Gods For Hire Reboot

The Nameless God sat on a large couch behind a covered model of the world he was currently creating. “Any minute now, they should be here...” he muttered, fingers tented.

The herald call of the Lifegiver rang out in the room in an unnecessarily dramatic fashion. It sounded like angels, if angels were, perhaps, six-eyed humanoid carnivores with a voracious appetite. According to the Lifegiver, they were.

The Lifegiver himself, Kan Ver Khan, stepped out of the air in the middle of the room, arms held up to the side. "I see I'm the first one here," he said to his host. Kan Ver Khan took the appearance of his avatar, a tall, slender, and pale man with black hair and faded grey  eyes. "So," he said in his raspy voice, clasping his hands together, "What do you want to work on first, partner?"

“Ah. Kan. While I still think you’re an overconfident jackass for all the times you dismantled my creations for parts, I can’t deny you’re one of the best gods for the job. Welcome aboard. Here’s all the climatological documentation I’ve bothered with so far.” Thousands of papers appeared in front of the Lifegiver. “I’m not going to take the tarp off until more show up, because I don’t want to spoil the big reveal.”

Kan Ver Khan, the Lifegiver himself, shrugged merrily. "I can't say I'm not a jackass. And all those times were just business. This, now, is something I can take a personal interest in." Then he muttered. "But I guess all my business is personal, and everything personal is my business, but, ehh."

At the appearance of a frankly horrendous amount of paper, Kan Ver Khan leaned back a bit. "Ahh. I'll just... read this, shall I?" He smiled winningly. He took a paper at random and started scanning it. "By the way, I do appreciate the compliment. I suppose life is my forte. And I can't wait to see what the big surprise is. Knowing you, it'll be something alright!" He chuckled a bit, then went back to the paper.

“Oh, and speaking of your...unusual taste in crafting mortals, I’d like this to be a world with some more esoteric races. With all due respect to Eru Illuvatar, Corellon, and so forth, elves have been done to death. Why not make centaurs the Druidic hippie race for once instead of the drunken warmongers they usually are?”

A phone suddenly appeared. It was a flip phone, seemingly handcrafted, and of a design known to be favored by Wellan, the Lord of Two Paths. Wellan considered the design retro-futuristic, considering how high-tech it was, despite being a flip phone. Everyone else thought Wellan was strange.

The phone rung.

The Nameless’ arm extended with a yell of “I got it!”

“Yes, Wellan, you’re currently speaking to the boring one. Did something come up?”

"Yes, yes," Kan Ver Khan said, agreeing wholeheartedly. He clasped his hands together as he said, "I was thinking, why stick to the norm? We can go so much better. I was thinking, besides the normal intelligent mortals, of adding a pack predator using the classic model of what I call 'swarm-thinkers', which, to put in layman's terms, means their intelligence increases proportionately with their pack size, meaning that the largest packs are the most dangerous. There are a few flaws in the model - strategies to seperate them are readily available if one thinks hard enough, and new packs are hard to form, and stuff like that - but I always say, if we made perfect beings, then we would be obsolete. As for a more benign mortal race, I was thinking of taking a little of my old stuff and sprinkling it in. Perhaps, for instance, a insectoid race with hives high in the trees, if we have trees, that use branches to move around similar to a more simian species. Perhaps a touch of magic. Perhaps an asexual species - self-reproduction is really in fashion recently. They would drop from above onto their prey, perhaps, almost similar to certain arachnid species, just without the webs. Or maybe with webs, I'm not sure which would be better. Anyway, that's just off the top of my head. I also have an idea for a burrowing species, a parasitic species, sea floor dwellers - really, I could go on! But first let's just get the basics down, eh?"

"Yes, unfortunately." Wellan said. "Some nutcase dictator just purged a few hundred thousand intellectuals - yes, this is a world that has developed space travel and colonization technology - in huge death camps, and I'm currently arguing with a minor deity of genocide over who gets their souls. I should be here in a few minutes. Sorry for being late."

And with that, he hung up. The flip phone stayed in the nameless god's hand, and the phone registered a new text message. If read, the message would say "keep it." for about ten seconds before disappearing.

“Some mortals, I swear...It doesn’t help that I get everyone who doesn’t know which god to pray to and all the softcore agnostics...all the prayers I hear are ‘Please, if anyone’s listening, help!’”

“And I was thinking along the lines of an asexual species as well. There was a natural universe I vacationed in about ten million years ago that had parthenogenic lizard-folk, maybe we could insert some of those? And has anyone ever created a sapient lithovore or thaumovore?”

edited 24th May '18 1:30:27 PM by Thewizzardpineapple

About a minute later, Wellan showed up. There was no fanfare involved, and he was in his casual human form. He was wearing a white lab coat, with a tan shirt and slacks underneath. He had one of his flip phones, a pair of high-tech but rather normal-looking glasses, and an enchanted clockwork arm.

"Sorry I'm late. I would've let the other guy have them, but he was planning on torturing them for the rest of eternity. I couldn't allow that. He probably would've kept arguing, but I reminded him that I was the god of technology, magic, and outer space, and a major god too, whereas he was a friendless minor genocide god, and if I wanted to - which I didn't because I don't like fighting - I could curb-stomp him and take all of the souls he has in his afterlife. He shut up after that." He said. He seemed embarrassed and ashamed when he explained how he'd gotten out of the sticky situation, and looked down at his feet.

"Anyway," he said, perking up "We ready to design this world?"

“Well, I already have the geography down, which I am quite proud of. Ta-da!”

