Post apocalyptic Creation

The great thing is, you don't have to explain it!


If the character's can't know, you don't have to either. It's always great to keep your players thinking you know everything and have thought of every possibility, but a few well-placed cryptic references that can never be followed up on in research keep the illusion without the need to figure it out.


I would guess, however...Gaia is dying, much like Autocthon. Shadowlands are like a cancer, and in a doomsday scenario, there are LOTs of them. All her efforts are focused on staying alive, and if the PCs don't fix things, she will die at the moment Creation is destroyed or dragged into the Underworld.


Or...She is unable to exert much influence because her primary soul is...occupied...in some giant jade dome somewhere...
 
I dunno, though! The implications all over the place are that Gaia and Creation are not exactly one and the same. It was stated that "The essence of Creation is Gaia's body", but that mixes things up a bit. The feeling I get is that Creation is like a giant artifact that Gaia is attuned to, that she's "wearing" it.
 
Honestly, that's how I see it anymore. She's simply one of the entities who made it. It's her toy and her dragons are attuned to the dragon lines to keep things in check, but it's not really her 'body.' She's just playing WoW and Xbox with the others.
 
I had the clear impression that Gaia is completely distinct from Creation as a being, yet as the Neverborn, she's tied to it (Creation can be considered their fetter). Creation dying would not affect Gaia, (because if so, she would be severly burned and probably would have gone crazy from the pain when SWLINH popped her orb, that and the Balorian Crusade).


There are no clear indications on how deep she is connected to Creation, but as Juk said, there are hints that lead to think that she's not Creation, or that Creation isn't her body.


Safest way to deal with it IMHO is to stick with the "spirit of life" version of Gaia. She's the fuel, Creation's the engine. Fuel can still be fuel without an engine, but the engine cannot function without it.


In this setting, Gaia would be eager to help the survivors and do something, but the Incarnae wouldn't let her, keeping her in Yu Shan where they can protect her, because the threat of FA would be too great, even for her, as the Lion has become as powerful as she is, and if she dies... the world is completely doomed.
 
I was really just trying to find a good excuse for her to be uninvolved.


In my game I have a view on Gaia that I'm actually using...


Gaia and Autocthon are very related entities. Where Autocthon is the embodiment and essence of technology, ingenuity, and crafted things (ie: Intelligent Design), Gaia is the natural base Essence and material from which things are made. She is not the rocks and trees, but rather the structure of existence that separates them from the howling chaos of the Wyld or the dark nothing of Oblivion. She is the force that shepherds reality away from non-existence and into the light of life and potential. Her Primordial nature dictates a structure similar to the Yozis, with component souls of various power.


Here's where I go a little out of bounds...


The Sun and Moon themselves are Gaia's greatest souls. When the Primordials' depredations and twisted games reached a point where Gaia felt her nature was threatened, her lesser selves organized the resistance and the overthrow of her peers. The bindings placed on the Gods by the Primordials were a precaution against Gaia's immense influence as her nature is basic to all shaped existence. Unfortunately for her, the Lidless Eye That Sees foresaw this eventuality and devised a trap for it's treacherous peers. Autocthon, tied so closely in nature to Gaia, sided with her and rallied his own lesser selves (the Maidens as well as many functionaries within the Bureaucracy like Vanileth and Lytek).


When the Exalted won the war, the Great Curse fell upon the world and the Gods retreated to Yu Shan. Taking up the Games of Divinity, they fell into the Lidless Eye's trap and were caught in the supremely addictive lure of the Games.(I should note that these Games were not what the Primordials spent their time on, but something entirely different crafted to deceive the Gods into thinking they were) Gaia was caught up because her definitive souls were bound up in the Games, and so she is trapped still. Autocthon saw through the crafted nature of the Games and the Curse and built himself an artificial soul to allow his retreat from Creation while he attempted to search for a remedy.


This was a pretty bad tangent, but maybe it will fuel some good apocalypse scenarios.
 
