Antarctic Termite

Godspeed!

Still busy updating everything, but fun fact: Gods can now sacrifice themselves to instantly elevate a hero to godhood. So that's one way we can shuffle characters around if need be.

Godspeed!

Yuu

The woods were spreading, up through the mountains from where Ipeyr once sowed them, and a new creature had of late been appearing. Yuu recognised it as a touch of home. Fitting, he thought, nocking an arrow to his bow.

The nearest sika was a male, maned and spotted, bearing a perfect set of antlers, but it wasn't him the hunter was aiming for. With barely a twang, the wooden bow snapped and sent its arrow through the neck of the doe, felling it with a kick. Yuu let out a long breath. It was a nice shot, though he'd been aiming for a shoulder. He checked around for any gods that might have guided his unlucky arrow, and saw none.

Well, at least he could still hit something.

The other deer had not realised their loss, having yet to learn the fear of humans. Yuu carried his hit away on his back, where a simple drying rack waited. He'd been harvesting sea salt for some weeks now. The sika would last.

As Yuu sat by a fire several hours later and rested his tired, bloodied hands, another animal moved through the same woods. In a few moments he'd strung his bow once more- he had no use for more meat, but Yuu was not above killing for curiousity. Was it a horse? No, a horse didn't come this far.

He lowered the sacred bow. A horse who was man. That was not familiar.

---

The Centaur

The Centaur had passed from the Godly Promus many hours before, the boon of speechcraft being little demand after its placement upon the creature for none that he passed knew the impressions behind the sounds he exhaled. Perhaps that was to change though, for no sooner had the creature slowed its pace the trees began to shake with little wind, the birds began to tweet without pause... the blessing of his father took effect and all too quickly the centaur understood that it was a warning - meant for him.

The creature tensed its muscles, turning swiftly from one direction to the next trying to discern whatever could be worthy of nature's warning.

"Easy, friend," said a voice, as though talking to a beast, "easy."

Yuu made no attempt to remain hidden, and would have failed it in any case. He was heard before he was seen, a russ of leaf and litter.

"What are you, being that walks in the skin of my father and his kind?" demanded the Centaur. Regardless of the being's passive attitude, this was no time for games. The wilderness gave a warning - something occured and now a being had revealed itself, speaking in the tongue that Elder Promus has gifted to the Centaur.

The quadrupedal mammal raised it's shoulders and puffed out it's chest, turning towards the revealing person with its heightened stature. Yuu was a small thing, slight of frame, but did not cower.

"My name is Yuu," he said. "I wander here. In all my wanderings I still have never met anyone like you." He bowed.

"And I take it that is a complement?" muses the Centaur. The being was indeed one of intellect, though it's nature was yet to be spoken for. "There is no need for such customs," he continues, signaling away the bow and whatever honey-laced wordplay the creature may bring to the discussion.

"Oh," said Yuu. The hybrid was being obtuse. "I see. Well, in that case, who are you? It's good to know with whom one shares the woods."

At this the Centaur's brow scrunched, he was what he is - the creature knew that. "You address yourself like my father and his kind... tell me, that is that which you speak of?" he asks.

The words caught Yuu and made him trip. "I... address myself like anyone would," he said, "With a name." Seeing that the being gave no sign of being condescended to, Yuu went on. "There are many words we use to say what we are. Tall, brave, old, wise, a... a haberdasher. But each of us has only one word to say who we are. It encompasses all of them, though it might not have any meaning at all. It is our word. It means us, whoever we are, or have been. Like Lei, or Regulus, or Elizer. It means me, or, it means... Yuu." The double meaning wasn't intended, but it worked.

The centaur paused, several thoughts shot through its mind as it contemplated this new information. "Certainly it would be to carry a name, in that case I shall be known by one such name. Names are a person's embodiment you say? Then I shall be known as Nomad!" The centaur kicked its hind leg into the air as it spoke, standing still carried its own difficulties.

Now there was progress.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Nomad." Yuu resisted the habit of bowing again. "And who sent you wandering? Do they, too, have no name?"

"Of couse, though that pleasure is truly all mine - from you I have learnt of naming." Nomad had begun to settle within the conversation that had developed. Yuu was a strange being filled with strict customs, it seemed, though it wasn't something which seemed to hold ill intention.

"My father? He is known, rather felt, by me as 'Faliir'."

"Ah. The... Horse-maker. Of course." Yuu nodded. "I'm fond of his work. I have a home nearby," he said, "so come, rest a while. Please. I'd be honoured."

"A home?" questioned the Centaur - this time aware of the meaning of such a term. "Out here within the dense forestry? How long have you been resting within the confines of this woodland? I would be a fool not to accept your offer in these circumstances anyhow."

Yuu laughed. "Come!" he said, again. "All places are home, when one knows them well." And he led Nomad into the woods.

Summ

Yuu practices hunting the newly-created deer with the enchanted bow. It seems he's gone innawoods.

He encounters the Centaur and they chat for a while. The Centaur is introduced to the concept of names, and names himself Nomad. They agree to go head to Yuu's forest hut.

Yuu gains 2+2 Prestige from this post, 2+2 Prestige from his previous post with Regulus, and 2 Prestige from his creation post, for 10 total. I'll give him the titles Marksman and Horseman, both at level one.

Nomad didn't have any speaking lines in his creation post, but he can get 2 Prestige from that because I'm a generous god. Another 2 from the post in which he replied to Cyclone, and 2+2 from this one, for 8 total.

Yuu
6 Prestige
Marksman (I), Horseman (I)

Nomad
8 Prestige

Godspeed!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAND now I have another six posts to read.

Amazing!

Godspeed!

