Cyclone

Godspeed!

Heard down the grapevine a few hours back that there was an argument about Promus' supposed monopoly on speech, so I'll come in and give my thoughts.

Firstly, there are two reasons his CS stated he alone creates speech (OOC I don't mind too much if somebody else wanted to spend the MP to bypass him; I just raised a deal about this earlier when other gods made verbal and written speech on the first turn and before even Promus could act)
A) It allows me to remain relevant with such a niche portfolio
B) It opens the door to Promus helping out a civ after he gies them speech and starts to notice them. Put simply, I figured it'd lead to a lot more collaborative effort.

The funny part is that nobody has ever asked me to give their dudes speech. I've approached a few people about granting speech out of my own interest, but for to give one example I have no clue if @dragonmancer wants his dragons to ever run around talking.

All it'd take is a simple @mention on this thread or a PM sent to me if somebody wanted me to get on to giving someone speech, and I have 5 heroes and a god capable of granting speech so you'll hardly ever be stuck waiting long on me and there are options for collabs. Or if you don't even want to collab, I could just write a two or three paragraph standalone post where one of my guys grant speech. With all that in mind I can only speculate as to why any drama went down.

Anyways, I'll reiterate the constraints on Promus' power. There are several big workarounds:
1) Promus' portfolio only includes verbal speech and sign language falls entirely outside of it. We've even got precedent for a major species naturally getting sign language, with the Urtelem in Divinus Mk. 2.
2) Telepathy or something similar. Orfai has already done it, and I have no qualms with it. Just be aware that if you do that without telling me anything to the contrary, I'll assume that you want to develop the species on your own and then respect that by not having Promus go anywhere near them. It shuts him out in a way anyways, by removing the aforementioned reason B for having his speech powers.
3) The fact that you can go through any of his heroes, if there's an IC reason you would avoid Promus himself.

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

a tradition of insurgency so great even the captain of a one-person rowboat could be at the losing end of a mutiny.

lol that city should import psychiatrists

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

I feel like that 2MP limit is in Godspeed literally only because of me

But it's not even effective because IIRC you can add to a weapon or empower it infinitely, going in increments of two. I'll have a level 50 [Orb of Limitless Power] by the end of it, and I'll gain a bunch of levels while doing it too! You just mark my words!

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

Giving everyone free levels through Godspeed's system will just saturate the hell out of this RP with even more MP, and then I'll have to dump all my MP into making an even bigger divine weapon

Do we really want a 100MP [Orb of Celestial Undoing]?

Godspeed!

Gremju the Challenger

&
Makaizael of the Earth

Makaizael did not move at once, instead contemplating upon how he would select the first imps to receive his tutelage. Gremju had seemed inclined to let them divide themselves into groups of their own making, but after several hours there were still those that drifted or lazed about, either spurned and rejected from the groups, or individualistic and unwilling to join others, or just lacking in motivation to socialize with the others or move about. It was ironically the last group that Makai began to see the most promise in; the most slothful of the imps were more content with peace and therefore less disposed to violence and chaos, and perhaps they would see and be quick to understand the benefits that civilization could afford to those that turned away from a nomadic way of life.

Most of them seemed relieved when the strange Watcher approached them and did the work of assembling a clan for them, but for those that were not glad to be spared the work, he swayed with promises of wealth, prosperity, and gifts of power that far surpassed the Speech that he had already bestowed upon them. If only they would follow him, and listen.

It seemed a small enough price to pay, so after a few hours he had assembled his group of thirty imps. It was larger than the small gangs of a dozen or so that had arisen naturally, but Makai saw no need to drive off some of his imps. Thirty was number enough to form a village and create a rudimentary civilization that could then grow; it was just right, for a community with too many more would have proven difficult to control.

While the other imps already began to bicker and make plans, many intending to strike out and leave the Plains of Madness and explore the world with eagerness, Makaizael addressed his chosen.

"You will know by now that I have taken you under my charge to teach the ways of order and civilization. It goes against your nature, I know, but I bid you to make the effort and reap the rewards. Your wayward brethren will wander free and act upon impulse and instinct; they will have harder lives, and likely shorter ones too. But you can see them and know that yours is the right path, and know that you go on with the blessings of not only Gremju but also Promus and Makaizael, and then all doubt shall be banished. So come, my friends, for there is much work before us."

