4 has started, please check the MP Spreadsheet for your updated MP counts. Please let me know if any number is off and I'll fix it when I can.
The Transcendental Quest is still ongoing, and its state is as follows: The entryway the Outer beasts were using to enter the material realm has been sealed thanks to the sacrifices of Voi and Lareus, but the two Greater Outer Beasts as well as the Lesser Beast hordes remain, as do the many settlements that have begun to be created around the Blood Ocean. The Dream Realm has been taken over by The Eidolon as part of their deal with the Outer God called the Presence, an action which has indirectly saved the lives of many dreamers who would’ve had their dreams invaded by outer entities otherwise. The Astral Realm is under siege by hordes of Outer Entities, with Luminaries giving their all to hold wave after wave of invaders back.
With the entryway to the material realm gone, the finish line is in sight. Glory be to the heroic gods of Galbar! First cohort to actually earn their station!
Lareus sat, one leg on top of the other, on one of the ornate chairs at his favourite dream-scape. It was a field of vibrant grass, swaying to and fro to the rhythm of a gentle breeze. The God of Dreams closed his eyes.
“This is… the best dream in… my realm.” He said, taking in a deep breath of the lavender-scented air. Curious, considering there were no lavender flowers in the entire dreamscape.
“It is calm, like a freshly reincarnated soul…” Voi agreed, his raspy voice coming from the darkness beneath his hood. The two blue orbs that floated in the darkness dimmed. Voi reached for his cup of green tea with his bandaged hands and poured the liquid into where his mouth would normally be, only for the tea to go all the way through and splattered against the chair he sat on, spreading throughout his black robes. It didn’t bother him.
“So… are you ready to… go?” Lareus opened his eyes and exhaled loudly.
“I think so…”
With those words, the two of them stood up and the dreamscape around them shifted and shivered away into a familiar sight - That of an endless desert on one side and an endless ocean of blood on the other.
It was only through the use of the Dreamlands that Lareus and Voi managed to teleport where they did undetected, but it was a one-time use trick for now. Lareus knew that the Dreamlands would be overrun as soon as he stepped out of them, causing chaos and pain throughout the dreams of all mortals. He knew so, but he also knew that some things had to be prioritised.
The other gods were too busy, too self-absorbed to react quickly to the threat, so he had gotten in contact with his only friend and set out on a quest of his own.
Still, he winced.
“The ya-gos… the dream bubbles… I can feel it all coming apart… at the seams…”
“I will help you fix it all, once we emerge from this accursed lake…” Voi stared at Lareus for a moment, then he stretched one of his arms towards the side and a scythe made of smoke and raw arcana materialised. Lareus saw this and touched his index and middle fingers on both hands to his temples, causing his circlet to glow and melt and wrap itself around his fingers. Four rings, all made of Larite.
“It is an ocean… but so be it… in we go, friend…”
And so they walked into the Blood Ocean.
II
The Outer Beast, both Greater and Lesser, had no souls. Instead, they had what Voi had gotten to call ‘seeds’. They weren’t fully aware of their actions, not even at the level of a normal beast from within the Universe, but they still felt pain, they still felt the desire to reproduce… It was strange. What was stranger still was the fact that their ‘soul seeds’ were all in various states of growth. Some of them had even managed to awaken into true souls. Those kills were the ones that hurt Voi the most. To kill an innocent, if violent, creature from another world and doom its soul to an eternity within his weapon was a grave sin. One that he had decided to shoulder for the sake of all that he knew and had created along with his fellow gods, his family.
One step, one slash. Both near and far in that direction, a thousand soul seeds ripped apart and were sucked into Voi’s scythe like a whirlpool.
Visibility was zero. The Blood Ocean was so dense that after just two metres or so of descent, everything was already pitch black.
Another step, another slash.
