Now that I've got that cleared up let me explain Lords of Creation. LoC is essentially a world-building game, where the players are all immortal beings of significant power, divine beings some would say. These immortals are placed in the world to shape it to their desire. They take whatever form they wish and alter the lands, building a place to bring sentient beings into life. The game is broken down into 3 stages: World's Creation, Dawn of Civilization, End of Days.
World's Creation
Spoiler: show
This stage should only last for a week or two, where the immortals will mold the young world to their will. They draw on large amounts of power during this stage, raising mountains, digging oceans and growing forests. Plants and animals are brought into existance with ease, and an immortal could create an entire forest with all its creatures with little difficulty. All creatures made are of very basic intelligence, nothing smarter than a regular animal. More intelligent and remarkable creatures (dragons, fey, magical beasts, etc) require more energy as the immortal must bend the rules of the universe slightly to allow such a thing to exist. Once all the immortals are satisfied with the world and are ready to bring intelligent beings to life to worship the immortals will the second stage of the game begins.
Dawn of Civilization
Spoiler: show
After the world is ready and the immortals have decided to make mortal beings to be worshipped by, the amount of divine power the immortals must spend to create the mortal races is much greater than making large forests or populating a valley with plants and beasts. Each immortal can decide to create their own race of mortals, or immortals can work together, even steal templates of a race from one another. This is by far the longest fo the three stages, lasting several months before the End of Days arrives. After each immortal has created a race, whether it is their own race or they made a race with another, they can do as they wish. The amount of divine energy they gain every week is decreased and most of this energy will be used to inspire their races with knowledge and power. An immortal can choose to leave his mortals alone, watching over them and intervening to save them from disaster but otherwise letting them develop on their own. Every week all races will grow in some way, an immortal can encourage spurts of growth if they wish. Immortals can also challenge the worth of another's race, using power to set challenges on a race. An immortal can move among their people, either as another form to simply observe and interact, possibly using motes of power to create great heroes, or appear before their race as they truely are, ruling their race and directly shaping them. An immortal can treat their race in any way they wish. After a few months the End of Days will come and all the races will battle for their creator, as the immortals battle eachother - either on the battlefield surrounded by their children, or in the divine realms.
End of Days
Spoiler: show
This is the last couple of weeks of the game, and a lot of what will happen during this time has been planned out ahead of time. The immortals will pick sides and battle, and their races will do the same. The world will be thrown to chaos as the immortals struggle causes war, disease, and natural disasters. The various civilizatiosn will battle and the immortals will each fall, one by one, either at the hand of a hero that had risen from another immortal (or even a hero who is the immortal's own bloodline) or at the hands of another immortal. Eventually the game climaxes with the Omniscent - a powerful over-diety who is supposedly responsible for creating all the immortals - cleansing the world, deciding he'll start over.
The End of Days CAN be avoided. Mainly it depends on how active everyoen is. If the majority of the races are relatively peaceful and plenty of immortals still have their presence felt, the End of Days will not come as war, but instead the Omniscent will decide to test the immortals and see if they will work together to save the world from a great threat, which can be anything. If they succeed the world is safe and the Omniscent chooses to move on and begin a new world. If they fail then the world is destroyed, the immortals defeated by the threat, and the Omniscent will start over.
The End of Days CAN be avoided. Mainly it depends on how active everyoen is. If the majority of the races are relatively peaceful and plenty of immortals still have their presence felt, the End of Days will not come as war, but instead the Omniscent will decide to test the immortals and see if they will work together to save the world from a great threat, which can be anything. If they succeed the world is safe and the Omniscent chooses to move on and begin a new world. If they fail then the world is destroyed, the immortals defeated by the threat, and the Omniscent will start over.
The Player's stats
Spoiler: show
The game uses some statistics for the immortals, but it is all very broad in range. The Omniscent is essentialyl the GM, determining how much divine power an action costs, making rulings on what an immortal can and cannot due, and establishing what the basic features of the world are when it first is created. The Omniscent has no stats and does not create things like the other immortals do. He/she can make up random events, like natural disasters or a plague of monsters to test races and immortals, or give gifts should he choose. It's all up to the Gm's decision on how this over-deity hopes this world will turn out.
