Gaia's final move

[wordman]

This other thread retells the Primordial War from the Primordial point of view, and many of the initial comments speculate on the lack of action of Gaia in the story. This led me to a different idea:


Suppose the entirety of the Primordial War was Gaia's final, winning move in the Games of Divinity.


Not sure what the ramifications of this are. Discuss.

 

[Persell]

Isn't kind of like winning a board game by setting the other players on fire?


A cool thought though. Raises all sorts of interesting ramifications for what exactly the Games of Divinity are and their relationship to Creation and their inhabitants. And does this mean that Link is now sitting and playing Legend of Zelda?


Plus, if this was/is true, what does that say about the Usurption?

 

[cyl]

Well, it could be a possibility... taking control of Creation once and for all makes sense for her, but then... why letting it rot for the next millenias ?


On another note: Autochton fled Creation out of fear from the gods and the exalts... Gaia didn't. The trick question is... why ?

 

[Flagg]

Because the Exalted didn't trust Auto. Not even the Primordials liked him. There's obviously some major character flaw at work if his old friends thought he was a dick, and his new friends thought he was a dick, too. Also, he didn't have any of his own Exalted in the mix, unlike Gaia, who also had one of the Incarna, Luna, advocating for her.


Not to mention that you can't really banish the Primordial of the world you're currently inhabiting.

 

[Flamane]

I like that idea. I always thought of the Games of Divinity as a metalinguistic element (not sure if that exists in english) in the game. I mean, an element in the game referring to the game itself. The players and the ST are the same as the incarnae, in some way. Just like a Solar's player wants his character to excell and make Creation better or whatever, as an expression of his views and beliefs, the Unconquered Sun wants his Self, his spiritual prerrogative (excellence?), to be foremost in creation, something more easily done through his Exalted.


It makes sense to think that Gaia won the first round of the Games of Divinity, after all, she's the only Primordial still in Creation and still playing an incredible and addicting game, isn't she? The game is so addicting that it easily distracted the Incarnae and also distracted the Primordials enough that they missed the first mobilization of the Exalted. No being would want to stop playing it. Plus, she is in many ways Creation, wich is the greatest creation of the Primordials. Makes sense to think that the prize for winning the Games would be Creation.


I would go further and say Gaia's probably the ST of the new round. The sky in Yu-Shan shows who's winning the game, and there's no Gaian sky pattern. Still, she's at the Jade Pleasure Dome at all times. Wich member of a playing team participates but can't possibly win? The ST.


It also works as self criticism. We, RPG players, spend a lot of time thinking of fictional realities and sometimes forget about the world we live in. Aren't we like the Incarnae when we do that? When young I sometimes forgot about my studies to read and play, and probably many of you did so too. The game developers went so far in that that actually made it their professions! Just as a test: I bet many of you are familiar with the geography of Nexus, but not of your own cities. Am I wrong?

 

[cyl]

Exalted didn't trust Auto... but he built them...


And Gaia is just another primordial among a few dozens... She could have left the world after she had shown the Incarnaes how to create the Great Elementals and it wouldn't have been any different, just like Autochton was actively participating to the Creation and left it without serious consequences for the world.


But after the Primordial Wara, her baby was so shaken to its core that she had to intervene using the 5EDs to stabilize things.


And about that... since the "lesser" Elemental Dragons have become so powerful (I mean... Kukla...) over the millenias, why haven't relieved the 5 EDs from their service as the Great Elementals did before the Primordial Wars ?


Also, Flamane: that post was huge

 

[Flamane]

True, it was huge, I'm sorry. I just couldn't resist to it. But just to clarify a few things, all that i wrote in my previous post wasn't supposed to work with the mechanics or anything. It was just a burst about the metaphore I feel the Games of Divinity is. I felt like sharing my views, not to defend that as "the hidden truth". Just throwing some wood to the bonfire...

 

[cyl]

I meant the metaphor was very interesting.

 

[Thanqol]

I actually think the reason Gaia's not afraid of Exalted retribution is because the Immaculate Texts are true.


One of my gripes is that one of the biggest and most interesting religions in Creation is a scam. So I think about the implications if it were true. If every Immaculate Monk, after death, has his higher soul and Essence collected by Gaia and stored in secret along with the Elemental Dragons. She's been collecting enlightened Dragon Blooded like this since the War, stockpiling generation after generation of Legends...