Behind Voi was Lareus. As usual, his eyes were closed and his fingers were pressed hard against his temples. Lareus was the only reason they were getting swarmed by thousands instead of millions. His weapon was no weapon at all, instead it was a set of rings that augmented his godly abilities. The ability to force his way into the minds of any outer beast with even the slightest bit of soul growth and impose dream after dream on them was terrifying. To think that Lareus had such an oppressive power, and that he never used it against anyone before…
But that still left the freshly spawned beasts. Wide awake as they were and wired to hunt anything with a trace of divinity in their blood, they were bound to go straight toward the pair.
But a thousand were no match for Voi’s Scythe. A single slash was enough to rip apart a thousand souls and leave the beasts’ bodies in a vegetative state.
Step after step after step. The saturated mud below their feet squelched unnaturally as they approached the deepest part of the Blood Ocean, where the seabed had collapsed. Deep below, an unnatural glow emanated from the sprawling black pools from which the hordes of beasts spawned.
Just as they prepared to jump down into the abyss, the flow of the blood changed.
In a split second, the Blood Ocean was parted in two. Lareus screamed in the silence of the depths and shot forward into the darkness, a trail of glowing divine ichor left behind him.
Voi couldn’t see their attacker. He, a God, couldn’t see their attacker. He desperately looked around, something that he instinctively knew would do no good. His grip on the Scythe tightened. His shoulders tensed.
The flow changed again. He was too slow. The thing came from above.
Three long barbed claws came straight down onto his head and split his two blue eyes down the middle and left a large gash in his smoky form. He lost his footing and flailed. Out of the corner of his vision, he saw the millions of previously asleep beasts awaken and rush to the trail of Lareus’ ichor, devouring it like a swarm of piranhas.
As Voi’s back touched down on the mud, the thing that had attacked them appeared from the darkness and sat on his chest. It smiled at Voi, row upon row of sharp fangs in its mouth. It had no eyes or ears, for it did not need them down there.
That’s when Voi felt it, this beast’s soul wasn’t a seedling, nor was it merely awakened. It was something… More. Just how many of his brothers and sisters’ creations had it devoured to grow that much?!
Voi stirred. Now that he had a lock on the beast’s soul, he had no need for fear. He simply reached up and touched the thing, and it went still.
“You shouldn’t have revealed yourself, you were too proud…” Voi said. He sensed a large swarm a few metres away. Hundreds of thousands, killing each other and crowding around one divine presence, all for a chance to eat just one more drop of ichor. “Lareus…!”
Voi shot up onto his feet and swung his scythe wide in Lareus’ general direction. Shortly after, he felt the pulse of Lareus’ Artefact activating once more. It was weaker and the effect radius was smaller, but it was there. So Voi jumped forth and met up with Lareus, who floated in a small bubble of his own ichor, surrounded by the bodies of thousands of lesser beasts.
One of his arms, half his abdomen and an entire knee were gone, and the rest of his body was so badly damaged that Voi doubted he’d be able to move for the next thousand years. But, he was alive. Lareus looked at Voi.
“You look… Like you got a close look at a train’s wheels…” Lareus chuckled.
“What’s a train…?” Voi wrapped his arms around his friend and started to float down towards the pools at the bottom of the ocean, in the submerged caverns.
“I don’t know… I saw it in a goblin’s… dreams…” After some moments, when they were close enough to sense the peculiarities within the black pools, Lareus spoke again. “It’s not quite the… same as the way into the Dreamlands… but I should be able to… shut it down…”
Voi nodded.
III
The two gods stood at the edge of one of the pools. Voi had set Lareus down so that he could reach into the pool and get to work on shutting down the portal, and was now on extermination duty. Every few moments, the God of Souls swung his scythe and reaped the souls of whatever unfortunate Cantar individual remained within the caverns. He sensed no corruption within the unfortunate few left alive after the portal had appeared, but risks could not be taken, not now and after so much sacrifice.
Both gods bled still. Hordes of beasts swarmed them still. The only thing that kept them safe was Voi’s Scythe.
As soon as he was done shutting down the portal, they could both make a quick getawa-
CRASH.
Lareus’ thoughts derailed. The outcrop of ceiling above them collapsed and behind that collapse was a form that moved faster than either of the gods’ eyesight could follow. Was it the same as before?! Lareus’s head, the only part of his body that he could still control satisfactorily, shot around trying to get a good look at their attacker. It was only a split second later that he felt a chill wash over his body. No, it was a god!
