I think it's about time I put something in for the Prosperos. What sorta things do we want to get out of it? Tomes and little trinkets are great, but let's think a little more. What does an old god's tool look like - would we understand its function, recognize anything familiar?
well by nature a tool is meant to be functional over style, so it's design would directly reflect it's function.
so we'd have to figure out what an old god would need a tool for before we can figure out what it looks like.
As a tool is something created to make a job easier/possible, we'd therefore need to ask; What would a god need to accomplish that it would struggle with/want to make easier?
I don't know exactly what Sunne was like before the cataclysm but gods tend to inhabit realms that are far more primordial and unstable than what mortal beings inhabit. So maybe, as mortals developed tools to help them overcome forces of nature, the gods did the same on a much larger level.
Like the Alate and its powers of levitation. Having something that could defy gravity could have had some benefit for a god trying to tame an unruly cosmos.
So, what about things like the fundamental forces? Did the gods need to tame those before they could truly create a precataclysmic Sunne? The Alata takes on gravity, so what about the Strong Nuclear force?
The strong nuclear force holds matter together at a molecular level. So maybe we take a page out of Lovecraft; Azatoth is essentially the strong nuclear force of his universe, so what if the old gods had their own tool that emitted some frequency that was akin to the strong nuclear force.
In this case, the tool would not be something that would be dangerous when activated, but incredibly dangerous when DE-activated.
This certainly makes sense. If the dive team finds this, they'd be in danger of turning it off, which would by the very nature of the tool be a bad thing. I guess it really depends on what turning the tool off will do. The loss of strong nuclear force sounds like an end-of-world scenario, and we might not want to put these characters in that position just yet. Then again, I've never seen/read Lovecraft, so I'm not sure what the exact consequences of losing strong nuclear force would be. My point is, whatever happens when the tool is turned off should be bad, but let's not go melting to fabric of space here or anything.
Also, as a total side note that probably doesn't belong here:
This person drew Tem drinking out of a drain with one of those diner glasses and it's really sweet.
Someone else has also been working on another drawing of her, and it's also turning out really cute.
Azathoth is basically a zombie trying to resurrect some whispers he found at the bottom of the ocean. They might just be the echoes of the old gods, dying screams.
As for your thoughts, you are basically describing divine weapons: tools that the old gods used to shape the world in their various ways.
Edit: I would hold off on putting too much physics into it. Focus on the story, you need not explain why the old gods were omnipotent.
well, why not be simple about it all. they are powerful beings, yes, but by using aids to focus the powers of Sunne. and because they asked too much to fast, the tools were broken or flung far from them and only a few weaker ones can still be found or perhaps one of the gods hid them so that Sunne would be safe from further devastation?
This certainly makes sense. If the dive team finds this, they'd be in danger of turning it off, which would by the very nature of the tool be a bad thing. I guess it really depends on what turning the tool off will do. The loss of strong nuclear force sounds like an end-of-world scenario, and we might not want to put these characters in that position just yet. Then again, I've never seen/read Lovecraft, so I'm not sure what the exact consequences of losing strong nuclear force would be. My point is, whatever happens when the tool is turned off should be bad, but let's not go melting to fabric of space here or anything.
Also, as a total side note that probably doesn't belong here:
This person drew Tem drinking out of a drain with one of those diner glasses and it's really sweet.
Someone else has also been working on another drawing of her, and it's also turning out really cute.
Yeah snowday, I was thinking about that whole "end of the world" scenario thing as well.
So maybe it has levels?
This is me just spitballing here, but lets say it's some sort of vibrational device, like a pendulum. As the pendulum moves through its swing, chambers carved inside the swinging mass produces a vibration which produces the force that holds mass together on Sunne.
Now, as vibration is subject to dampening (slowing down and eventually stopping), the gods would have had to create a device to counteract the dampening. Some sort of counter-force to ensure the pendulum continued to swing at the same speed for all of eternity.
So let's say there are a pair of ancient magnets that keep the pendulum going ... but they happen to be made of some incredible metal that is super strong but also incredibly pliable. A metal that could be shaped into anything quickly and with minimal effort. The kind of metal that rulers and generals would kill to get their hands on.
And maybe as metal is peeled away from these ancient magnets, they begin to lose their power to fight the natural dampening effect on the pendulum. As the pendulum loses its ability to create the necessary frequency, the world slowly begins to fall apart. First just earthquakes and minor crumblings, but without the magnets being restored, more potentially world shattering events could begin to occur.