... which could well be the buildup to her winning move against the Unconquered Sun.

 

[cyl]

I remember reading from abyssal 1e that the souls of dead solar were united with him in his pantheon of heroes.


Plus, since the essence runs in the blood and since DB leave ghosts just like anybody else... it's just not possible unless there is a third part of the soul that is still unheard of.


I really hate that chick... we have more stuff on Yozis than we have on her.

 

[Thanqol]

I remember reading from abyssal 1e that the souls of dead solar were united with him in his pantheon of heroes.
Plus, since the essence runs in the blood and since DB leave ghosts just like anybody else... it's just not possible unless there is a third part of the soul that is still unheard of.


I really hate that chick... we have more stuff on Yozis than we have on her.

"It's just not possible"


Shall I direct you to our hoverboards, our heroin pissing dinosaurs, our mystic extradimensional citadels or the fact that we killed God?

 

[cyl]

Still there are things that cannot be changed / altered even by us celestials because, let's face it, we lack the raw power to change things at a fundamental level.


There are things greater and powerful than all of us united.


Creation has 5 elements, mortals have 2 souls, Oblivion permanently disintegrate anything.


We can use most principles, bend some rules, go around or ignore others, but can we really change them ?


Surely solar circle allows us great prodigies, but even at the peak of our power, we cannot change things like the creators did.


It's not because we could kill the creators that we can create a sixth element or decide that time travel is possible.


Our consolation is that we can shape the world as we see fit.

 

[Thanqol]

That's all lovely.


But we're talking about a Primordial here. One of them chicks who came up with all that stuff. She wants it, she can do it because she made it in the first place.

 

[Persell]

But can she change it alone? When the Primordials created Creation, there were 25 to 30 of them. How much can she change all by her onesy?

 

[Thanqol]

But can she change it alone? When the Primordials created Creation' date=' there were 25 to 30 of them. How much can she change all by her onesy?[/quote']
Exactly as much as the ST wants her to change?

 

[cyl]

Well at least she's powerful enough to stabilize Creation, she did it after the Primordial Wars, but she never could rebuild it as it was so at the very least we can deduce that SWLIHN's destructive power is stronger than Gaia's regenerative power.


That's what I hate about her, we don't know anything about her...


She's the spirit of life one of the 3 most active Creators, "mother" of the elemental dragons, consort to Luna, she stayed the hands of the exalts and saved the Yozis lives and... that's about it I think.

 

[Thanqol]

Why do you hate her because you don't know anything about her? I don't know anything about you and I don't hate you... much.


Make things up or hope she gets some wordcount in Glories of the Most High.

 

[cyl]

I hate what the writers have done with her so far... that void where there should be an abundant source of information about probably the most important character in the setting...


I mean it's easy to say "no one knows who's the Emissary, make your own thing up"... but with Gaia we're talking the only remaining primordial still in Creation, still in one piece, still playing the game, banging Luna and having her personal swarms of grand children...


There's just very partial informations and a blank you need to fill.


I don't even remember the writers having the intellectual decency to tell us "Gaia's yours" and to give us hints and options as they did with other minor characters.

 

[wordman]

... taking control of Creation once and for all makes sense for her, but then... why let it rot for the next millenias ?

Random idea #1: You know those "9 out of every 10 things" that got torched by She Who Lives in Her Name? Those were the parts that Gaia really cared about and motivated her to make her final move. Now, with them gone, she can't even remember what they were, so no longer particularly cares about Creation.


Random idea #2: The reason Gaia seem so impotent is that the vast majority of her attention is focused on making more Creations far away from here. Only a very small part of her remains behind to bang Luna. If you suppose that her component souls are the elemental poles, that would mean five souls form Creation. Let's assume that she's been dedicated to getting more souls, and has around 30 or so. That's at least five additional Creations, maybe more if she has become more efficient at making them.


I wonder if she Created gods to run these Creations. I wonder what would happen if that Pantheon discovered the one in Creation.

 

[cyl]

Random idea #1: doesn't make sense, if she didn't care about Creation she wouldn't even have woken the 5 EDs to stabilize it after the torching and put 2 of them back to sleep. Mortals may have been the only thing left she cared about... and for the past millenias she doesn't seem to have cared at all... it's almost as if she had been asleep or something.