A blackened form moved so fast that it was like it had teleported into their field of vision. It stood there in front of them long enough for them to get a glance. Its claws dripped with energies not unlike those of the portal they were trying to shut down, its maddened eyes lusted for blood and violence, its shape was familiar, but distorted at the same time. It could’ve been one of the Outer Beasts, if not for the divine essence that practically dripped from it.
It charged. Its digitigrade feet kicked up all the silt in the cave as it did, enveloping both itself and Voi in the thick cloud.
“VOI!” Lareus screamed. The muted whoosh of Voi’s scythe cutting through blood echoed off the walls. Once, twice. Then there was a crash and a rumble. Ichor flowed into the blood ocean once more.
The unknown god came out of the silt cloud and crashed into Lareus. “GAH!” He gasped as the thing’s claws pierced through his torso. Half a second later, Lareus found himself half-buried in the stone walls of the cave. His vision clouded, but a good look at his attackers’ face up close told him all he needed to know. That unnatural grin, the unfocused and bloodshot eyes, the very aura of Violence spreading out around its body… Misri. They’d never met, but he’d seen her in the nightmares of mortals.
“It’s Misri! Don’t worry about me, Voi!” Lareus screamed as loud as he could. Caverns in the distance collapsed.
It was quick. One moment it seemed like Misri had been about to tear his throat out, and the next Misri was gone and a slash of Voi’s scythe cut Lareus in two.
Standing where they’d been a few moments ago was Voi, his ragged cloak drenched with ichor and split eyes dimming.
As Lareus dislodged from the wall and started floating down towards the dark pool below him, he saw with his blurry vision how Misri flanked Voi and thrust her claws into his head. A bright flash enveloped the blood ocean when her claws shattered his already damaged crystal-ball like eyes, and then Voi’s gaseous body floated up to the cave ceiling.
“V-Voi…” Lareus stuttered and coughed. Ichor came up. Ichor flowed from his torso and his arm and his missing lower half. There was no saving himself. He knew that now.
And yet luck was on his side. Sensing the death of a God, the hordes of outer beasts above swarmed Voi’s body and, by extension, Misri. It was the opportunity that Lareus needed, and he took it.
Thankfully, even though it was no longer within his body, his Ichor was still a part of him. When it flowed into the dark pool that was the portal, the whole thing bubbled violently and started to evaporate, much like Lareus’ Ichor. Before all his Ichor was gone, Lareus gathered his strength and lifted his one good hand to his brow, The rings on his fingers lit up. He would put Misri to sleep for the rest of time!
But he was too late. Misri burst from out of the swarm and with a single slash of her claws, Lareus had no hand. What followed was a blur. Claws came down upon him again and again and again. They gouged his flesh and sliced his bones.
One last thought crossed Lareus’ mind before darkness took him. ‘We did it… Voi, we saved the world…’ And then he passed amid the fading sounds of beast on beast carnage.
Eventually there was no noise in the cavern other than brutal howls of victory. Misri’s dominance over god and beast had been asserted.
IV
The cavern system where the Sparkfall Hivemind had once lived was now silent. There was no portal to the outer realms. There was no life, no energy. There were only bodies, ichor, and blood.
The last pool that made up the portal was now evaporating. It was so small that no beast could hope to come through, but even though that was the case, a force forced it to stay open for just a few seconds more. A cloud of smoke spread far enough to find what it was looking for – The bodies of the two fallen Gods. The smoke engulfed the bodies and chopped them to pieces and then extracted what they wanted – An incorporeal thing, the thing that the Khodex had uplifted and turned into a God. A thing that used to be insignificant, but through eons of honing and refinement had become special. The smoke shivered as the two bright specks of light were swallowed deep into it, and then as quickly as it came, the smoke retreated back into the portal, and then the portal was gone.
Only the two mangled bodies of the dead gods remained behind.
Lareus and Voi give their lives to shut down the Portal underneath the Blood Ocean. Misri is the murderer, aided by an artifact she received from the Outer Gods and Eidolon’s stealthy assistance.
