Godbound: After the Apocalyse

[Krul]

So, as promised, now that I'm ready to run again, here is the Godbound world that I'm going to run, if I get enough player (at least 4)  interest.

The year is 2048, it’s been at least a generation since the great cataclysm of 2024, when close to 80% of the population was killed by the following disasters, newly appearing monsters, undead rising from graves and strange beings from other dimensions, arriving, due to the dimensional apocalypse that shattered the world and solar system as we know it.  The entire solar system was somehow moved, in a manner that caused all of the stars to disappear, except those of the planets and moon, in the years since, as near as anyone can figure, earth’s solar system is somehow in the middle of an endless void.  The sun has strangely enough cooled, winter lasts a month longer, forests have grown larger, and formerly mythic places like Atlantis, Lemuria, Thule, Tir Na Nog, Shangra La, and Agartha now can be found though not necessarily easily, as these locations seem to be within some kind of tesseract.  

The only thing that save humanity from extinction in the first years was the rise of new races and powers, as well as alliances and treaty’s with some of the more reasonable non-human entities.  But even this would not quite have been enough, without the rise of the paragons, humans who had touched upon the power of the THRONE in their dreams and had access to single divine word.  Now, a new incarnation of beings rise, some of them human and some of them only partly human, but all of them newly divine, and have a direct experience with the ‘THRONE’ one of great power and increadible transcendence, changing them to become the Godbound they are now.

When the first tremors of the change hit earth in 2024 there was a minute where it seemed time and space froze, and everything changed, 40% of the the humans of earth became different, transformed into new and different races, often with strange new ablities, but also some people became more powerful races, or other races arrived from other worlds, allowing for quite a variety, though humans are still the most common race.

Immortal Races:  A Godbound who is one of these races or becomes one of these races upon ascension must take one of these words, even the non-divine individuals of these races are immortal and ageless (a godbound has ways of becoming immortal, but is not automatically immortal without these words, or words such as Entropy or Time).  This means a dragon(or fae, AI, or undead) or a human who becomes a dragon upon ascension must take the dragon word, but a human doesn't have to take any of these words.  

• Dragons: Various kinds of dragons now walk the world, some of them began human and transformed, others are dragons who were somehow transported here from other worlds.  The Dragon Word is required for any dragon godbound
• Fae: All manner of faery creatures now walk the world, the Sidhe are among the most powerful, but any fae can be dangerous, their Queen’s however, are incredibly dangerous.  Some are people turned into fae, and others are faery’s who entered this world.    While not every Fae is a ruler, a godbound fae must be, even if they are only half-fae before divine ascension, the Faery Queen Word is required.  
• Sentient Undead [Liches, Vampires and Ghouls all can be these]:  There are a multitude of ways these come to be, but a godbound undead must have the Undead King, even if they were something like a born vampire.
• Artificial Intelligences: The dimensional energies that transformed the solar system also pushed some systems to new heights, there are now true artificial intelligences in the world     A godbound AI however, must take the Artificial Intelligence word.  There are very few ways a human could become an AI, but in this new world almost anything is possible, if you have a story for it.
• NOTE: The godbound who takes the Peak Human word can not take any of the above race words.

Further World Notes

• The word of Engineering (from Lexicon of the Throne) replaces the Artifice word in this setting, technology is still around, as is the internet, but there are some very strange things out there now.
• Low Magic exists, but  it's not very common, outside of the  areas that have teachers of those with the word of Sorcery, or specific races.
• Every Godbound has a direct experience with the Throne, regardless of if they are fully human or not to fully access their words, though they might have had limited access in their younger days with some reasons.
• There are vast wilderness regions and ruined cities and maintained cities, and survival complexes in some areas, major cities with more then a million inhabitants had a better chance in the apocalypse due to the Paragons.
• Character Creation is standard for Godbound, though your words can change this: 16, 14, 13, 13, 10, 8 

[Justin OOC]

Definitely In.

[Jeane]

Also Interested.

[Noir]

will need to check out the book and setting, but sounds like a start.

[Nina]

i'm in

 

[SalmonMax]

YUSSSS

[Krul]

So, a few more questions from the chat, so infrastruction and world development.  

• There are areas in the world that never got paragons to manage to save their cities.. and travel isn't fully reliable when monster can swat it out of the sky or a kraken can eat your ship.. or behemoth knock your truck off the road so, most of the surviving cities are turning into archologies, trying to become as self sufficient as possible and have good technology (even cybernetics in some places)... and others are close to or worse then mad max.... think fallout rather then mad max (though fallout has mad max areas)

Also, that's certainly enough  interest from folks..  but then I did have enough interest in chat to suggest that there would be, but you never know ..  if you have any questions ask away.  Going to give folks plenty of time for character creation (no deadlines yet, be looking at those next week, but I'll take character submissions or questions at any point)

[Jeremy]

I'm in.

[Krul]

So, her royal Majesty, the Queen Sigil of the Summer court is confirmed as a PC.

On another note, I'm adding this as a house rule

• If you already have AC 3 due to gift or word, you can add the extra effects of any other AC 3 word if it makes sense for your word or concept at 1 point, and if you actually have the words, the cost is 1/2.. so, a dragon with earth and sea would be able to add the effects of both earth and sea AC 3 gifts for 1 point.  If he didn't have those two words, he would still be able to purchase those for 1 point, if he had say, some sort of water and earth attack for breath weapons.  

[Dave ST]

Several gifts seem redundant, like a few under Might and Sword augment your attacks, but they don't make any mention as to whether their effects stack or boost a similar effect slightly.  For example the 'read straight' stuff.  There's a one in Might and more than a few in Sword... seems like a waste to take them both.

