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God: That is obviously a play on "real time strategy."

   p_o   

Sijo: Sounds a lot like the Dresden Files' version of Santa Claus. I like.

Mura: -flips the bird to veterinary science with one hand and Euclidean geometry with the other-

Somehow the God of tactics name escaped me, though as The god of tactics I suppose they'd be good at that.

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It's "Heat Miser and Snow Miser". And yeah.

I've got a few proposals for today, I'll try and write them up by the end of the night.

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So I'm thinking I'll write more on my elemental dwarves idea. I'm not saying y'all should adopt it, but I'm hoping what I have will convince you. Is that alright?

I think so. Even if we don't use it, it's always nice to hear other people's ideas. (besides, we might develop it into something else- wasn't there a race from the Elemental Plane of Earth (in D&D) that were pretty much like dwarves?

Yes, Azer's. I've always loved them.

Also I got a massive contribution I'm currently working on, it's the lore surround a trickster god, a type of creature and an artifact which are all linked.

Riddle-cats and Spinx

Sphinx:

A Sphinx is a magical but mortal servant of the Atemet god of trickery and riddles. It's has the face and upper body of a maiden or androgynous male, the legs and arms of a lion and the wings of a hawk, though it may not always be in this form however. Sphinx may shapeshift between several hybrid and full forms, the only full form it cannot assume is that of a full humanoid.

There skin is often the same as a humans but rarely their skin may appear to be metallic gold or bronze, and their eyes always yellow and some have a faint glow to them. They usually have an affinity for jewels, silks and shiny metals like gold and often have some adorning their bodies. They also have a love of riddles, tricks and pranks, they are mostly found in the northern deserts and mountains and are fountains of knowledge, wit and challenge. They often have black or brown human hair though other humanoid hair-colors are not impossible, which may be different from their fur and wing colors which vary from tanned to golden blond to light brown or even white. They stand 3 to 6 feet tall when sitting down, though their shape shifting greatly effects their size as they may take on the form of any Natural cat or bird of prey.

Some Sphinx, or riddle-cats as they are sometimes called can even granted wishes but buyer beware, A sphinx is not like a genie or sylvan where you can twist your wording just right so that there is no way they can mis-grant your wish. A Sphinx will grant your wish the way it feels is best and only if you best three of it's riddles.

Most only grant wishes which are about information, but the information they have is always 100% correct, when they tell the truth that is. Riddle-cats are naturally tricksters, being the creation of the Trickster god. Even when they speaking the truth the costs may be too high to bare for most, some Sphinx have been known to share such knowledge with other beings by turning them into Sphinx, which in their mind is a term of high respect and honor, Or by teleporting them to an area where they can find said information even if said area is filled with enemies, or forcing constant visions on them is another gift in the eyes of the sphinx.

Riddle-cats

Or non-magical sphinx, Riddle-cats look exactly like the Spinx and often act very much the same, but Riddle-cats have no-intent magical ability and often cannot learn magic unless Atemet allows them too. Some cannot even speak, and can only meow and screech.

Atemet, God of Trickery and riddles

Long ago Atemet was a mortal elf, whose love of riddles was rivaled only by his love of cats. In life he was a masterful bard and notorious spy for many factions and nations, many believed him to be blessed by the gods as his ways with words and charismatic personality allowed him to find almost any information he wanted. But Atemet never simply gave this information away, but instead of a fee he would only allow this information to escape his lips in the form of riddles and metaphors and thus work for free.

This worked for him for many years until he meet with Kalliam, an Orc*

warlord who grew impatient with his constant habit of reciting riddles. He warned Atemet that if he did not stop with the riddles and give him straight answers from then on he would break him. Atemet was arrogant and openly mocked Kalliam with insulting riddles and metaphors before heading off to an enemies camp on his final job for Kalliam. When Atemet returned from the mission, Kalliam kicked Atemet's cat's severed head at him, landing right into his open arms.

Atemet underestimated Kalliam, he took Kalliam's words as a phyiscal threat as thus the master of word play had been played by a brutish warlord, and utterly broken as a result. The cold prankster, erupted in anger and charged Kalliam with a knife drawn, he to had one last prank to play, for Kalliam mistook him for a man who was only good with his words. With a knife between his teeth slashing Kalliam throat wide open and head straight off, proving that his mouth really was deadly. It took seven spears into his back before Atemet fell but he did not die.

Kalliam's second in command had Atemet held captive but fully healed, held captive because his people demanded justice but kept alive and healed to thank him for clearing the title of chief for him. Atemet would have rotted in their if the forces of the aether didn't empower him with the abilities of a god.

