BBeast

Divinus: The God RP, Mk. III. Finished in Record Time™!

For once I'm the last one to write a review, so it falls on me to post the verdict.

@Scarescrow

Adam

First, the Portfolio. Although you don't state it explicitly (and I'd really like it if you did), it appears that the keyword is Love. Your description leans closer to Obsession, but unless someone else wants to go for a more wholesome incarnation of the Love portfolio then there is no need to change. As for your portfolio powers, they are concise and easy to interpret - he's a cult leader and that's what he's good at. This is fitting for a demigod.

As a tangential issue though, a couple of us have qualms about the use of Powerlisting Wiki in the abilities section (a habit which you appear to have picked up from other players, so we don't hold that against you). The ability's blurb should be a self-contained description of the power, whereas in this case the blurb alone fails to clearly state what the power does and its extent or limitations. While Worship Inducement is a fitting power for Adam, it could be improved by specifying how Adam can exercise this power and to what extent (bearing in mind that normal demigods can't even read minds, let alone dominate mortals to their will. While Adam's Portfolio makes him an exception, it can't be too extreme without costing Might).

I also have another power to recommend, and that is some ability which lets Adam identify a mortal's greatest desires. Of course, the list of Portfolio abilities does not have to be comprehensive, but it is something for you to consider.

The persona has merit. It gives Adam some elegantly simple motivations and puts him on the path to being active. Adam is quite insidious, what with the devouring the souls of the good and pure, but with potentially enough depth that he won't be exclusively an antagonist.

I personally have noted a contradiction in the persona, one which can be elaborated on to make Adam a richer character. You say that "Adam is benevolent, and he loves all", yet he is also Lawful Evil and wants to devour people's souls which is a very not-benevolent and unloving thing to do. Is Adam genuinely nice but he is driven by vile urges beyond his control? If so, how does he feel about those urges? Or is the benevolence only a facade for him to lure mortals in so he can eat them? If so, this should be elaborated.

Additionally, I am left confused as to how Adam would be like to talk to in person. Does he scorn everyone with his pride? Does he greet them with loving kindness? Some more detail on this would be nice.

We presume that you and Loki have talked about Adam's origins and already have plans for your origin story (if not, get planning). However, beyond that, we have no idea what you intend to do with Adam. We're concerned that you might disappear on us. As such, we'd like you to tell us a little bit about what you plan to do after Adam is born.

Also, the grammar is still rather shaky, with weird tense and plurals throughout. Would we be correct in guessing that English is not your first language? Despite this, your writing is typically readable, although it is possible that we (and the other players) might have to stop and clarify things with you if any parts of your posts are ambiguous. While we definitely don't have time to proofread everything for you, I can give you some specific feedback on your CS if you would like. And grammar aside, I can see that you have the ideas for writing elaborate prose.

Adam is a unique perspective on a Love God and the Portfolio fills an as-yet unoccupied niche, which are good things. However, I will withhold approval until you clarify the ability, elaborate on the persona and assure us that you have things to do after Adam's birth.

Divinus: The God RP, Mk. III. Finished in Record Time™!

@Antarctic Termite As long as things which should cost Might still cost Might (including items of advanced technology, with advanced being a relative term), it should be fine.

Divinus: The God RP, Mk. III. Finished in Record Time™!

Ashalla

Goddess of Oceans

With the other gods filtering out of the Architect's lake, Ashalla finally chose to heed her own advice. She flowed over to a relatively large floating crystal, gathered up as much water as she could and wrapped herself around it. As soon as she was secure the crystal accelerated out through the cavern's mouth and rocketed through space towards Galbar.

Behind her trailed a mist of water she from her form which left a faint streak of ice in the void, although it dispersed to invisibility rather rapidly. Ashalla noted this, that away from a source of water to replenish herself her form was subject to slow attrition. She found that with effort she could hold in the water to prevent it from escaping, but doing so was a strain. With her destination so quickly approaching, and the loss of water so little, it was hardly worth that extra effort.

Ahead of Ashalla loomed the world of Galbar, a Sphere covered almost entirely with water. The sheer volume of water was so much greater than that in the Architect's lake that Ashalla doubted for a brief moment whether she could harness it all. But with the crystal not slowing down, Ashalla had little time to contemplate. She braced herself as she and the crystal slammed into the atmosphere, although even when taking special effort to retain her form steam sheared off from her forwards side from the intense winds and compressive heating.