Material Realm Portal has been shut down and no more outer beasts are coming into the Material Universe.
Turn 3 has started, please check the MP Spreadsheet for your updated MP counts. Please let me know if any number is off and I'll fix it when I can.
Deep within the Great Tree, the Khodex shivered. Encased and suspended in the air as it was, it was still impossible for any onlooker from seeing the way it silently rumbled and lit up. What had once looked like a large piece of obsidian to the mortals who lived at the Tree now looked like a gemstone filled with liquid light of all colours known and unknown, forming shapes and crashing desperately - and silently - against the crystalline surface of the cocoon.
“Big rock be Big crazy.” said a hunched over goblin from underneath its thick blankets beneath the towering statue of Syllia, his favourite spot to camp out at night.
“Me think small crazy. Not big.” Chimed in another goblin, much smaller and voice much higher pitched. It was a child, with her skin every bit as beige as the adult beside her. Unlike the adult however, she wasn’t covered in blankets but instead wore a thick tunic and bandages along the entirety of her arms and legs. “Not big. Tree big.”
“Choonga head small. Choonga no understand. Big crazy. Pah-wah-fool things pray to big rock all time. Big crazy.”
The child huffed and turned away, cheeks puffed out. The adult continued to watch the Khodex, flinching a bit every time the liquid light flashed bright and holding his breath every time the Khodex went dark. He couldn’t take his eyes off it and every one of his instincts was telling him to leave the Khodex’s presence, but he didn’t know where else to go. If big rock big explode, then no big distance be safe, right?
Deep in the Astral and Dream Realms, so far away that even the Gods who dwelled within couldn’t notice in time to react, a tiny spark went off.
It was an unassuming thing, a simple speck of light that soon vanished as if it had never been there.
And then it happened again. And again. And again for a thousand thousand moments, until a fingertip-sized Cantar redcap colony within the Astral Realm took notice of it. The watched it for a long time and when they were finally satisfied that it seemed to be inoffensive, they settled below the empty spot from where Sparks would fall.
Sparkfall eventually became a massive colony numbering in the billions of consciousnesses, fed by the strange light and warmth of the sparks. In the Material Realm, the Sparkfall Mind had taken over all the caverns, submerged or not, beneath the Blood ocean. They thrived, and despite being so numerous they were peaceful. They did not eat anything else and instead let the animals feed on them freely. There was no hunger and no cold, all thanks to the sparks.
It had been a long time. One day, one of the many mushrooms that made up the expansive Sparkfall Mind felt a sharp pain in its cap. It wasn’t being eaten, it wasn’t being stepped on, it shouldn’t even be able to feel those things either to begin with, nor should it be able to think. The redcap Cantar wracked its tiny astral mind trying to find an answer, and that’s when it realised - its mind was connected to its body, and it couldn’t hear the Hivemind anymore. It was stuck in its own immobile body in the Material Realm.
That wasn’t the only thing that wasn’t right. It could see, somehow. It saw blurry shadows and pulses of light and warmth around it. A massive network, many blinking lights, most of them wailing silently in pain…
The Hivemind had been shattered in a split second, and all the blinking lights were desperately trying to reconnect to one another. The flashes of warmth the redcap mushroom felt were proof of that. It was as if thousands of other minds were trying to talk to it, but they were all turned away by some kind of fiery shield around its very being.
Its vision clouded. All the lights dulled. Far away, a shockwave of darkness made its way through the entire network. Lights vanished without a trace by the hundreds of thousands, swallowed by some unknowable thing.
At the same time in the Astral and Dream Realms, the Sparkfall spewed light forth so strongly that it became a beam of light, one so incomprehensibly hot and unstable that as it moved around in its normal erratic manner, it tore apart the fabric of the universe.
In the blink of an eye, the largest and most successful Cantar Hivemind in the universe was simultaneously blown apart, shattered, sucked out of the universe itself and turned into raw energy. Energy that was absorbed by the ethereal beam of light that was now clawing at the edges of the universe, where the Khodex’s protection was most thin, and energy that it used to transform the innocent Sparkfall Mind into a living portal, an entryway into the Universe.