His first act as a God was to revive his fallen companions soul from the rawness of the aether. Twisting the words of power in the same way he twisted words in life, and this was his mistake. He was still young as a god and his arrogance got the better of him*

, while he was able to pull part of his cat's soul back together, two other souls were merged with it in the process. The first was the soul of a loyal hunting hawk who had yet to fade, the other of a beautiful young maiden who had been struck down by her loved in rage. In trying to bring his friend back to life he had in turn created a new life. The riddle-cat, the Sphinx.

But instead of decrying this creation has a failed attempt and abomination, he embraced his friend's soul as well as the poor souls fused into it. To this day he often takes the souls of Masters of word play and riddles who upon passing would not be able survive on their own and turns them into Riddle cats instead of letting their souls pass on. With age and skill he may even grant them a portion of his power view all riddle-cats as his only children.

Riddle-cat soul transformation.

Riddle-cats are a rare mysterious creature, whose creation varies but Atemet and his children are always involved.

When a soul is combined with the magical energies of the aether, Atemet often instills certain personality traits to make it so that his riddle cats often resemble the first in terms of demeanor and devotion. Loyalty to their family being the principle trait as was inherited by the hawk, as well as bitterness which was inherited from the recently slain maiden, and a hatred for those who might seek to harm a loved one.

The other way a riddle-cat be created his by failing a riddle-cats riddles three times or as a form of high reward as riddle-cats are often narcissistic, viewing themselves as the highest form of magical being, due to their closeness with their God despite not in-fact being divine creatures.

Those who are failures will often just have the Riddle-cats body built around the raw aether of there soul in the process stripping away most of the original personality, these riddle-cats are the most common type and have no-supernatural abilities, and often times are not-even fly or even speak in any humanoid tongue until they have aged past their shame. (5-20 years)

Those are gifted Riddle-cat-forms as a reward, are much like those above except the retain a majority of their personality as well as the ability to speak but only in riddles and metaphors.

Alliek's Crown-

Alliek was an early Spinx who was tricked by a young mage into accepting a magical crown which trapped it's soul and magical essence within itself. This being when there was only a handful Spinx and riddle-cats, Atemet quickly noticed one of his children had gone missing. Atemet found the mage and rewarded him for his trickery by turning him into the first riddle cat (statue) created as both a reward and punishment. He soon found out that the crown in question has been given to the mages girl friend, Atemet being the devious god that he was decided to curse the crown rather than reclaim it.

Alliek's personality soon re-wrote the mages girlfriends as well as turning her skin a pale yellow and causing her yes to glow pure yellow in the dark. Alliek was tasked with guarding the newly created riddle-cat statue as well as running the first church to Atemet, as it's head priestess.

One time the crown was stolen from her by a raider, causing her body to turn to sandstone and crumble to pieces upon removal. The robber took the crown for herself only to find her personality also rewritten by Alliek, who returned back to her duties as head priestess the next day in her new body.

It was stolen a third time, causing the last wearer to crumble to dust as well, the church is now being run by a mortal high priestess and the crown's current whereabouts are unknown.

*

—-

This took me about five hours to work out, and I fused so many different mythos I lost track lol :3

Edit: I noticed a typo, all I did was add an S to a word.

edited 2nd Sep '12 12:11:14 AM by Vyctorian

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Elemental Dwarves #1

Sample Breeds

Stone Dwarves - The most prolific of the dwarven breeds, bearing several dominant traits that remain strong in the Humanoid Genepool. They have skin colors like sand and dirt, resembling between an off-white to a mud brown and hair colors of dirt and coal, ruby and gold, eyes like coal and dirt, sapphire and emeralds. Basically colors of real world humans, and the dominance of such genes explain why humans of this world look like us, for the most part at least.

Stone dwarves are drunkards or money grubbers compared to humans, they are drunkards and money grubbers compared to other pure races and dwarven breeds. This is just another traits passed strong amongst humans. Their element is the least apparent and actually the least in strength, which is why you see more ogres and giants of their sort. When they do die, it's quite abrupt. It's him the like an avalanche or a heart attack, as they stiffen up, turn to stone and fall apart.

Frost Dwarves - Having hair colors ranging from white to blonde to blue, eyes that are grey or light blue and skin that is pale to blue and covered in patches of white that strongly resemble frost. They are cold and clammy to the touch. The psychology that pervades their breed can be explained by how they die: they become so cold, like someone caught in a blizzard, and tired, they lay to go to sleep and they don't get up. To stop moving is to die. This internal feeling, free of cultural bias, makes them afraid of sleeping and as a result of this insomnia they are a highly irritable people. They have a neurological tendency towards aggressive and rash behavior in an effort to remain 'warm'. However, this heat must come from within, they are afraid of outside heat as their body will become even colder, trying to beat the heat and can kill them.