Moments later came splashdown, and Ashalla was once more connected with the water. She released the crystal as it sunk down into the depths and drifted in the ocean, dispersing outwards as she drank of its waters. It took her mere moments to recover the fraction of water she had lost from her voyage, but this was not enough for her. The ocean was so huge yet she was so small. This had to be rectified.

Ashalla extended her essence out further, subsuming more and more water into her currently submerged form. Spreading her essence across the ocean stretched it thin, but rather than making her weaker the smaller details simply became indistinct. Soon she had stretched to encompass an amount of ocean equivalent to the towering Narzhak in size. She kept going and spread out to be even greater than the Architect in scale. The ocean for kilometers in all directions became one with her, and Ashalla became the ocean. Stretched so much, Ashalla could only perceive the broadest of features, such as the slope of the sea bed and the currents and waves -- or rather lack thereof.

This was only a small part of the ocean, so Ashalla moved, the water flowing with her and waves rippling at her passage. She flowed around Galbar for some time, although how long was impossible to tell (since during these earliest voyages Asceal and Aelius were still constructing the Celestial Furnace so there was not yet any bodies in the sky to identify the passage of time). Ashalla found that the sea floor undulated in depth, and at some points where the ocean became shallow small rocky islands poked out of the water.

As Ashalla surveyed the great ocean, she found herself unsatisfied, despite her initial expectations that becoming one with this great body of water would be fulfilling. As she contemplated this, she realised that the reason she found this ocean unsatisfying was that it was empty and stagnant. There was nothing to occupy the water or to frame it and give it shape. There was nothing to make the waters move and behave besides her own movement. The ocean lacked creations! The ocean lacked power!

But Ashalla knew where she could find the power which would drive the oceans. There was more to this world than the ocean on the surface, for beneath there were many other Spheres, one of which she could claim as her own. This she knew instinctively. She just had to get to the Sphere.

In a deep part of the ocean, Ashalla gathered up her form and towered up above the water's surface. This mountain of water kept growing, Ashalla doggedly defying gravity's pull. Where before her form had simply been a natural part of the ocean, now she was coalescing it into something mighty and corporeal, a vast colossus of water at least as big as Narzhak. When Ashalla became as large as she could manage, two kilometers-high waves which might be called hands by those with particularly creative imaginations extended out then plunged towards the sea floor below. These two walls of water wedged themselves into the stone sea bed and pushed apart. For a few moments the earth resisted the titan's force, but then a crack snaked out from where she was pulling and the earth reluctantly yielded. The earth parted and Ashalla forced more of herself into the crack, extending the crack further and pushing titanic masses of stone outwards. Galbar trembled and quivered as Ashalla split open the planet, the rift extending for a thousand kilometres north and south of her. Water gushed past her to fill the vast trench, and she kept pushing to open it up wider and deeper. Soon Ashalla's form had sunk completely into the water so that she could continue pushing against the walls of the rift. It was only once the rift as about fifty kilometres wide at its widest that Ashalla let go.

Her essence contracted back to her original size, measurable in dozens of metres rather than kilometres, in a great sigh of relief. Sustaining such a vast form had taken an enormous expenditure of energy on her part, as had tearing open this rift in the bottom of Galbar's ocean. Ashalla relaxed for a time, feeling the waves of the ocean created by her upheaval slowly fading away. Recomposed, Ashalla descended into the Abyssal Rift.

While the bottom of the ocean had been dark and the water above heavy, this darkness and pressure only intensified as Ashalla got deeper. She was so deep that not a single photon of light would have reached her even if Aelius had pointed his Celestial Furnace directly into the rift. And the pressure was so great that the water was slightly yet perceptibly denser. No doubt even creatures designed to live in the ocean would be killed by such conditions, unless they were specially designed to live in these depths, but that did not worry Ashalla for this passage was not intended for mortal use.

The rift went deeper, so deep that it had left the Sphere of Galbar and was burrowing through the Chthonic Spheres to reach one far below, close to the very Core of the world. The journey was long, but Ashalla swam quickly, and soon she came out into a great water-filled cavern which extended in all directions further than Ashalla could reach, possibly wrapping around all of Galbar. Here was the Abyss, the home of the waters of the ocean and the deep. This was her domain.