An earthquake rumbled below the Blood Ocean. Waves dozens of metres tall exploded in all directions and flooded and devastated anything around it.
Days later, from the depths of the blood ocean came Outer Beasts. Ancient, lumbering entities that dwarfed the smallest of mountains and the tallest of hills. The first one to surface was the Egrioth, a horse-like thing with six spire-like legs and 6 wings, with the head of a horse and the body of a lion, covered in bony plates as thick as the thickest city wall.
Then there was the Drowned One, which did not walk or crawl, but was instead carried around by its million spawn. It had no discernible shape or form other than that of a bloated, amorphous blob of green-grey flesh, with 3 wide white eyes on its front.
And there was the army of other lesser Beasts which spilled forth from the Blood Ocean covered in red mud, their claws and pincers and maws and stingers and minds all sharpened and ready to do as commanded by the two Outer Beasts.
As more and more spawned from the accursed ocean, they assembled around the two great beasts and bowed. A quarter of the Horde staying put and started building structures and roads by vomiting black slime into the sand, a quarter joined the Drowned One as it headed west towards Shangshi-La and a quarter joined the Egrioth as it headed towards the Land of Origins. As for the remaining quarter, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, they headed off in whatever direction they saw fit. Some went straight north, others followed their guts and went off in random directions, and others still chose to go back into the blood ocean.
It had been decades since the tribe had earned the name of “The Peevers”. Ever since that unfortunate encounter with the small river God, the Chieftain of the Tribe called Gorchok had faced nothing but humiliation after humiliation. From being forced out of their homes all the way to being spat at when seen travelling down the banks of the World River, the Peever tribe could catch no break.
That day was no different. After having been finally driven from the safety of the World River, the Peever tribe had settled in a particularly lush oasis just a few days’ travel from the nearest settlement. They numbered fifty strong, with a few children and elderly, and life was tough but survivable. That is, until a deformed thing appeared on the horizon. It dragged itself across the sand, almost as if it had no bones, and moaned and groaned out loud as it did so.
Naturally, a group of hunters was dispatched to meet the thing. It, which looked like some sort of desiccated red-capped deformed mushroom person, did not stop crawling as they approached. Instead, it groaned and moaned even louder.
“E…. He… lp… De… ad… Run…”
The chieftain, who had now just caught up thanks to his ageing joints, looked at the biggest and buffest of the hunters and nodded his head. The beaver hunter then smashed the red-cap’s head in with his massive sandstone club, making it explode into off-white chunks… only for it to continue crawling, only this time with no sound other than the laboured ragged breads coming out of its neck.
So the hunters wailed on the mushroom-thing and eventually it stopped moving. They carried what they could back to their home, cooked it and ate very well for the first time in days.
That night a dozen bull-sized creatures the shape of which they’d never seen before crawled over the horizon and descended upon the village, where they ate very well for the first time in days.
TRANSCENDENTAL QUEST #1: Hell in Heaven
The barrier between our universe and the Outer Gods’ Realms has been bypassed. A massive portal lies at the bottom of the Blood Ocean, spewing forth creatures of unknowable intent and power.
Two Outer Beasts spawned from the portal, the Egrioth and the Drowned One.
The Egrioth is a mountain-sized beast covered in plates of bone armour. Each step it takes is like a miniature earthquake and each flap of its wings is like a storm. It has its own kind of curse-based magic and can cast body-related curses as it sees fit.
The Drowned One is a mountain-sized beast that looks like an amorphous blob of flesh. It is carried by its spawn which number in the millions and it defends itself with hordes of such spawn, which can take on many different forms. It has its own kind of curse-based magic and can assault unshielded mortals’ minds.
Outer Beasts may be injured and killed by either a God using MP, via the use of a Godbane Artifact, or by finding and exploiting its weakness until it’s rendered harmless.
