Dungeon Keepers: TSW OOC Thread

BBeast wrote:

To be decided:
-Names of planet, sun and continent
-Modifications to the rules, if any
-Did imps get teleported to this dimension too? Or do we need something new? (I think we should keep them)
-Basic history of this new planet
-A map
-Intermediate plot devices to maintain engagement
-Final draft of the OP

I had thought to have the denizens of this world refer to their sun as The Source, as it is what allows for the planet's life and all magic to even exist. The planet and the continent could share the same name, like was the case for Outremar.

I suppose some imps could come through the portal alongside the keepers and rogue constructs, though they'd likely just cower in fear while the rest of the city fights, and then join up with whoever claims the city and proves themselves the most powerful by fending off the others. The rest of the keepers could open up a portal to whatever dimension the demonic imps are native to and summon their own followers. That wouldn't be especially difficult since this world is much more magical than Outremar was.



I've thought up what I think is a halfway decent plot, but naturally I'm open to suggestions and I don't want to trample over the lore already established by the previous RP's. In any case, we can choose between this, Cavalier's plot, an entirely other one, or some sort of mixture.

The Ripper corrupting the star was actually meant to be an early plot, and the force that drives in motion everything to follow. I had intended for the star, white from its outer clouds of water, to gradually look more pinkish as the core is corrupted and begins to give off red light rather than white.

Soon after, day, the sun would suddenly flash a few times as the Ripper has the corrupted core spew forth several immensely powerful artifacts called Destruction Catalysts, which all end up falling down to the world near the Keepers. True to their name, the catalysts start to speed up the destruction of their surroundings. Boulders break apart into gravel, pebbles crumble to dust, and the dust is simply broken down further until it ceases to exist. The very fabric of the universe is also weakened, and wormholes start to grow left and right. These portals, if left unchecked, would spew forth extra-dimensional beings of all sorts, strange energies that alter the very physics of the areas around them, and all sorts of other strange things. The Ripper soon communes with the Keepers through his Destruction Catalysts, and offers them a place at his side.

If they touch a catalyst, they will be infused with all the wrath and destructive power trapped within. Their physical forms would be destroyed, and they will no longer be Keepers. Their dungeon hearts would implode, and their connection to the constructs and minions they had will be severed. A heavy price to pay, but in return for their sacrifice they would become Avatars of Destruction, beings of pure destructive energy, akin to the Ripper. If they agree to become Avatars of Destruction, the Ripper promises to let them follow him to glory and partake in the destruction of the multiverse. Rather than die with this world as the Destruction Catalysts make it cease to exist, they would be able to destroy worlds until the end of time.

Around the same time as the Ripper gives his offer, a being known as the Carver, this universe's equivalent of the Weaver, would show up and demand that the Keepers do all in their power to close the wormholes appearing everywhere and contain the effects as the Destruction Catalysts, while he goes to battle the Ripper and purify the core.

So the Keepers who obey the Carver would quickly find themselves being assailed by the Avatars of Destruction, and any Keepers who remain neutral throughout the conflict might be ignored, but could just as easily be seen as an enemy by both sides and attacked. Regardless of whether the planet is saved for the moment or all but destroyed, the duel between the Carver and the Ripper would quickly escalate as both summon the aid of their new-found allies.

Upon being teleported to the center of the sun, the Keepers, Avatars of Destruction, and Horsemen (however they fit into all of this) would immediately sense that within the center of this massive metallic core is a portal, not unlike those appearing everywhere else, although this particular one is absolutely massive and energy is constantly pouring out of it. The Multiverse is a living being, a being that the Ripper seeks to kill. This Universe, like all the rest, is the equivalent of a mere cell to the almighty Multiverse, but this portal leads to what you could describe as the Multiverse's blood vessels; through it the Ripper could access every cell and kill them one by one.

All this time the Ripper has been focus sing his destructive energies to break through the near invincible metal shell protecting the portal, and he has nearly broken through. This duel has been a race between the Carver, who is attempting to focus enough holy energy to destroy the Ripper all in one go, and the Ripper, who has been ignoring the Carver and trying to break through the shell before his adversary can do anything.