I mean the Wyld started eating Creation again around 900 years ago from present time... and she didn't even blink.


Random idea #2: that's an interesting theory but somehow I get the feelings that while the 3 most active Creators needed the others and their powers to build Creation...


But you can also look at what happened when the first primordial died... he created a parallel realm, so maybe one Primordial is enough to create another Creation.

 

[Flamane]

One Primordial is most definetily enough to create a "Creation". Just look at Autochtonia... by the way, where's that 2nd edition Alchemical's book?

 

[krrackknut]

Malfeas counts as a 'Creation', right? Which means that one Primordial's body is enough for a planet.


So, there are now, what? Four planets? Creation, the Shadowlands, Autochtonia and Malfeas?


Did I miss anything?

 

[Plague of Hats]

A single Primordial might be able to make a world roughly like Creation, but Malfeas and Autochthonia aren't that type of thing. They're fairly unique bodies of titans. The Underworld is pretty much its own little thing, too.


If I were to map out how Creation was made, though, it would involve such power and teamwork that no single titan could ever do anything but fashion what could generously be called "mockeries" of its glorious complexity and variety. I like Holden's theory about Cytherea as a sort of big bang catalyst, so the motes required would make it literally impossible without some similar aid on the part of the builder of this new world. Then there's the raw thematic constraint that the titan would suffer. If Gaia made her own little world it might be one of elemental tempest so constant and terrible it would look like an unholy storm to anyone with a Creation-based perspective. Or one of such unbridled growth and exploration of the principles of life that it would overwhelm itself. Which would actually be a pretty cool place to introduce as a foil for Creation after your Solars have set all things right and are scratching their balls with an orichalcum nut-scratcher made out of the Unconquered Sun's bones, wondering what to do with themselves.


Also, these:


Ocean-Birthing Maelstrom


Cost: (number of seas x 500)m, 5wp; Mins: Essence 10; Type: Simple (Dramatic Action)


Keywords: Blasphemy, Obvious, Sorcerous


Duration: Instant


Prerequisite Charms: The Marching Sea, Endless Depths (x3)


Kimbery washed across the face of the world as it was born, filling it with the water it needed to spring to life, the water that would drown it all if left unchecked. Indeed, without Gaia's soul Daana'd there would be no world as we know it, but merely a stinking bog filled with bilious steam and corrosive acid. This Charm is the dramatic action of giving birth to one or more seas, which takes the greater jouten of the character 10 years plus five additional years per sea after the first. "A sea" is a body of water with a contiguous surface area no greater than (Essence x 100,000) square miles and no smaller than 1,000 square miles. Each sea must have a shore of some kind, whether it is roiling chaos (which tends to take on the characteristics of the water it abuts) or a beach, a great container or an infinitely-sided tower. Seas created with this Charm have no ultimate bottom unless they are built on some foundation, as Kimbery built the oceans of Creation on the craggy depths of the West laid by Gaia and Pasiap.


The birth of a sea or seas is quick by titanic standards. The initial flood of watery Essence precedes the onrushing tsunami that will wipe clean the land. This burst of primordial Essence liquefies and washes away the weak on an atomic scale, inflicting 10 levels of aggravated damage as an environmental effect with immeasurable Trauma. Those slain burst like overfull balloons full of the acid waters of Kimbery, while those that survive lose a dot of permanent Essence and vomit this lost piece of their soul as a 50-gallon pool of bile. If more than one character survives in close proximity to another, it is not unlikely that they will both drown in the collected liquid. This is, perhaps, a merciful death.


The first wave of water comes as a great wall of acid 10 miles high and as wide as the Infernal wishes the sea to measure. Anyone caught in the birthplace of the young sea first faces an unblockable, undodgeable 150B piercing. As the flow of new water slows, the force alone becomes an environmental hazard with Damage 10B/hour, Trauma 10L. This hazard persists at its full strength up until the last year of birthing, at which point both values are halved. Anyone in the area is also subject to the normal environmental hazards of Kimbery's own body (The Compass of Celestial Directions, Vol. V—Malfeas, p. 102), though this is a permanent quality of the water unless outside assistance purifies the sea. While the sea is growing it also inflicts a -3 external penalty due to the constantly buffeting water, in addition to the normal difficulties of dealing with choppy waves (Exalted, p. 155). There will be overflow beyond the described borders of the sea, but this largely has half the same destructive effect as the initial blast of water out to two miles beyond the shore, after which the hazard is contained within the sea's borders.


