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World Creation Superdraft Poll


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13 members have voted

  1. 1. Which God brought the most to the worldbuilding party?

    • Pr'Jah, God of Elemental Earth
      3
    • God of War
      4
    • God of Time
      1
    • God of Wisdom
      8
    • Welond, God of Craftsmanship
      6
    • Dorrauch of the Silver Frost, God of Winter
      3
    • Mizu, God/dess of Elemental Water
      1
    • Harhoog, The Trickster God
      6
    • Goddess of Fertility
      3
    • Arepo, Goddess of Death and Rebirth
      5
    • Faserip Augustus Vance God of Magic
      4
    • MimMam/RimRam God of Hearth and Hospitality
      1
    • God of Peace
      1
    • Bazz'or The Unknown God of Heroism
      2


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Whew, it was a big draft, and a round of applause to all who finished.  Happy voting. Mark your top four.

 

Pr'Jah, God of Elemental Earth!

  • Geography. The Foundations (cause for constant change in the world)
  • Sentient Life. Humans
  • Gift to Civilization. Agriculture
  • Ore. Naquadah
  • Interference. The Panserbjørne (or Armoured Bears) live in the Silver Frost  
  • Mythic Monster or Guardian. Thing (Ben Grimm)
  • Secondary Domain. Alchemy
  • Secondary Domain . Metallurgy
  • Secondary Domain: Mysteries and Secrets.

 

God of War!

  • Geography. The City
  • Sentient Life. Palladians
  • Gift to Civilization: Mithril, tool of the dwarves
  • Flora. Olive Trees
  • Interference: Lift Crystals must be recharged with Divine Devotion
  • Mythic Monster or Guardian. Owlbear
  • Secondary Domain. Diplomacy
  • Secondary Domain. Weaving
  • Secondary Domain. Commerce

 

God of Time!

  • Geography. Mt. Arnor
  • Sentient Life: Bamfs
  • Gift to Civilization. Oracle Network
  • Fauna: Blink Dogs
  • Interference: Three Suns does not preclude night
  • Mythic Monster or Guardian. Chosen ones
  • Secondary Domain. Seasons
  • Secondary Domain. Prophecy
  • Secondary Domain. Space

 

God of Wisdom!

  • Geography. The Jaagar: Six Temples of Wisdom
  • Sentient Life. The Aleph
  • Gift to Civilization. Free Will
  • Flora, Fauna, or Ore. Veritch Bird, the Re-egret
  • Interference. Vicissitation (extreme physical variation, even within races)
  • Mythic Monster or Guardian. The Arrayan and the Maga
  • Secondary Domain. Fire
  • Secondary Domain. Judgement
  • Secondary Domain: The Suns (three of them)

 

Welond, God of Craftsmanship!

  • Geography. Mountain Chain-The Spine Of The World
  • Sentient Life. Dwarves
  • Gift to Civilization. Orichalcum
  • Flora, Fauna, or Ore. Ibex Cavalry
  • Interference: Destructive Outsiders
  • Mythic Monster or Guardian: The Thinking Tick-Tock Man, the Clockwork Colossus!
  • Secondary Domain: Architecture
  • Secondary Domain / Option: Floating Islands in the Sky
  • Secondary Domain / Option. Engineering

 

Dorrauch of the Silver Frost, God of Winter!

  • Geography. Continent of Storstein, Land of Eternal Winter
  • Sentient Life. Giants
  • Gift to Civilization. Tradespeak, the universal language
  • Fauna: Aurochs
  • Interference: Nymphs are cold-adapted. Snow Nymphs.  
  • Mythic Monster or Guardian. The Winter Wolf
  • Secondary Domain. Wealth 
  • Secondary Domain: Guardians and Protectors
  • Secondary Domain / Option.

 

Mizu, God/dess of Elemental Water!

  • Geography. Mobile Living Islands
  • Sentient Life. Seaborn (Human Variant)
  • Gift to Civilization: Animal Domestication, including Sky Sharks
  • Fauna: Sky Sharks
  • Interference.        
  • Mythic Monster or Guardian: The Leviathan
  • Secondary Domain. Life that breathes water
  • Secondary Domain Electricity
  • Secondary Domain / Option.

 

Harhoog, The Trickster God!

  • Geography. Blastopore, Undersea Chasm
  • Sentient Life. Kallu'un Qaroof
  • Gift to Civilization. Precipitation from Solution/suspension magic
  • Flora, Fauna, or Ore. Great Sweet Krill
  • Interference: The Floating city reappears.
  • Mythic Monster or Guardian. Hatuibwari, The Great Wolf Eel
  • Secondary Domain. Healing and Health
  • Secondary Domain. Mathematics
  • Secondary Domain: Dispatcher of Souls

 

Goddess of Fertility!

