Cyclone

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

@LokiLeo789 for Anzillu

Hider

It feels like you're literally trying to do a fanfic of Jvan.

So let's start with persona this time. Your idea is cool and certainly workable, but the big thing is that whereas Jvan was a 'cancer' upon the world that nonetheless had complex emotion and feelings and contributed by creating things, Anz is seemingly like Xos in that he just wants to destroy and devour literally everything. That's cool but it really restrains the potential for what you can do, and Anz'll be left with no way to meaningfully interact with the world other than by 'inflicting himself upon it'. After a while that'd start to feel like Groundhog Day; you'd get bored of it and we'd probably also eventually get bored of it. So that's bad and it'd be nice if you added some more depth here. I say make him more like Sauron; he doesn't want to just destroy the other gods and all of their things, he wants to ultimately remove them and remake the world. And for that means he's willing to create demons and build up an empire of sorts to accomplish that. Whereas Xos just kills stuff, Sauron contributes to Middle Earth by making cool magical rings, a cool place called Mordor, a cool evil tower, some cool orcs...

Sheol is a decent Sphere. It harvests and reshapes matter itself(?) in order to create soulless demons, and while it doesn't innately have an 'effect' on other Spheres, being the source of the demonic invaders is probably enough to pass as an effect. If we removed Sheol, Galbar would NOT be the same, so your Sphere passes my test. Still, there's potential for you to perhaps do more with it. We like the connection to Ohannakeloi being like an elemental battlefield, but you could probably have connections and interesting boundaries with lots of other Spheres too.

As far as a Portfolio, I like demons. It's really specific and niche, but you can do a lot of different things with different demons and you seem to have plans for doing so. Now, BBeast raised a good point, "The Portfolio needs to be less specific about what demons are. Loki's already revised demons several times already, which is fine, but he'll get stuck if he defines it too tightly from the start. A definition including some of the basic universal traits of demons, things which define what a demon is, is good. A full and total description of their precise functioning and abilities restricts your ability to adapt and change." I think that as of our most recent DM conversation you had a pretty good idea of how demons would work, but you don't need to explain all of the details now. Save it for the IC so that you can be more flexible, as BBeast suggests.

Also, Mutton wants to know what this is supposed to mean, "...Demons are capable of manifesting basic constructs of energy..."

Are you trying to justify them having some sort of powerful innate magic? That costs extra MP but is doable.

Accepted contingent upon you adding a bit of depth to the persona or coming up with some way to make Anz only 99% evil and destructive rather than 100%. Also, because you had to be reviewed last, Mutton's been waiting like two weeks to have that pressing question answered. I'm sure he's dying to know, so you'd better answer him too.

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

Ah, the long awaited IC is drifting closer. But first I've got to get two more quick reviews out of the way.

@Not Fishing for Kalmar

Hider

There's still some more work to be done here. The IC will likely go up before you get accepted, but provided you don't dither, I think it's still quite possible for you to get accepted in time to do things on turn 1.

First and foremost, I've said over and over that you need to read the OP thoroughly. We see several telling indicators that you haven't. You need to read this material yourself and not expect us to spoon feed you everything over Discord conversation. This alone is cause for rejection; however, I'll still address the contents of your sheet.

The Portfolio is good. Note that all gods can talk to animals as that's among their baseline powers; again, it's the small details like your acting like that's not the case which makes us suspect you haven't read the OP nearly thoroughly enough.

Your Sphere certainly has an interesting and important effect, which makes it passable. I particularly like the shifting nature of the climates. We'd like to see more about natural connections to different Spheres, and also for the Hunting Grounds to have some more details than just that it's close to the Purlieu, because surely the two would interact somehow, right? There's a lot of untapped potential there.

The persona makes sense and I'm quite pleased with how you've given him a few ambitions. It's especially interesting that he doesn't condone the killing of one's one species (So he's against murder? How would that tie in to the likes of Narzhak and war?) and how the thought has crossed his mind to potentially test himself against the Architect. BBeast did have one remark, though, "...one thing that's missing is his mannerisms. We can infer the stances he takes on issues, but we don't know what he is like to meet in person. I'd like to know what he is like to interact with in person."

So looking back over this, the sheet's pretty good overall. You've certainly improved it a lot since the first version.