Flame Dwarves - This breed is marked by red, yellow, orange and black eyes, red, yellow and black hair, and skin of a dark to reddish hue. They produce excess heat from their bodies and their are hot spots on their bodies that produce extra rising perspiration that smell like burning stuff. These spots tend to glow and have wisps of hair that are lit up and wavering, looking like tiny fires. Their psychology is completely opposite of Frost Dwarves, an inborn knowledge that if they get too worked up they will literally burn up and die. Across cultures, for Fire Dwarves their will often be an element of control. Some cultures tend to do this by focusing them on a task, so their are a a lot of Flame Dwarf racial craftsmen cultures and subcultures and great deal of them relate to forges since the presence of a heat source keeps their own heat under control.

I also think to have Wood Dwarves and Thunder Dwarves somewhere.

~

Also, next time, I'm thinking of introducing my idea of Gifts, magic mutants.

Vyc, I like it. There is one thing, though- how did Atemet become a god?

Mura: -flips the bird to veterinary science with one hand and Euclidean geometry with the other-

I'm still too involved in post-Xmas stuff to comment much right now. I'll just say I love the Sphinx material (a concept I've rarely seen exploited well) and the elemental dwarves (thought I think we still need some other name or them) and come back later.

That part escaped me, how does anyone become a god?

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Mortal consensus affecting the Aether, mostly through directed praise/worship/legend-spreading.

Mura: -flips the bird to veterinary science with one hand and Euclidean geometry with the other-

It could be said that his faith in word play made it so that he could make his mouth literally be deadly. Plus was a notorious spy due to his riddling and tricks, severing the head of a war lord and taking seven spears to the back and still being able to be alive could easily push him into the legend-dom.

edited 26th Dec '11 5:55:58 AM by Vyctorian

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It wouldn't be a matter of whether or not he could be capable of maneuvering the thing. Unless said warlord is literally dumber than a worm, he'd be able to intercept. The nifty thing about arms is that they extend a few feet out from your body.

If you really want that whole mechanic there, there are other ways to make it work. For instance, it is possible to slowly render oneself resistant to certain types of poisons, which could then be hidden in the mouth.

And as far as the spears. . . There is no physically possible way to stick seven spears in someone's back and not pierce at least one vital organ.

edited 26th Dec '11 6:54:34 AM by Exelixi

Mura: -flips the bird to veterinary science with one hand and Euclidean geometry with the other-

I was kinda thinking he was the fat slow but strong kinda orc.

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If he were that slow, he wouldn't have been able to do the whole warlord thing. Maybe if he was assassinating an obese drunken merchant who was half asleep it would work, but you can't survive two minutes on a battlefield without being fast.

edited 26th Dec '11 6:58:10 AM by Exelixi

Mura: -flips the bird to veterinary science with one hand and Euclidean geometry with the other-

I think Atemet's rage might have made him a bit faster and stronger, it happens all the time IRL why not in fantasy? Plus he's a lot smaller than his opponent and was spy.

edited 26th Dec '11 7:05:19 AM by Vyctorian

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Because "a bit" wouldn't work. He'd have to be nearing the sound barrier to pull that off. There's a reason there are no documented cases of people dueling with their mouths.

Mura: -flips the bird to veterinary science with one hand and Euclidean geometry with the other-

Cutlass Between the Teeth

edited 26th Dec '11 7:07:19 AM by Vyctorian

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Typically in Shounen series with less than a casual regard for the laws of physics.

Mura: -flips the bird to veterinary science with one hand and Euclidean geometry with the other-

Less thats when this is a sword but I didn't use the word sword I used the word knife, Which are very easily used in the mouth with a little training.

Also I love how the laws of physics are going to come into play when we get to magic and how drakes are able to fly at that size.

edited 26th Dec '11 7:11:48 AM by Vyctorian

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Try it.

when you can successfully fence someone using a weapon of any size in your mouth, you'll have a point. Until then, I'll have to go with common sense.

Magic makes singular alterations to the laws of the universe; it doesn't throw them out the window for absolutely everything. If he's using a spell, you can point that out.

edited 26th Dec '11 7:13:28 AM by Exelixi

Mura: -flips the bird to veterinary science with one hand and Euclidean geometry with the other-

Fencing no, killing I'm pretty sure it's possible in fact it's likely been done, many a time. All you need to do is get close, which if your a swift elf who happens to be trained as a spy wouldn't be that hard.

Let's get say he was keeping it his mouth so he had his hands free to grapple (which is not uncommon), and then the opportunity presented itself so he dove in with the knife in his mouth since he had his hands full with the grapple, that work?

edited 26th Dec '11 7:17:51 AM by Vyctorian

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That works fine, yeah.

Mura: -flips the bird to veterinary science with one hand and Euclidean geometry with the other-

I always imagined orcs as being herbivores. Their tusks, their aggressiveness, their low intelligence seems to point to plant eaters.