Part Three: Rebirth
The world of the old gods was split in halves, two giant molten bodies spinning slow and barren. These worlds were clean of all that had gone before, adrift in the fading sounds of cosmic thunder. The two worlds would become a home for the new gods to rise up, grow and achieve powers to move the universe in new ways. New Genesis would become a beautiful paradise, while her dark sister planet Apokolips would grow up in her shadow, lit only by the functional light of the fire pits.
Part Four: The War of the New Gods
Time passed and eventually the inhabitants of Apokolips looked to New Genesis and remembered and the old hatred...the hatred of the old gods. During the reign of Queen Heggra of Apokolips a hunting party from Apokolips landed on New Genesis, led by the queen's brother Steppenwolf. They came across Izayah, the Inheritor and his lover Aria. A fight ensued and Steppenwolf killed Aria before the hunting. Darkseid, Steppenwolf's nephew and son of Heggra, defeated Izayah but Izayah miraculously survived.
A war broke out between the two worlds that would last for decades and leave the two worlds in ruins. Izayah led the forces of New Genesis, until he finally met Steppenwolf in battle. The two clashed and Izayah won, killing his hated foe. Even this did not bring Izayah peace. Wandering across the ruins of New Genesis and seeing the carnage caused by the war, Izayah grieved. He tore off his armor and through down his battlestaff. "If I am to be the inheritor, what is to be inheritance!?" he cried. It is then that The Source was revealed to Izayah. Izayah would return to his people under a new name, Highfather and lead teh people of New Genesis with the wisdom of the Source.
Part Five: The Pact
Highfather taught the people of New Genesis the way of peace but there was still a war to end. He met with Darkseid, who after the mysterious death of Queen Heggra had become the new Lord of Apokolips and negotiated for peace. A deal was made and to seal the pact, the two leaders swapped their infant sons. Highfather's son would be raised in the infamous orphanage of Granny Goodness, while Darkseid's son would be raised by the gods of New Genesis.
More to come.....
For all my friends out there who are fans of Roger Zelazny:
I was doing some web surfing, looking for Jack Kirby art to use for my "New Gods" game, and I found this page. It's a bunch of concept art Jack "King" Kirby did for a proposed movie based on Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light. I've been wanting to read Lord of Light for sometime now and after seeing this art, I want to read this book even more.
Do you prefer to build a character with a unique concept, or do you prefer a simple or more standard concept to start with? Do you find that your preference correlates with a preference for elaborate initial backgrounds or with background development in play? If you’re a GM, do you find unique-concept characters easy or hard to GM for? What about playing alongside them?
Back in my early days of gaming, I had a friend who always came up with the most bizarre concepts he could. The GM (usually me) would tell him what the setting was and what kind of characters would be fitting and he would immediately come up with a concept that didn't seem to fit at all.
I loved it. He would always challenge me as GM to redefine my image of the campaign and it always kept things interesting. For example, I started a GURPS: Fantasy game based off a setting I came up with. The setting had "flintlock-era" technology. My friend's reaction: "I want to play a Gunslinger." I explained to him that revolvers didn't exist and that flintlock pistols were horribly innacurate and only really good at close range. He still wanted this gunslinger.
Just when I was about to tell him to find another idea, I thought of something to add to the world, an order of magicians called runeslingers who used special guns like revolvers that fired magical bullets made out of rare "runestones." The character was made and it had a built in limitation to the usefulness of the gun because the stones were so expensive and rare AND the runeslinger would have to craft them into bullets and do an individual ritual for each bullet.
The order of runeslingers added to the world background and made the world a little more interesting.
Still, at times my friend could also be a real pain. It was a trade-off.
I like playing unconventional characters. It makes things interesting. It takes what could be a straightforward game and turns it in its ear a little. A good character can challenge genre stereotypes and add a little more flavor to the world.
In Champions, I pride myself that I have never played a traditional superhero-type. I've played an ex-supervillian trying to make good, an immortal Samurai and a teenage girl wo doesn't want anything to do with the whole "superhero nonsense." The closest I've come to playing a traditional superhero-type has been in...Amber. In JS's AFDS game, I play Griffin, a Knight of Amber that is basically Superman. His personal shadow is a superhero world and he generally sees the world in black and white. He's a big, strong guy with some pretty amazing powers who just wants to "do the right thing."
I like to think that in both games I've added an original element. Maybe, I just annoyed everyone. I don't know, but my friend always did a mixture of both.
I need to write up a history of the world for my players in "The New Gods." I was thinking I would share what I have so far.
Part One: Creation
In the beginning there was Chaos, a swirling vortex of creative energy. Then, came life...the power of creation...the choice of being... and so the world of the old gods came to be. The Motherworld was immense in size and contained all of the possibilities of creation. Through the power of the Source and the Life Equation, anything was possible.
Part Two: War!
Even with all of creation at their command, there were those of the old gods who craved more. They craved even more power, the power to impose their will upon others, the power of Anti-life. They stole away that power and with it the world took it's first step towards destruction. A war broke out. Dragons and titanic war machines clashed across the world. The noble perished, locked in battle with an incalculable evil. The final moment came with the fatal release of an indescribable power which tore the home of the old gods asunder and filled the universe with the blinding flash of its destruction.
Part Three: Rebirth
The world of the old gods perished and two new worlds were left in its place: bright New Genesis and her dark sister world Apokolips. Eventually life returned to these planets and a race of new gods rose up.
to be continued...
I figured out a way a system for how to gage the matrix "stunts" character can do (slowing time, leaping across buildings, etc.) in the Morpheus Calling and Morpheus Interrupted games: Focus Points. Characters can build focus points up beyond there normal limit by taking time to prepare and certain stunts take certain levels. Without preperation, a character normally has three to five points depending on Psyche and whether a character has the "Matrix Initiate" or "Matrix Mastery" abilities. Most stunts performed in the first movie would require two points. From what I've seen of the next movie in the trailers, it looks like Neo's going far beyond three points in the next movie.