Micropost: Pantheon of the Eternal Industrial Era.

Vatra - The Primordial Mother Fire. Embodied in the Sun (Her fire above) and Coal (Her fire below).  Consumed the previous world and from its ashes were born the gods.

Qiri - The Daughter Fire. Goddess of the Moon, gas, oil, lamps, chemistry, and noxious gasses.

Avull - Goddess of steam, waterfalls, storms, engines, beasts of burden, passion, and blood.

Hekuri - God of iron, foundries, bellows, mining, cement, stone, and the rail.

Turma - Goddess of agriculture, abundance, forestry, crowds, crowding, and plague.

Udhetar - God of canals, calm seas, trade, travel, deserts, desire, and desperation.

Fabrika - Goddess of management, textiles, wisdom, planning, and mass production.

Zare - God of gold, entrepreneurship, investment, prophecy, games and greed.

Shoku - Goddess of community, conformity, communication, the telegraph, lightning, roads, and repair.

Genje - God of paper, printing, knowledge, literacy, eloquence, entertainment, diplomacy and deception.

Martesa - Goddess of boundaries, borders, property, contracts, marriage, and oaths.

Ushtar- God of lead, law, order, rage, war, and gunpowder. Punisher of broken promises.

Kupon - God of the wilds. Merchandising. 

Inspired by this prompt from Discord user DefinitelyNotAnEggHahaha:

In many fantasy worlds, the gods create the world in a sort of medieval stasis. Humans, dwarves, etc, have medieval-level tech handed to them from day one, and the gods that exist in these worlds also often reflect that technology level (god of the harvest, god of the forge, etc). That is to say, these gods would make no sense in a world where everyone is a hunter-gatherer.

So, with that established, worldbuilding idea: A world created in a sort of industrial era stasis. Have gods of oil rigs, and railroads, and such

A sort of dirty steampunk kind of vibe, where tech never actually progresses because of the influence of these gods

PS: Kupon is literally just the Greek god Pan in a top hat and ill-fitting three-piece suit. 

Gretchpost 2021

This is my GLOG hack. It's called GLOLG: Gretchlings steaLing yOur LeGs

Here's the pdf download. Here's the character sheet.

Thanks for reading, and I'm sorry.

d6x6 Sources of Magic.

What is magic anyways? Where does it come from? What is it all about?

 

1... Magic comes from nature.

1. It just comes out of big holes in the ground.
2. Dragons radiate it. Mana is dragon waste. Some creatures have evolved to collect this waste and reuse it to open doors or clean their clothes.
3. Lightning supercharges matter with mana.
4. People learned magic by studying the abilities of the ancient titans which roam the land. Pyromancy was learned from the father of dragons. Divination is a gift from the Moonwatcher. Necromancy comes from the Corpse Ball over in Glasmont.
5. Only animals have access to magic powers. In order to cast a fireball, you need a pet fire toad.
6. Gold. Gold is where magic comes from.

 2... Magic comes from the divine.

1. There are multiple competing gods, who disagree about the laws of physics and try to change things when they think the other gods aren't looking.
2. Gods are playing hyperchess with people as the pieces. Magic is given to the important players.
3. God just really likes certain sounds and gestures. Spells are divine applause.
4. Spells are what happens when spirits show up in the physical world. Ghosts, demons, spells--all the same.
5. The universe is a dream, and if you think in ways similarly to the dreamer, you can exercise some control over the dream.
6. Magic is the divine. Not a manifestation of the will of the gods, but the actual physical form of the gods.

 3... Magic is metaphysical in nature.

1. Magic is what happens when parallel universes slam into each other. You get magic by stealing power from your alternate-universe selves.
2. The universe is actively anti-inductive. A previous civilization figured out the laws of physics, which made the laws of physics change to become weirder.
3. The cosmos used to be chaos, filled with the unlimited force of creation. From this chaos, many universes were born. Ones in which the force of creation was limited tended to be more stable. But entirely constrained universes can't use the force of creation to create new universes. So there is a selective advantage for worlds just unstable enough to support the creation of child demiplanes. The anthropic principle does the rest.
4. Magic is just the leftover scraps of physics that haven't been banned. At the start of time, magic was limitless and birthed the universe. Any time magic becomes degenerate enough to cause an extinction event, it becomes more limited. Eventually, only the magic of magical exclusion itself will remain.
5. Chunks of another reality fell through the holes in the sky (the stars) and warp the world around them. Mages carry around little slivers of these other worlds and throw them at people.
6. The laws of physics are a government cover-up. Anyone can do magic if they stop eating the fluoridated ham.

4... Magic comes from the self.

1. Magic comes from meditation and attunement with the universe.
2. Magic comes from the power of emotion! Specifically, an emotion that most people can't feel anymore. Ancient sages trapped the emotion in a bottle and distilled it into a more concentrated form.
3. Magic comes from Fighting Spirit! Scream loudly and passionately! Wizards train to scream in the most passionate manner.
4. Blood is liquid magic. More blood = more wizard powers. The gods have severe hypertension.
5. Magic occurs when your soul leaves your body to go do other stuff. Counterspells are dark magic that directly erases the soul.
6. Mana is the byproduct of normal metabolic processes. Plants transform stale air, water, and light into fresh air, sugar, and magic. Wizards transform fresh air, sugar, and magic into stale air, water, and bad decisions.

5... Magic comes from technology.

1. The universe is a simulation. Magic is just a hacked together solution to some universe-crashing bug, and will be removed in a future update.
2. Spells are just technology from a long-dead civilization.
3. The universe is a simulation. Due to a security flaw, you can send commands to some subroutines you weren't supposed to be able to access.
4. Inter-dimensional aliens are doing science. Spells are experimental tech, and the aliens are having expendable lower-life forms run the safety tests.
5. Listen. There was this talking bird who crashed into a psychic ocean monster, but he was so good at video games that he was able to take over the monsters brain and then used his new psychic powers to transform himself into a spaceship and fly around the stars but then he got into a fight with a big robot crab and the robot crab pushed him into a black hole but instead of getting squished he became omnipotent. So anyways when magic happens, it's the bird guy.
6. Nanomachines, son!

6... You are mistaken about magic.

1. Magic is a hoax. Doesn't actually exist. It's all just mirrors and bits of twine.
2. That's not magic. It's just a very elaborate form of camouflage for insects.
3. It's all a coincidence. Particles can, with very low probability, spontaneously rearrange due to quantum tomfoolery. You just happen to live in one of the vanishingly rare Everett branches where magic coincidentally seems to work. Chants and finger-wiggles correlate with the spontaneous appearance of fireballs. There's no reason for it to continue working tomorrow, though.
4. That's not magic. It's a tumor.
5. Magic is just an allergic reaction to certain foods.
6. The real magic was the friends we made along the way.

 

d66^6 Terrible Demon Princes

So there's an insidious cult that's trying to bring about the end of the world, and your team of misfits is trying to stop them. As it goes.

But what horrible abomination are these cultists trying to summon?

Ramhedron the Many-headed Raj of Ramming
Hypnotically flashing version here.