Yet the waters were still. There was no power to make them move, for they were cold and lifeless. But Ashalla knew how to grant this power of life to the waters, and it involved exerting her divine power in a way she had not yet done. But it was a way she had seen hints of in Sartravius, the flaming one. Ashalla sunk to the floor of the vast chamber and applied power to the stone floor. The stone slowly heated to incandescence, filling the Abyss with a warm red glow. The water steamed and bubbled where it touched the floor, but the heat extended much deeper than the water could reach. Eventually, after applying heat for a long time, the floor of the Sphere melted and became magma, converting the lower half of the Sphere to molten rock. The great amount of thermal energy within the molten rock heated the water near the bottom of the Sphere, which rose up and mingled with the cold water at the top of the Sphere, driving vast convection currents. These great currents propagated up along the Abyssal Rift out into Galbar itself, and from that the oceans of Galbar began to move.

Ashalla left some of her divine impetus in the magma so that it would stay hot and moving. The water cooled the top of the magma, creating a thin skin of dark stone, but the currents in the magma below caused this layer to crack and sink back into the magma to be melted and replaced by a fresh layer. Sometime hot gases containing minerals liberated from the stone bubbled up from the cracks and rose to the top of the Abyss. Furthermore, at some points the energies powering the magma knotted together and the magma there ascended, igneous stone forming around the rising column of magma. These vertical magma flows were never stable and always collapsed down again, but they left intricate columns of stone. Ashalla was fascinated by these, amazed that an inanimate and unintelligent force could create something with some measure of detail and beauty.

After this toil and labour, Ashalla looked upon what she had created, and for now she was satisfied.

Summary

Ashalla goes to Galbar. Being away from water is not too good for her form, but this brief trip has no significant effect on her.

Ashalla gains an ability which I call I am the Ocean. It lets her extend her watery form to include water she is in contact with, allowing her to change size to become truly titanic. One use of this is to leave the water in place but just extend her essence; this is easier but has little effect other than extending the range of her touch and related senses. She uses this as she explores Galbar, finding it dull and without movement. It is worth noting, however, that as she extends herself, her ability to discern fine details declines in proportion to her size.

The other use of the ability is to make her above-water form titanic. This lets her become potentially quite huge and have her physical strength increase proportionally. However, maintaining a large form against gravity is a strain, so can only be maintained in short bursts. Sometimes it might even cost Might to maintain a particularly colossal form (although in acts of creation where such large forms are used, it is assumed that this cost is subsumed into that act of creation). Additionally, not seen in this post, the larger Ashalla is, the less able she is to manifest fine details in her form.

Ashalla uses her titanic size to tear open the Abyssal Rift in the bottom of the ocean. This is basically the Mariana Trench. It is about 2000 km long, up to 50 km wide and runs north-south in a yet-to-be-determined location. Importantly, the Abyssal Rift is a Gateway connecting Galbar and the Abyss.

Shrinking back to a more comfortable size, Ashalla descends to the Abyss. She finds it as a vast cavern of water. Ashalla converts the stone on the bottom of the Abyss into magma, converting the Abyss into the ocean-current-driving power-house that was originally described on the CS.

Might Summary
Ashalla
Start: 5 MP & 20 FP
Spent:
-3 MP to gain the ability I am the Ocean. (Enhanced by Oceans)
-7 FP to create a Gateway, the Abyssal Rift.
-8 FP to form the Abyss. (Enhanced by Oceans a little bit)
End: 2 MP & 5 FP

Divinus: The God RP, Mk. III. Finished in Record Time™!

Everyone, I made a map. The little rocky islands are too small to see on the map, and their positions and quantity are undetermined anyway.

Earth on the same map, for scale

We have a lot of people in this RP, and I suspect almost all of them will be building something on Galbar in the next few Turns. Continents in particular are quite important, as they shape where we put everything else.

As such, I kindly request this of everyone: If you make something on Galbar that's large enough or important enough to go on a global map, download the image, scrawl what you had just made onto the map using MS Paint or something, then post the map back onto the forum or Discord (or both. Inside the Summary is a natural place to put it). Then, when the next player makes something else on Galbar, they can download the updated map and draw their stuff on that. I (or someone else who asks for the Paint-Dot-Net files) will make a tidier version on an irregular basis.