The Ripper, more powerful than anybody thought, does succeed in breaking through the shell. However, beings like the Weaver and Carver start pouring out of the portal. If the Keepers have had the upper hand throughout the battle, the Carver manages to cast his spell, which severely weakens the Ripper, and then the horde of other magical guardians polishes off the Avatars of Destruction and the Ripper.

Conversely, if the Avatars of Destruction were winning and managed to stop the Carver, then the Ripper in all his might is free to fight once he has finished breaking through. The Ripper and the Avatars of Destruction together release enough negative energy to destroy the entire star and all the Keepers, as well as the Carver and his fellow guardians. They then step into the bloodstream and begin the process of killing the Multiverse.




Naturally, there is some overlap here between my plot's living universe and cavalier's universe which is an eternal battleground between two great gods and their followers. My universe also doesn't account for the Horsemen, but at the same time cavalier's doesn't really explain the presence of the Weaver and the Ripper, who were different from the other antikeepers.

Still, I was intentionally vague about what the Weaver actually did and how he was created so as to trample on cav's lore as little as possible. As such, we could easily say that the Weaver, like Sophist, serves the Creator. However, the Weaver was tasked with 'mending the holes in the cloth', so to speak, which would mean closing inter dimensional rifts and attempting to avert apocalypses like what happened on Outremar.

Well, even if we opt to go for a different plot than what I described above, I'd appreciate any thoughts and criticisms you have. Y'know, just so I get better at writing this sort of thing. The only RP I've ever created was The Wretched Deeps, so I'm rather untried when it comes to writing main storylines.

I like yours more than mine. It's not too terribly unlike my plot for the Sporum DK, but that's hardly a bad thing. I'd certainly enjoy something like this. Your idea concerning the planet is pretty good too.

By the way, the death of the Wretched Deeps wasn't truly your fault. The Sporum Roleplay had been a lost cause for some time.

*facepalms* Go figure I basically copied a plot from somewhere else and called it my own without even realizing it. And yes, I meant to just pretend the whole Earth thing never happened, but in all honesty I don't think we should require every keeper to be from Outremar. Though that would be the easiest way to explain their arrival, they could be demonic overlords traveling to the realm of mortals to reap souls, or something more creative.

Well, the Horsemen still need to fit into this somehow and in all honesty I'm slightly unhappy with the plot now that I see it's essentially a duplicate. A few more twists and alterations would help set it apart.

As in for the Wretched Deeps, I can't help but think that if I started things out in a better way or had the perfect story, the people I did attract would have stayed. I may eventually retry it, though there's no guarantees seeing as that's now the third time I've said as much.

Edit: Just remembered a few more things to talk about. We still need a title. On a forum as active as RPGuild, a catchy name is very important because in less than an hour our thread could be pushed back to page two or three. We must be able to stand out and draw in some attention.

I don't see the need to add any rules. Like I mentioned above, I feel that not all Keepers must have the same, vague background of coming from Outremar. I'll also probably add some examples as to just how powerful the humans are and hiw powerful each tier of creature can get.

For the new OP, I suppose I could tackle that this weekend. I find huge text walls in the OP to be daunting. Furthermore, excessive background storyline discourage me from joining a RP because I have to read it and keep it all in mind while writing my posts so that there is no contradiction. That being said, I'm debating whether we should even mention this planet's history. In any case, my goal will be to cut out parts of the OP we've been using and compress other parts to the point that the OP is roughly half the size that it is now. But before I set about doing that, I'd like to hear your opinions as to whether I'm doing the right thing or commiting an abomination.

Sounds good to me.

The reason for new Keepers appearing other than the portal from Outremar can be that the Destroyer visits certain unstable, probably somewhat insane humans in various disguises and tempts them in their dreams. If they give into temptation, they wake up as a Keeper. They could appear somewhere else, in the midst of a ritual circle with imps for instance, or just become a mighty being of evil in their own beds and subsequently wreck shop. The Horsemen can continue with the tried-and-true tradition of laying low until their time comes to shine.