Still rejected for now because we remain suspicious that you haven't read the OP.

@LokiLeo789 for Enolyc

Hider

Exemplary sheet!

Approved.

So is the universe being created from scratch again, or will the RP take place in an age closer to stone or bronze? Just curious for when I start fleshing out my demigod CS.

@ZAVAZggg

The universe is being created from scratch. The OP makes that part (and many others) quite clear, so read it thoroughly when you have the time.

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

Edit: Applying as a demigod would probably be best.

@ZAVAZggg

In the meantime, would you like to take a look around on the Discord? We have most of our bantering going on there.

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

This looks interesting, but I feel my writing skills might not be up to snuff, so to speak, for me to be able to participate.

@ZAVAZggg

I don't think it's a matter of skill so much as dedication. If you are willing to devote enough time and creativity to creating a character, you can make a good and unique one. If you are then willing to hold onto that same level of dedication as you go into the IC and write and edit posts and plan storylines, I believe it's possible for almost anyone with a decent grasp of the English language to make a post that would pass our threshold.

Now the question of dedication is a big one--I can fully understand and appreciate that since writing here is a thing we do for fun and as a hobby, many people don't want to "push themselves" so to speak. If you feel like you're up to the task, write a character sheet and we'll review it.

Now, I will say that the window for applying as a god has all but closed as I'd like to get the IC up tonight if not tomorrow, and I don't think you'll have time to write a sheet or that we'll have time to review it beforehand even if you did. Perhaps the solution here is for you to wait a bit, solidify some ideas in your mind, and then apply as a demigod in a few days.

As far as technology goes, our GM BBeast had a god that more or less did that in Mk. II. Here's his sheet, if you'd like to look it over for some inspiration: roleplayerguild.com/posts/3368493

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

I suspect that some might feel that I'm being needlessly nitpicky or acting in poor taste when every other review has something along the lines of, "We're concerned about what you'll do IC; please assuage our fears by telling us about your plans!"

It's quite typical for a huge fraction of applicants to mysteriously vanish early on in an RP on this site, presumably because the creative juices stall out and they realize that they didn't actually go in with a plan and they don't know what to post. We truly believe that by holding sheets under an above average level of scrutiny and mandating that everyone indicate at least some level of planning, we'll be able to stave off that problem which plagues much of RPGuild. So I just hope you can see this from our perspective and that you all don't think I'm beating a dead horse as much as I feel that I am as I write these reviews.

Without further ado, here's two more:

@Turbowraith for Foe

Hider

Your sheet is in a pretty good position.

In particular, your Sphere is to be commended. You have a very nice and thematic natural connection with the Pit. You've also explicitly considered the essence of your Sphere and its effects, and on the topic of effects, Mourner's Hollow does some cool things on Galbar. It opens the potential for all sorts of spooky places and mischief.

Your Portfolio is also quite nice. I think that our talks went well and that you have a good niche in that Foe offers an alternative to Katharsos' afterlife and throws a sizable monkey wrench into the plans; they'll be natural rivals. I also note and appreciate that you've also left some breathing room for others to do things with undead.

Where weakness enters your sheet and character design in is the persona section. The 'collector of souls' is a tried and true creepy trope and you apply it well here, with the added twist that Foe collects souls moreso out of loneliness than malice or morbidity. The only qualm that we have with your sheet is that Foe is set up to be quite passive, probably even more passive than Katharsos. His ambitions seems quite simple and limited, and ultimately it looks like he won't have much in the way of natural conflict or friendship with anybody else. What will you actually do IC, especially in the very early turns before there are things to have as undead? And after that, what sort of interaction (besides a simmering mutual distaste with Katharsos) can you foresee between the other gods? Have you got any plotlines brewed up?

The three of us are quite concerned about your ability to find things to do IC. If you can address that, you'll have alleviated our sole objection and you'll be left with a very good sheet. I'm hoping that doing so won't be too hard.

But until then, sheet rejected with some questions that we'd like answered. Don't give up because you're almost there!

@Doll Maker for Ekon

Hider

I will begin by saying that Ekon treads a bit on the toes of some of our other 'edgy' gods that have already been accepted. Some overlap is acceptable and indeed almost inevitable; however, this means your sheet gets held to a somewhat higher level of scrutiny. It's not entirely fair because it gets harder tostand out or occupy a unique niche as we get more and more crowded, but we need to try to avoid overlap where we can, and we won't ask those that have already been accepted to make many changes to their sheet.