So the problem would be — how long will it take before K'Larr realizes the new metal —the metal that solves Prosperos' trade problem — cannot be harvested? Will he realize it, and if he cares to stop the catastrophe, what will be sacrificed before he's realized his mistake?
You know, I'm actually fine any creation myth you come up with for the old gods. But keep in mind two things:
1) There is a complete loss of knowledge from the Cataclysm. Everyone was born after it save for some GM-piloted NPCs. Remember, it's post-apoc fantasy. It doesn't really matter what happened 300 years ago. Essentially, we've only been on Sunne for 300 years! There is little to no history.
2) In that vein, there's no need to go deep with the physics. Not that using science as a plot driver is a bad thing, but to all Sunnepheins these things are very incomprehensible. The relics are kinda Lovecraftian, utterly alien. Think Zdislaw, think H.R. Giger.
Sunne is filled with stonehenge's, easter island statutes, the nazca lines, all that juicy stuff. It doesn't matter what they were used for. The nazca lines could have been star navigation charts left behind by spacefaring aliens. A god might have been bored and decided to play on planet earth: the beach. Sunnepheins aren't going to get it either way. Focus on that.
@AtomicItalian how would K'Larr understand the consequences of his actions?
Maybe the metal acts as the epicenter of these reality shattering events? I dunno, we'd have to writer our way there.
The physics are more for us to understand, as writers, why the objects are important. Then we would get creative with sharing snippets of that information with our characters.
Our characters don't need to have a full understanding of what these objects do, but it's good that WE know what they do so we can establish rules for consequences and thus avoid creating dull macguffins that are just "X of DESTINY" that is powerful because it's powerful.
But like I said, I was just spitballing something off the top of my head. I'm more trying to help inspire brainstorming than pitching real ideas.
I just like internal logic when it comes to plot devices, that's kinda why I went to physics route.
Don't worry about macguffins - this ain't some standard romp in post-apoc park. That's why there is Book 2 and Book 3.
We haven't even begun to talk about Divine Weapons yet, which was what Ilium was pitched as.
We're trying to say in fantasy land. To that end, it would seem weird to, say, try using science to explain lord of the rings. You can use terms like the 'world crucible' or 'continent arch' for your pendulum, but hearing words like oxygen, adrenaline, and strong force make me nervous.
I would also avoid doomsday devices of that magnitude. Remember, for the most part we're just trying to dredge up attendants and servants of the old gods >_>. We are calling them gods, but that's something of a misnomer. They're just things that ruined Sunne 300 years ago. We don't even know how powerful they are.
The Ghoul Sage is one of them, and he certainly isn't omnipotent.
Don't worry about me un. I'm conscious enough of the setting to not use "strong nuclear force" in game. Just trying to use language as clear as possible here in OOC so there's no misunderstandings.
Anyway, I'll fall back and let you guys take the ball here, sorry for causing any worry.
I like all that, but I think we need to talk smaller scale. Something that holds the world together is a bit too much, something that holds the underwater city together might make a bit more sense. I'm writing a post now that will further the underwater city a bit, which might make some directional decisions a little easier.
Sure. Sorry for going overboard on the tool. I was thinking god level stuff but after unanun kind of cleared up how "divine tools" was a bit of a misnomer for what we were talking about I got a better perspective as to the kinds of things we're talking about.
However, I do want to throw out that the pendulum idea, if anyone likes it, can be retooled to be something less menacing.
Maybe the civilization of the lost city built it to nullify a primordial maelstrom that plagued the Prosperos? Maybe it keeps some kind of sea monster that terrorized their city/ships in a neutralized state? Maybe they sunk the city intentionally to hide away some dark power they discovered and the pendulum keeps the city from resurfacing?
I like the intentional sinking thing, but I didn't want to play too similarly into the Avian city that was crashed to the ground. Though a city crashing towards the beginning of the book and a city rising at the end does have some really cool parallelism.
I wanted to go further with my post, but I couldn't decide on where to go next. I couldn't decide whether The First would have an attitude of "We are very few and dying, we want to be left alone" or "We have been here for centuries and are a part of this world, it's our duty to change it with our dying wishes"
I was thinking they would either say "hey don't tell anyone about us, in exchange heres an artifact", or they would say "use this artifact to bring some balance to the world as our dying wishes" But I also hadn't decided on an artifact. I did want to get this part out there though so that people could build off it.