The motivation for this is to reduce confusion and be clear where you have put your continents and stuff. If you rely on words alone to describe the position and shape of landmasses and major locations, then we'll get 27 different interpretations of where your thing is and what it looks like. And with 27 people trying to cram all their stuff onto a globe, these differences in interpretation can get problematic. I remember in Mk 2, with a central map-maker with only written descriptions to go off, every new version of the map would need substantial modification to get the features right. If, however, you draw it down yourself, then it is perfectly clear for all to see. For small features and if editing the map is impractical, you can also use the longitude and latitude to specify the feature's location with decent precision.

This is not mandatory. I merely ask that you do it as a courtesy to your other players.

This scheme is also experimental; I've got no idea if it will work well or if it will fall apart in shambles (although it will obviously work better if people use it). But I figured that it is worth a try.

Mid/High Casual - Divinus: The Deity Roleplay Mk.II

How's this for a collab: a post so large it actually broke RPGuild! This one's been baking for the last 3 months. Enjoy!

ninja'd by Mutton

With that out of the way, I might be able to make some progress with Gerrik or the Prometheans.

Divinus: The God RP, Mk. III. Finished in Record Time™!

Ashalla

Goddess of Oceans

As Ashalla stood by the crystals and watched many of her siblings approach, she tasted something foul in the waters. It drew her attention away from Galbar and the gods and towards the source of this disgusting flavour which was polluting the lake and, by extension, herself. Her eyes turned to look at the source -- a bloodied tendril of demon flesh in a growing slick of foul ichor. It disgusted her, and she knew it had to be dealt with. Ashalla flowed away from her crystal and towards the severed finger. When she was close enough, and no closer, she stretched out an arm and pointed at the offence to her senses. A whirlpool formed around the finger and gathered the ichor into one place. She then swept her arm aside and the whirlpool followed it, carrying the giant finger and ichor up onto an island where they were deposited.

Ashalla's face was still contorted by the bitter aftertaste which that ichor left in the water. She drew up to as much height as she could easily muster so that her height was comparable to Anzillu's and turned to face the demon. "Don't let your ichor pollute my waters," she said in a voice like distant rolling thunder laced with loathing.

After staring down the demon for a few moments, Ashalla turned and receded. It was not worth escalating. A warning would be adequate, for the foul-tasting one had not intentionally spilt its ichor into her water.

Turning her attention elsewhere, she spotted the little goddess named Chopstick Eyes searching the water. While Choppy's eyes couldn't pierce the depths of the lake, Ashalla felt everything in the lake because, in a sense, she was the lake. And within the lake Ashalla felt something touched with a faint trace of essence match that of Chopstick Eyes. She extended a submarine tendril towards the object, which was a metal cleaver, and pulled it towards herself. She considered the object for a few moments, then flowed towards Chopstick Eyes.

"Little-yet-feisty one," Ashalla greeted with a voice like rolling waves as she towered over the goddess, her tone calm and friendly. The water next to Chopstick Eyes bubbled like a spring and her cleaver rose to the surface of the water within her reach. "Here is your item. I find it strange that a god would need such objects, but I suppose one with a frail form like your own needs what help they can get."

In which Ashalla potentially insults two gods

Ashalla ignores her crystal for the moment. She goes to clean up the mess left by Anzillu, because the taste of his polluting ichor disgusts her. Ashalla lets Anzillu know that.

Ashalla then finds Choppy's knife and returns it to Choppy. While she attempts to be good-natured, she speaks her mind and says that Choppy only needs the knife because she's a little weakling. Ashalla hasn't heard of being diplomatic yet.

Might Summary
Ashalla
Start: 5 MP and 20 FP
No Might spent.

Divinus: The God RP, Mk. III. Finished in Record Time™!

Ashalla

Goddess of Oceans

In that great chamber where the Architect sat were souls, divine essence and water. The Architect banished all but a handful of chosen souls from his chamber and these chosen souls drunk deeply of the divine essence and became living gods. And with the power granted by the divine essence infused with their souls these new gods conjured matter and sculpted bodies of all varieties to house their spirit.

Yet raw divine essence is a fickle thing. It is creation manifest. It is the power of the gods. It bends the universe and reality to conform to itself. And it is loathe to be inactive.