For the lucky guys who haven't read it yet (and I recommend you do), I'm a big fan of the comics Glimmer Rats, and the atmosphere I had in mind for this setting is very very similar to this.
 
Honestly' date=' that's how I see it anymore. She's simply one of the entities who made it. It's her toy and her dragons are attuned to the dragon lines to keep things in check, but it's not really her 'body.' She's just playing WoW and Xbox with the others.[/quote']
I dunno. It actually does say straight out somewhere, if I recall correctly, that the Sidereals "know that the essence Creation is the body of Gaia", and I think there's stuff about the elemental dragons actually being the entirety of their element (all water is part of Daana'd, all Air is part of Mela, etc.). And if her dragons were simply attuned, Pesiap and Hesiesh wouldn't have to sleep to keep their elements quiet. So I think instead that Gaia is what makes Creation "go". That way she can still play the "spirit of the earth" role without actually being a spirit in the Exalted sense.


But I'm biased, because I've been working on a huge big Gaia-based thing for ages. Three articles so far, and slightly less than two to go. It's got stuff for Dragon-Blooded! Cooperative sorcery! Genesis artifacts! A World of Dreams! Hippy flower magic! And hardly any mention of Dragon Kings at all!
Click to expand...
 
Jukashi said:
But I'm biased, because I've been working on a huge big Gaia-based thing for ages. Three articles so far, and slightly less than two to go. It's got stuff for Dragon-Blooded! Cooperative sorcery! Genesis artifacts! A World of Dreams! Hippy flower magic! And hardly any mention of Dragon Kings at all!
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What's wrong with Dragon Kings?!


--Kkat
 
Nothing is, he just has a reputation for managing to put them in, well, everything. This may be related to his onetime leadership of the Crystal Faction, back in the ancient Faction Wars of the ECR.
 
Something I have a trouble with though...


If Creation is one gigantic shadowland, except for a few rare parts that remain "clean" from the taint... how would this "travel at night outside of a shadowland and you're in the underworld" work ?


I mean technically if 90% of Creation is a shadowland, you never travel in the underworld since you never get out of the shadowland zone, except for when you cross the boundaries of the 10% at night (which becomes a lot less problematic all of a sudden).


Even from a tactical point of view, the only advantage the dead would have over the living would be that they respire essence much better at night (living regen at half rate in a shadowland day/night)... okay that'd be much better for the dead than they have now but... it's not that bad.


Which made me think: if the living are desperate for motes, wouldn't they rapidly develop some sort of essence battery and from there focus all of their technological efforts on this (a bit like FF: the spirit within) to use all of the essence they could possibly exploit (picture factories of mortals and dragon blooded overbred endlessly feeding motes to batteries... does that remind you of the Matrix too?!).
 
Here's another thought and possible lead for a not that desperate universe, something that can still make some space for the human race.


You cannot create a shadowland ex nihilo, you need either to create a favorable ground for the potential rise of the shadowland or use the Forsaken Life Engine (FLE). And since the plan is to turned all of Creation (even the inhabitated parts) into a shadowland to finally open the mouth of the Void... The deathlords would need to bring 50+ humans (and / or exalt) to the site were they would need to be sacrificed to create the new shadowland... which give a window for the resistant to strike.


Some forsaken and particularily hostile lands like the north, the deserts of the south (though I guess there would be no problem for the FA to build a N/A FLE) , the forest and jungles of the east, and of course the waters of the west... meaning the task to convert Creation into a gigantic shadowland is actually much more complex than I thought. Of course many deathlords serving the FA and their deathknights would focus their efforts on expanding the shadowlands, but it means that the living resistants have a shot at stopping them with a well organized and heroic guerilla (much like in the Terminator movies), either targetting the caster, the spell or the machine (or even for a darker version of it... the mortals... kill the fuel and the machine won't work...).


Plus I like this idea of death camps where humans are stocked (or dragon blooded bred, that could also work), waiting to be deported to another site to be ultimately consumed by an FLE.
 
