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Those conclusions seem reasonable.

Agreed

Seconded.

Stuff being considered for the next project page update- please comment on whichever ones you'd like to see added:

• Drow
• Beast Folk
• Mordekai
• afterlife
• Wraiths
• De-aging as a punishment
• Divine Names
• Church of Truth
• Emperor Hrod
• god(s) of faith
• magical organizations
• Denizens of the Aether
• other terms for Necromancy
• dragons descending from dinosaurs
• elemental nature of dwarves
• Shedding Men
• He Who Walks Within All
• Medrilians (dead race)
• more on Dwarves
• Wraiths (variant idea)
• Juggernauts
• Leynode effects
• Mimics
• Meldinkinn
• Theory of Magic
• Prometheans
• conclusions about humans as hybrids
• The Skyswallower

I'll post my own votes later.

edited 19th Dec '11 8:00:51 PM by Sijo

These are my favorites (Minus He Who Walks, since he's my creation)

• Medrilians (dead race)
• Wraiths (variant idea)
• Mimics
• Theory of Magic
• Afterlife
• Divine Names
• Church of Truth
• Emperor Hrod
• More on Dwarves
• Juggernauts
• Leynode effects
• Theory of Magic
• And the conclusions about humanity's crossbreeding result.

edited 17th Dec '11 7:17:56 PM by Slender

Some of my favorites , not6 saying I oppose the other these are just the ones I like most outside my own:

• Wraiths
• Church of Truth
• Emperor Hrod
• Denizens of the Aether
• other terms for Necromancy
• dragons descending from dinosaurs
• more on Dwarves
• Wraiths (variant idea)
• Juggernauts *
  ^{I was actually thinking about making something very simillar at the same time this was posted.}
• Leynode effects
• Theory of Magic
• Prometheans
• conclusions about humans as hybrids

Huh, I forgot what I named the things. I wanted to use a name for ghosts that wasn't, well, "ghosts."

The name for Wraiths (as in, the living soulsuckers) was taken from the Ring Wraiths (Nazgul) from LOTR.

Anyone mind pitching a name for the ghosties?

I'm cool with most of those updates. However. as I recall, there was contest on "elemental origins of dwarves" and the general concept of the Mordekai. Drow, too, since the "Elf rapid evolution" thing was countered by the concept of Elves as half of the Sylan. Or was it? God, both of those were yours, it is your call.

Also, dragons descending from dinosaurs was contested by God's "Dragons as magically augmented Drakes" thing.

edited 17th Dec '11 7:46:31 PM by Exelixi

We could have drakes be the evolution of dinosaurs and then have gods come in and create dragons.

That makes logical sense, yes.

Assuming we have dinosaurs in the traditional sense.

In addition to conventional dinosaurs, there were. . . things. Things like Leviathans, Rocs, et cetera- megafauna that the ecosystem could no longer support in huge numbers. Of course, as is the law of these things, a very small number of the things continue to exist, somehow.

Rolling out more ideas in about twenty minutes.

The Skyswallower

Centuries in the past, a great beast awoke from a million-year slumber. The thing had no name, no explanation for its presence, and no right to exist. A relic of the Beginning, the creature that later became known as the Skyswallower resembled nothing so much as the eight-winged offspring of a serpent and a crocodile. It was the size of a small city, and, like a shark, continually moved forward, leaving destruction in its wake when it landed each day.

Many attempt were made to stop it, but none succdeeded past the point of aggravating the beast.

Save one.

The magician Madrigal, race unknown, spoke a call to arms transmitted by thunderstorms throughout the continent. Three score of magicians and an army a million strong gathered over a period of months, of every race, every nation, every city, every town on the rock.

The Skyswallower's movements were followed by the army, until the battleground was chosen; a large, uninhabited plain.

A great spell was worked to send the realm's every knight and their steeds into the air. They were backed on the ground by archers and footmen quickly trained in the use of the relatively new technology of the crossbow.

So many arrows and bolts were fired as to nearly blot out the sun. Stallions took to the sky, galloping through the clouds themselves, surrounding the beast from all side.

Many, many lives were lost in the battle, but, finally, the abomination fell to the ground. The entire plain was set aflame, providing the creature no safe harbour. It is unknown whether it died from the burns, from blood loss, or from suffocation, but die it did.

The site of the battle remains uninhabited. With such a reminder, the conflict was never forgotten.

Through the fires of battle, a friendship was forged, a long-lasting peace between the universally crippled nations. A council was created, with each nation represented by a chancellor, presided over by Madrigal. Madrigal died, but he never left the building in which the council is held; a magician of his power naturally left a ghost, which still acts as president.