Now, a title...that's tricky. I style myself somewhat of a creative person, but what appeals to me may not interest others. Perhaps something along the lines of Dungeon Keepers: Poisoning the Source.

That's a good name; I think we could use it. It makes sense for the Horsemen to lie in waiting and not appear until later on, but then what? They embrace the Ripper as their new leader, thinking him to be a manifestation of the Destroyer himself?

Your idea about the Destroyer changing mortals into Keepers is also good, but we still haven't found a way to tie your lore and mine together. One other issue is that for all intents and purposes the Ripper and the Destroyer are the same persona, and we don't need two godly beings hell-bent on destruction. I've thought up one alteration to your story could make it more interesting as well as compatible with mine.

The Destroyer is renamed The Devourer, and is a parasite within the great living thing that the Ripper seeks to kill. The Devourer is evil incarnate; the Horsemen are each but one aspect of the four-dimensional being. By nature, the great parasite's presence leaves the universes that it inhabits dead and lifeless, which would eventually leave it without a host and the living multiverse dead.

However, the multiverse had a guardian angel of sorts, named the Creator. The Creator follows the parasitic Devourer, bringing life back to the dead universes, which both allows for the multiverse to continue living and for the Devourer to forever sustain itself.

The Ripper is both infinitely more evil and good than the two godly beings. By killing the universe, the Creator would disappear, the Devourer would starve, and the cycle would be broken. There would be no more reincarnation; every living being to ever exist would be in a permanent state of enlightenment, a state of utter peace. That is to say, a state of nonexistence.

By killing the multiverse, the Ripper would destroy reality itself. Nobody cannot truly see infinity, but they can easily understand the concept. But it's hard to even understand the implication of what the Ripper means by 'enlightenment'. An empty void, devoid of utterly anything, is imaginable, and would perhaps even be an ideal world for some people. In an empty void, time doesn't exist, but space and thoughts do. If the Ripper were to have his way, there would be less than an empty void. There would be utterly nothing. No space, no time, no thoughts, no reality.

Most people, the Devourer (and the Horsemen), the Creator, and the Creator's subordinate beings like the antikeepers and Weaver, would see the Ripper as utterly evil for attempting to create this. However, some of the more open minded Keepers and even some mortals might share the Ripper's viewpoint, and seek to aid him.

Sorry if I rambled or was incomprehensible. I understand that the alteration I mentioned above would make the plot far more complicated, but it would also help do away with the two-dimensional characters we have now, tie together my lore and cav's, and make an actual difference exist between the Ripper and the Devourer.

I've been thinking of the Ripper as more of a infinitely destructive tool of the Destroyer's rather than its own independent, complicated being. Hmm...

The Destroyer corrupting a being as powerful as Weaver through his Horsemen rather than in person seems unlikely, and contradicts how Weaver's holy powers being revoked transformed him into Ripper and gave him freedom. In any case, do you like my idea?

Whatever plot-line we develop, we must ensure that dungeon keeping doesn't become obsolete. At least until the very end. Otherwise, why bother calling it Dungeon Keepers? When we have colossal end-of-the-universe kind of stuff, it is very easy for everything that has ever been done prior to that to become worthless, nothing more than a side-quest or side-story.

I think we should be careful about stories which involve the destruction of the Universe and all beyond. If the Multiverse is gone, there is no potential for a sequel. The series is dead. Even if the destruction is limited to the one world, that means we have to go find another world if we ever want to play Dungeon Keepers again.

We need not explain the entire lore of this Universe to everyone. At least not initially. They merely need to know enough so that they have a picture of what is happening with the humans.


I like the idea of using artefacts (in this case, Catalysts of Destruction). I'll tell you why. The two sides will have to wage war on each other to try and attain said artefacts from each other. This will ensure inter-player activity, and not just at the very end. If they refuse, that's their problem.