They followed Makai a long ways, to where the Plains of Madness began to give way to the open lands beyond, and there they came across a few squat trees that had already started to sparsely cover the mountains. Several complained along the journal, for after all these were many of the most slothful imps, but Makai's silvered tongue urged them onward with vivid promises of all the luxury and relaxation that would come later.

"A demonstration," he called out to the imps, and then with one strange word he told the closest of the trees to fall. It did so with all the gentle grace that such a violent action could show, and then Makai taugh them how to craft crude tools from flintstones, plant fibers, and sticks. With their primitive axes they began to cut the limbs free from the fallen's tree's trunk, and then a few teams under Makai's careful watch managed to fell other trees using their brawn and their tools rather than any sort of magical speech. When it was done, they were left with the daunting task of transporting this lumber back to Gremju's glade within the middle of the Plains of Madness. In teams they began to roll the logs and push them back, for they were far too heavy to carry and yet were round enough that there was no need given that the landscape was mostly flat.

Makai pushed one of the logs along by himself, and he also aided the imps' going here and there with his own magic as well. He kept such assistance subtle and hidden, though, for he did not want them to grow accustomed to such help and rightfully saw in the arduous task a way of bringing the tribe closer together.

When they at last found themselves where they had started, but with some reasonable supply of lumber now, the other bands of imps had already dispersed. Though their enthusiasm waned with lack of immediate reward for their work, Makai offered them ample time to rest, and then he taught them the ways of construction. They built homes for themselves in the forms of small huts and shanties that had walls of earth braced by wood, with roofs made from leafy branches woven together. Though the village was truly no more than a cluster of dirt-floored hovels, it was something. Whilst their nomadic kindred no doubt slept beneath trees or hid in caves or were otherwise exposed to the cold and the elements, these imps that yearned for civilization had some semblance of shelter and they now had a taste of what their enigmatic leader had promised to them.

Almost as an afterthought, Makai then thought to have them make an offering to Gremju. Perhaps it would placate the 'demon' for some time, and even if not, it would teach these imps a valuable lesson in piety. There remained one tree trunk thicker than the others. It was the one that Makai had pushed, for none of the imps had sufficient strength or willpower, and it furthermore had a girth so great and bark so thick that it had resisted all attempts at being chopped into pieces of a more practical and useful size. But that was of no matter, for Makai now envisioned a different purpose for that log to serve.

With great effort, he directed the imps as they began to move it from the outskirts of Gremju's glade closer to the middle. Amidst the crystal trees, they toiled to slowly lift the trunk and bring it upright, and then they placed it within a hole that been prepared for the purpose of keeping the log vertical once more. They buried the lowermost part, piling the dirt at the great log's base until the mound was large enough to hold the totem pole steady. And it was then that Gremju decided to gift his imps with chaos magic.

They immediately took a liking to it, and despite Makai's objections they experimented with it in the village and (in some cases) upon one another. The project abandoned for the time, there was mayhem. None were seemed to have been seriously hurt, but in one instance an imp lost hold over the power that he had conjured and it had set a house ablaze, and in another case the chaos magic had the unintended consequence of permanently giving its user a hue so bright that his skin was like the first bands of sunrise upon the sky.

In an attempt to restore some semblance of order and hopefully amuse Gremju--who was surely laughing by then--Makaizael bid them gather once more by their totem pole and work small bits of their magic upon it to make whatever chaotic and nonsensical marks that they pleased, in the name of worshiping and honoring their maker. Promus would not have been pleased at having been made to suffer such a wild form of 'worship', and this ordeal only confirmed to Makai that his imps still had a long ways to go. Perhaps in due time he would direct them in the construction of a proper temple and instruct them in prayer, but in the meantime chaos reigned.

The Challenger watched Makai worked from a distance and he was truly amused. He had been observing the Guardian of Civilization's work from a distance and erupted into a fit of laughter when the imps began casting their new magic. Eventually he fell out of the tree and remained there, laying on his back for a moment giggling. With a flash of magic Gremju disappeared and re-appeared next to Makai. "Looks like they're having fun with my newest gift," the imp-father said with a cackle.

"They do it to to honor you," the Watcher responded with restrained breath as one of the imps seared exaggerated phallic symbols onto the totem that was meant to be a shrine to Gremju. Another lobbed a bolt of chaos magic at the totem but missed entirely, so with some concentration Makai willed the earth to rise up and suffocate the resulting flames.