The room was rich with divine essence, too much for the souls gathered to all absorb. So this free divine essence sought substance to which it could bind. It tried the stone of the cavern, but found it too unyielding. It tried the air within the cavern, but found it too weak. So instead it suffused through the water of the cavern, the water which flooded the bottom of the chamber and which fell in great sheets from the sundered aquifer above. And from this binding of matter and divinity, the water became a god.

Yet what was a god without form, who could not manifest? Gods create, and every god's first creation is their own form. But the water-who-was-god had no notion of its own form. It carried no vestiges of a past incarnation like the souls around it. Nevertheless the water-who-was-god gathered itself together. The great body of water in the chasm began to flow towards a single point, accumulating into a rising bulge. As the water gathered, the flow accelerated and the bulge rose higher, defying gravity and entropy until to stood like a colossal wave, towering over all but the largest beings in the room. Although it hadn't yet a mind to express the feeling, the water-who-was-god felt powerful. By its strength and might it had overpowered the force of gravity to manifest its vast form, and this taste of power left it wanting more, to exercise dominion over other forces of nature.

Yet power was only part of the impetus given by divine essence. The water-who-was-god was missing creativity. What was the use of all this power if it did not create anything? The water-who-was-god had assembled a featureless blob for itself, but this was inadequate. The water-who-was-god felt the divine essence of the others around it and felt their forms, water lapping at the feet of those in the chamber. It felt most strongly the aura of the Architect, so it started by imitating aspects of its form. The blob narrowed at a point near the top, pinching off a smaller blob of water which could pass for a head. Two great protrusions of water stretched out from either side of the water-who-was-god like arms just below its 'neck', water falling in great droplets and being pulled back up through the base of the water-who-was-god.

Finally, the water-who-was-god imitated the Architect's great eye. Water swirled around its head, creating an indentation which vaguely resembled an eye, and the divine essence peered through it and came to see the cavern and everyone within. The Architect dominated the room by his mere presence, but there were other gods too. It inspected the lesser gods and their diminutive forms, both with its eye and by feeling through the water. The water-who-was-god realised that it was not restricted in its creation, that it could create a new shape for itself. There were so many forms to choose from!

Tendrils of water rose up and wrapped around the water-who-was-god. Watery limbs sloughed off, falling with a splash into the lake below and replaced by new limbs with new shapes. Faces sculpted themselves into the water-who-was-god before being washed away by turbulent currents. The water-who-was-god exercised creation in its own form, sampling every shape it could sense.

Yet after a few seconds the water-who-was-god stilled, a blob once more. It had no purpose, no reason, no direction, so had been shifting randomly. Yet this was just as unsatisfactory as having no form at all. It needed a purpose. It needed thought. It needed what the other gods in the room had -- a soul.

The water-who-was-god might not have had the capacity for true thought, but its divine essence recognised its will. So a soul coalesced within the water-who-was-god, a soul shaped to what it knew -- power and creativity. The water-who-was-god looked out at its kindred divines as this soul took shape and it became aware of itself. The water-who-was-god's purpose crystallised and it came to know its nature and identity.

Yet the identity was missing a form. The water-who-was-god looked at the gods and goddesses in the room with a newfound awareness. It felt their souls and essence, then the water-who-was-god found the traits it felt best described itself and pulled the water into a more definite form. The form was wide at the base, so as to be well-connected to the water; the water-who-was-god even extended far into the water below, but that part was formless. The form extended upwards with smooth and elegant curves. Near the top two 'arms' extended, although these too were made from flowing curves which branched at the end into fingers. Above the bulge where the arms connected was a narrowing like a neck followed by a round blob of water like a head. On one side of this blob the water shaped itself into a supple face with two eyes, a nose, a mouth and ears, this face being the most sharply defined part of the form. From the top and back of the head fell water in great streams, running down the form's back. The form resembled a human woman, like a number of the goddesses around her, although many times their size and made entirely from water.

The water-who-was-god had awareness, understanding, a persona and now a form fitting of her persona. But her identity was missing one crucial element -- a name. The water-who-was-god stalled in thought. It heard the others speaking around her, voices and noises being made, so it started by imitating them. Rushing water within her produced sounds as she toyed with phonemes, finding sounds which had a pleasant flow.

