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Theogenesis.

Posted by The CreatorFor group 0
The Creator
GM, 142 posts
The word is creation
Fri 16 Sep 2016
at 20:25
  • msg #1

Theogenesis

Theogenesis

Summary:
  In Theogenesis you play a God. These gods are more in the style of the Olympian, Norse, or Egyptian gods and goddesses of myth. Of course, some radical groups might just describe them as powerful spirits with a god complex. Gods are able to pull off amazing feats, unleash terrible powers, be in two places at once, resurrect themselves upon death, and rule over a culture of mortal followers, and reside in a realm you call your own. You play this character to your style.

Objective:
  Here you can really create your own goals and desires. Decide you want to usher in a new era of darkness, go ahead. Want to fight the evil gods, go for it. Be the evil god? Can do. Or do you just want to accumulate knowledge, that's okay too. Or maybe you just want to go around slaying mythical beasts, it all can happen. All of your goals as a player are to give fun a form. For most this means more power. A higher rank, more Powers at your command, more followers, and all that good stuff. This is done by getting more followers, going out and converting other populations to you. Another method is doing tasks for higher ranking gods, gaining their favor and support, or by banding with other fledgling gods and creating your own Pantheon. Alternatively, you could just bide your time, make your kingdom among those already loyal to you...

  To start off though, most gods like to take full control over their Realm and People. Look to conquering or converting your 4 other provinces in your realm.

Style, Time, Writing Courtesy:
  This game is play-by-post, and so inherently carries some issues. The most obvious is time between reactions. Real world issue may cause a response to go unanswered for hours or even days. There are some in-game mechanics to help with this (such as Paradox), but in general try to post every 1~2 days at a minimum. If you know something will delay you, say something beforehand if you can, or even take yourself out of a fast-moving situation in-game. Of course "real life" issues are always respected and understood, but your always welcome back after a long absence. A second issue is with the effort of gameplay itself. A certain degree of writing ability is expected as a courtesy. If your posts are one sentence long that doesn't give other players or the GM much to work with. If we have to read it, make it worth readings. On the flip side, if you write a miniature novel, perhaps give a TLDR summary at the top or bottom hitting the hard points.

Numbers, Story, Stats, and Competitions:
  The game is mostly personal free-form with a player controlling their god's action to a god's stated abilities in their character sheet. If these is an extreme misunderstanding a player can work with the GM to try and sort it out. In all honesty the GM is playing this game for the story and shared experience with the players. Any true balance is thrown out the window in favor of a system which bends to the story and the will of the players in the game. But should competition arise between players the GM will lay down the rules in a case by case basis. This may call for a die to be rolled to keep it interesting, must most numbers will speak for themselves, higher Aspects, Skills, affecting Powers, or Belief.

Troupe Play
  While everyone's main character is their god, the GM doesn't need to have all the fun all the time. Players are encouraged to create and play Troupe Player Characters (TPC as opposed to NPC) for the other players to interact with. Please note, these are minor characters in the overall story, but make the world come alive in a way a single or few GMs cannot, and uses the unique ability that Play-by-Post allows for it. The requirements are simple: A) Provide general information about the character, MOST importantly the role of the character in the Players story. B) Permission from the Player your TPC will "shadow". C) Final blessing from the GM (they may never be a god, and this will mostly be a balance-check). Generally before putting in the work, at least see if a player is interested in you playing one for them. The TPC need not be a "new" Character either, just speak to the GM about any info he had about a previous NPC. The TPC is usually, but not necessarily friendly to the Player.


Gods

Domains:
  Domains are the elements in which your god's power is derived. These are your connections to your power. They shape who you are as a god and your interaction with the world as a whole. You have 3 types of domains: Primal, Social, and Personal. Primal Domains are those that exist without mortals, society, and are static physical or non-physical constants. Mortal domains on the other hand are those that only exist after thinking sentient beings could come up with it. Personal domains are your personal character's representation, a sort of "class" if you will.

Primal: A Domains without mortals, i.e. Light, Chaos, Darkness, Fire, Water, Order, Cold, Ice, Oceans, Sky, Thunder, etc...

