Kraken's myth-making project.

Hmmm.

I think I like the dragon story the best- I feel it shows the god's more... immoral side, with them lying (albeit to protect the human's state of mind). They're all pretty good, though :P

Hmm...in retrospect, yeah, Ozchdai didn't really get a happy ending, but he did give rise to all creation, so...

Sacrifice

Attend, O my people. Srayang, the Thief of All Things, the Duke of Death and and Silence, has a story to tell. Of death and murder and the dancing upon graves. Of deceit, of lies, of truth revealed and fiction dispelled. Of ghosts who sing, of specters that dance. Of gods made fools of, and of things reborn.

This is the tale of my murder.

Once, I was a bright god. Srayang was my name, the same now as it was then. I was the muse, I was inspiration, I was the desert wind and the voice carried on the dunes. I was joy and laughter and light.

But that didn't last. My siblings and I participated in the war against Demiurges and fought, red in tooth and claw against their legions and their titanic forms. With their final breaths they did curse us, but we paid no heed. Why would we? We were the kings of the world and nothing could stop us. We feuded, we whored, we drank, we feasted. We indulged ourselves in every vice, as befitting gods. And I organized every feast and orgy.

In the nights I lay half-asleep and half-waking, dreaming dark dreams and seeing terrible things. The world in the throes of pain. The earth barren and poisoned. The Savior loosing his grip on his wayward children. And we - the gods - would be the cause of all this misery.

But I kept it to myself. Who could I tell, anyway? Who would listen? Arcyana had her many feuds, Criea did nothing but rage and fume at whatever bothered her that day, Ozchdei was ancient and rheumy, Aspina was flighty and slow-witted, and Felinai? Pfah. The only way you could get her attention from her little games was through feline herbs and scratching behind her ears.

No, I kept it to myself. None could help me. And none would in the first place. To Heaven, I stayed joyous Srayang, laughing Srayang, lusty Srayang. Srayang, the Count of Celebration. Srayang, the Lyre's Cry. My heart and spirit splintered from within while my mask stayed firmly on.

I slipped away from Heaven, claiming that I wanted to spend some time with my priests. I sought out the prison and consorted with demons. I drank Sadtestai's herbs and potions, and I did foresee. I breathed in Gencai's mists, and I did prophesy. I searched high, but found my ultimate answers low.

Eat our flesh. came a voice from the graveyard.
I was alarmed.
Burn our flesh and suck on the marrow. whispered a corpse.
"Why?" I asked, skeptical.
So that you may learn what you wish to know.
"How is that possible?"
Anything is possible when you make music from the bones and dance with the dead.

Thus did I play with corpses. I made porridge from liquefied flesh. I made flutes from bones. I made bowls from skulls from which to beg. I made liquor from venom, aprons from skin. I sang hymns and dirges in every language. I powdered skulls and snorted the powder. I did all this, and the dead spoke to me.

"What are these dreams?"
They are prophecy.
"Why do I have them?"
Because the universe is void of a thing.
"What is this thing?"
A bringer of death.
"Why would I be such a one?"
Because it is the only way to escape the curse of the Demiurges.
"What curse?"
You do not remember?
"The one that they gave with their last breaths, before being locked away."
What are the products of this curse?
"The gods becoming strong, irritable, capricious, and shattering the world in their hubris and arrogance."
How do you know that any of this is true?
"Because I see what there is to see."

Five days later, I returned to Heaven. I was followed by Marki, a demon emissary. Immaculate in his robes of red and delicately-trimmed elk-like horns, cloaked by his own wings, Marki came to Heaven to seek my heart in return for services rendered. I asked how he was going to take my heart and only my heart without taking any of my blood, and Marki demonstrated by withering a celestial dog's heart, tipping out the blood, and undoing the decay. I replied that this was satisfactory, and invited him to stay for a while. Marki accepted, and we sat down to the feast.

That night, I said goodbye to my brothers and sisters, to their grief. We cried, and ate, and drank, and made merry. We played my favorite game; 'See Who Can Hit Me'. The object of the game thereof was to throw or shoot or fire any manner of thing at me, and I, with my irresistible voice, would ask it nicely to not touch. Nobody ever won at 'See Who Can Hit Me' but I.

But Marki slipped something into Arcyana's quiver. An arrow made from the jerkied flesh of an earless demon. My voice was useless. The arrow pierced my left eye and my brain, and I fell, stone-dead. Arcyana wept bitterly, and for a time storms raged the earth. When they turned around, Marki was already gone, flapping away on leather wings and laughter. They buried me in the earth under and ash tree, and wept for my corpse.