Summary

-Makai gathers his groups of imps, purposefully choosing to deal with the laziest of the bunch because they seemed like the easiest to control.
-He gives them a pep talk and then they chop trees and bring the wood back.
-They build a village of little hovels using dirt to fill in wooden frames.
-Gremju gives the imps chaos magic and there is anarchy for a while.
-Makai has them raise a totem pole to act as a shrine to Gremju, and they use their chaos magic to draw all sorts of interesting stuff on it.

Prestige

Start: 19 Prestige
-2 Prestige to formally claim his 'of the Earth' title and canonize his power and knowledge of the ground, its plants, etc.
-5 Prestige to level that title twice, to of the Earth (III)
-2 Prestige to claim the title Friend of Imps (I)
-2 Prestige to claim the title He Who Felled the First Tree (I)
-2 Prestige to gather together his tribe of imps and convince them to heed his counsel and obey his decrees
-2 Prestige to teach the imps of construction
+2 Prestige for this post existing
+2 Prestige for this post being collaborative
End: 8 Prestige

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

I'll echo the suggestion that you check out Godspeed.

the large number of Djinn-touched souls mingled inside her and condensed into a Djinn of great power, making the woman host a Demi-God.
@BBeast

@KabenSaal

The big plot hole here is that djinn do not have souls. It's been so long that I had almost forgotten about what Capy just said (excessive use of the Winds of Change can lead to one starting to lose their body and APPEAR as a djinni) but the caveat is that said mortals don't actually become djinn. They become something halfway between, a sort of immortal human attuned to magic that is nonetheless still not so powerful as a djinni lord, incapable of 'dying' and then reforming once more, etc.

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

Interestingly, the same ogre sorcerers that have the more powerful variant of Astartian magic are also the only (to my knowledge) mortals to make any extensive use of that Astartian soul magic that Muttonhawk just mentioned.

It's part of what enables them to enslave djinn by force of will when other shamans simply cannot do that, and it's also been demonstrated to allow them to temporarily enhance their strength or agility to superhuman levels. There's some IC post where an ogre shaman named Dargok uses this to fight off a bunch of urtelem.

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

@KabenSaal

What's up. Been a while since I last talked to you in Horde of Evil/Dungeon Keepers.

Shamanism is still relatively limited, though. So that we're on the same page, I'll give you a brief rundown of the two types I've established (in Mesathalassa there are 'shamans' that are completely different, ask Capy about them).

The god of change originally created the djinn (aka elementals), which are entities of varying intelligence, personality, and power. These djinn are sort of like nature spirits and they each correspond to a certain aspect of the world (like water or fire, but some are more obscure like sound in the case of Murmur or treesap in the case of some djinn called dryads). There's a wiki page that you may find helpful: divinus-ii.wikia.com/wiki/Elementals_…

Shamans are basically just mortals that have learned to deal with djinn.

Human shamans exist in two regions: Rukbany with its nomadic tribes of horsemen, and Vetros with its Egyptian/Hebrew/Sumerian culture of cities along the river. In both places the shamans are functionally the same; they learn the language of the gods so that they are able to communicate with djinn, which they then use to buy favors through offerings or worship or whatever the particular djinni in question wants. These shamans have no power inherent to themselves unless they manage to permanently bind some lesser djinn to their will, but even then, though a shaman may throw a fireball at you it's not because he's a firebender. It's just because he has a few firedjinn buddies helping him out.

The other notable shamans are the ogre sorcerers. There's only about ten of them, but they're each vastly more powerful than their human counterparts. Whilst the humans try to make peaceful pacts and buy favors, the ogres use rituals and can enslave djinn through sheer force of will.

Not sure what you're planning, but I hope that spiel was of some use to you.

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

@Kho

I can't find where those silly, much-loathed Palowids are!

Godspeed!

On that topic, I went back to edit my hero posts to conform to the new prestige system. They now have even more than they did before, mostly because of the rule that they now get +2 for a collab even if it isn't part of a quest.

Looking back I did make Hal spend some additional prestige in the recent post, for that time when he dropped the meteor.

I've got about 60 Prestige between just the three Watchers...I was originally going to have them spend almost all of their earned prestige on giving things to mortals, but at this rate they might start picking up a bunch of titles.