Social: Domain depending on societal values, beliefs, or mindsets, i.e. Mind, Emotions(or any individual one), Luck, Charity, Good, Law, Evil, Craft, Progress, Theft, etc...

Personal: A personal Domain that describes you, i.e. Wise One, The Warrior, Night Thief, God Pirate, Mad Wizard, Lawgiver, The Lover, The Dragon.

Places and Paradox:
  A God is able to open portals between realms they are aware of. They use these to travel and can keep them open for items or followers to pass through. When moving to a realm they appear either at one of the realm's Ley Lines, usually somewhere on it's outskirts.

  Gods can also "be" in several realms at once. Each category of Realm is stated in the thread. All normal RP threads share a single self. Every RP Public gets their own self. RP Secret, RP Private, or other type of threads will state their paradox settings at the top post. Even though there are several different "selves" each self affect all of them. If a god dies in a thread they will disappear in the other threads and must travel back to those realms after resurrection.

  Paradox is an exploit of the time relativity of Realms. Days, months, or years may pass in one realm or another as players require through roleplay. God in general will accept Yggdrasil time (RL time) when talking of time to each other. This includes any time mentioned in the rules.

Immortality & Death:
  Some cultures believe you never truly die as long as you are remembered, that you only truly exist in the mind of others. For a god of Theogenesis this is doubly true. As long as a god has followers to provide him Belief from worship he can never truly die.

  While gods are tough beings, they can be killed by anything that would kill a mortal. The big difference is that after death they awaken. Their body regenerated, strength fully restored, they are alive once more. This resurrection does come at a cost of 100 Belief at first, then doubled per Rank, and so killing a god can weaken him considerably. If the god does not have the Belief at the time, they only need to wait until their followers supply the amount to return once more. Until that time their Shade may haunt the metaphysical parts of their Realm and others, perhaps to beg for the Belief required to revive themselves.

  A god can only be experience True Death when all of his followers are destroyed and he is forgotten. But even then, Dead Gods can be resurrected by a new following Cult. And thus to be totally forgotten is to experience true non-existence.

Toughness:
  Gods are tough, nearly 10 times as hardy as mortals. Thus they can go 10x as long without food, water, sleep, etc... Gods lose blood at very slow rates, their bones are harder, and can suffer many more wounds than a normal mortal. All of this is not even considering their Aspects which can allow them to shrug off or heal injuries they sustain. This toughness is overcome by anything Divine or other Major supernatural forces. Lesser supernatural effects (such as a magic) are only resisted half as much as normal ones.

Divine Aura:
  Every God possesses an aura about them that makes them unmistakably a god to mortals (though they might not know which one). This aura exerts a pressure of emotion to all of those around you and can even slightly alter your immediate surroundings; i.e. making you glow, smell sweet, hard to look at, bathed in shadow, etc... Your aura can be altered at will, or even suppressed to blend in to try and hide your godhood.

Divine Ranks:
  Your Divine Rank increases with the more Followers you have under you control. Each Rank brings with it a more power as well as much more social influence.

Ranks:         Followers Needed, Rewards
Lesser:.........5,000 Followers, Start
Neonate:.......15,000 Followers, +1 Sphere, +300 Belief, Free Hero (Bonus stats if TPC)
Ancillae:......25,000 Followers, +1 Sphere, +300 Belief, +1 Major Power
Pierre:........50,000 Followers, +2 Sphere, +500 Belief, Divine Armament
Hierophant:....100,000 Followers, +3 Sphere, +500 Belief, Addition Physical Domain
Seigon:........200,000 Followers, +3 Sphere, +500 Belief, Additional Social Domain
Dante:.........500,000 Followers, +4 Spheres, +700 Belief, Realm Seed
Baalkant:......1,000,000 Followers, +4 Spheres, +700 Belief, Key to the Path
Lord:..........2,000,000 Followers, +5 Spheres, +1000 Belief, Seat on the Divine Counsel, Diving Sigil
Master:........5,000,000 Followers, +6 Spheres, +2500 Belief, Tool of Creation
High Lord:....10,000,000 Followers, +7 Spheres, +5000 Belief, Secret of the Spheres
High Master:... Voted High Lord, Unknown.