Marki came to my grave, once. From his wrist he pulled out his hand and summoned me from my grave. I took his hand and put in place of the one I lost, and Marki disappeared. For there was no demon emissary, but there was a puppet borne from the bones of my hand. Now that the gods thought that I had perished, I was free to act with impunity. The next seven days were blood-soaked and so hideous and terrible, that I will not mention anything I did during that time, for fear of releasing certain secrets, save building a giant altar in the shape of a man out of tombstones.

Surrounded by my priests, I climbed to the top of that altar, and did impale myself upon the stone through the other eye with a knife made of a murderer's hand. I hung there in a half-dead, half-alive twilight state for...how long was it? Nine years, nine months, nine days? Or was it Four years and thirteen days? It doesn't matter. But what does matter is what I did during that time.

My title, the Thief of All Things, is not just a title, it is an achievement. My spirit snuck into the prison, and from the Demiurges I did wrest a hundred things from them. Treasures, weapons, tools, secrets, even concepts themselves...I begged, I cheated, I stole, I manipulated, I misled, I bought...every single one. On the last day (seven years and fifeen days?) I stole the very concept of the sacrifice. That day I arose from the dead, and was reborn as a death-god.

Look upon me, my priests. Look upon me, my children. And look upon me, my brothers and sisters.

Srayang is here again. Srayang. Thief of All Things. Duke of Death and Silence. The bone-flutist. The ash-coated reveler. The black shadow puppeteer.

So break the coffins out of their crypts. Wear lilies, brew blood-red wine. Paint skulls on your faces. Let the smell of tobacco and burning flesh fill the air. Strike up the band.

It is time for the party to start once again.

edited 16th Oct '11 9:54:40 AM by Kraken

So, that dream/prophecy was prevented by him becoming a death god?

Also:

Is it okay if I snicker at this?

The dreams were pushing him towards becoming a death-god.

And I put those in just for you to snicker, Rocket.

Really? Thank you.

Vivid imagery there.

Ooooh, wonderfully creepy. 'Ts my favorite one so far. Only complaint:

Should have said; "He pulled his hand from his wrist." Sorry.

I wonder if I went too far, though. Wonder if it was obvious to anyone who Marki is.

I didn't know what he was until you explicitly said where he came from.

A Treatise On Magic For Beginners: Part One, by Professor Xelai, Feathered Serpent and Bodhisattva of the domains of the element of wind and the property of time.

To say that one understands magic is to say that man was sculpted from clay; the speaker is ignorant, foolish, and is deluded into thinking that they are proper sorcerers now. The truth of the matter is far more complicated, unpleasant, and makes one's head hurt if one thinks of it for too long. Nevertheless, an open-minded and willing scholar can at least try and understand the various mechanics, causes, and reactions of the world, and compose hypothesis and conclusions from such findings. *

First off, we must define magic itself. Magic is both a clear and researchable phenomenon of the universe as well as a discipline. The term "magic" comes from the word "magi", a label given to primordial shamans. It can be applied to anything, from the world-shaking workings of the gods to simple lullabies which mothers sing over their children. At present, we are concerned solely with magic that mortal humans use.

Magic available to mortal humans are divided into two types, sponsored or Divine Magic, and learned or Scholarly Magic. What concerns us right now is Divine Magic, gained and advanced through faith.

Divine Magic - despite its name - can be sponsored by any domain of magical ability, including demons, elementals, ghosts, demiurges, and Bodhisattva beasts (although we for one have yet to do so for many reasons), but most sponsored magic is contracted to the gods.

The process of gaining this form of magic is rather simple, easy to implement, and widespread, due to the collective covenants that the gods made with man before the Diaspora. The individual prostrates herself (either kneeling or bowing down or simply sitting down), preparing themselves to be in the "presence" of that god. The individual then prays to aforementioned deity, and offers herself to the god's service, pledging to be the tool of the god, follow the values of the god, and further the goals of that god. If the god perceives that her new follower is earnest, the contract is then put into commission and the mortal receives a small mote of magic tied to the god's own essence.

In retrospect, the relationship between god and worshiper is not altogether dissimilar to the relationship between a lord and a vassal.

Three tiers of advancement are available to worshipers, each tied to religious practices. Service is quite simply that; serving a god by furthering their interests, passing on their words, donating to their temples, or just making tools, weapons, and art that they approve of. Service-based magic grants extremely low dividends, as followers of Arcyana gain the ability to tell the time, or as followers of Felinai gain the ability to influence dice-rolls through concentration. Service can be granted to lesser gods and spirits as well, provided that they are in favor with the worshiper's patron or are a part of their retinue.