Do Skinwalkers seem "right" to this setting, gentlemen? I'd like to include more than just European (and European-inspired) mythological monsters, but I am not sure if Native American mythology would stand out too much.

Note that, despite the above statement, a large influx of East Asian things will garner a negative reaction from me, as I am not especially entertained by most aspects of Eastern mythologies and media produced from such.

EDIT: By "Skinwalker" I don't mean the "shapeshifting ostensibly mortal witch" version, I mean "aberration that makes anything lower-class than Cthulhu himself look like a bitch" version.

edited 17th Dec '11 9:15:30 PM by Exelixi

Part of the reason I posted the list above was to make sure that everything was officially decided ex. the deal with dwarves. Also to make sure no contribution was forgotten.

I'll give my votes later as I need to re-read several entries first.

As for dinosaurs, who says they *have* to be 100% accurate? This isn't Earth. They are just ancient reptiles that happened to grow to huge sizes and then evolved or died off. Which allows us to use our favorite Stock Dinosaurs and ignore any scientific inaccuracies. I prefer my raptors without feathers!

The Skyswallower is an AWESOME idea. So epic! It reminds me of Final Fantasy X's Sin, but cooler.

The skinwalkers, on the other hand, sound too much like our Doppelgangers. (Btw, I don't particularly care which culture we rip off for ideas. Many real-world legends have equivalents across cultures that never even met, anyway.)

Hm, have you examined some of the myths of the yee naldlooshii?

Think less "beefed-up werewolf" and more "oh gods WHY?" They were the Ur-Trope of the Eldritch Abomination. Their ability to change shapes was less important than their capacity to kill without ever seeing their target, to call their victims by name in the voice of a loved one, to spread a seed of terror throughout a tribe that only grew bigger and bigger and made the creature ever-more influential; they carried with them a sense of wrongness that sent shivers down your spine while making you resist the urge to vomit. They are to shapeshifters what the Tuatha are to the Fair Folk- ostensibly built from similar blocks, but on a completely different magnitude of power.

If the Skyswallower does become an accepted part of the mythology of the setting, who is to say that the odd intrepid adventurer doesn't enter the Barren Lands around the skeletonised remains of the Skyswallower and attempt to investigate the claims that the Skyswallower existed. Maybe the bones of the Skyswallower have odd properties, or maybe there's something strange about the corpse - like it coming back to life through draining the surrounding area of life-force.

Interesting.

If it had a power like that something tell me it would have been discovered long before the time of our setting.

Not necessarily. If the "power" was located on a tiny organ of its body, exploring its (still decaying) carcass would be like looking for a magical artifact in a city-cized dungeon! (Complete with scavenger monsters.) Something like that happened in an X Men story, involving a dead Space Whale the size of a mountain range. 0_0

OK, here's my votes on what should go on the next project update. Please note that just because an idea isn't listed here doesn't mean I think it's bad- thought it might need further development. Also excludes my own:

• Afterlife
• De-aging as a punishment
• Emperor Hrod
• Denizens of the Aether
• He Who Walks Within All
• Medrilians (dead race)
• more on Dwarves
• Mimics
• Meldinkinn
• Prometheans
• The Skyswallower

I'm going to wait a little while more before I make the update to give the rest a chance to vote.

Exelixi: I'm assuming you voted "yes to all". If not please correct me.

Re the naldlooshii, are you going for something in the style of the Slender Man mythos? I don't much like Eldritch Abominations, but I'll go with what the group opines.

Question: What happens if a god mates with another creature, are those just humans too or what?

I'm not sure how that would work.

Sijo: I did, and sort of.

I think we should work with the demi-god concept a bit.

Well, it certainly would have no way of working for a Celestial god.

I'm not sure if Terrestrial gods would be able to create avatars or not. I would say probably yes, but it would likely require a lot of time, effort, and magic.

That being said, if we have demigods, everyone will want to play one. It's one of those universal truths of roleplaying.

edited 19th Dec '11 4:37:35 PM by Exelixi

People are going to create mary sues and god sues no matter what, that inevitable. We shouldn't not have them for that reason otherwise we shouldn't have gods at all.

Also, I don't really see how it makes sense. Gods not being flesh-and-blood creatures, I see no reason why they would produce sperm.

Is this a hard science setting all of a sudden? Why would gods need sperm?

You've backed my argument with a question that answers itself. They don't.

A god wouldn't have any reason to have a sex drive, reproductive organs, or anything along those lines, really, except maybe the Celestial god of sex. In addition, children would have a decent chunk of godly power, no real reason to further their parent's agenda, and probably a grudge. It would be easier and more tactically sound to invest power into a loyal mortal priest.

I doubt all gods are that logical. Especially not the love and lust ones, they probably do it so much they could have a race of them. (Which is something that seems obvious but fantasy never really explores)