Godhood XIV - Usurper [Jam Edition Turn 4]

{JAM EDITION #1}

The Tattooed Traveler was the first to act, placing a large planet in the cold, dark void. Trovat, he named it. The Dragons of Duality scoffed at his priorities. Together, they brought two suns into existence, Osvet and Zlovest. One emitted heat and light, the other absorbed the same.

The Lost Child looked to the future, to what mortals would see when they gazed at the night sky. He scattered glittering points of light across the void of space.

The Golden King appeared, and in one graceful exertion of will created the earth, sea, and sky of Zemina, Trovat’s planetary moon, and the first planet to bear life--in the form of humble green shrubberies.

The Chipper Otter elected to improve Trovat and solicited the other gods for their aid in doing so. He raised mighty mountains and hollowed out expansive oceans, dividing the planet into five parts. He concocted a grand plan: a world with water where the sky ought to be, and air where there ought to be oceans. The divine critter began by flooding the world. It did not cover the surface completely, but even without a gaseous atmosphere above, it could support life and would not boil away into the void.

The Ever-Lost added photosynthetic algae to the watersphere as he reassured the Divinity of Deception, who was fretting over the doomed future of space travel on Trovat. The Mammal of Mists proposed that the inhabitants could simply swim right out. Both assurances were rejected in favor of a good pout.

The Cyclical Snake created a new planet, Gakba, and set a moon into a cycle of collisions with it. The energy needed to ensure that this cycle would be non-terminating ought to have left the moon a fair bit smaller than it was, more an enormous asteroid than a proper moon.

The Artisan provides a critique as he adds his own divine touches to the young universe. He provides Zemina with a core of molten starstuff, seeds the crust with metals and minerals, and populates the surface with insects and small, semi-aquatic critters.

Having exhausted their creative energies, the Divinities finally begin to introduce themselves.

***

Trovat’s algae multiplies rapidly, tinting the blue sphere a lively green. In many areas the algae grows too rapidly, and this, combined with the crust of ice that forms on the Zlovest facing side, causes deeper blooms to wilt from lack of sunlight. They drift to the bottom and slowly decay.

Zemina’s orbit swings it closer first to one sun, then the other, causing frequent changes in temperature and light. The small creatures that populate it tend to be active only during the more moderate temperatures, resting beneath the water or the shrubs during the extremes. Occasional small earthquakes shake the small planet.

Gakba’s moon collides with Gakba for the first time. It is every bit as spectacular as one might expect, stone shattering and liquifying violently. As the moon slowly peels away from the impact site, it becomes apparent that it is not a solid chunk of rock, as it first appeared. Gakba’s moon is, in fact, a massive geode, filled with oversized crystalline ore of some strange, dark metal.

The Energy of New Beginnings provides everyone with five acts.

The Energy of New Beginnings fades slightly.

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{JAM EDITION #2}

Renewed of energy, the Exuberant Otter puffed a special gas onto the watery world, naming it for himself. It pooled beneath the watersphere, forming oceans, lakes, rivers, and even clouds, all of air that behaved as water, just as sky was of water in place of air. Next, he molds a block of wood into a leaf-backed pachyderm, and sets it to settle across the continents of Trovat.

On the same world, the Dutiful Traveler creates an intricate system of caverns throughout a continent’s mountain range, to be the home of his next creation: the first sentient and sapient creatures of this universe, the colorful Sirona fish.

With life filling up the material worlds, the Hatted Hermit gifts them the means to escape each other, at least for a while. He forms the Plane of Solitude, where mortals can step away from reality for as long as they wish to be alone.

The Rainbow Speaker lines Gakba’s path with debris, and fills a portion nearest Osvet with a bacteria--which he quickly enhances to a fungi that spores towards warmth. It appears to work exactly as planned.

The Undead King stabilizes Zemina’s atmosphere, to the bafflement of certain peers. The Dark Craftsman seeds evergreens and fruit-vines across Zemina, and gifts Trovat with mineral wealth of all sorts--including deposits of Gakba’s strange lunar ore. The Divinity of Authority diversifies life on Zemina, adding simple foragers, large grazers, long grains, fruit-eating birds, and slinking predators.

The Intertwined Gods contemplate oblivion. They wrap the Realm of Souls around reality, ensouling all sapient creatures, and proceed to speak with the Inky Traveler on the subject of hands, and intelligence.

The divinities cautiously fraternize, and speak on plans for the future.

***

With Zemina’s temperature stabilized, there are creatures active throughout the day. The populations steadily increase, and all is well on the little moon planet.

On Trovat, slow but steady development occurs. The Sirona, intelligent yet handless, begin to develop language. When they are far apart, they signal general information to each other with exaggerated fin and full body motions, up close, they combine subtle fin motion and teeth clacking to convey more nuanced conversation.

Two social groups begin to form. Some Sirona remain in the cave systems, subsisting on algae and exploring the caverns. Others become nomadic, following the wandering Elarti Trees across the unthreatening landscapes of Trovat. They are social creatures, but on occasion a Sirona finds its way into the mysterious Plane of Solitude, leading to much speculation about the nature of the place, and its inclusion in many of the stories that will become myth.

For years, Gakba’s unique cycle appears to be sustaining itself perfectly; the fungi are flourishing, before dying and becoming food for future generations. However, it is only after many such cycles that a horrible mistake revealed itself--In one cycle, Gakba’s collision with its moon happened to coincide with its transit through the liquid water zone. The living fungi are almost exterminated, but enough survived around the edges of the liquid zone to give the species a shot at a slow recovery.

The souls of the dead Sirona drift aimlessly through the Realm of Souls, feeling overwhelmingly lost and confused.

The Energy of New Beginnings provides everyone with four acts.

The Energy of New Beginnings fades slightly.

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Universal Reference Sheet

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”Locational Constructs”

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