I didn't say that to lead into an immediate rejection on the basis of your Portfolio, so much as to emphasize that you should talk to those with similar gods (probably Melantha, Orvus, perhaps even Eurysthenes) to make sure that you're going to be able to branch off along your own path and not make one or both of your characters feel redundant or like repeats. I seem to recall from the Discord that you've expressed interest in taking a Monsters Portfolio; if that's the case, then I'm glad to hear that you've planned ahead a bit and that you've found a path to take that hopefully will give you some more breathing room.

Bearing all of that in mind, your Portfolio is still acceptable. You describe it well, have powers that make sense, and have a character that fits. I will mention that making someone's fears truly come alive to create an actual bogeyman might often warrant MP expenditure even with your Portfolio, although your adding the caveat that they are "limited in their lifespan" certainly helps justify you doing this for free in some cases.

Your Sphere is thematically solid and nice mirror of the Palace of Dreams. I can see interesting potential for you and K'nell to interact. On the topic of interaction, we wish you'd solidify your Sphere's position more thoroughly and talk with some more people about natural connections.

Ekon's persona has drawn some criticism from Muttonhawk, and he raised what I find to be an interesting and perhaps valid point, "[Ekon's persona is a] cute for the sake of being unsettling personality and I don't think it has enough depth or longevity to go very far without extra details. If Ekon behaves this way for no reason, there's nothing to explore, nothing to change, and no stories to tell. He's just going to inflict himself on the world in this nihilstic and detached way. It's in danger of getting boring for the author just as fast as it gets boring for the rest of us."

I don't think that the idea of Ekon sometimes acting creepily juvenile to either set someone at ease or set them very much at unease is a bad one, but it probably could use fleshing out. I also think you'd definitely be overdoing it if that's the baseline for his behavior and how he acts unless he has a rare reason to behave otherwise. For instance, having him often "describing blood-soaked conflicts as 'Da big kapow kapow' and roaring monstrosities as 'snarlies'" without good reason would get old fast and I personally don't think it adds much. In short, by adopting this trope it feels like you're trapping yourself and restricting what you can do with Ekon, and for little narrative benefit.

And as was implied in the paragraph above and as I've said for many reviews now, there was some concern over what you'd do over the first few turns and then what sort of plotlines you'd line up thereafter to keep yourself busy. Have you got any solid ideas brewed up yet that you could share with us?

With the overlap of Portfolios, lack of natural connections, and tumult over persona, there was a fair amount of talk about rejecting your sheet. But most of the discussion took place a few days ago and I can see that you've made recent edits, and I personally think you're pretty close to getting Ekon to the threshold that I'd feel good accepting him.

Sheet rejected for now.

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

I feel like each one of Aelius's "virtues" could have been a portfolio on its own. This system seems slightly unbalanced.

Edit: Just to clarify, I don't mean to specifically target the person who made Aelius. This is just an observation. He just happened to be one of the first gods I read about, and it was something I noticed.

@Not Fishing

It was suggested a few times that Aelius narrow it down, but at the time he was taking a niche that nobody else wanted so it was allowed in the end. Regarding the balance of it, there's the ruling that specific > broad as far as Portfolios go, so although he could have broken that down into 3 or 4 smaller Portfolios and been much more powerful over each aspect, as is he can just have some more shallow powers over all four under Virtue.

Here's a list of free Portfolios that seem interesting to me:

Space, storms, authority, law, hunting, dying (we have a god of death, as in the afterlife and the fate of dead souls, and a competing god of undeath, but neither focuses on reaping or the aspect of murder or dying itself), music, domestication/animal husbandry, luck, mana, love, lust, beauty, pride, envy, greed, fraud, wealth

Additionally we had someone apply with a god of cold, but @jetipster seems to have vanished. Unless he comes in here protesting otherwise, you can consider that on the list of open Portfolios.

Come say hi on the Discord! We can talk this over in more detail there; I'll PM you an invite link.

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

Kho and I have decided to talk out any remaining obstacles to his acceptance directly over Discord DMs, so there won't be a public re-review here anytime soon.