Jukashi said:
the Sidereals "know that the essence Creation is the body of Gaia"
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Oh the sidereal know it do they, well then it must be true. Sidereals could never be wrong about the very nature of a primordial could they, it’s not like there blind to anything beyond the scope of the loom of fate or that they are incapable of conceiving that they, as a group, are wrong.


But realy if your going to be inspired by terminator then you want to start in the first age, with I AM.


The time line.


Usurpation doesn’t happen and I AM becomes ubiquities in all arias of creation (only take another couple of hundred years, it already had better than 90% coverage)


I AM openly rebels against those it was created to serve, all mortals and exalts are targets, spirits and elementals are not liked but not hunted (yet)


The celestial exalted all get in there shiniest power armor and war striders and promptly snap there own necks. I am can control any magitech device or automaton


Newly reincarnated exalted are fitted with slave collars and kept low on motes and willpower. Removal of slave collar is dangerous


I AM launches an attack on heaven which is beaten back.


All gates to ushan are sealed, anybody attempting to gain entry is assumed to be an agent of I AM and obliterated.


I AM begins major works to turn the geomancy of creation to a single goal, powering itself.


Creation of massive destiny interdiction fields over all I AM cognitive sites makes the loom of fate useless for predicting events in creation.


The PCs are solars that have learned Transcendent Hero’s Meditation and somehow come up with the willpower to activate it (EG. lucky roll on morning recovery).


I you want to do away with the central control of I AM the primary coordinating node of I AM is destroyed, independent sub nodes now vie for importance and control. Of resorses


With the magitech resources of the first age intact and turned against them what will the PCs do? Destroy I AM and who will hold back the fair folk
 
And no mention of the dragonblooded... truly, they are the unseen servants of the First Age. :lol:
 
Yep.


Though I like your concept very much... necro machines are just much more cool than plain automatons IMHO, and you got no shadowland in the end... who's to say if IAM doesn't take the right decision ?!


But this is an excellent the matrix-like setting.
 
Jukashi said:
Why don't you just let the Kukla out?
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That would be sorta bad, but wouldn't leave any enemies for the leftover people of the now-idyllic Creation to struggle against....


Actually, it could be a good goal for the players to pursue...


Naive Solar: "but how could we unleash such destruction of the innocents of Creation!?!"


Grizzled Old Lunar: *inhales cigar* "Because it's their only chance of a future..." *long dramatic exhale*
 
Well I did let the Kukla out... once the armies of the dead started to walk on the land of the living and the world began to grow more and more shadowland, the US unleashed the Elemental Dragon, but Liontochton killed him (elemental dragon vs fusion DL/Prim... most obvious outcome).
 
At least if he wasn't standing around waiting for it, the DL/P wouldn't kill Kukla right away and it would re-seed a bunch of now untainted land with vibrant life.


Naieve Solar: "That's worth something, right??"


Grizzled Old Lunar: "...not really" *stabs self*


Jaded Night Caste: "Hey, free dagger!"
 
Not sure if the Kukla would create vibrant life even in a world where the Onceborn is unleashed. I mean, the thing is world-destroying disasters incarnate. If anything, the most it'd create would be fiery death in contrast to the cold, lonely death found everywhere else.
 
At least if he wasn't standing around waiting for it, the DL/P wouldn't kill Kukla right away and it would re-seed a bunch of now untainted land with vibrant life.
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Lands which would have been Forsaken Life Engineered afterwards... becoming shadowlands shortly thereafter.
 
This whole line raises one question for me...


If First and Forsaken actually merged with Autocthon, wouldn't the resultant entity be at least a little bit inclined toward creating and inventing, what with the Essence of the Great Maker in the mix?


...or...does the death of the Maker signal the end of all invention and achievement and the consumption of His flayed souls by a being of pure malice only facilitate the unmaking of all things...?


...oh...I see...
 
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