[center][h1][b][color=0076a3]Qullqiya[/color][/b][/h1][/center][hr] Time passed, the healing in the cracks of her body was a signal of that, yet Qullqiya could barely focus on herself, she had a world to explore. To her surprise, what she experienced with Qael'Naeth had been but a lack of luck, most of the new gods did not enter in conflict with the primordial ones because none of them shared a common claim to one aspect of creation like the twin gods of magic did. This, of course, changed her perspective in the world, for about two days she honestly believed this meant Qael's reign was fated to be over, yet, as she explored more, her perspective changed, and she found herself losing her focus on Qael. So much had been created, and every she saw things that were wrong, pathetic or petty. Gods were particularists for common goals and collectivists for private matters, their creations were hard and fragile, unable to adapt, it was madness, like calling separate piles of bark, wood, leaves, and petals a 'tree'. Slowly it came to her that it was not merely about the magic and the need to keep it supernatural and free, but the entire mindset that annoyed her in Qael. She couldn't merely keep magic nice, she had to use it, weaponize it, glorify it, universalize it. [color=0076a3]"It really is up to me, is it not? But why..."[/color] she realized spreading chaos was necessary, the world was like a lake, things that grew still would become stale, fetid and lifeless. But would she do that as a leader? Was that not paradoxical? It was. And that was the answer to why only she could do what she had to do, why she was born. She stood up in the mountain she had been resting after her travels. [color=0076a3]"The darker the shadow the brighter the light appears. The brighter the light, the bigger the shadow grows. This is a basic rule of the universe."[/color] So to bring light, she would cast shadows, and to bring shadows she would shine the light. To bring her chaos, she would be a leader, guiding and conspiring, making her influence grow to the point of being inescapable, yet, in her mind, she would never be like any other god who thinks they can take that role. She smiled. [color=0076a3]"Because unlike all of them, I got nothing to lose and a whole world of difference to gain."[/color] She rose her hand and started to coalesce her power into a single tool, it looked like a glass cutter, a diamond-tipped blade, sharp enough to cut far more than just matter. [hr] Sapient races were Qull's lifeblood, that was a simple fact she understood very well, as such, it was understandable her first focus was to go straight to them to seek to study them and how they interacted with the world. One thing she immediately found herself disliking was how many were created to worship a god, in her view that was a waste of potential which was doomed to fail, but it would be better for her if it failed the earliest it could and in a manner that was beneficial to her. To that purpose, boundaries would have to be broken. But before attempting that, she needed to get some first-hand experience with the act of creating a species. To understand the methods and see how it worked, before going straight to causing deviations in the projects of others. She had two theories about how to use magic for her purpose, and, in the weeping plains, she found her perfect subjects: Thumblings. Qull was a bit too method in her approach, and the poor creatures found themselves being manually picked by the odd crystalline woman and thrown into glass cages, the goddess deaf to their pleas and demands of answers. To try out her first approach, she also captured other types of animals that she found interesting, the insects. She had missed much of their magnificent genesis, but she held some interest in the critters even if their social structure was, in her mindset, contempt worthy. [color=0076a3]"What would happen if I were to mix you two?"[/color] she questioned aloud. The Thumbling's mind was filled with terrible thoughts of biological disasters and mutated creatures, they were sensible worries but Qull didn't plan o stitching the body together. What she meant by 'mix' was a conceptual amalgamation, to unite what the dragonfly she hed was and what the sentient mortal was, with no regards to the matters of biology and logic. Well, there was no reason not to try it out and see what happens, at worst a single life would be taken and she was willing to make that sacrifice. Focusing her magic, the two bodies shone, stuck in a helix of magical power as their forms united. The result was something that was both a new entity and those two entities from before. The tiny humanoid looked up at her with a confused expression, she wore addresses and had bodily features that reminded of a dragonfly, yet was also close in concept to a Thumblings. The soul of both entities had been seized and merged for such a creature to be born. She slowly got up and started to zap about, despite her wings being too light for her body, the flight was possible by the simple fact the dragonfly was able to fly and as such the new creature had inherited that trait through the wonder of conceptual merging. She would continue her work with the species, which she now called Flitterling, and to expand it, she created more merges between Thumblings and other concepts. Bettles, ants, even birds, and some small frogs. It all worked to different degrees, though the best and most malleable were the insect-based amalgams. Flitterlings were, however, sterile. They weren't natural beings and seemed genderless upon inspection. To solve this issue, she taught them how to put their thoughts into a little egg-like orb, preferably one that would hold pieces of the mind of at least two individuals, once filled enough the orb would turn into a fusion core that upon being infused into a small object or animal would give birth to a new flitterling. [color=0076a3]"So it is possible to exclude the laws of logic and the constants from such things, and it is quite easy too. I will need to use amalgamation as a tool to change this world, but before, I am not done yet."