The players, which its best to have at least 4 and could play with as many as 10 players, have total freedom with how their immortal looks, acts, etc. The profile for an immortal has only 5 numerical stats: Divine Rank (DR), Power, Presence, Potence, and Perception. Divine Rank is similar to what a level would be in most games. It increases by 1 every two weeks (So by the end of the World's Creation all immortals that started already should reach Rank 2). It can also be increased by spending a good portion of the divine power to gain a rank. This is really only possible early on as it requires more divine power later on. At DR 4 and every 4 DR's after all stats increase by 1. Every time an immortal gains a rank they also gain two growth points to spend on their stats.
The other 4 stats, Power, Potence, Presence, and Perception are mostly to gauge how powerful an immortal is in one stat compared to other immortals. All immortals with a DR of 1 start with 1 point in all four stats and have 4 growth points to place in any of the stats. The maximum of any stat is 99, which obviously is very unlikely any immortal will ever reach a 99 in any stat. There are no "average" stats, as its more about "how high is my stat compared to everyone else". If all the immortals try putting a lot of their growth points into Power, than all of them are greatly more powerful than any mortal being, but compared to each other they are of similar strength. If one immortal decides instead to place all his/her stats in Potence, then while he/she isn't as powerful as the other immortals, he/she is greatly more potent than any of them.
Power is simple, it is the raw strength, not just physically, but mentally and "magical" (an immortal can call it magic, psionics, or whatever they feel like, that's not what's important) as well. It's the blunt force of their abilities. Forcing the land to rise up suddenly in a jagged mountain range is easy with power. Crafting a single natural formation of beauty and power is not.
Potence determines the "to-what-extent" an immortal can perform certain actions. A high potence allows for a larger possible amount of change. In other words, an immortal can "make more" of something for the same amount of divine motes that a less potent immortal used for making only some of something. Immortal A has Potence 2 and the Omniscent determine they can cover a region about the size of Nevada with forest for 2 motes of power. Immortal B has a Potence of 4 and the Omniscent decides that for two motes Immortal B could cover an are the size of Texas with forest.
Presence will make an immortal's simple existance allow them to do things without spending much divine power. Immortals with high presence can easilly affect mortals emotions and eventually physically change them simply by them being near the immortal. Presence will also determine how ackknowledged an immortal is by races outside their own. While all races will acknoledge the immortals another race worships, unless that immortal is part of their pantheon of worship they will not give much thought to them.
Perception has meaning beyond the 5 senses. Immortals with a Perception of 1 can hear, see, smell, tase, and feel better than any mortal, but that's it. Higher presence allows enhanced senses, using senses at a distance, and eventually alternate sense, like percieving alternate forms of energy and even seeing the past and future. Immortals DO NOT know everything that is going on everywhere all the time. Even among their creations they can miss things. The GM determines to what extent an immortal's perception would allow them to know things in game.
The players, which its best to have at least 4 and could play with as many as 10 players, have total freedom with how their immortal looks, acts, etc. The profile for an immortal has only 5 numerical stats: Divine Rank (DR), Power, Presence, Potence, and Perception. Divine Rank is similar to what a level would be in most games. It increases by 1 every two weeks (So by the end of the World's Creation all immortals that started already should reach Rank 2). It can also be increased by spending a good portion of the divine power to gain a rank. This is really only possible early on as it requires more divine power later on. At DR 4 and every 4 DR's after all stats increase by 1. Every time an immortal gains a rank they also gain two growth points to spend on their stats.
The other 4 stats, Power, Potence, Presence, and Perception are mostly to gauge how powerful an immortal is in one stat compared to other immortals. All immortals with a DR of 1 start with 1 point in all four stats and have 4 growth points to place in any of the stats. The maximum of any stat is 99, which obviously is very unlikely any immortal will ever reach a 99 in any stat. There are no "average" stats, as its more about "how high is my stat compared to everyone else". If all the immortals try putting a lot of their growth points into Power, than all of them are greatly more powerful than any mortal being, but compared to each other they are of similar strength. If one immortal decides instead to place all his/her stats in Potence, then while he/she isn't as powerful as the other immortals, he/she is greatly more potent than any of them.