  • Geography.
  • Sentient Life. Mountain Nymphs and their brothers (Satyrs).
  • Gift to Civilization. The Arts
  • Fauna.  
  • Interference.        
  • Mythic Monster or Guardian. Typhon and the Primal Abominations
  • Secondary Domain. Love and Lust
  • Secondary Domain / Option.
  • Secondary Domain / Option.

 

Arepo, Goddess of Death and Rebirth!

  • Geography. Temples Shrines, and Sanctified Ground. Also Borders.
  • Sentient Life: The Undead
  • Gift to Civilization. Priestcraft
  • Flora, Fauna, or Ore. Palindromindaries
  • Interference. Hybridization (all species may crossbreed)
  • Mythic Monster or Guardian. Olivus, with ancestry from all races
  • Secondary Domain / Option. Air
  • Secondary Domain: Interference: Destructive Outsiders become Constructive Outsiders
  • Secondary Domain / Option. Space Travel

 

Faserip Augustus Vance God of Magic!

  • Geography. The Twilight Tavern and Inn
  • Sentient Life. Dragons
  • Gift to Civilization. Codes of behavior and philosophies for Magical use
  • Flora: Honewood Trees (Amplify Magic)
  • Interference. Any god that affects Arcania gets his adherents stripped of magic
  • Mythic Monster or Guardian. Demi Godess Arcania
  • Secondary Domain. Transformation and Change
  • Secondary Domain. Dreams
  • Secondary Domain. Luck and Fortune

MimMam / RimRam, God of Hearth and Hospitality!

  • Geography. The Ten River Republic
  • Sentient Life. Brownies
  • Gift to Civilization. Crafting Goblinoids
  • Flora. Barnacle Trees
  • Interference. The Dream Realm is an Otherworld
  • Mythic Monster or Guardian. Plague of Thieves
  • Secondary Domain. Travel and Journeys
  • Secondary Domain. Lift Crystals (including in a ring around the planet)
  • Secondary Domain. Rites of Adulthood

 

God of Peace!

  • Geography. Continent - Pandora
  • Sentient Life. Hobbits
  • Gift to Civilization. Music
  • Flora. Opium Poppies
  • Interference. Literacy
  • Mythic Monster or Guardian. Elemental Earth Golem
  • Secondary Domain. Fermentation and Alcohol
  • Secondary Domain: Poetry and Literature
  • Secondary Domain: Light

 

Bazz'or The Unknown God of Heroism

  • Geography. Arcadia, a rural area ( eclogues / idylls ) on an existing smallish continental floating island
  • Sentient Life. Demi-Titans (10 foot humans with the same power as normal giant Titans)
  • Gift to Civilization. super powers (psionics, hero magic, immortality / demigod status).
  • Fauna. Pegasus (winged horses) of appropriate size
  • Interference. Biggest deposit of Naquadah is found in Arcadia (90% of world's supply).
  • Mythic Monster or Guardian. Superhero Supreme
  • Secondary Domain. Truth, Justice & the Arcadian Way
  • Secondary Domain: Super powers
  • Secondary Domain: Mastery
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Selected Myths and Secrets

 

 

The True Name of the Lady of Death and Rebirth is of course a Mystery known only to those of the highest Initiation.

 

It is the almost silent, gasping intake of breath, as in the first breath of a newborn or the last breath of the dying.

 

But for most purposes She will use the name Arepo. She will answer to that name in prayer.

 

 

 

The Myth of the First Sacrifice

 

"It is I, who first passed the Dark Gate.

 

When the Shining Ones gathered and said among Ourselves,

'Come, let Us make a World without End!'

Craftsman said 'From what can such a thing be made?

All I build from the Void, soon to the Void returns.'

Sky said 'All We make is as dust in the wind.'

Time said 'Lesser things pass away,

We Ourselves are all that passes not away.'

My Sister, She Who Brings Forth, grieved,

For that She wished to bring forth something lasting.

I, Lady Death, had words alone with Sage, and We made plans.

 

Alone I spoke with Time, and said 'Make for Me two Moments,

Give Me a Moment of Ceasing to Be, and a Moment of Becoming'

To My Sister She Who Brings Forth, I gave the Moment of Becoming,

Saying 'You will know when to use this and how. Trust Me.'