Here's how I think these artefacts should work. The Ripper sends them. They have a slow degenerative effect on all nearby. However, touching them won't instantly destroy a Keeper's Avatar and their Dungeon. Unprotected physical contact with the Catalysts will corrupt a Keeper's Avatar, making them have some aspects of the Ripper, but the Avatar will still be very similar to before, since destroying the Avatar spoils the character which the player has built. The Ripper will use the Catalysts to siphon energy from the surrounds to himself. His Avatars of Destruction may opt to either have the Catalysts in/near their Heart or on their person. The Catalysts will slowly degenerate the Dungeon or Keeper or both, but can be used to channel some of the Ripper's energy (at the Ripper's discretion, of course- trying to steal his power for your own selfish uses won't make him happy). The Carver's agents will have to try and remove the Catalysts from their sources of power and keep them safe somehow, if they can't destroy them. In the end, the power of the Ripper will depend mostly on how much energy he could siphon via the Catalysts.


I do like the idea that Sophist made this world. It would also explain why there is a portal in the middle of the 'sun', since he would use that to get in and out. Speaking of our 'sun', I looked up some translations for 'source'. I didn't particularly like any of them, so The Source shall remain a good name. For the name of the planet and continent, Eden is too familiar a name, Rhadaman reads as Rhamadan, which is something completely unrelated, so Elysian sounds good.

Relative to the size of our Sun in our sky, how big is The Source in the sky of our planet? And do we have a moon? (This may not be necessary for tidal effects, as if the Source is close enough it will exert sufficient gravity to produce tidal forces.)


Meanwhile, the task of making the map has been more challenging than I thought. I probably brought it on myself, refusing to think of the world as 2D but recognising that it should be on a projection of a sphere. So far, I've drawn the projection of the part of the globe I wanted, so I just need to give it a digital touch-up then I can start drawing the continent. I have decided that the planet's radius is to be 2800km and its circumference 17400km, and that the continent is to be 4500km tall (latitude, not altitude) and 3500km long at its widest, which is around the equator, making it about the size of Africa.

A 2800km radius? A quick search showed that Earth's radius is over 6000 km, and the moon's is around 1700km. Our planet is definitely going to be small, but I suppose we could keep the gravity reasonable without throwing realism out the window. This is a different world, after sll.

I've read somewhere that 99% of the solar system's mass is located in our sun. The Source could be an absolutely huge gas giant and have its lack of nuclear fusion explained by its unusual composition, but there's still no way its mass (and therefor gravity) would compare to our sun. But having said that, if our planet has a very strong gravitationsl pull for its size, why can't the Source?

Still, it'd make sense for Elysian to be much closer to the Source than Earth is to the Sun. I'd say the Source should appear pretty large in the sky. We're talking about planets in orbit around a star of sorts, not just a gas giant and some moon that orbits so close it occasionally touches. As such, it wouldn't make sense for the Source to take up half the sky. I'd originally thought to have the star be called the Eye and the core to be an incredibly powerful artefact called the Anvil, and for the planet to have a group of satellites called the Bones, but at the end of the day I didn't fancy names or ideas.

Even for the Ripper, destroying every last universe would be a daunting task and would take untold eons. We could also have future RP's take place in the past, so a 'destroy teh HOLE universez!' plot isn't going to prevent a sequel. I'll also take all your advice concerning the catalysts.

If the planet was too big, the continent would have to be too big. I sized the planet to fit the continent. As I said, different Universe, so different physical constants.

I'm still working on the map. It has taken me 3 hours to scan my template. First I could get my printer to scan but it refused to acknowledge that my drawing was actually there. Then, when I figured out a way around that, the printer refused to scan altogether. After scouring the web for hours, I discovered that many people have trouble with that printer and scanning, and sadly no simple solution was present. I eventually got it to connect via USB to my laptop and scan (although not the older main computer, despite it successfully having scanned many times before). Just a little rant to get it off my chest.

Well, if it makes you feel any better, I also experienced technical difficulties earlier today. Something happened to my new computer's monitor. The entire bottom half of the screen was black, and the top half displayed what should have been on the bottom. Because of this, I couldn't even navigate through menus to fix the display since half of every window was off the screen. After about an hour of wracking my brain and pointlessly raging, I simply unplugged the monitor and then replugged it, which somehow did the trick. The solution's simplicity only angered me further, though.