[/color] Only half of the captured Thumblings had been turned into Flitterlings, for the others, she had more complex plans. The first half had been picked at random, but these were selected after the goddess evaluated their mental capabilities, in particular, their ability to visualize, imagine and the strength of their willpower. She infused each of them with magical energy and allowed them a few minutes to take it in, their bodies were not ready for such stress and were slowly breaking, just as she expected they would. The important was to get their minds thinking about the need to adapt and contain such magical powers, once that was established, she snapped her fingers causing an explosion where the Thumblings were, their bodies being reduced to dust. Yet that was not the end of those beings, their magically charged dust came to life again, clustering together, forming shapes, and ultimately, regaining a semblance of a mortal being. Thankfully, that was merely a simulacrum, the beings that were reformed in front of her were no longer bound by the needs of organs and the structure of bones, they were dust given form, magic flowing freely in them without hurdles. [color=0076a3]"It is curious to see how magic acts and interacts with the structure of biological beings, I do appreciate that, but I also appreciate the possibility of seeing it interact with mortal souls in a free, unbounded form."[/color] She told the beings that stood in front of her. They too defied the laws of nature like the Flitterlings, but while those were made by grafting two logical beings into one, these were made from the complete annihilation of logic. She would call them Flutterlings. Both species together forming a group of mortals know as Faery. Flutterlings were curious to look at, for some reason they seemed to find inspiration in butterflies, Qull had never guided them towards that species as she had with the Flitterlings. Perhaps they enjoyed the colorful patterns, each of them wanting to use their new unbounded forms to display beautiful sights. Well, unbounded to an extent. Qull would notice their willpower was what limited their bodies, they seemed to prefer to stay humanoid because that was easier on their minds, it was hard to maintain a shifting or formless body. Being dust held together by magic, their strength without magic was negligible, but their strength with magic could be formidable. They seemed to be at their most healthy when in isolation, she got to see one approach a group of Thumblings and slowly break down back into dust as the crowd's minds created enough noise to disrupt that Flutterling's mental control over her own form. On the topic of proliferation... something gave the goddess the impression she wouldn't need to worry, she needed to take the mind of Thumblings for the first few, but with the presence of properly charged magical dust spread by the existent ones Flutterlings could be born spontaneously. With that, her work on novel species was done. Both the Faeries were skittish and prone to move and hide, she was sure they would proliferate given time and their numbers would never really become overbearing given the nature of their birth. [hr] Humans were a species naturally imbued with ambition, this pleased Qull, and made them the perfect group for her to use in her plans to shape the world more to her ideals. Something just told her this species would be able to proliferate quickly and to go into areas other species wouldn't naturally go to. This would cause some extent of chaos, sure, but was it enough? To Qull, it wasn't. She wanted to throw the whole concept of species into disarray, to break the biological bounds and any god's plan to have personal eternally loyal servants. For that, it was necessary to make it so species could mutate more, and change into things unexpected and unplanned. Yet that was a LOT of effort. She couldn't do that to all species, but she could make it so one species could do it all alone, bringing her back to the humans. She quickly came up with a simple plan, to bless humans with the gift of amalgamation. To make it so they could breed not only through the biological means but also on a conceptual level, enabling them to break the species barrier. And much like with the flitterling, sometimes they could mix and match concepts. In practical terms, it meant humans could be born with grafted traits of other mortal species. It wasn't even necessary to have intimacy between the two species, just proximity could lead to it, though those cases would be rarer. The resulting kin, Amalgams, would not be a species of its own, their biology unstable unless they managed to get large numbers of humans with similar traits, but they would be useful. They could act as a glue between two populations, or overtake both, they could be great to spread commerce and knowledge, to communicate cultural concepts alien to other species, to create strife and change, to turn dualities into something far more complex. Yet their greatest purpose was to simply be mortals whose bodies were not custom made by a god, true wild cards in the game of the gods, even Qull had no idea where what she was creating would lead to. [hr] The focus on biology so far had been great, sure, but there was more than biology when it came to mortals. She hadn't dealt with magical users yet, had she? In all honesty, she wanted to wait more, to see what her siblings were doing first, to let it develop, then she would break it, corrupt it and enhance it. But she did have an idea at the moment. Her siblings believed in order, from her spying she had noticed there was a strong focus on making the learning of magic a slow dripping process, mortals were born with natural talents or the lack of it, but they all could spend years slowly building up to greater extents of power. [color=0076a3]"But what happens if I just give someone it all at once?"