 

With the Moment of Ceasing to Be in My clenched fist,

At the next Council I spoke to the Warrior:

'I have a treasure I might share with You!'

'Show Me' said the Warrior, but I replied

'Nay, it is in My closed hand; open My hand, and I will share.'

Mighty is He, and hard He strove to force My hand to open,

But what I have taken hold of is held in the grip of Death.

In rage He struck Me and demanded of Me, but I said,

'Take the Sword of War and sever Me into pieces,

Then will My hand open and You will have a gift,

And too all of the Shining Ones will have gifts from Me."

 

He cut, and in that Moment, I Ceased to Be,

And from then, the Moment of Ceasing of Be

Has rested on the edge of the Sword of War

As well as in My right hand.

 

War divided Me, and Sage allotted Me among the Shining Ones,

 

To Earth My bones and flesh to make stone and soil,

To Time and to the Seasons My heartbeat, to measure the cycles,

To Water My blood, to make the seas and rivers,

To Trickster my tangled hair to weave snares and webs for the unwary,

To Sage My eyes, which have seen the Mystery beyond the Dark Gate,

To Craftsman a spark of My Life's Fire, to light a forge for making Wonders.

To Each was given what was needed to make their portion of the World.

She Who Brings Forth, Brought Forth the Moment of Becoming,

And I, First among the Dead, again became One of the Deathless.

 

To Go is to Return; a World was made,

In which all that dies must be reborn,

All that falls, shall rise again.

 

The Myth of the First Initiation

 

Dwarves were the first mortals to live in the world, and so they became the first to die in this world.

Winter claimed some with storms, War claimed some with quarrels over wealth, some fell in Water and a small handful even dreamed themselves to death on the Gift of Peace. And they who lived would sometimes prop up the bodies and talk to them as if they were alive, until the stench brought pestilence among them, or some would bear their dead away and drop them in some random place, not knowing what else to do. And so they were haunted, for the spirits of their dead could not pass the Gate, and gibbered at them in dreams and in reveries, and one cold night as the year waned again towards Winter, all the corpses in the world rose and marched to stand confronting their kin, sightless faces accusing. The Dwarven people wailed with grief and fear, and it was I, Lady of Death and Rebirth, who came to them, taking pity on their ignorance.

 

In awe and dread they averted their eyes from Me, save one; he met My gaze and in him I saw the yearning to understand. "The Dwarves suffer" I said to him, "To relieve the suffering of the dead and of the living, would you yourself choose to die?" And there was fear in him yet he said "I would."

 

"Follow" I commanded, leading deeper into the cave they had made their dwelling, and then "Nay, take no torch. Only in darkness will you be able to see what you must see." And we walked until he was sure the cave, that he knew well, was not nearly so deep as we had gone into the Earth. There I shared with him the Moment of Ceasing to Be and the Moment of Becoming, and showed him the Gate, and the Solace of the Dark Deep Within, and I led him to the rest of the Deathless and We taught him much.

 

He learned how to treat the bodies of the dead, to bury them or burn them, and to call My Name that I might welcome them. He learned the process of grief and the Truth of Returning, that those who perish shall again in time reincarnate.

 

He learned of the Cycles, and how it is that herb and fruit and beast and too the sacred poppy all renew themselves endlessly.

 

He learned how to sing away the restless dead, and how to compel one to reveal its Name, that it might be sent through the Gate.

 

He learned how and when and why to offer sacrifice to the Gods, how to sing a prayer, and the setting up of altars and shrines.

 

He learned to Bless those newly born, and the child reborn into adulthood, and other Blessings fit for beginnings and endings.

 

He learned the secrets of Initiation, and how to choose others to initiate so that there would be more priests after himself, the First Priest.

 

As the sun rose we came forth again and the Dwarves still stood vigil, shivering at the dead who stood without, a silent curse on them. The First Priest begged, "My Lady, please, lead them away from us to their proper place." And I said "No. I will go now, and you will send them after Me, for it is in your power now to do so."

 

And so it was, for he had learned The Mystery of Priestcraft

Including sacrifice, initiation, and funerary rites.

 

And on that day in the midst of autumn each year commemorating the Haunting and Arepo's Initiation of the First Priest, the recently deceased and the enduring undead alike walk the streets and go door to door, begging each household for whatever they may contribute to the upkeep of the cemeteries and associated shrines, and by dawn they drop off the alms at the appropriate temples. Those who do not treat the almsgatherers with respect at least, if not generosity, may risk the attention of Harhoog, the Psychopomp. On All Soul's Night one must either Treat with Arepo or face the Tricks of Harhoog.