Besides the Outer Beasts, near-endless hordes of lesser beasts continue to spawn from the depths of the Blood Ocean. The lesser beasts have split themselves into four groups. One stayed around the Blood Ocean, where they are building some sort of home; one tagged along with the Egrioth; one tagged along with the Drowned One; and one was given free reign to do as they wished, which mostly involves heading straight for civilised areas and killing everything to both eat and take the corpses back to their settlement.
It will take many Gods and their Heroes to hold the eventual tide of uncontrolled chaos and destruction back, and someone will have to eventually brave an expedition straight into the heart of darkness in order to seal the portal by exterminating every last trace of what used to be the Sparkfall Mind as well as sealing away the light beam that’s currently tearing up the edges of the Astral and Dream Realms.
EXPECTED POSTS FOR QUEST COMPLETION: ?? DANGER LEVEL: EXTREME
The first Transcendental Quest has arrived! Details on how it works will be in the Discord sometime soon.
@Frettzo I finally made my changes to my CS. You were right, Laughter was a bit of a restrictive domain, so I changed that into something broader (and changed his theme song too). Hopefully this one works out better.
Approved! You may post Qlippy in the Characters tab and join the IC at your leisure. Should you need any guidance, lemme know. Also let me know if you want a link to the Discord server
If Galaxor had been the one to create the chambers and tunnels where the goblins guided by the Smilegma lived, then why did they always discover new tunnels around the same time each year? Lately, some of the younger goblins have begun to murmur amongst themselves about the ‘Phantoms of the Lower Tunnels’. A set of triplets claimed they once encountered a ghostly apparition down near the end of the Tunnel of Uglagulg, and when they came back the next day to check on the ghost, found a new tunnel in its place instead. Everyone’s refused to go into any of the lower tunnels since they started spreading those rumours, where most of the tasty creepy-crawlies make their lives and where they harvest the plant fibres they use to make their clothes.
Safe to say, their shabby clothes and tools wouldn’t last long if they didn’t get any new materials for repairs, and with no clothes or tools a fate worse than death awaited them… That of not being able to comfortably sit on the gravelly, scratchy cave floors. Oh, and death by exposure or lack of means of defence against predators, too.
EXPECTED POSTS FOR QUEST COMPLETION: 1 DANGER LEVEL: LOW
Coming from the blood pools within the eternal sandstorms in the desert wastelands to the south of the Lick, Blood Locust swarms were an uncommon but not surprising event which usually happened at least once or twice each year, easily warded off by the burning of bonfires and trash heaps.
This last year, however, there have been six swarms. Each one featured larger, meatier locusts than the last. The second to last swarm that passed by didn’t even respond to the smoke and instead flew straight through it, eating every grain and every crop they could find and throwing the entire region into disarray. The week after yet another swarm came through and upon failing to find any crops to eat, they instead grabbed wild animals and some of the weakest Snooters and dragged them away into the wastes, never to be seen again.
There is widespread fear gripping the region. Tribes of Snooters blame and raid other tribes and each other for incurring the wrath of the Gods, and little by little the fear grows so much that Agriculture becomes impossible, for not a single day passes without fields being trampled and salted.
The shamans and prophets now believe that yet another swarm is coming… One that will dwarf the previous ones and spell the end of Snooter civilization around the Lick.
"Snooter. Pigs. Boars. Pork. Locust fears? Bloody bacon... To aid? Long tongues... Big stomachs... Hunger." Said a pile of his own dung to Hummus via a farty version of morse code.
EXPECTED POSTS FOR QUEST COMPLETION: 1-2 DANGER LEVEL: MEDIUM
The Great River is slowly drying up. A quick investigation shows the source to be a set of dams of massive proportions that are being built by a large group of beaverfolk in and around Shangshi-La. Several groups of people have asked them to stop, only to be met by a hail of rocks from above.
Rumours abound that these beaver-folk aren’t actually beastfolk, but demons from the other side who have come to take Galbar’s untainted waters for themselves, a hypothesis that seems to be supported by the dam-builders having what seems to be an endless supply of wood. Fact is, whatever they are, if they are allowed complete unregulated control over the world supply of fresh water then everyone could be in trouble.