Followers:
  Followers are Humanoid Mortals (demi-human in some way) which worship gods. Gods cannot exist without mortals, their worship, and their faith. The important thing is that it was their choice to accept and worship you as a god. The choice of faith and worship of mortals is not inherently logical. There are as many good and caring gods as there are evil and ambivalent ones, and each follower worships for their own internal reasoning. This reasoning can indeed be influenced by threats, bribery, lies, respect, or simple social pressure from their peers, but their choice is ultimately theirs. This choice, and their mortality is what gives them a Soul.

  A god's follower count increases weekly at a base rate of 5% compounded. Stressful times, failing to resolve issues, war, or other shortcomings can reduce this, even to a negative value. Gods can influence this rate unnaturally due to divine abilities, resolving issues, or rewards for quests. The maximum this can ever get to though is 10%. Note that a god must allow for time to catch up in their realm for a population boom to happen. Additionally, most populations can take a "hit" due to some attack or another. But if you or another being Reaps your Followers, then their soul count is permanently removed.

  A god can convince other mortals to worship them as well adding to their number of followers. Though this is not as simple as it sounds. Often their souls are protected by a metaphysical spirit of some sort (if not simply another god). It often takes much work and effort to convert them to your worship, not simply just a flash of power and a quick smile.

Spheres:
  Spheres are used to improve your Stats, gain more Powers, obtain or better Skills, or gain a very large sum of belief. One Sphere is granted to you for every 1000 followers you gain. You cannot "un-earn" spheres, but you cannot earn spheres for the same number of followers you get. You don't get Spheres for the first 5000 Followers (your character creation is worth much more). You can also gain Spheres as rewards for important quest that are generally epic in nature, even for a god, these are free given to you by the GM. In-game, High Lords know how to grant Spheres to other gods. Other mythical beings may also grant Spheres, though generally they come with strings made of razor wire attached.

  Spending Spheres allow for in-game Character Improvements:
Raise Aspects: Cost Varies
New Minor Power: 1 Sphere
New Major Power: 3 Spheres
Gain 1000 Belief: 1 Sphere
Gain 4 Skill Points: 1 Sphere

Belief:
  Belief is the energy provided up by a god's followers through worship. This energy resides in a god and can be used to fuel almost any part of being a god: Boosting Aspects, Powers, Altering Followers & you Realms Landscape, or even your own Resurrection. Because of its usefulness, its constant production and consumption, and its ability to be transferred between gods, Belief is also use as a currency between gods. There are a few well known ways to gain more belief.

1) You gain belief weekly equal to 1% of your population.
2) Belief can be rewarded by completing quest, or dealing with issues your people might have.
3) You can gain belief from other gods, either as rewards or from trading.
4) The Reaping of Souls provides a direct 1:1 Belief.

Connection:
  Once a mortal declares themselves a follower of you, you have the innate ability to read them. You can know their hopes and dreams, their general emotional state, their concerns, their loyalty. This connection is both at the individual one and any grouping you wish (be it a crowd, town, nation, or your entire following).

  In additional to an informational connection, you can influence the minds of those particularly faithful to you with belief. Give them dreams, or speak to them in visions in their mind. Spend enough belief and you can influence even those who don't have a very strong connection.

  A god is also connected to its Realm. Once a province is claimed, they gain control over its nature. They can change the weather patterns, slowly alter the landscape, or even change the type of terrain, influence flora and fauna. This change is not fast and might take several days to several years depending on the scope of the change and if it is tied with your Domains or not. It can be sped up with belief.

Aspects:
  These are what are used to determine your god's abilities. As these can be boosted with belief, it can also be thought of your people's perception of their god. This game uses the SPECIAL stats to show a numerical value to varying types of physical and mental abilities they might have. These are generally self-explanatory so I won't go too much into them.

Strength: Muscular and physical power.
Perception: General awareness of your surroundings and the keenness of your senses.
Endurance: Toughness, fortitude, and natural healing.
Charisma: Force of personality, persuasiveness, personal magnetism, ability to lead.
Intelligence: Mental acuity, ease of understanding, and the ability to reason.
Agility: Hand-eye coordination, dexterity, reflexes, and balance.
Luck: Inclination towards a positive result in random outcomes or happenings.