 

 

The Myth of how the Palindromedary became sacred to Arepo

 

 

Winter and War were dining companionably with Arepo, Goddess of Death and Rebirth, when War put a question to Her.

 

"So tell me....animal, vegetable, or mineral?"

 

She raised an eyebrow and asked "We are playing twenty questions?"

 

"You know what We mean" Winter said, "When will You create or designate something sacred to You, like an ore or a crystal or poppies or My wonderful aurochs, to make your mark on our world?"

 

Arepo sat straight and shot back "You remember the First Sacrifice. It is My bones and blood and breath that form the substance of the world. What need have I to 'make my mark' upon it like a boy writing his name in the snow with his water?"

 

"What need?" laughed the Wargod, "The same need You had for reminding Us just now of what We already know! It was I Who severed You into the parts that made up our world. You touch every mortal in all beginnings and endings, even to their beating hearts, but that just means you fade into the background for them."

 

"Do not pretend to be above such things" spoke Winter, who was standing, "Create or not as You will, Lady, I must go aid an army of Giants to repel invading Dwarves." War rose and said "I too must be at that battle, to bless the bold and curse the cowards."

 

"Enjoy yourselves" said the Goddess, "I'm already there. I am everywhere." But she smiled after they were gone, for She did not after all intend to fade into the background.

 

When She was satisfied with her creature, she made many of them, and then showed one to the First Priest, who had incarnated among the Bamfs.. "That beast" he said "Looks like two front halves of the same camel." She said "Wait until you see all of them together." And he said "You made a herd of them?" "Nay, call it an unherd of them, for until I made them they were unheard of." "What will you call it?" "I call it palindromedary, that which runs each way alike."

 

And Arepo sent the palindromedaries forth into the world, giving them messages for mortals.

 

A palindromedary went among kallu'un qaroof, and said "Nipson anomemata me monan opsin" but it was all Greek to them, so they ate it.

 

A palindromedary found a gathering of Brownies and said "Nipson anomemata me monan opsin" and they understood and washed the palindromedary's faces and fed it alphabet soup and let it rest in an unstable before each confided to it about their failings and shames, before sending it back to Arepo.

 

A palindromedary came among a group of Alephs in meditation and knelt among them in silence, and they understood its silence perfectly, and when it repeated itself backwards they understood that as well.

 

A palindromedary came among a group of Palladians, and said "Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas" and when they asked it courteously to repeat that backwards it did so from its other mouth, and then they demonstrated the profundity of their understanding by themselves reciting it sideways.

 

A palindromedary found a band of Dwarves and said "Live not on evil" and they understood and rejoiced to be called back to their better selves.

 

A palindromedary went among Humans and said "Repel evil as a live leper" and they claimed to understand but soon fell to arguing whether it meant that one who is virtuous is therefore repulsive to evil and to evil things, or if it meant that those who do evil should be cast out and shunned.

 

A palindromedary went to Arcadia, and said "in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni" and whether or not they understood, they were flying over the land, and so they were surely stood under.

 

A palindromedary went to a town of Hobbits and said "Live not on evil" and they understood and said "you took the words right out of our mouths"

 

A palindromedary went among the Sea Born and said "Doc, note, I dissent. A fast never prevents a fatness. I diet on cod." And those who had grown fat by trading with the surface folk understood and realized they could improve health by eating land grown delicacies only in moderation and consuming more of the foods from their own realm.

 

A palindromedary found a war party of Giants and said "Evoles ut ira breve nefas sit; regna!" from one mouth, and from the other said "Anger? 'Tis safe never. Bar it! Use love!" They understood and promised to think it over.

 

A palindromedary came in between three Dragons and said "in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni" and they understood and with suitable ceremonies and incantations returned it to Arepo via incineration.

 

A palindromedary walked into an orgy of Satyrs and Nymphs and said "Sator Arepo Tenet Opera Rotas" and they understood and said "Yeah, we knew Who sent you when we saw you coming! The Word's getting around!" And one of the Satyrs said "She has promised - all that falls shall rise again, so mote it be!" and the Nymph caressing him said "Hey, it just did! Praise Arepo and lets hear it for palindromedaries!"

 

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Copyright Palindromedary Enterprises

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Whew, it was a big draft, and a round of applause to all who finished.  Happy voting. Mark your top four.

 

 Arepo, Goddess of Death and Rebirth!

  • Flora, Fauna, or Ore. Palindromindaries

That's "Palindromedaries!"

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromeindary doesn't mind being misspelled sometimes.

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