[/color] All of it. Magical potential and powers equivalent to a master of the field, given to the mortal while still in the mother of their mother. The result was pregnant women randomly exploding into great spells of fire or storms cast by their babies out of reflex, leading to the death of both. Not what Qull intended. [color=0076a3]"Right, perhaps wait a couple of years after birth. It will manifest three years after their first words."[/color] this was enough of a compromise. The child would be 'blessed' with magical powers they could not comprehend, raw magical energy capable of overpowering even people who studied the field for a decade or two. It was a rare thing, and it was mostly found in women, Qull couldn't decide if it was because it was such a personal gift and she was female-like herself or if it was because of some biological reason. On the later, she could identify there was something of a witch-gene to her blessing, this meant that while the initial few were blessed humans, the concept would spread to human-like species that were biologically compatible enough, such as the Alminaki and the Elves. One aspect that Qull did not expect in her creation, however, was the consequences of such great magic being infused on a being from birth. They grew differently from normal humans, though she would need to wait for a few generations to see what those differences were. [hr] Witches had been her gift to the humanoid race, but she did not feel like her work was quite done yet. There was more cultural and biological strife she could cause to keep things from becoming stale to the point of rot. She wondered, what would happen if she took a race that didn't seem to be quite blessed by magic yet and gave to a few of its people natural and strong magical powers. How would that affect their psyche? To break the uniformity of a species and give them something rare and powerful. Would they be driven to exile? Would they become revered leaders? It was exciting to think about it. The Lapites were the ones chosen for her experiment, and the approach was similar to the witches. A rare mutation that made a being be born with great powers, though with the Lapites, this concept was far tamer in term of raw magical powers, Qull liked exploring all possibilities. To make up for that, these anomalies were born with horns. She particularly called these Al-Mirajs, but depending on the region and depending on the context the population dealt with them new names might appear. [hr] Qull was tired, she had been doing a lot as of late, bringing ideas into existence only made it so she suddenly realized more ways to approach an issue or use her resources. Yet she felt satisfied. She was slowly spreading her influence yet at no moment did she feel she was going overboard. Playing a bit with the diamond cutter, cutting perfect lines on rocks, something suddenly struck her. She could mess with mortals by doing this. It was extremely childish, but she wondered what mortals would think if they found what looked like a monument or what looked like the structures of a lost civilization? What would they think when finding something entirely alien to their understanding of history? Would they assume their ancestors built it? Or long lost beings? Well, there was only one way to find out. With a playful smile, Qull started to carve up random cliffsides into cyclopean fortress-like structures in the middle of the least habitable areas of the world, figures over large swathes of land, rock outcrops into lone megaliths and shorelines into weird hexagon like shapes. Now she only had to wait for a few millennia and see what would happen. [hider=Summary] Qullqiya took some time healing and observing the world. She decides she wants to mess around because otherwise gods are just a hopeless bunch (in her opinion). Her may worry are the sentient species, the mortals, who are kinda her lifeblood and the reason she exists. She makes a blade to cut things with, the diamond cutter. First she makes two Faery species: Flitterlings, who are initially made by conceptually merging Thumblings and Insects. Basically your typical fairy. Made of flesh and chitin, impossibly merged together by chaos magic. Flutterlings, who are made by infusing Thumblings with magic and then atomizing them into dust. They are beings made of magically charged dust, running entirely on magic. They have great magical potential but cannot go into crowded areas due to the mental noise of other people. Not done yet, she gives humans the ability to cross-breed with most mortal species, creating amalgams, humans with features of other species. (Either the traditional way or in rare cases by infusing a baby born from two humans with traits of any other mortal who lives in their proximity) Then she makes a rare few humans be born with unlimited and wild magical potential, the equivalent of a master of magic but with no study on the topic or control. These are called witches. Since its a gene she expects it to spread to human-like species. She does something similar to the Lapites, making it so a rare few will be born as horned anomalies called Al-Miraj, unlike witches they have more control of their powers and are more on the side of naturally talented. She wants to see the cultural impact of it. Finally, just to fuck with mortals, she starts to carve things that look like mortal structures but are older than any civilization. Cyclopean architecture, an equivalent of the Nazca lines and The Giant's Causeway. [/hider] [hider=Might Summary] Might ---- Sentient Species: Flutterlings (2 - animation) Sentient Species: Flitterlings (2 - amalgamation) Artifact: Diamond Cutter - Title: Perfectly Sharp Blade I (1 - dissection) The blade is capable of cutting with incredible precision in perfectly straight geometrical shapes. Free act: landscaping areas to look as if they had been inhabited by mortals once. Making impossible to explain structures in hard to reach areas. Domain Points ---- Confer extraordinary aspect to a species: Witches for Humans (1 - anomaly) Confer extraordinary aspect to a species: Al-Miraj for Lapites (1 - anomaly) Confer extraordinary aspect to a species: Conceptual Breeding for Humans (1 - amalgamation) [/hider]