We still need to agree on a plot. I'll write the OP assuming that we go with my idea concerning the Ripper's goals and the Destroyer being changed to the Devourer, but I won't include a terribly large amount of information, so this could easily be edited should we choose another plotline.

Below here I'm going to be drafting the OP. I've decided it will be easier for me to both write and receive feedback from you two if I just copy and paste the OP for this RP and then tweak it with a series of edits until it's what we need. I'll make a big line between the text I've already modified and what I haven't changed yet.





Long had Outremar dwelt under the illusion of peace and prosperity. Then we, the Keepers, returned in force, more powerful than ever, to this world. We set about enslaving, pillaging, and slaughtering the lesser beings and their cities that were blights upon the disgustingly serene land.

Then came the Four Harbingers of the Apocalypse, each one of the great ones but mere glimpses of the omnipotent and godly entity known as the Devourer. The Devourer, our great patriarch. It was he who created the scourge named Cormumag, a great demon who terrorized Outremar for years and fathered the first of us, the Keepers. It was the Devourer who came to us true Keepers in the form of the Four Harbingers, united us together to destroy the entire wretched world, and led us to glory. Then, once our purpose had been fulfilled and one world vanished, another came into our sights.

The Devourer has led us, as well as some Keepers from various other worlds, through a portal to a whole new realm. Once again, we have been given a purpose. Mark my words, we will bleed this planet dry. Cities will be sacked. Fortresses will be razed. The pathetic denizens of this world will be bend to our might or be crushed beneath us. There will be blood, whether it is in the name of the Devourer, ourselves, or another.

But be warned, this revolting paradise of a world is not so soft as it may appear. The air is laden with magic. The abundance of such energies has left many of the humans with magical powers, and those warriors who aren't battlemages, summoners, or knights with enchanted armor have access to the so-called 'black powder weapons'. There are those who would use magic to cast spells and kill you, those who utilize magic to be superhuman or enchant their equipment, and then those rare few who would rather blow you to bits with a cannon or shoot you with a musket.


Basis:

As one may have guessed, this roleplay is not focusing on being the ‘good guys’ of the roleplay. Rather, you are the evil overlord you have always been trying to beat (in other, more archetypal stories) during the course of the roleplay. The world we have now has known war, yes...but never against the likes of Keepers or their minions. Still, these humans know the land, have strength in great numbers, and most have gained magical powers in order to better adapt to their environments. They won't be defeated too easily, at least not at first.

Your real problem, after establishing yourself, lies with your fellow Keepers, as we are not a very organized or friendly group, and have always been known to fight each other. We're also not so easy to take down.

Index:
1. Dungeons
1.1 Dungeon Construction & Basics
1.2 Dungeon Heart
1.3 Dungeon Rooms.
2. Keepers
2.1 Avatars
2.2 Death
3. Creatures
3.1 Blueprints & Basics
3.2 Constructs
3.3 Rogue Constructs
4. The World
4.1 Geography
4.2 Resistance
4.3 NPCs
4.4 Some history
5. Conclusion
5.1 Credits
5.2 Starting

1. Dungeons

1.1 Dungeon Construction & Basics

Dungeons are essentially our bases of operation. Without them, you'd be mere overpowered mages or warriors as compared to demigods with huge armies. Your dungeon can be castle, tunnel, even a floating fortress. Do note that while you will always have one main center of operations, your first dungeon, you can build new outposts, conquer human settlements, or seize others' dungeons to expand your domain.

The larger the domain, the more powerful the Keeper. This is why Imps are very valuable to every Keeper, as they are the only creatures that can build you dungeon, and is also one reason why you might fight other Keepers. You could take over the dungeons of others to become even more powerful. Dungeons are customizable, however there is one structure which must be present in all Dungeons. That one structure is the Dungeon Heart.

