Seattleite
Acolyte
I've been building a tabletop RPG with a partner for a long time now. To be honest, this is mostly *his* project and not mine, but I am invested in it and have been helping him make it. I'm mostly just here in this thread to briefly cover the overall universe. I'm going to copy+paste his explanation, then add my own commentary in red, as that's the most expedient way to handle it. At least, assuming I can find an explanation he's made on all of these things, otherwise I'll have to do it myself. This is mostly just reference, but I'm open to questions, comments and critiques. Today I'll handle pantheons.
Pantheons:
The Elder God:
The Elder God is a galaxy-spanning cosmic horror, comprised of a seemingly endless number of individual bodies called "Regulators". These come in ten tiers, each one much smaller and weaker but one hundred times more numerous than the last. These are the hundred Creators, the ten thousand Constructors, the million Builders, the hundred million Purifiers, the ten billion Cleansers, the trillion Destroyers, the hundred trillion controllers, the ten quadrillion changers, the quintillion manipulators and the hundred quintillion observers. And these are all one entity in our one galaxy, and possess the ability to reproduce. Each member of each tier can produce members of the next tier, but can only have one hundred at a time as they are also responsible for connecting them to the whole. The hundred creators are not replaceable, but they hide behind the lower tiers and as such none have ever been killed since the elder god first came into being when the hundred creators were formed, roughly one billion years ago.
Yeah. Billion, with a "b". Kindof a long time. We're talking Pre-Cambrian here. And every other intelligent power in the galaxy has been trying to kill it that whole time. Never even came close. And yeah, sure, it'll die eventually. But then, so will the milky way.
The Elder God is a cruel, vain, callous being that cares nothing for any entity other than itself as all other entities are so far beneath it as to hold no meaning. It cares, more than anything else, about becoming more powerful. But it cannot exceed its own current size and has reached the limit on the number of tiers it may have, so it seeks two strategies to enhance its own power. One is its age-old strategy of lowering the bar so its own power is more significant, which it does by preventing others from gaining power and attempting to strip away what power they have, no matter what form this power takes. Magic, technology, physical power, all of it is to curtailed in order to make the elder god seem more powerful. The other strategy is more recent, and significantly more clever, although it largely invalidates the first. This is to control others. It tricks, coerces or more often forces others into doing its bidding, and most recently creates its own slave races. These come in two varieties, listed below.
Other beings are only below the elder god in power. But then, power is the only thing the elder god gives a damn about, hence why it tries to control or suppress everything else to make its own power more significant. If this is a metaphor for something, I can't imagine what.
Abominations:
The abominations were the first category of slave race created by the elder god, first coming into being roughly one million years ago. These beings are the weaker, but easier to produce and by far more numerous, of the slave races. They come in two forms, "hybrid" and "eldritch".
Read: These pre-date modern humans, although not the genus homo. And the term "abomination" is well deserved here. Which is good, because it usually isn't.
Hybrid abominations are created by regulators using the reproductive tracts of local species, hence the name. This is almost never consensual. This varies from one local species to another, but with most the regulator does this by stealing sperm from a male of a local species, using the sperm as a template to make its own sperm, then using this sperm to impregnate a single female of the species. Rinse and repeat. The Elder God has gotten very, very good at making these and can actually make some sterile members of a species fertile in order to make this work.
Yeah, this is ****ed up. But did you really think an eldritch abomination would need consent?
Hybrid abominations have traits of the local species used and new traits the elder god finds desirable. There are a number of clearly defined hybrid types, which can be bred with any local species present. All hybrid abominations can reproduce with locals conventionally and have the same (although much stronger) drive to do so.
This is also not likely to be consensual, not with most of these anyway. Maybe with a manager or something, but not most run of the mill abominations. See, this is why I want to make it clear that the elder god is the villain. With all the disgusting things it does and orders its slaves to do.