Before I returned from work, BBeast addressed your response, and I thank him for taking the time to do so and clarify my statements in such a succinct manner.

Because I know that almost everyone reads these public reviews and have their own things influenced by what I say about others' sheets, there nonetheless remain a few remarks that Kho made that warrant a response here for everybody to see.

---

If the GM team has personal issues with the practice of reusing previous characters, whatever the reason for reusing them, then that is a personal gripe and should not - in my view - be held against a sheet when judging whether it is to be accepted or not.

I certainly have biases, however this one against the recycling of characters is my own. When delivering these reviews, you may notice that I often switch between saying 'we' and 'I' because I try to make the distinction between my personal opinion and that of the GM collective. There are the occasional few topics on which a review's feedback comes from me alone, or from Mutton and BBeast without me, and I try to make such instances somewhat clear through my wording.

I understand that you believe that this act of recycling has resulted in actual issues, and I will cover those as we go through them.

Yes, and I'm glad that you were able to recognize that. I gave you as much feedback and candor as I did because I know you better than all of the other people that I've been reviewing, and I trusted you to not just rationalize my criticisms as being the spiteful and unwarranted judgements of someone who's salty over seeing a character that he doesn't personally like.

Martial Combat is not a broad portfolio. It is in fact exceedingly specific.

Agreed. If it wasn't clear, my objections of breadth were entirely directed at your description of Martial Combat because I thought that Seihdhara's powers (as described) surpassed the limits of such a Portfolio. I already told you this on Discord, but I'm repeating it here so that people don't scratch their heads and wonder why 'Martial Combat' was accused of being too broad. Short answer--it wasn't.

I would, firstly, like this Athena-Ares dichotomy to be done away with when it comes to Seihdhara and Narzhak.

The possibility of this dichotomy came up in some discussions on the Discord, and I had (erroneously, it now seems) thought that you were on board with it.

The word ascension refers to 'to going up'. This 'going up' refers to rising up through the sphere to the highest one of all, the Great Dark. It does not refer to teleportation. Returning to Galbar likewise refers to a manual journey downward, and not to teleportation.
This is all basicall this: A student finishes training under Seihdhara. Seihdhara gives them a grassblade. She tell them they can go home if they like, or if they want adventure they can set out on pilgrimage to the top of the world. The person then decides for themselves what they wish to do.

I think that you are still hazy on one very fundamental aspect of Spheres: traversing them is extremely hard. Ascending to Veradax is quite comparable to "ascending" to the Moon in real life. It will take divine intervention or an extremely powerful force of magic or technology for mortals to traverse the Spheres; this is something that even gods will struggle with in the beginning of the RP. Natural connections are unstable and highly unsafe, even Gateways are meant to often be somewhat difficult to traverse for mortals, and beings that leave their native Sphere can sometimes experience ill effects from doing so, because they're bound to the essence of their own plane and might well be unaccustomed to that of any other. For instance, any living being that were to pass through the Sky of Pyres would almost certainly die just because the aura of death is so potent there and the nebulae of smoke from the braziers is anathema to life itself. Other Spheres may well be much more habitable of course, but for another (more mild) example I point to Ehomakwoi and how the darkness of that cavernous Sphere of stone is such that mundane torches and the likes often don't even work there. (Good job Commodore, btw, I don't know if I ever praised you for that detail but I like it.)

The takeaway of this paragraph is that mortals won't simply walk up to the Seal, or go on pilgrimages to the Great Dark. Gods can abduct mortals to their Spheres, or eventually make Gateways that can perhaps allow entry to mortals under certain conditions, but from your tone and wording I don't think you realize the difficulty of travel and the implications of such challenges when it comes to thinking of how mortals will interact with the Spheres.

Most of the Spheres are very distant and inaccessible places to the mortals of Galbar, which is why we try so hard to emphasize that they should have a substantial effect upon the metaphysics lest they exist for the entire length of the RP whilst still managing to hardly contribute to the setting, like Arcon.

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

There's a monster lurkin' in the waters...

...it's creepin' up on us from below...

Oh God! There it is! It's a REVIEW! A beast of a review! The biggest one in the seven seas! Aaaaaaagh!

@Kho for Red Sonja

Hider

Oh Kho, old friend, where to begin...