If the seas created by this Charm are "placed" abutting open land with a shore much higher, they will eventually rush out and disperse. Generally, the open, lower land will from the outset suffer one-third the same initial and ongoing effects as the area covered by the created sea. In roughly ([sea's square mileage] ÷ 1,000) years, the sea will have drained itself and dissipated to no lasting effect beyond the destruction it inflicts. This is an approximation and Storytellers should increase the time it takes depending on the lay of the land. A great valley filled by the sea but with an open end leading to the plains might slow the process of draining from one to five years.


Creating more than one sea at once, giving birth to an ocean, requires that each sea be contiguous with at least one other sea created with this Charm, but they need not be contiguous with seas created with the same activation. While the acidic nature of a sea created with this Charm persists, it acts as an extension of its creator's senses. This is an imperfect sensory organ, however, and in addition to any other titanic difficulties the character suffers in perceiving smaller beings, the Infernal suffers a -5 internal penalty to notice things through her oceanic extrusions. Once purified, seas born of this Charm are wholly separate from the Infernal and provide her no special benefit.


This Charm is susceptible to countermagic only during its activation, and only from a sorcerer whose permanent Essence is no less than (Infernal's Essence − 2). Even cast by someone so powerful, the sorcerer and the titan enter a duel of wills, each contesting the other with (Willpower + Essence) once per action until one accumulates 10 more successes than the other. Countermagic stops the outpouring of the sea, but it does not banish any water that is already free.


Chains Within the Universe Seed


Cost: (number of shinma x 1,000)m, 5wp; Mins: Essence 10; Type: Simple (Speed 7, DV -10)


Keywords: Blasphemy, Combo-OK, Obvious, Shaping, Sorcerous, Wyld


Duration: Indefinite


Prerequisite Charms: Sublimation Beyond Conception Satori (x2), The Eternal Circle


At the behest of Malfeas and his architects, Oramus and She Who Lives in Her Name chained a selection of shinma and burned into them the laws by which their universe would be. The Dragon Beyond the World gathered up these first of the first principles, lashing them with pure energy and molding them into pleasing configurations before the Principle of Hierarchy crystallized their forms into the staid universal laws we know today. This Charm can only be used in Pure Chaos and is an attack against no one in particular, the Infernal freeing or binding a shinma as a principle of the living universe. Shinma bound by this Charm are forced to express a specific set of the principles they represent, and bound together with other shinma they combine their principles into a whole. Without an expanded foundation, such as a world, the locality of these principles constitutes a single waypoint. This has effects far outside the scope of game rules, but includes such epic feats as unmooring the principle of identity, the governing law of the universe that states that characters exist as separate entities, or undoing the law of Nirguna so that all things exist in a state of flux.


This Charm has no power over the laws that She Who Lives in Her Name has branded with her Unmarred Clockwork Perfection (see p. XX), which renders it useless in destroying or disrupting Creation by manipulating the shinma on which it is founded. However, nothing stops the Infernal from tying new shinma to the principles of local reality, or venturing off beyond all things knowable to the world of Creation to find and forge new combinations of shinma.


This Charm's effects are susceptible to countermagic as any Sorcerous Charm, but only so long as the shinma it binds together are not crystallized by some other power like She Who Lives in Her Name.

 

[Thanqol]

Malfeas counts as a 'Creation', right? Which means that one Primordial's body is enough for a planet.
So, there are now, what? Four planets? Creation, the Shadowlands, Autochtonia and Malfeas?


Did I miss anything?

Malfeas isn't a Creation, just like Gaia isn't Creation. The Blessed Isle compares the presence of the Elemental Dragons to "the wheels of a wagon. Without wheels, it may be many things but it is no longer a wagon."

 

[cyl]

Apparently... Glories of the Most High explains why Gaia isn't depicted in details.


The explanation sucks, but makes sense.

Spoiler

She left Creation and mere parts of her conscience and body (jouten) are still there. She comes back from time to time, but is away in the wyld most of the time.