"Shhh...llll...ooaa...shhh...ll...ff...hhhh...ss...ll...aaassshhh...llaaa..." She then stood upright and the water-who-was-god declared her name with a voice like waves breaking on a beach. "Ashalla!"

Then Ashalla let out a joyous laugh which rang like undersea echoes. She had created a name and a form and an identity! She now knew who she was and was revelling in the power and creativity which she now knew she wielded. What else could she do?

Ashalla surged forwards, her form losing distinction as she became a hurtling wave that raced around the room. Yet there was a disturbance in the water, a force acting against her. It was the god with a form larger than her own, rivalled only by the Architect in size, who was a mountain of flesh covered in metal. Its motions and own bellowing laughter was sending waves through the enormous lake. It was influencing her domain, the water from which she was made, and it made her indignant.

Ashalla slowed to a halt and regained some of her appearance. She felt the water of this lake, a lake so large some might have called it a sea, and felt its every wave and ripple. Ashalla's form sunk down as she extended her essence into the water of the lake, then with a great heave she willed the waters to calm, and they obeyed. Waves stalled, currents stagnated and ripples faded.

There were several seconds of quiet, then they were broken by Ashalla's echoing joyous laughter. Euphoria washed over her from her exertion of power, greater than any of her previous feats. She was made for wielding this might.

Diffused throughout the lake, Ashalla took a moment to calmly observe the universe around her. The divines in the room were impossible to miss, but with her broadened senses all but the Architect were indistinct. With the cacophony of the chamber momentarily dulled, Ashalla saw the universe beyond the cavern. The sky dimly lit with the Barrier's magic framed a distant blue orb, and immediately Ashalla felt a connection with that orb. There was where she was meant to be. This lake was just a tiny taste of what lay in that Sphere beyond the cavern!

Ashalla gathered her essence once more and coalesced another watery form in time to hear the tirade of a man of blazing fire -- Sartravius, if the knowledge which had been imprinted into her and her feeling of the god's essence were accurate. Ashalla lurched towards him, and she spoke in answer to his question.

"Can't you see? We have been brought here to create!" Ashalla said in a voice like a sea breeze, carrying the mirth of her existence. She gestured upwards with an aqueous limb. "Look at that Sphere over there. I feel it is much greater than this place here. There we can exercise our might!"

Ashalla's form collapsed back into the water, then emerged a few moments later next to one of the floating crystals. "Come! We have a world to create!" she beckoned to Sartravius and the other gods.

A goddess is born

Ashalla forms, not with a soul who forms a body and collects divine essence, but as divine essence which forms a body then collects a soul. Who needs a backstory?

Ashalla revels in her existence, primarily in her might and creativity.

Ashalla stills the waters of the lake, ceasing Narzhak's disruptive waves.

Ashalla answers Sartravius' question to the Architect, inviting everyone to fly to Galbar so they can get creating.

Divinus: The God RP, Mk. III. Finished in Record Time™!

@Doll Maker We are satisfied with the changes you have made. You have also given us assurances that you have coordinated with Vec and TurboWraith and that you are planning a border with the Palace of Dreams. As such, Ekon is accepted.

---

In other news, we regret to inform you that @jetipster has handed in his resignation, with circumstances beyond his control preventing him from continuing with us at present. We wish him the best. This also means that the Cold Portfolio is open.

Divinus: The God RP, Mk. III. Finished in Record Time™!

@TurboWraith From discussions on Discord, we are satisfied that you have enough for Foe to do to not get bored. You are Approved. You may add your character and Sphere to the wiki.

@Antarctic Termite You have pages on the wiki. Now please put some actual information on those pages.

Divinus: The God RP, Mk. III. Finished in Record Time™!

This is not an easy journey and 9 out 10 will die in the process.

@Kho

While I understand the sentiment, as one of film's most famous heroes has said, never tell me the odds. Unless the journey is literally Russian Roulette, precise odds are meaningless. More powerful beings will obviously have better odds that weaker beings. We'd rather know why the journey is dangerous or otherwise difficult.

A difficult journey also does not need to be fatal. It might just require an enormous expenditure of power to traverse (e.g. spaceflight) or it might be hard to find (e.g. a connection which is only sometimes open).

P.S. This isn't a critical flaw in your sheet. I just thought I'd bring it up.