Aut Omnia, aut Nihil—the Ballad of Genesis
, is a fairly popular Play-by-Post Game started by our very own ill-tempered amphibian SullenFrog. It started in March of 2011 and concluded in October of the same year.
The concept is simple enough. A Reckoning in Heaven is plaguing many universes, and the Creator of these universes have lost their power to save them. The damage is too severe for the servant Angels of the Creator to fix and many Earths will be destroyed in the process. Billions of humans and animals will die, consumed and destroyed by the chaos soon to come.
But there is hope.
While they have no recollection of this event, at some point in their pasts—likely shortly after their births, though there may be exceptions—a young group of people were taken from their parents, family or friends by a mysterious cult and forcibly infused with the latent essence of an Old God, one of the many deities, demons and spirits who held sway over mankind before the Abrahamic faiths, Buddhism and Hinduism grew into the dominant religions of the world. The divine essence that courses through their blood is awoken when their are invited by a black envelope to a strange building in their town of Genesis Springs, known as Aut Omnia, aut Nihil.
Their worlds have ended, and they have taken on new forms, becoming one with gods of many religions and mythologies, with the task of creating and shaping new worlds and gaining worshippers in however way they see fit. But they are not alone...There are other people who have been given godly power, and who want those same worshippers, and those same worlds, for themselves. And this new group of inexperienced Gods will have to master their power if all of existence ever has any hope of surviving...
This game now has a recap page.
Aut Omnia, aut Nihil provides examples of:
- Big Bad Duumvirate: The Compact, an alliance of the five most powerful and influential Inheritors on Metatron's Cube; each one rules one of the Cube's five layers, and travel from one layer to the next is almost impossible without their permission. As they have sealed off the Core of Metatron's Cube and bound the keys for this seal into their own souls, they must all be defeated if the Godlings are to succeed in their mission.
- The Chosen Many: God is... gone, and it's up to the godlings to rebuild the universe. There's a tonne of them, and many aren't your friends.
- Crazy-Prepared: Sunny is the embodiment of this trope, due to him being so poor he had to save everything useful frugally.
- Gods Need Prayer Badly: Played straight; as the Godlings gather followers, they become more powerful.
- Have You Seen My God?: As mentioned in the above description, the Creator's power has been sundered by the so-called Reckoning in Heaven, leading to the destruction of the universe and the present state of affairs. The one angel who has appeared thus far, Aricrethiel, is uncertain as to the precise cause of this, although the Man in Black implies that the Man Upstairs has kicked the bucket.
- Made of Iron: Played with with Eoin MacCavoy, who is more or less mortal except for his left hand, which is made out of virtually indestructible silver metal.
- Our Angels Are Different: The various incarnations of gods take many different forms. The one angel actually present, however, has minimal differences from stereotypical depictions.
- Our Monsters Are Different: The first real opponent the godlings face, a karkadann, is depicted here as a twelve-foot tall, white-skinned, shark-toothed rhinoceros with earth-elemental powers and a taste for flesh.
- Painful Transformation: When the characters' divine essences woke up and converted them into new forms befitting their godly status, the changes were rather unpleasant.
- Walking the Earth: The godlings are instructed to wander about Metatron's Cube to gather followers.