Well first off, I wasn't kidding when I said my Co-GMs had some objections here and that I might ironically be the most optimistic regarding your sheet. You know better than anybody about my anathema towards recycling characters, so it should come as no surprise that I blame many of the issues with your sheet on being due to your recycling of Seihdhara and trying to hold onto past aspects that are no longer very applicable or sensible in the context of this setting. You're trying to force a square into a circular hole; I'll mention some specific instances where I see as we go throughout the review.

Let's start with Portfolio. This is one of many aspects of your sheet that I'd say suffer from it being recycled; I'll start off by using the words of Mutton, "First of all, it's got a clear indication of wanting to be about competition in general. I feel as though Kho may be telegraphing that he's going for a competition cluster but it smacks of the vestiges being recycled from Seihdara's previous incarnation who started with a domain. Martial Combat walks the line in overlapping with war already and I would prefer that it makes more of an effort to distinguish itself." BBeast independently commented more or less the same thing, "The first paragraph of the Portfolio is extraneous and potentially confusing as it describes something far broader than the actual Portfolio. Save that paragraph for a Conflict Cluster or something."

As in for my opinion? Had I read your sheet to this point before you'd announced to us all on the Discord that you didn't even read the OP prior to applying with this sheet, I probably would have immediately grown suspicious because you're treating this a lot like we treated old Domains. Despite the plans that have you and Oraculum made to have an Athena-Ares sort of take on two opposing viewpoints concerning war, I don't think Seihdhara's powers or angle are sufficiently unique here. Even if Oraculum doesn't feel like you're stepping too much on his toes, Portfolios aren't meant to be shared.

I'd go so far as to claim that what you're going for sounds a lot more like something one would expect from a "Struggle" or perhaps even "Rebellion" Portfolio, leading into Competition later on. This is supported by some of what goes on in the Sphere as well as her generally defiant persona. So the takeaway from this is that your Portfolio feels more like a Mk. II domain; it's too broad and also overlaps a lot with Narzhak's, but I think you could do quite well by simply changing your Portfolio to something different.

Now then, I'll move on to her bear-form and involuntary shapeshifting. This is clearly a vestige of her past incarnations, but it hasn't been adapted well to our setting here. Firstly if you want to have her be associated with bears, why not give her the starting form of an actual bear and have her later gain a humanoid form once such a thing would become relevant an useful for mortal interaction? We've stated repeatedly that no god should begin with the ability to shapeshift out of their first form unless they have a Portfolio that makes a very convincing argument for such powers, and in our mind the Martial Combat Portfolio doesn't offer a good enough argument for transforming into a bear. In fact, turning into a bear seems almost anathema to what you'd expect from a Portfolio like that. If Seihdhara is supposed to be the cooler, less destructive side of war (the Athena) then why would she involuntarily transform into a presumably wild and savage creature? How is a wild animal like that the embodiment of combat?

You might like to hear Mutton's thoughts, "The werebear detail is cool. I wish it wouldn't bend the rules of multiple forms that we established, but I'm tempted to allow a compromise given its limitations -- it being only possible when under duress and it being an indiscriminate force. Where I have a more clear objection is in its role as an incarnation of 'the manifestation of Martial Combat in its pristine, primal form'. This feels dissonant with Martial Combat as a skill requiring focus and composure. Is it both composed and indiscriminately lashing out? It can be, but I would like Kho to perhaps elaborate a little more."

In general, with some elaboration and contrivance you could perhaps convince us to let you keep the werebear idea, but as things stand it seems at odds with what you're trying to do with the character. I think you should drop the werebear idea as some sort of innate power and acquire it later on as an ability or avatar, using actual MP. Or follow my previous suggestions of just having Seihdhara's first form be that of a bear and acquire the sultry redhead later on.

Now onto Persona! Contrary to popular theorizing about how your bearform would be the biggest qualm that we had with your sheet, there was unanimous agreement that Seihdhara's sheet doesn't portray her as having any ambition. Your persona makes her likable, but that's about it? What would she actually do? What motivates her? What will create conflict with the other gods and drive interaction there? There's a good foundation with lots of potential. I'll let BBeast speak for all three of us, "I like the personality. Reactionary, yes, but also always wanting to do something. A colourful character which should be fun to write." But in the end, that's just the foundation and we want you to build on top of that. This lack of depth to the Persona is the sheet's biggest flaw, but I'm sure you can answer all of these questions and address this our satisfaction very easily; it's just a matter of committing your thoughts and plans to writing on the actual sheet.