[Krul]

I agree, actually, there is a bit of overlap in different words, in some cases enough that I generally would recommend a person not take both of them.  Dragon has a lot of overlap with Endurance for example, and I would generally not recommend taking both AI and Network.. to much overlap.  

[Dave ST]

Two questions:

1. Iron Body of Will.  This negates the protection value of any other form of armor being worn, including shields.  However, if the character still chose to wear armor strictly for show and theme based purposes, since the armor provides no benefits, would you still apply the penalties?  Frankly I see my PC wearing armor and using shields of all sorts.  He knows they don't do anything for him, but it's like a Marine without his rifle if he's not adorned in the vestments of a warrior.

2. Contempt of Distance.  This gift states that you must have an unobstructed path (not view) to your target.  Now, Thews of the Gods says that as part of (not the action itself) your movement you can tear through pretty much anything man made and it implies it doesn't slow you down in the slightest.  Can Thews of the Gods be used to simply demolish a straight path to your target?  After all, if it doesn't slow you down, it's technically not an obstruction... and personally I think it would be cool to b-line it through walls to get to my targets in true Juggernaut fashion.

[Nina]

i think that cool and much better than Juggerduck

 

 

[Krul]

Both of those sound pretty reasonable to me, that's fine.

[Krul]

So, gave folks plenty of time to think things over, now, I'm looking for final submissions to be completed by then end of this week..that means I should have completed submissions by saturday, the 14th of this month.

More setting details.

• Paragons, unlike godbound, besides only having 1 word, never gain dominion or need to use it to level up, there are presently 5 on the west cost, below are their titles and words.  Your welcome to fit them into your backgrounds as desired.  They know each other and work with one another, there used to be 9, but four have died in the last decade.  They are not the only owers, just the one who started out human, those who are not human anymore were changed during or some time after the Cataclysm.   
  • Lady Keva Rune (also known as the Archmage) - Word: Sorcery - Race: Immortal High Elf (Transformed Human) - Location Hub: Seattle - Knows most lesser magics and invocations.   Has began a school focused on teaching folks the various lesser magic schools.  Between her lesser magics and invocations, is most likely the more powerful and versatile paragons on the continent.
  • Tanya Smith  - Word: Earth - Race: Human (Africa-American) - Location Hub: Los Angeles - Tough, strong, stubborn, has raised earth and stone to help create a number of archologies, though she travels less now then she used too.  Knows the Strife of Broken Earth, is teaching some of the folks what she can.
  • Cedric Varan - Word: Peak Human - Race: Human -  Location Hub: Calgary - Scientist, Hero, Adventurer.   He keeps a good portion the area for a hundred miles around his home free from monsters as he can, depends a bit more on equipment then the other Paragon's, but fortunately he's managed to gain a powerful artifact that access some of the gifts of Winter.
  • Julia Morrison - Word: Fertility - Race: Dryad (Formerly human) - Location Hub: Redwood Forests - San Francisco - Lover of nature, but is somewhat feral herself, turning into a dryad has bent her thinking process, but she protects the local humans from monsters and makes sure that the local arcology gardens are quite fertile, contributing to it's growth and development.
  • Indigo (also known as the Shadow Dancer)- Word: Night - Race: Human - Location Hub: None (she travels all over the east cost) - Hard to pin down, she might be anywhere in the west, is known to show up out of nowhere and then vanish when her task is done.
• Phoenix-Vegas Arcology  :Actually this is on the Hoover Dam, but the survivors of  major cities of Vegas (Nevada), Phoenix (Arizona) and has been overun by lizard folk, rock trolls, wyverns, giant spiders, and many over monsters, though the Summer, Dawn and Dusk courts of Faery and the Bright Clan of Dragons all have actual embassies at this Arcology, and it appears to be a nexus of power and potential.  Several godbound (Player Characters) have appeared around and during it's rise (as well as been part of) in the last four years.  The actual arcology is on either side of the dam and stretches several miles in all directions, including down into the earth.  

NOTE: The Arcology is your default starting location, unless your background indicates something different.  How much you have to do with the arcologies growth or the paragons depends on you, otherwise it’s just background info

[Kaoleth]

If you're willing to take me, I'd like to come along as well.

[Krul]

Sure; presently this is the characters I have so far, let's not have characters have more then one word in common, outside of Concept Words at least, I don't mind multiple overlaps there,.  In any case, the following are presently the characters I've have folks talk to me about,  those that are 'in progress' could change quite a bit before the process is complete, depending on where folks are in the character design process, but those with names are pretty set.

• Sigil  - Faery Queen, Deception, Summer(Sort of Winter Reversed)
• Tanith Sinclair - Peak Human, Alacrity, Bow
• Kamala Kuhn - Death, Journey, Health
• Maia - Dragon, Sun, Passion 
• Malcolm Darius 'Dread' Delgath - Might, Endurance, Sword
• "In Progress" - Engineering, Entropy, Network
• "In Progress" - Death, Protection, Command 
• In Progress" - Faery Queen, Desire, Music, 

[Dave ST]

Dread Delgath should read Endurance, Might, Sword.

[Kaoleth]

You want to no more than 1 overlap between people, that's fine. Are you you going to want us to avoid overlap as we level as well? Just curious as it will likely change how I approach things. I'll be tending towards avoiding it anyway, but there are one or two things I would potentially pick up otherwise.

[Krul]

I'm actually not worried about it, some overlap after that point is fine.