I should note, however, that other than physical ability changes, there's only one psychological change in them. And it's not complete and utter obedience to the elder god, it can't really do that while giving them enough autonomy to be useful. They have a telepathic link to the elder god. It can speak to them, and they can speak to it, telepathically. That's it. The elder god doesn't actually control them, their free will is still intact. And yet, they follow their god's commands and do what it says anyway usually either out of some impression of a relationship or respectful relationship with the cosmic horror, normal subservience to its perceived authority, a belief that there is some return on this investment, or fear. Gee, what could this be a metaphor for. No idea.
The other variety are pure abominations, which are new slave races made roughly two hundred thousand years ago, created by repeatedly editing abominations of an ideal species and type until they form a new, pure form. These creatures are much stronger than hybrid abominations, but are few in number, can't conceal themselves amongst the local population and must find more of their own to reproduce and take a long time to reproduce once they do. They can, however, create hybrid abominations of their own type using locals.
These are about as old as homo sapiens. And while they're more frightening and disgusting than hybrid abominations, their creation process is at least more pleasant, and there's less guilt killing them because they have less capacity for change than the hybrids do.
Angels:
Angels are the newer, stronger variety of abomination that first came into being forty thousand years ago. Angels are different in that they are divine, mimicking all the powers of gods, if usually to a much lesser extent, but are also completely sterile and thus are very few in number.
And then there's the whole "tricks humans into subservience" thing. And hell, both angels and demons fall under this category, so both sides of the coin are the elder god trying to trick mortals into subservience.
Angels come in three varieties. These are "standard", "eldritch" and "pure". Standard angels are made using locals, eldritch angels are made using hybrid abominations and pure angels are made using pure abominations. Pure angels and eldritch angels emphasize the traits of the abomination type they are made from, but standard angels emphasize the traits of the local species. Pure angels tend to be the most powerful, but the others are roughly tied. All three come in three tiers, which are "djinn", "angel" and "archangel". The djinn are the most common but least potent, the angels are intermediate and the archangels are the least common but most potent. Djinn were made roughly 40,000 years ago, angels were made out of djin 8,000 years ago and archangels were made out of angels a mere 1,600.
Pure angels are a bitch to make, by the way, since pure abominations are so few and far between. This here marks the end of the Elder God and its slaves. From here on out we have Ginnungagap's servants. Since I ran out of space, that'll be in a separate post.
Pantheons:
The Elder God:
The Elder God is a galaxy-spanning cosmic horror, comprised of a seemingly endless number of individual bodies called "Regulators". These come in ten tiers, each one much smaller and weaker but one hundred times more numerous than the last. These are the hundred Creators, the ten thousand Constructors, the million Builders, the hundred million Purifiers, the ten billion Cleansers, the trillion Destroyers, the hundred trillion controllers, the ten quadrillion changers, the quintillion manipulators and the hundred quintillion observers. And these are all one entity in our one galaxy, and possess the ability to reproduce. Each member of each tier can produce members of the next tier, but can only have one hundred at a time as they are also responsible for connecting them to the whole. The hundred creators are not replaceable, but they hide behind the lower tiers and as such none have ever been killed since the elder god first came into being when the hundred creators were formed, roughly one billion years ago.
Yeah. Billion, with a "b". Kindof a long time. We're talking Pre-Cambrian here. And every other intelligent power in the galaxy has been trying to kill it that whole time. Never even came close. And yeah, sure, it'll die eventually. But then, so will the milky way.
The Elder God is a cruel, vain, callous being that cares nothing for any entity other than itself as all other entities are so far beneath it as to hold no meaning. It cares, more than anything else, about becoming more powerful. But it cannot exceed its own current size and has reached the limit on the number of tiers it may have, so it seeks two strategies to enhance its own power. One is its age-old strategy of lowering the bar so its own power is more significant, which it does by preventing others from gaining power and attempting to strip away what power they have, no matter what form this power takes. Magic, technology, physical power, all of it is to curtailed in order to make the elder god seem more powerful. The other strategy is more recent, and significantly more clever, although it largely invalidates the first. This is to control others. It tricks, coerces or more often forces others into doing its bidding, and most recently creates its own slave races. These come in two varieties, listed below.