Prayer is the second route for magic advancement. In this method, the worshiper uses his link with the god to curry favor, ask for help, or simply bolster their relationship. As Heaven does not have a bureaucracy to handle the organization of legitimate prayer needs, gods simply grant what they can give to the worshiper if they feel she is being honest, that they might avoid being flooded in requests. Prayer-based magic may grant anything from increased stamina to being able to strike with the force of a thunder-crack. The closer a worshiper is to a god, the more they grow to resemble that god. One such case was Hanao, a black-haired worshiper of Felinai who came to have silver locks that shimmered in the night. But even if a subject's appearance changes drastically, said subject will always remain recognizable to anyone who knew them, for reasons as of yet unknown. The current popular theories range on this phenomenon include psychic resonance or perception filters.

Sacrifice is the third method of gaining further power. The act is as described; the offering of animals, time, indenture, intangible concepts, or even human life itself to the god in return for protection, purpose, or the good fortune of an endeavor. The particulars of sacrifice vary from deity to deity and there are hundreds of rites and thousands of rituals that can be performed, but the single commonality that all sacrifices share is that the worshiper always gives up something. The more attachment a worshiper has for said thing, the greater it will please the god. Unlike service or prayer, sacrifice can be performed as a group, and is even encouraged. For example, tribes often pool together resources for a yearly ritual to re-dedicate themselves to their patron deity or their totem god, while national and town priests might sacrifice monthly to extend another round of protection for their people. Sacrifice is extremely powerful and should not be trifled with. Use with caution and with the assistance of trained specialists.

Although each of these three practices grant power to mortals, the actual skill of using these gifts is dependent upon the individual herself. A mighty warrior who has sacrificed the blood of his foes weekly might be defeated by an old beggar who offers a rat every month or so, as in the case of infamous duel between Gai Hehzhi and Zhang Kai, wherein the Ozchdeite used his vast magical experience and cunning to avoid the Pahndor's crushing blows, summon a single rat to trip his opponent, and use Hehzhi's momentum against him.

To place an application for higher magical study, please insert your personal particulars in the form below and recite the following:...

edited 23rd Oct '11 4:24:12 AM by Kraken

Nice! Very formal.

Excellent.

Two things:

1. I like the "attachment" part of the sacrifice method.

2. "The individual prostrates herself" kinda confused me. Is magic only capable of being, uh, harnessed by females?

I use female pronouns because of habit. Comes with reading White Wolf rulebooks for years.

The idea here is to evoke the idea of magic as a very widespread thing; everyone's a mage. Magic is science and vice-versa.

edited 23rd Oct '11 4:27:26 AM by Kraken

Contracts! I approve.

Only thing that bugs me is it seems a bit videogame-ish. One could just go out, kill enemies with their deity-given powers, loot their corpses, and offer the loot to get more power. Buying magic to get more money to buy more magic, you could say. I guess you did sorta try to offset that at the end, though.

What happens if one loses their faith over time?

edited 23rd Oct '11 7:43:41 AM by Merlo

Well for one thing, gods always know when one of their followers is being devout or being duplicitous. If something like what you mentioned happened, the god would just take the sacrifice, say; "Kthxbai", and leave the worshiper with nothing.

That said, it's not that easy to kill people, because pretty much everyone has god-given superpowers. Peasants can summon small flames and priests and heroes can blaze like it's high noon.

It's not actually "faith", per se. Gods are established fixtures of the universe. To say that gods don't exist is to say that water is actually dry. Worshipers don't believe that their god is the best god, that the god offers a way of life that will save them, the only god worth worshiping. Instead, what they offer is simple reverence and service, like what an employee offers an employer.

Actual faith, with proper belief systems and philosophies, is the purview of the elemental beast-bodhisattvas and the Church of the Savior.

Also, now retconning the fate of the Deity.

edited 23rd Oct '11 8:28:20 AM by Kraken

Bah, I chose the wrong word >__<. I meant stuff like not living in accordance with the contracted deity's wishes, stuff like that. Which I guess you answered: deity just stops giving you stuff.

he moon Goddess comes off as Very Emma Frost, i like it.