The Nameless snapped his fingers and the tarp flew off, revealing what he had of the world so far. One sun, five moons, standard gravity, moderate ambient magic, and high air pressure to allow for easier flight. It was the geography that was the interesting bit, however. The eastern pole was covered in a massive desert. As it spun to the west, rivers began appearing, then island chains, until the land gave way to a vast ocean on the western pole. “I’m pretty sure that this is unique, which I’m proud of.”

Wellan looked at the world and let out a whistle.

"That's really cool." he said, clapping. It sounded strange due to his clockwork arm.

"I had my own idea too. I hope you'll like it."

He pulled out his phone, opened it up, and pressed a button. A holographic projection popped up. It showed two blank planes, about the same size, revolving around each other like partners in a dance. "As you can predict, these had to be perfectly balanced. Even then, I had to put some natural magic on them to make the revolution more stable." Suddenly, one of the planets developed the features shown on the map, and the moons began revolving around it, occasionally being picked up or given back by the other one. The orbit seemed to grow unstable before the hologram briefly flickered. When it was done flickering, the orbit had been changed, but was stable again, although the moons were still traded between the two.

"Well, what do you think?" Wellan asked. "I haven't been able to add features to the other planet yet, but I like the idea of twin worlds we can work on..."

“That’s also extremely interesting, but this is my first time actually leading a project. I’d like to keep it relatively simple. As for the magic, I have an idea already, but I’d like your approval, seeing as it’s your domain.”

Wellan nodded. The hologram flickered, then reverted. He pushed a button, and the phone flashed, then the hologram disappeared.

"Okay..." he said.

He had his own ideas. Lots of them, but he tried not to go overboard with them. He could always create another world incorporating those ideas later...

"So, what were you thinking of?" he asked.

“Are you familiar with the world of Remnant? I was thinking the magic would work off of the same principles as their Dust: crystals of raw magic fed into rune-inscribed devices to achieve various magical effects.”

Wellan sat and thought. "I helped design Remnant, if I remember correctly. It was a minor part, and I went mostly uncredited, but the magic system was quite interesting..." he said.

"Yeah, that sounds good. Maybe make a few more changes so it doesn't look like thinly-disguised plagiarism."

He then scratched his chin. "Do you have a moon to spare, or do you already have plans for all of them?" He asked.

“It’s not thinly-disguised plagiarism with the changes I have planned. I do technically have a spare moon, so do what you want with it.”

Wellan clapped his hands, and rubbed them together in anticipation. "You'll like this, Kan." he said, then continued.

"Bioluminescence. An entire moon filled with bioluminescent life forms that glows at night not with the reflected light of the sun, but with its own inhabitants' biological rainbow."

He eagerly awaited the nameless god's verdict.

“A: I want the drugs you’re on. B: That would look SO COOL!” If he had a face, the Nameless would have been grinning. Instead, the substance of his body began shining in several iridescent colors. “NOSTOPIDONOTWANT!” He screamed, panicking. The colors began to fade, and he sighed in relief. “Whew. I was so happy there I almost committed to Light.”

"Yeah. I'm not on any drugs at the moment, or ever, but that gave me an idea. Maybe a lot of the plant life would have hallucinogenic or cannabis-esque properties. And the sentient life forms, which would look kind of like elves, only taller, scrawnier, bonier, and less elegant - oh, and bioluminescent - would have a drugged-out anarchist culture with some mysticism in their religion..."

He waved his left hand, and one of the moons spinning around the planet began to glow with lots of little spots of light. Most of the lights were in blues, greens, and reds, but a few of the spots were purple, violet, orange, or yellow. He pressed a button on his phone, and a hologram of one of the creatures he described popped up. It was pale, tall, scrawny, and bony, with patches of skin that pulsed with yellow light and decidedly wolflike eyes. "You like?" he asked, before continuing with his worldbuilding process.

"Temperate rainforest environment, with lots of freshwater oceans. Freshwater because I feel like it. Kan will have to work on the details, life is his forte, not mine, but someone will have to mind him to make sure he doesn't get distracted or go overboard on the deadliness..."

"Yes, yes, iridescence. One of my favorites." Kan clasped his hands together excitedly. "This is goinh to be wonderful, won't it?"

Kan took a cross-legged seat on the floor and cupped his hands on the floor as if he had caught a bug. After a few seconds, he raised them, and a small insect crawled out. It had six legs, as insects do, and appeared to be bioluminescent. Two long antenna searched the ground, and a little spike appeared to portrude from his back.

"A commemorative trophy for our venture," Kan Ver Khan chuckled. "A once-in-a-lifetime deal! I'll call it.... Stefan." Kan's avatar looked up merrily. "Would anyone want one?"

"What does it do?" Wellan asked warily.

He had experience with Kan Ver Khan before, and it had been... messy. very messy.

edited 24th May '18 4:49:32 PM by SomethingRandom113

"I put just enough godly power in it for it to be able to cause small localized explosions upon contact with its back spike, which it of course is immune to. Also it shouldn't age, so theoretically this little guy could live forever." Kan Ver Khan chuckled. "With small guys, a little power goes a long way. Big guys can get pretty crazy, though. Still, I'm proud of all my guys, big or small."

Wellan considered for a moment. "I'll take one. Still, when we're creating the lifeforms on the moon we're working on, could you try to hold back a bit - as in quite a bit - on the deadliness. Don't worry, we can still create a Death World together later, maybe even in this universe, but this moon is going to be more a psychedelic glowing world and less a kill-or-be-killed biological warzone, mkay?"