Mortal stats range from -5 to 5, with the average young adult human being 0. 95% of all humans fall within -3 to 3.
A God's stat start at 0 (mortal average) and can go up to 10 through spheres.

Each stat costs its own rank in Spheres after purchasing the previous rank. So a Rank 1 Aspect costs 1 Sphere, a Rank 2 Aspect costs 2 Spheres but you must have a 1 in the rank before you buy it.

Boosting Aspects:
  A god can use belief to boost their Aspects a multiple equal to the amount of Points they have in it. This gives them a great boost of ability which allows them to live up to their godly name. This boost is explosive, each 1 rank in a stat allows it to be boosted for 1 belief. Each boost doubles the stat.

  So a 1 in Str is not that much better than your average mortal, but a god can boost it 100% to Rank 2 with 1 Belief, but only 1 time.

  A 2 in Str is high mortal capability, but they can boost it 100% up to 2 times for up to 2 belief each time for a total Str of 6, well beyond human capability.

  This continues on to make pyramid of stat explosion:
0
1->2 (costs 1 Belief)
2->4->6 (costs 2 Belief each Step)
3->6->9->12 (costs 3 Belief each Step)
4->8->12->16->20 ('' 4 '')
5->10->15->20->25->30->35 ('' 5 '')
6->12->18->24->30->36->42->48 ('' 6 '')
etc...

Micro-Boosting:
Wanting an edge of the competition? Already juiced up on Belief? Have more Belief to spare? Belief can be put down at a 1:0.1 ratio at any time.

Skills:
  Skills are things your god are proficient. Often instead of calling a Raw Aspect, you can call a relevant Skill to do something. All skills are listed as a skillful profession, but can have or may require a specialization. Example: Swordsman, Farmer, Herbologist: Poisons, Magician: Destramancy.  Skills are put on top of the aspects of a god, and a god can only call one Aspect at a time with a skill. Thus in combat a god might call Swordsman(Strength) or Swordsman(Agility), Magician: Destramancy(Int), but Swordsman(Endurance) Magician: Destramancy(Endurance) wouldn't make much sense unless there was a prevailing rule, special exception, extreme situation, or good justification given by the player or GM. Skills, unlike aspects cannot be boosted, but can benefit from a Boosted Aspect if it is incorporated in the Skill.

  Some Skills, such as Magic are regulated with specific rules. But most are simply whatever the player desires their character to be good at, and has put some focus into. All skill are able to have Ranks in them, and this number of Ranks is how skillful you are at that skill, and thus how well you perform.

  A Skill of Swordsman of 4 and Str of 3 can combine to give you a Swordsman 7 or A Skill of Swordsman of 4 and Agl of 4 can combine to give you

  You get 1 Skill Point per week to either create a new skill, or improve an existing one. Unlike Aspects, skill cost is linear. Often just DOING the thing will grant you an improvement point until you hit 3 to 5, then you'll need to either spend points or find a suitable trainer.

Powers & Miracles:
  Powers are a god's way of laying down their divinity to the world around them. God have access to Major Powers and Minor Powers, but can also work their own Miracles if needed. The amount of Power you have access to are directly tied to your Divine rank or earned through increasing you follower count.

  Major Powers cost 10 Belief to activate. These are where the power of belief really comes into play. These are Earthquakes, Lighting Storms, Mass Mind-Affecting, Plague Creating, People Resurrecting, Undead Army Raising. These would also be your "Domain Control" style powers here too which allow for limited control for a short time. These are powers that truly let people know you are a god. Specific Powers are often much more bang for your Belief than more general ones.

  Minor Powers are free powers. You can activate them at will for no cost. These are smaller abilities than major powers by far (about 1/10 the power scale). These are your powered attacks, fireballs, armors, and importantly utilities powers. These powers being free are your god's bread and butter for encounters, quests, and issues you come across.