Mater Lei had gone through eight dresses in the five minutes since the Pumpkin Man had left, and had settled back in her pot of soup, hands tapping-tapping on her elbows as her head fizzed.

...Do I need an entourage? she thought. Well, she didn't need one, really, in any sense of the word- she intended to gatecrash the feast alone, as she always did. She didn't need an entourage. It was just a nice thing to have.

Hmmm.

Well, that was enough for her. Lei hopped out of her bath, startling some nearby sprites that had been floating in the steam. Her cane was leaning on the cauldron and she picked it up as her ninth dress dried itself, touching its tip to an airborne sprite, which fell to the ground, paralysed. With a sweep of her cane, Lei sent out a short pulse that stunned and gravitated the rest. She hovered them in rows in front of her.

Bits of bug and bitter-seed composed their limbs, but at their heart they were dust, all of them. Not Haze, just dust. When it came to flashing royalty, the Haze Men wouldn't do- they'd been made for a certain aesthetic and Lei was tired of working on them for now. But, she thought as she gathered the fae and began to add to their forms, there were many types of Haze. And hers was the magic of dust.

Replacing the glittery particles that had composed the little sprites' bodies was easy enough. The Mater's Haze was already magically charged, albeit of a different flavour of arcana. What came next came naturally, albeit with some... jitter. Haze had its own will, Lei's will, and the figures jerked as the soul and body accommodated one another. As soul was warped to match the new demands of the dust, the dust conformed once more to the faceless organic shapes of a Sprite. Organic, still, but natural? Not so much.

Heavy glitch tailed the new fae, pixels of photonic matter scattered by the interference of their own magic. They looked something like they did, still, only grainier, with no recognisable components like sticks and leaves. Some existed in greyscale. Most had oversaturated flares of colour. Lei walked along the forest, and the glitchenfae followed her, holding up the train of her tenth dress. Excellent.

Now what are the others likely to bring?

Lei opened a small portal as she often did, holding it down with her fingertips. Kap Gam, busy with the Locus Amoenus, not likely to bother much with fashion right now. Grimloq was the same, warring and feeding his avatars to one another. The rest of them... Where were they, exactly? She panned south and found no sign of Gremju at his plain. Whatever it was probably had something to do with what was behind that enormous desert Aella had skepped. Lei panned westwards to the Anathema Heights. They couldn't have gotten up to all that much.

...

Piss.

Lei snapped the portal shut with a vague gesture to the heavens and dragged her rolling eyes to the citadel. If they wanted to swamp Larwen, so be it. She would be getting up to something useful.

With a snap and a spark she conjured a staircase down through a derelict part of the citadel, with an iron railing, and set two Haze Men to guard it. As she moved her dust scoured the place, ate the darkness and left behind a cold room, barren and vast, utterly lonely. It was lit by cruel light, white and pale and utterly unlike the sun or the moon, shining from bars that fizzed in the ceiling. She conjured tables and machiners of steel. She started a generator. It would be her place, her quiet echosome place, of making. Lei clicked her mask from her face and set to work.

And shut the door.

summar

Geez it's been ages.

Mater Lei decides she needs someone to be her champagne-carriers and fucks up some sprites, creating the glitchenfae. Free action from her totally-not-nanyte-clouds dust portfolio. 1 Miracle spent anyway to empower them and raise their numbers.

She then checks out what others are doing and realises that they're kinda going nuts. She creates a well-hidden basement in the Citadel and uses it as her workshop to start making her own stuff. 1 Miracle spent on a hidden basement.

This nets her her next level!

Mater Lei
5 Might
0 Miracles
Level Five
0/10 Acts of Creation

Annals of Mater Salma Lei, Fourth Hand of Fate

Stuff Telchines live on
artstation.com/artwork/4ObzY

More stuff Telchines live on
hideyoshi.deviantart.com/art/3CH-Robo…

Telchines
artstation.com/artwork/AR5yW

Godspeed!

Sorry for delaying so much on getting this map 'update' (read: scribble I sent Wrongend to get him up to speed on where shit is) out, but here's the world prior to the Frontier:

End of turn 0 map

White stuff is sea ice, averaged through the year. There'll be more in winter, less in summer, and land ice will be more extensive around those latitudes. Blobs near the citadel are, from north to south, prairie, forest and swamp. Red spot in the southern continent is the Temple of the Book, yellow spot is Aella's retreat.

@Frettzo The Frontier squashes most of the purple grass, and a river. You can reconcile this how you'd like, but it's probably best if the purple grass survives around the oases and the not!Nile river.

Godspeed!

@Eviledd1984 I dunno, it says 'apply' under the title, so I guess you could try that one out.

Godspeed!

Something I just noticed rereading the rules on leveling. It only mentions that holy site, leveling heros, and integrating portfolios do not count towards your level. Does that mean that taking a new domain does?

@Leotamer

Oh hey, well spotted. Integrating domains shouldn't count towards level either. I'll edit that in sometime. (Spending Might on actions related to the domain, of course, will.)

Godspeed!

In other news, Promus would probably be thrilled to find some sort of babysitter. The criteria for eligibility include not trying to eat the cyclopes and not trying to physically corrupt the cyclopes.

@Cyclone

Oh hey! Yuu can continue his theme of helping out mortals wherev-

Demons need not apply!

@Cyclone

...oh. okay.

Godspeed!

Currently finishing reports and such. To the people who wanted to delay the change of turn: don't worry, you still have a few days before I'm done. To the people who are waiting for it: just hang on and mess around until the end of the weekend.

As always, remember that we have time, I'm-game and otherwise. If you have creations that can grow and increase on their own, like ecosystems or people that inhabit them, there's all kinds of little stories and miracles you can write to develop them further without having to spend points.