1.2 Dungeon Heart

We are sustained by the first creation we make, the Dungeon Heart. Now, the Heart is our sanctum – it’s where you should be if you’re not out leading an army. You see, while you’re resting in the Heart you can do loads of things – you can expand your conscious mind to your entire dungeon, letting you see everything that’s going on within it at once (your magical powers get downgraded slightly, as they’re being used to keep an eye on everything, but this lets you rain down death upon invaders everywhere); you can directly give orders to your beings all over the dungeon, such as telling them to mass here to prepare to attack the Keeper next-door, and, most importantly, you can create new Creatures and Constructs. Once you have a heart and a sizable dungeon, you can use magic to alter your physical form, or Avatar, and become far more powerful. Until then, you'd do well to lay low and make building your dungeon a priority.

1.3 Dungeon Rooms

Our dungeons have virtually limitless different types of rooms to be made and utilized. Each new one built will increase the size of your dungeon and the power your Keeper holds. Every Keeper will probably need some basic facilities in his/her dungeon, like a storage room, barracks, prison, foundry, and so on. It takes a lot of infrastructure to support a horde of minions!

2. Keepers

2.1 Avatars

Keepers are demigods in an interesting way. They have immortal souls, as in they will always be conscious. However, their bodies can be destroyed and manipulated by magical and physical means. This means that Keepers can take on the form of whatever they choose, as long as they have the power to do so. This physical shell is called an 'Avatar'. If you wish, you can forfeit certain things for others – you could ditch your magic in order to become the Keeper equivalent of the Hulk, or lose all your considerable physical prowess to become ultra-magical. At the start of this RP when your Keeper is spat out of a portal into the middle of a human city, he or she won't already be god-like. You have to work for a long time to build your power up to that point.

As I have already mentioned, you can always alter your Keeper's Avatar later on so that your physical form is more powerful, whether that means having new magical powers, the ability to fly, or just more muscle. Do be aware of your limitations, however; you cannot start with the ability to fly, use telepathy, destroy entire armies with your magic, and laugh as arrows bounce off your huge body covered with scales as hard as steel. Once again, I stress that you must slowly gain power to get to that point.

2.2 Death

Should your Keeper be slain, your creatures become a disorganized rabble. Your Constructs, if you have them, may be able to keep them under control, but creatures are normally weak-willed things that will be terrified out of their wits that their master and maker has just been defeated.

Assuming you manage to beat back the enemy who just managed to put a serious dent in your operations, you’ll want to try and resurrect yourself ASAP. A Dungeon without a Keeper is a gilded invitation to your foes saying “Dear Keepers, come here and kill me once and for all”. The first step towards doing that is rebuilding your Heart. After that it’s the standard resurrection sequence, in which you spend a couple of pages with your minions trying to get you back. During that time your dungeon is crippled – you can’t get new creatures, can’t fight off any invaders with magic, and everyone else will probably be swarming to finish you off. That isn't a good situation to be in, so avoid it if possible, but no meta-gaming or power playing!

When you’re resurrected, you’ll likely be rather peeved. So stay in that heart and start giving ‘em payback – remember, they can’t fight back very effectively against your realm itself. Creatures can be overwhelmed by attackers. The very walls and floor, not likely.

If you don’t manage to beat the enemy off, then this is even worse than having everyone swarming to defeat you. Your creatures will all be dead, your forces slain, and your dungeon probably got absorbed into your rival's, making your foe doubly strong. Now, in the spirits of keeping this RP to continue and remain fun, you can always say that a few imps managed to run away – they can summon you back to life after a while, just I’d suggest that it’s very, very far away from your old home. After that, again, it’s up to you – I’d suggest building up in secrecy.

3. Creatures

3.1 Blueprints & Basics

The first type of followers you will get are the lowly imps, which are weak little demons, and humans (you could enslave the humans, mind control them, or somehow convince them to serve you willingly). Imps and humans are the only followers that can construct your dungeon, so despite being pathetically weak in combat, they are still very important to your dungeon. Nobody really knows how the imps came to be, only that they inhabit a separate realm of their own and have been summoned to serve Keepers since the dawn of time. They’d rather spend a long evening in a torture pit or tavern than run outside and fight for you, but they abhor being without a master and will help defend your dungeon if they must. Just don't expect much out them in a fight; a few might be able to throw small fireballs, but most will have nothing but their tiny tools to fight with.