“No flow? No daffotales? No lillypads? We dislike it? Fix things?” A passing cloud mouthed at Tuuni.
EXPECTED POSTS FOR QUEST COMPLETION: 1-3 DANGER LEVEL: HIGH
Quests for Timemaster, Adorable Saucer and Goldeagle!
@Scarifar, mechanically speaking, I think a broader Domain may allow you more freedom when it comes to applying Domain Boosts. Laughter doesn't seem like it would give you that much freedom when it comes to that, as the actions one could take that reasonably tie to that are very few. An example could be Revelry, which would broaden your repertoire of boosted actions from pretty much only jokes to celebrations and joyful events of all kinds.
However, if you feel pretty strongly about keeping Laughter as a domain, I'm not gonna stop you. I do need you to add one or two examples of concrete actions that the Domain of Laughter would give your character before approving the sheet, tho.
Turn 2 has started everyone, please check the MP Spreadsheet for your updated MP counts. Please let me know if any number is off and I'll fix it when I can.
In the corners of the Land of Origins and in the deepest recesses of the caves that bore into the earth hidden behind the occasional waterfall, there lived these strange, little green creatures. They stood, barely, on two legs and brandished tools that they held in their spindly arms. They were cowardly, for they only actively hunted things that were far smaller than them and even then, they did so in groups. They were weak, because over generations their bodies had degraded and deteriorated from a mix of incest and lack of sunlight. And most of all they were devious, because they didn’t just hunt their prey, they played with it, set traps in its path and often ate it alive.
These creatures - who did not know their own names and who had long lost the ability to communicate in anything other than grunts, whines, whimpers and laughter - stuck to the shadows and shied away from those they felt were smarter or stronger than them.
That is, until one of those larger and smarter things triggered one of their traps as soon as it walked into their cave, a trap which dropped a boulder on its head and killed it on the spot.
It was a goat, and yet it stood on two legs and had held onto some kind of long stick until it died. The body lay there alone and grew cold as the small green, hunched over creatures circled around it. First they watched, then with a huff one of them poked it with the heavy end of its club.
Silence.
Then after looking at each other and at the corpse one last time, one of them chuckled and that chuckle turned into full blown laughter, and the others joined in.
A cacophony of howling surrounded the dead, with many dropping to the floor with tears in their eyes and others striking the corpse with clubs and rocks in between bursts of laughter.
The laughter subsided when the corpse started to look more like a mound of fleshy refuse than a creature, and was replaced by growling and snarling. The little green creatures jumped onto the mound of flesh and ate with a ferocity they’d never felt before.
These tall, graceful things may be bigger, one of them thought after having its fill of red, lukewarm meat, but they were not smarter.
Weeks later, the entrance to their cave had been decorated with five horned skulls and several broken bones as well as a totem depicting a great boar, a cloud of spikes, and a goat with broken horns.
Over time, small villages where hardworking Goatfolk and Goblins live together have formed around the Restaurant of the Gods. These villages are usually busy just surviving. They hunt and gather for food and perform monthly ceremonies in honour of the Celestial Chef, where every family must present a new take on one of their traditional dishes in the hopes of catching the attention of the Celestial Chef and bringing a blessing to their village in the process.
But recently, there has been a worrying development - The ceremonies have all but ceased, and the chatter amongst the mortals has gradually shifted from excitement about the upcoming ceremony, to nervousness and anxiety about the future. The villagers are an introverted sort so rumours aren’t really a thing, but even so the low ranks amongst Talyr’s kitchen staff - like the dishwashers and kitchen assistants - have started to whisper amongst themselves about the Curse of the Starless Night, and started to share tips on how to prevent their families from being attacked by the ‘demons’ during the upcoming Starless Night.
“SAVE your. PEOPLE from. THE green. DEMONS.” A particularly chatty spoon tells Talyr during her latest cooking session.
EXPECTED POSTS FOR QUEST COMPLETION: 1 DANGER LEVEL: LOW
Something is happening deep in the earth below the Tree of Life. The earth is shifting, grass is twitching and most worryingly, The Tree of Life is shedding its leaves way too soon and way too quickly. There is only one suspected cause - The Divinium deposit below the Tree. Upon reaching out to her ward the Watcher, Sylia received no response.