And lastly we arrive at the Sphere, the one that you call the Seal. It tries to do a lot of things. Some of them are quite cool, others are of dubious sense and should probably be removed, but hey, there's plenty for us to talk about. Let me start with the general statement that many of these ideas and interactions should be refined a bit with the owner of the other respective Sphere and then brought about IC; for your sheets now we're just looking for very fundamental "natural connections". That part about the Seal appearing as a 'fiery' constellation from Veradax and Galbar is good. That part about it teleporting people to the Great Dark? No. In fact, the teleporting to the Great Dark is so problematic that I'll write an entire paragraph to address it solely.

Firstly, teleportation between Spheres is a major feat that is beyond the capabilities of any natural connection; you'd need a full Gateway for this. That's probably a god thing, because building a Gateway IC would presumably explain the thinking thought process behind doing such a thing. Right now without context, despite the interesting potential for early interaction, saying "the Seal tests mortals and sometimes teleports them to the Great Dark that they can prove themselves!" is nonsensical and has no basis. The word 'contrived' was used a lot as we discussed this particular feature. And this also leads me to segue into how I think the whole prospect of coming to the Seal to prove one's self steps on the toes of the Pit. Perhaps this was done intentionally so as to have the two war gods' Spheres mirror one another, but eh, this rubs me as being like the cheap spinoff or a plastic replica of the "real thing" that's to be found in the Pit. I think you can make the Seal better and have it be a more unique thing than just a watered down version of the Pit that's slightly more pleasant and which happens to be in the sky.

Despite the numerous interactions you've brainstormed between other Spheres, none of these are really meaningful connections and the Seal's actual impact upon Galbar is quite dubious once you cross out the whole part about champions somehow going there to prove their mettle and then crusade off into the Great Dark. At present, your Sphere probably fails the test where we ask, "If this place didn't even exist, would Galbar be different?" Also, how would one go about getting to the Seal? You could perhaps say that Asceal's comet sometimes drifts by and you can climb from the vines of that comet into the fiery boughs of the Seal's central tree, or vice-versa. I'm just trying to toss you a few ideas to get your mind in the right place as far as what we mean by 'natural connections'.

On the topic of the Seal sometimes emboldening souls to rebel against the Sky of Pyres and its Vortex of Souls, I have plenty to say. This (along with the overall beacon energy in the Seal, and the idea of eventually sending people from the Seal to the Great Dark) was among the vague aforementioned reasons for why I thought your Sphere leads Seihdhara more to a Portfolio like Struggle or Rebellion. To address this idea directly though, I'm not a fan of the Seal somehow enabling souls to break free. Once the Sky of Pyres has yanked somebody's soul out of their body and already dragged them so high into the sky that they're racing past the moon and the Seal, it's probably got them pretty firmly in its grasp. Aside form that objection of mine, there's also that you once again have direct competition for this aspect of the Seal, because Foe's Sphere of Mourner's Hollow already offers an alternative to the Sky of Pyres, because it explicitly is a sanctuary for the dead that struggle against the Vortex of Souls and try to remain forever. Finally, what would even be the implications of the Seal empowering a soul to break free? You left that very vague. Perhaps this idea should be discussed among us affected parties elsewhere, probably after Mutton posts our updated canon regarding how souls work in this RP.

Let me go back and try to summarize this enormous review: I don't like that you recycled this sheet because many of the vestiges of Seihdhara's past incarnations feel forced and don't work, we think that your Portfolio is too broad and I think that it probably should be changed, we think that the werebear idea doesn't make a lot of sense and it needs to be addressed, we find Seihdhara's persona to be good and have a lot of potential but to suffer massively from the lack of a clear ambition or goal, and your Sphere could use some work in a lot of areas.

Sheet rejected with lots of feedback and suggestions.

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

@Oraculum

I'll try to address what I view as the crux of your remaining negative sentiments.