  Miracles and Minor Miracles are the same as Major and Minor Power. The biggest difference is cost and flexibility. While Powers are predefined on your character sheet, belief in itself is power. As long as it is ruled within your domains you can spend 50 Belief to perform a Miracle (a Major Power equivalent) or 5 Belief for a Minor Miracles (a Minor Power equivalent). Out of Domain Miracles will cost 10 times as much.

  All Powers and Miracles can be boosted for increasing amount of Belief. 2x The effect costs 2x the belief. 3x the effect costs 4x the Power, 4x The effect cost 6x the power and so on (if you have the belief to spare). For Minor Powers treat the original cost as 1 Belief.


Activating Powers/Miracles-
  Powers and your abilities are used to accomplish things, and the GM understands that you have full control over your powers. If your minor power is flight, you can hover or float. If your minor power is fireball, you can throw some embers to light a fire. If your major power is an earthquake, you may shape it as you desire rending some walls or buildings while leaving other unharmed. Your powers are unique and paid for, and so feel free to use them as a scalpel or sledgehammer. If the GM feels you have overstepped the bounds of your power or a miracle, he will let you know. That being said, don't attempt to expect to bring all OOC physics into them, this is narration not a simulation.

  Some powers are inherently instant and others are longer lasting effects (such as a fireball thrown vs a divine shielding). In any case you can only have 3+Your Divine Rank of Powers or miracles active at once. This means at first you may only have 4 powers constantly going, then you cannot activate any more until you drop one.

  While a Major Power (or Miracle) cost belief to Activate, they can only last for limited time before you must pay the belief cost again. During this time, they are not considered "active", as you already put the effect in motion. This time is equal to the strength and design of the power. Powers that automatically continue to affect things for a time after activation are generally weaker than a single-use power.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:21, Wed 21 Nov 2018.
The Creator
GM, 155 posts
The word is creation
Wed 12 Oct 2016
at 19:12
  • msg #2

Theogenesis

Your Realm:
  Each god is created with a Realm. These Realms are their birthright, it is here that your will may rule supreme. Your realm is any fantastical theme you wish it to be as long as it falls within the preview of reason (the GM ultimately be the one running your realm for you, and so it must within his line of reasoning and within the game's general fantasy setting). But these realm can be nearly as fantastical as the player wishes. And while the realm is the god's birthright, by no means do they need to be limited to the Domains of the god. A god of fire can easily have a realm dominated by a sea.

  Each Realm will have 5 Provinces. The Central Province is where the largest concentrated sum of your people and most importantly the only ones who worship you at first. This central province is already under you control. When you create your realm majority of your descriptions will be here. In addition to the Central Province there are 4 outlying provinces. While you begin with no control over these realms, your divine power will always hold less sway over these Provinces. When creating your realm, feel free to propose possible provinces; just realize that not all might be as you assume inside them.

  When it comes to Size, Central Provinces are generally around 20 square miles at most, while your entire realm will not be more than 100 square miles with your influence fading fast 30 miles away from your central province. This may not seem like much in the modern era where a car can make trip in half an hour. But 20 miles is an entire day-trip (around 10 hours) for your average traveler without a road system, and this is without any sort of terrain difference. There might be all manner of mountains, cave systems, lakes, seas, and hills and forests which cause even a few square miles to hide many secrets. Remember it's not the size of the play area, it's the concentration of fun things within it that matters. Exceptions to this size limit might be when massive swaths of land are devoid of energy and thus barren of anything fruitful. Wastelands like this don't exist in any starting realms, but gods can find them in other near-dead realms.

Realms Supernatural & Other Planes:

Yggdrasil, The World Tree
  Before talking about the Planes, Realms, and other cosmology of Theogensis. Yggdrasil is the World Tree, binding all the Worlds, Planes, and Realities ever possibly to this game together. Yggdrasil is not a realm in itself, but instead is what holds all of existence within it's branches. Yggdrasil resides in the Eternal Forest which is a metaphoric term for every Theogenesis game that has or will exist. The Primordials as characters are deeply tied into the fate of Yggdrasil. Often the most relevant aspect Yggdrasil to players is that as Gods they may attempt the Path to the Top of Yggdrasil where they my court the Primordials. Other than that Yggdrasil is only referred to when the entire universe and all aspects of reality are being referenced, or most often as a temporal reference (Tree Time = Real Life time).