Other beings are only below the elder god in power. But then, power is the only thing the elder god gives a damn about, hence why it tries to control or suppress everything else to make its own power more significant. If this is a metaphor for something, I can't imagine what.
Abominations:
The abominations were the first category of slave race created by the elder god, first coming into being roughly one million years ago. These beings are the weaker, but easier to produce and by far more numerous, of the slave races. They come in two forms, "hybrid" and "eldritch".
Read: These pre-date modern humans, although not the genus homo. And the term "abomination" is well deserved here. Which is good, because it usually isn't.
Hybrid abominations are created by regulators using the reproductive tracts of local species, hence the name. This is almost never consensual. This varies from one local species to another, but with most the regulator does this by stealing sperm from a male of a local species, using the sperm as a template to make its own sperm, then using this sperm to impregnate a single female of the species. Rinse and repeat. The Elder God has gotten very, very good at making these and can actually make some sterile members of a species fertile in order to make this work.
Yeah, this is ****ed up. But did you really think an eldritch abomination would need consent?
Hybrid abominations have traits of the local species used and new traits the elder god finds desirable. There are a number of clearly defined hybrid types, which can be bred with any local species present. All hybrid abominations can reproduce with locals conventionally and have the same (although much stronger) drive to do so.
This is also not likely to be consensual, not with most of these anyway. Maybe with a manager or something, but not most run of the mill abominations. See, this is why I want to make it clear that the elder god is the villain. With all the disgusting things it does and orders its slaves to do.
I should note, however, that other than physical ability changes, there's only one psychological change in them. And it's not complete and utter obedience to the elder god, it can't really do that while giving them enough autonomy to be useful. They have a telepathic link to the elder god. It can speak to them, and they can speak to it, telepathically. That's it. The elder god doesn't actually control them, their free will is still intact. And yet, they follow their god's commands and do what it says anyway usually either out of some impression of a relationship or respectful relationship with the cosmic horror, normal subservience to its perceived authority, a belief that there is some return on this investment, or fear. Gee, what could this be a metaphor for. No idea.
The other variety are pure abominations, which are new slave races made roughly two hundred thousand years ago, created by repeatedly editing abominations of an ideal species and type until they form a new, pure form. These creatures are much stronger than hybrid abominations, but are few in number, can't conceal themselves amongst the local population and must find more of their own to reproduce and take a long time to reproduce once they do. They can, however, create hybrid abominations of their own type using locals.
These are about as old as homo sapiens. And while they're more frightening and disgusting than hybrid abominations, their creation process is at least more pleasant, and there's less guilt killing them because they have less capacity for change than the hybrids do.
Angels:
Angels are the newer, stronger variety of abomination that first came into being forty thousand years ago. Angels are different in that they are divine, mimicking all the powers of gods, if usually to a much lesser extent, but are also completely sterile and thus are very few in number.
And then there's the whole "tricks humans into subservience" thing. And hell, both angels and demons fall under this category, so both sides of the coin are the elder god trying to trick mortals into subservience.
Angels come in three varieties. These are "standard", "eldritch" and "pure". Standard angels are made using locals, eldritch angels are made using hybrid abominations and pure angels are made using pure abominations. Pure angels and eldritch angels emphasize the traits of the abomination type they are made from, but standard angels emphasize the traits of the local species. Pure angels tend to be the most powerful, but the others are roughly tied. All three come in three tiers, which are "djinn", "angel" and "archangel". The djinn are the most common but least potent, the angels are intermediate and the archangels are the least common but most potent. Djinn were made roughly 40,000 years ago, angels were made out of djin 8,000 years ago and archangels were made out of angels a mere 1,600.
Pure angels are a bitch to make, by the way, since pure abominations are so few and far between. This here marks the end of the Elder God and its slaves. From here on out we have Ginnungagap's servants. Since I ran out of space, that'll be in a separate post.
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