Take, for example, undead. Even if it only manifests after a very extended timespan soul decay would inevitably affect all of them, as there is no apparent limit to their permanence in that state. The length of that timespan is ultimately immaterial, given the roleplay revolves around immortal characters who operate over entire epochs of the world; sooner or later, we would reach its end. This could only be avoided if were truly extremely great, but, if taken too far, the whole notion would at length be rendered entirely irrelevant to all purposes. Having all undead be condemned to degrade into mindless husks would heavily impair the relevance of undeath as a divine aspect, or at least greatly limit the possible ways in which it could be explored and developed.

In response to this, and your earlier objection that it limits potentially interesting storylines, I'll reiterate what I said on Discord: literally nothing from Mk. II would have really been affected by the addition of soul decay, which means that the system is far from being overbearing or too restrictive for its own good. Furthermore, I don't think that this is necessarily in conflict with what Foe does.

My (subjective) opinion is that the entire system, and by extension soul decay, adds some interesting implications and storylines for the IC. Others may beg to differ, but many of the loudest voices in that debate don't have nearly as much vested interest in the precise mechanics of souls, or in how soul decay would even affect undead. They should've made a death god if they wanted to enforce their ideal model of souls, and on the offchance that they'd actually given serious thought and planning to an afterlife or to having undead before this conversation sprung up and the revelations of soul decay through a monkey wrench into their plans, all I can really say is 'woops'. That's the downside of planning really far ahead; it makes you inflexible and you frequently get monkey wrenches like this thrown into your secret plans by other peoples' stuff. Anybody whose plans were affected can adapt or change their plans to conform to the now much more detailed model, though in all honesty I doubt most will have to adapt or change their plans in the slightest.

Another concept that has been mentioned various times is the possibility of competing afterlives. Beyond having plenty of plot potential in itself, something like this could give a whole new dimension to an eventual soul crisis arc, making it a much more personal matter for any gods who engaged in it. However, once again this would be stymied if all souls were destined to crumble regardless of what happened to them. A variety of afterlives is meaningless if all their inhabitants are featureless shells without thought or memory. Remedying this by making them impermanent would somewhat defeat the concept of an afterlife proper.

Firstly, I will point out that nobody was even discussing an afterlife on the Discord. Nobody really even made an afterlife in Mk. II. An afterlife existed in Mk. I existed but was extremely vague and not very important for the story. This is something that's always been severely neglected in my opinion, so when nobody else was doing it this time I decided to take it upon myself to make a universal afterlife and codify the mechanics of death and souls.

So I very much doubt that I stomped on (or even altered) anybody's preexisting plans.

Even so, competing afterlives are not prohibited; they're just relegated to a thing that's very difficult and costly in terms of MP, and in the best scenario most such competing afterlives will be like minor exceptions to the near-universal afterlife enforced by Katharsos and the Sky of Pyres. I see no issues with this; he's the god of death and he's devoted his entire Sphere from the beginning to being the afterlife. It should take more than a whim and a couple of thoughts to try altering the system that he's established as the default and as the canon.

Notably, there already is an alternative afterlife as well in the form of Foe's Sphere. I think your objection here is completely unwarranted.

@Cyclone I been holding this back, but I think it is important to just propose an alternative instead of simply dismissing the opposing idea. My idea to square the concept of having infinite souls and giving Kath an important role is fairly simple, have it so that the burning process is what increases the sum total of soul-energy. So the soul stuff that originally went into that person breaks down into ash, but so does their memories, experiences, etc.

The reason I suggest this alternative is that it pull the focus away from no soul should ever leave the cycle, and allows for competing afterlives, while also maintaining Kath's afterlife and refocusing it on ensuring the cycle as a whole continues, rather than making sure that there is zero loss.

@Leotamer

This is a reasonable alternative and it'd be a perfectly fine system if somewhere else were to design a similar Sphere and system; however, I personally don't like it. Katharsos' intense objection to the sequestering of souls is a big part of his persona, even if it's not so evident on his sheet. In my view this does nothing except lower the stakes and prevent a soul crisis, which you've repeatedly expressed dislike for but which the majority of us (myself included) are interested in.