Power is simple, it is the raw strength, not just physically, but mentally and "magical" (an immortal can call it magic, psionics, or whatever they feel like, that's not what's important) as well. It's the blunt force of their abilities. Forcing the land to rise up suddenly in a jagged mountain range is easy with power. Crafting a single natural formation of beauty and power is not.
Potence determines the "to-what-extent" an immortal can perform certain actions. A high potence allows for a larger possible amount of change. In other words, an immortal can "make more" of something for the same amount of divine motes that a less potent immortal used for making only some of something. Immortal A has Potence 2 and the Omniscent determine they can cover a region about the size of Nevada with forest for 2 motes of power. Immortal B has a Potence of 4 and the Omniscent decides that for two motes Immortal B could cover an are the size of Texas with forest.
Presence will make an immortal's simple existance allow them to do things without spending much divine power. Immortals with high presence can easilly affect mortals emotions and eventually physically change them simply by them being near the immortal. Presence will also determine how ackknowledged an immortal is by races outside their own. While all races will acknoledge the immortals another race worships, unless that immortal is part of their pantheon of worship they will not give much thought to them.
Perception has meaning beyond the 5 senses. Immortals with a Perception of 1 can hear, see, smell, tase, and feel better than any mortal, but that's it. Higher presence allows enhanced senses, using senses at a distance, and eventually alternate sense, like percieving alternate forms of energy and even seeing the past and future. Immortals DO NOT know everything that is going on everywhere all the time. Even among their creations they can miss things. The GM determines to what extent an immortal's perception would allow them to know things in game.
Turns and points
Spoiler: show
Turns are measured by week. At the beginning of each week the Omniscent determines how many points of divine power each immortal gains. Through out the week the immortals can roleplay interacting with eachother and post actions they would like to perform. Just roleplaying can be done freely but when posting any actions that involve spending power, the GM must read the actions an immortal wishes to perform and determines how many points it will cost, which the immortal involved will then subtract. Changes to the world are not considered to have happened until the GM approves.
The amount of points that will be spent are based on what the immortal wants to accomplish and what their stats are. The GM should always take into account that high stats makes changing the world cheaper. Also when the second stage begins, the cost for creating a race increases the more powerful an immortal makes them. A generic race of humanoids that would one day become the base humans of the world will be very cheap, requiring only a few motes of power. Small advantages as well as balancing a race by giving it weaknesses to compensate for strengths can help keep the cost low.
The amount of points that will be spent are based on what the immortal wants to accomplish and what their stats are. The GM should always take into account that high stats makes changing the world cheaper. Also when the second stage begins, the cost for creating a race increases the more powerful an immortal makes them. A generic race of humanoids that would one day become the base humans of the world will be very cheap, requiring only a few motes of power. Small advantages as well as balancing a race by giving it weaknesses to compensate for strengths can help keep the cost low.
Immortal Profile
Spoiler: show
Name: (Be creative please)
Concept: (What are your immortal's goals, hopes, fears? Is there a theme for your immortal? How will your immortal be worshipped?)
Personality: (Likes, dislikes; Emotions; How does your immortal act/think/speak?)
Appearance: (How does you immortal appear to other immortals? To mortal beings? Any disguises?)
Divine Rank: 1 (All immortals start with DR 1)
(all four stats start at 1, and at DR 1 have 4 growth points to place however you want)
Power:
Potence:
Presence:
Perception:
Symbolic: (Symbols for your immortal? Ideas: Favoured weapons, Iconic Image, Favoured animal/plant/element)
Concept: (What are your immortal's goals, hopes, fears? Is there a theme for your immortal? How will your immortal be worshipped?)
Personality: (Likes, dislikes; Emotions; How does your immortal act/think/speak?)
Appearance: (How does you immortal appear to other immortals? To mortal beings? Any disguises?)
Divine Rank: 1 (All immortals start with DR 1)
(all four stats start at 1, and at DR 1 have 4 growth points to place however you want)
Power:
Potence:
Presence:
Perception:
Symbolic: (Symbols for your immortal? Ideas: Favoured weapons, Iconic Image, Favoured animal/plant/element)
This thread is for posting interest, characters, and conversation about how the game will work. I love feedback!
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