@Kraken: Interesting that even the lowest people on the feudal chain (or whatever you use here) get magic, albeit in a limited form. So, are there no people or beings that can't use magic?

edited 8th Nov '11 7:32:10 PM by RocketDude

If you follow any of the axial religions (the Beast-Bodhisattvas, the Church of the Savior), you won't be granted magic superpowers like if you pray to say, Feilinai.

But Beast-followers can learn sorcery, folk magic, rune artificing, ward-crafting and alchemy from the Bodhisattvas themselves (if they are worthy), and the Church tends to borrow from those. I'm actually going to go into that in the next few updates.

There are still others who simply cannot use magic at all, such as those who have disgraced themselves to all gods and are too proud to learn humility, and the mentally retarded, but those are mighty few.

edited 9th Nov '11 5:55:01 AM by Kraken

Steel Hammers: The Ballad of Big Engine.

Beloved minstrel-father Kho-Lei begins picking on his fiddle.

Well the angels had a little baby
Engine he was called.
He picked up some steel
and a little heart of coal
And cried; "Hammer's gonna
be the death of me, oh damned
hammer's gonna be the death of me.

Now the angels they
said to ol' Engine;
"You gonna go be that
steel drill aground, aground.
"You gonna go be that
steel drill aground on the world.

Big Engine told the angels;
"Lord a man ain't nothin' but a man;
I'm gonna be that steel drill
and knock em' down, oh damn.
I'm gonna be that steel drill
and knock em' all down."

Old Engine he could burrow
He could laugh at all things.
He went to the world early in the mornin'
Just to hear the crushin' sing, oh damn
Just to hear the crushin' sing.
Just to hear the crushin' sing, oh damn
Just to hear the crushin' sing.

At Arcyana's fourscore shine,
you could see him run along.
He crawled on his belly,
Ten miles to one long.
Kind of broad in the mouth
With burning red eyes
And everyone knew you don't fight Big Engine
You just fly.

Pasaitrof told his family;
"That demon ain't nothin' but hot air.
'Fore I let that steel drill crush all things
Gonna trick it with the hammer in my hand, oh damn.
I'm gonna trick it with the hammer that is my hand."

Well Pasaitrof changed his shape
Small and wiry he did be.
His back was curved,
His feet were big,
His face so ugly, oh damn.
His face was so ugly.

Well ol Pasai said to Big Engine;
"Looka yonder what I see.
Hole gonna choke, drill gonna broke.
And ye can't run fast like me, oh damn
And ye just can't run fast like me."

Big Engine told lil' Pasai;
"Kid, a man ain't nothin' but a man.
But before I aim to
beat you down,
You're gonna die with a hammer
in your hand, oh damn.
You're gonna die with a hammer in your hand."

Lil' Pasai running
on the right side.
Big Engine running
on the left,
Says; "Fore I let your
runt legs beat me down
I'm gonna swallow
you whole my boy, oh damn.
I'm gonna swallow
you whole my boy."

Well Big Engine said to Pasaitrof;
"What's that thunder I do hear?"
Pasaitrof said;
"That ain't no thunder;
that's just my third leg
in the air, oh damn.
That's just my third leg in the air."

Big Engine said to the midget;
"Little man, why do you smile?
'Cause you're small and you're weak
you won't be good meat
for my big burning gut, oh damn.
No, you ain't good coal for my boiler."

Pasaitrof got ate by Big Engine
chewed up in a big swing.
Roasted and burned
smelt to steel springs.
He heard Engine's heart do ring, oh damn
Yes he heard Engine's heart do ring.

Big Engine felt a shakin'
deep inside his belly.
"Stomach, why do you sing?"
"'cause there's punchin' in our rounds
from our hips on down.
Yeah, listen to the dead hammer ring, oh damn.
Listen to the doom hammer ring.

And with all of his strength,
he gave a mighty shove.
Pasai yelled out;
"There's a light up above!"
And a crash and a blow
from a huge right hand
sent an angel's spawn
to the dreaming land.

Well Pasaitrof drove through the belly.
His fist was strikin' fire.
He called and sang
Hammer flew to his hand
And he laid down the fury to Big Engine, oh damn.
A little man laid the fury to Big Engine.

Well every Arcday morning.
When the rails begin to sing.
You can hear Big Engine
from a mile or more.
You can hear Big Engine's belly quake,
I say, you can hear Big Engine's
quake, lordy-lord, yes.
You can hear Big Engine's belly quake.

edited 30th Nov '11 11:20:21 PM by Kraken

Hmm do you do requests?

Depends on the request.

I'm doing a campaign setting and I'd like some 'Myhty" stuff. Just 13 God profiles.

There are online generators if you just need random gods.