Realms Supernatural & The Inbetween
  All of the god's realms lay in the Realms Supernatural which in this game is represented via a Hex Grid Map (see Game Map), and thus it is quite possibly for gods to have neighbors. Unlike our earth though, one does not simply traverse across an imaginary line from one realm into another. Realms instead fade into a permeable and almost astral wasteland simply called the Inbetween. Because of this permeability, it's entirely possible for things and beings to move from one realm to another. Additionally this means it possible to go "around" realms entirely. Even realms themselves can re-position themselves in the Inbetween, changing what they would call their neighboring realms (but the forces required to do this are magnificent and rare).

The Subtle Planes
  Some planes cannot truly be "entered" completely. They are fields which are in conjunction with our physical reality but have no true physical form. Commonly interacted with are the Astral Plane, Elemental Planes, Shadow World, and Dreamworld. There might be others, but so sparsely interacted with they aren't worth mentioning. The Astral plan is the non-physical connection between all things, not only does it have no physical reality, but no temporal one either. The Elemental Planes are primordial concepts rather than places, but can heavily influences areas of the Realms Supernatural, thus an ocean has more connectivity to the Plane of Water. The Shadow World is a plane of shadow, hidden, lost, echos. You can think of the Shadow World as literally the shadow of reality. Dreams are said to exist in another realm entirely but are anchored within the minds of all things. The gods have access to this plane within their own followers, as they can appear in, and influence the dreams of their faithful.

The Ten Thousand Struggling Hells
  The Ten Thousand Struggling Hells exist to corrupt and bring ruin to the civilizations of all things. They are anarchy and chaos and everything that cannot make sense about the world, and are home to those creatures known simply as 'Demons'. Ten Thousand is an estimated number - there may be many more or significantly less in existence, but that is fairly irrelevant. All denizens of the Hells have several things in common: they can twist and change their forms, feast upon thoughts and emotions and can 'ride' mortals, subtly manipulating their actions. They are cold, cunning creatures who, when forced to manifest physically - an act they tend to despise - are fearsome and anathemic to life itself. There is no such thing as a minor demon.

  Because of mortals' reluctance - demons practically gag at the opportunity to enter our world - the knowledge of summoning and binding these creatures is coveted and rare, and always dangerous, even to Gods.

The Stars of Silence
  If the Hells themselves reflect mortality's obsession with abandoned chaos and the fictions of reality, the Stars of Silence exist only to reflect greater truth and order. They have been called angels - but more accurately should be called Archons. They care little for the mortals themselves, desiring only to right wrongs - as their alien minds see them - and correct mistakes. The archons themselves never wish to be called, unlike demons, never seek it, but some strike out into the Realms Supernatural following their own sort of string logic. Their nature differs from star to star as do their appearances and abilities.

The Abyssal Sea
  All things die. All things end. When they do they fall into the Abyssal Sea. This plane exists at the very roots Yggdrasil itself. Gods, every time they die, briefly touch upon the it's waters, but without ever fully submersing themselves, lest they never return. Often it is believed that a Mortals pledging their souls to a God allows them to continue to exist, at least in spirit, with their god and thus avoid the fate of oblivion.

  There is only one being that persists here, Nidhoggr, The Parasite, The Great Worm, The End Bringer. Trapped there by the Primordials upon creation to stop the fiend from devouring the all of existence.


The Valley Divine:
The Valley Divine is at the Core of the Realms Supernatural. It is the Realm Connection to the rest of Yggdrasil and so is perhaps the single most important of all Realms. It's denizens are the gods themselves as a God may always have one or many "selves" here through Paradox. There are many Districts here all of which often gods will visit on many occasions.

Ivory Palace- Where the Council is.
Eternal Party- Party Thread!
Temple of Knowledge- Teh Library
House of Doors- Portals which lead to everywhere, easiest way for a god to get to a new place he hasn't been to yet.
Markets of Balthazar- Trade Belief for stuff... or Souls for stuff... or sell stuff!


I wrote a bunch of different District descriptions down... but can't find the paper :(
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:19, Tue 08 Nov 2016.
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