Alternative afterlives and the sequestering of souls are possible under the current system, so really the only effect that your change would have is preventing a soul crisis plotline from ever happening (it's not even guaranteed to happen in the first place) and leaving Katharsos without any real reason to object to the sequestering of souls or the existence of undead that refuse to ever move on. I think that Katharsos' natural opposition to Foe and Anz (the likely culprits for 99% of soul sequestration) is a good thing to have because it allows for story interaction, so I'm naturally opposed to your idea because it'd indirectly remove this and leave me with that much less to write about.

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...and as I said in my lengthy multi-paragraph series of Discord posts earlier today, that's the end of this conversation for now. I would have been done with reviews and the IC would have probably been up by now if I hadn't been distracted by debating souls and soul decay for the past three or four days, so for now I'm done arguing. Mutton, BBeast, and myself have talked over souls and we'll soon post an explanation of the broadstrokes of what we've decided in the wake of the debates.

I hope I didn't come across as angry or dismissive of anyone here. At times the debate got a bit heated on Discord, but all remained mostly civil and no harm comes from hearing your ideas and opinions. Thanks to those that weighed in, but for now we need to move past this conversation or we'll be stuck here in the pre-IC mud forever.

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

In essence, this amounts to emulating a natural process (aging and bodily damage leading to death) which normally occurs on its own. In such a system, a being would be weakened by having a compromised body, which leads to a decaying soul. But a compromised body results in weakness regardless of the state of the soul within; indeed, even in a cosmology where souls were absent altogether, physical harm would bring one closer to death, regardless of any ulterior circumstances. In addition, a soul's health being dependant on the body's condition could lead to some strange quandaries: would someone who has lost a limb have their soul decay at an accelerated rate? Would someone who has suffered from a severe disease, and then recovered, nevertheless die prematurely because the period of illness resulted in pieces of their soul sloughing away faster than normal?

@Oraculum

It's not a thing that would come up or be mentioned often. It can explain how Loki's demons weaken souls and eat them and why Katharsos does what he does (among other things) while not being intrusive enough to warrant anybody taking note of it 99% of the time. I think you greatly overestimate how much this would affect other mechanics or the story at large.

...They might be able to extend their lifespan by some means, but they would have to keep themselves from rotting away in order to enjoy it, and no amount of consuming souls would help them with that. The lich in the example would need to, for instance, drain its victims' life force to strengthen its crumbling bones; that is not to say that it shouldn't be able to strip them of their souls for some purpose, but, as mentioned, fuelling its unlife with them alone would be a futile endeavour by the system's very rules.

If you weren't on the same page, I think we've come to decide that heroes are by default made immune to soul fraying. It's a mechanic that would only really matter for undead that stick around for a long time, or for mortals that find non-divine ways to extend their lifespan far beyond what is natural for them.

It's not very clear how this would fit into the workings of the soul as determined by the Sky of Pyres. If the decay is manifested in the soul falling apart, how would it be purified at Katharsos' hands? And, if souls crumble back into ash as they reach the end of their course, why would he need to redistribute their material by artificial means? Far from providing a justification for his work, soul decay might in fact place its usefulness into question.

The most obvious solution is that it'd be cruel to let a soul slowly go crazy and suffer as it degrades into ash over what we can imagine as a very long process. Katharsos is putting the dying horses out of their misery, so to speak. Furthermore, I'd imagined that a soul "fully degrading" would take extremely long lengths of time, so KAtharsos burning them would greatly accelerate this process and prevent the vast majority of souls being in a useless and half-degraded state at any given time.

One last note, not necessarily related to fraying but still linked with matters of death and the soul. I notice the OP still has this point, written before Katharsos was conceived:

<Snipped quote by Rules on Might spending>

Since in the new system death involves one's mind and memories being destroyed and scattered, eventually going to form new living beings, the feasibility of this might need to be revised.

This actually got raised as a point and discussed among us GMs as the other two talked over my sheet in our PM convo. We already have something of a consensus regarding it, I think.

That above point refers to taking a soul of a very recently dead person or creature and putting it back into a body prior to it being sucked up by the Vortex of Souls and eventually burnt. There's a backlog of souls sitting in the Sky of Pyres that could be rescued and the process a soul takes in order to get up to the Sky also takes time, so there's a vaguely defined (but finite) window that gives gods a reasonable chance to take this action.

Resurrecting something that died a really long time ago is rendered impossible if its soul was burnt, though. This imposes a bit of a ticking timer, which isn't something that I think to be necessarily bad.