“Cannot feel your toy? Talk to the first Plant? Talk to the first Plant? Talk to It?” Sylia’s hand asked, and then fell silent.
“Soon, No Leaves On Tree. Soon, No Leaves on Trees. Soon, No Trees. Soon, No Plants. Soon, No Plant. Soon, Talk To Metal. Soon, Find Cause. Soon, Save Yourself.” A rose told Allianthe as she walked through a primordial forest.
EXPECTED POSTS FOR QUEST COMPLETION: 1-2 Collab DANGER LEVEL: LOW
Turn 2 has arrived! Please check the MP spreadsheet for your updated MP counts!
Over time some of the less fortunate Goblins have regressed into a near-animal state and developed an intense hatred for anything that could be classified as an outsider. After finding out that the taller and smarter humanoids in the world can be killed just as easily as anyone else, they’ve begun actively hunting them for food and entertainment. This development happened roughly at the same time all over the world with tribes of feral goblins usually choosing dark, damp spots to settle in.
The Khodex hit the surface of Galbar with the full force of Misri’s anger behind it. The moment that it made contact with the Rakshasaraja’s saliva, a pillar of grape-coloured arcane flame erupted from all around it and nearly tore the planet in half, ripping a hole in the Veil Between Spaces. Out of that hole an unimaginably dense cloud of smoke, not unlike Misri’s, soon started to push into the Void about Galbar.
Things crawled inside of that smoke. Every God and Goddess alive felt those things, they felt the uncomfortable scratching of claws against still-living vertebrae, and recoiled.
The smoke invaded their unborn world, unseen hands pushing against the arcane flame of the Khodex and spreading their dark world further and further, threatening to swallow everything whole.
Then the smoke touched Galbar and swallowed the Khodex – Or so it seemed, until a shockwave pushed it back. The shockwave brought with it scorching heat, uncomfortable even to the Gods themselves, and then that shockwave retracted and was re-absorbed, only for the Khodex to glow and crackle as if it was a nascent fire.
And then everything exploded.
An infinite amount of matter–and the physical laws themselves–spilled out into the Great Void – The force so extreme that the otherworldly smoke was all but erased as it was pushed outside of the Universe itself.
The Gods didn’t just see the physical aspects of creation, though. They saw a glimpse of the uncountable timelines, fates, and souls to come, they saw blurry memories of things that had yet to happen and most of all, they felt power flood their very beings.
The Big Bang felt like a split second and an eternity at the same time – a direct result of even the Gods’ minds being overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information they witnessed, and by the time things settled down enough, they realised they were no longer floating in a total void, they were floating in Ir-Vaeri’s space, with the warm rays of the golden sun’s light shining down upon their backs as they stared down at what had once been a completely barren Galbar. Now, the crater formed from the Khodex’s crash was filled with a sparkling, crystalline ocean with several landmasses peeking out from under the water and massive canyons leading the way out of the crater with gentle slopes.
The entire planet was shrouded in a never-ending sandstorm, all of it with the exception of the Land of Origins, which was protected by the Khodex’s aura.
The Gods didn’t have long to admire the view however, as they soon felt themselves being pulled down and towards the Khodex. It took no more than a second for all the Gods to crash down onto one of the islands within the Land of Origins, and it took no longer than half that time for them to realise the Codex had encased itself in a jet black, glossy cocoon, suspended in the air as if by an unseen thread.
Somehow, they knew there would be no more activity from it, and that they were now free to make this virgin world truly theirs.
The Big Bang has happened! Welcome to an Universe filled with countless stars and planets.
Everyone has received a gift of 10MP from the Khodex of Creation, please use them wisely.
Now go and create to your hearts’ content, and try not to get murked two secs into your new godly life!
Member
Lord Zee
LokiLeo789
Enzayne
Squad 404
Thayr
Vec
WrongEndoftheRainbow
ActRaiserTheReturned
Dezuel