Now, just having imps would be a bit boring. After your Dungeon Heart is completed, you can go wild and create all kinds of creatures. The process is quite simple – you go into the Dungeon Heart, you invent what you want to create – let’s say an ogre, not imaginative but it’ll do – and then you start creating the blueprint for it.

Now, this is where you got to be careful. Should you get interrupted while making the blueprint, disaster will strike. This means that you can’t personally attempt to organize a defense for your base if it comes under attack, you can’t rain down death from the heavens, you can’t do anything. Your life, and the safety of your base, rests firmly with your existing creatures and constructs. All your avatar’s attention is focused on the creation of a new blueprint – someone kicking open the door of the Heart will be enough to break his concentration, and from there the bad things will start happening.

In short, your avatar, the Heart, and a large chunk of your dungeon explodes from misdirected magical energy. If the thing you were making somehow survives, it will be malformed and probably unable to last more than two minutes on its own, so best to put it out of its misery. Just throw it at the enemy, provided they survived as well,  since if they got this far you need all the help you can get.

We’ll be using a thing called the Fibonacci Sequence to determine how long each successive blueprint takes you to build. Just type it in on Google if you don’t know what it is – basically, your first creature takes three posts to create, the next one five, the next one eight, then thirteen, twenty-one and so on. By the way, these aren't your posts, but rather those of the others in this RP – so if you want to make your first creature, you can’t spam three posts to get it straight off. They’ve all got to be other peoples' posts.

Your creatures don’t increase in power as your dungeon expands – they stay just as you have created them, and your first few creatures have to be something fairly weak. As your dungeon expands, you can create more complicated creatures and, if you so wish, destroy the weaker ones to reduce the amount of time it’ll take you to make a new one. Just, you have to destroy the old ones first before you make the new ones – no distractions or things go boom, remember?

Please note, magic isn’t just limited to you or the humans. Your creatures can have magic too, only their powers will be far, far weaker than those of any Keeper. After all, they’re just creatures, shaped by our will – we’re the demigods around here.

Once you’ve created a blueprint, then it is relatively easy to create hordes more of that specific creature. A room designated as a summoning chamber, hatchery, or something along those lines will allow your imps or other followers to create more of that creature without your aid. Extremely minor changes to an individual caste of minion can be easily done, whether it be a physical change in, say, pigmentation or a replacement of swords with spears as standard weapon. Any serious modification, however, requires an upgrade. Upgrades take the same amount of other peoples' posts to complete as the creature (that is being upgraded) took to create as a blueprint. Luckily, this process doesn't need to take place in your Heart and won't incapacitate you.

3.2 Constructs

Think of Constructs as the link between you and the rest of your normal creatures – they’re the halfway point. They are far, far more powerful than ordinary creatures, while still being much weaker than all but the most pitiful of Keepers. Constructs can keep your minions in line while you're not there and are often deployed to lead scouting parties or armies. Being much more closely linked to your Keeper than any mere creatures, a Construct can easily be empowered or even possessed if the need should ever arise.

The strength and great loyalty of Constructs comes at a cost, however – they must be personally created by your Keeper, which is a hassle. You create Constructs similarly to how you create your creature blueprints. For example, a level one Construct would take three posts to create, and your Keeper must spend that time in his or her Dungeon Heart uninterrupted.

3.3 Rogue Constructs

After the great wars thousands of years ago on Outremar, many constructs fled their dungeon when their Keepers were destroyed or imprisoned. They have been hiding or sleeping ever since, but when the Keepers returned, so did the Rogue Constructs. A few of the sly monsters even followed the Keepers and Harbingers through the portal on Outremar.

On Elysian, the new world that this takes places on, there aren't really any vestiges of bygone wars between Keepers. There's just your occasional superhero, mutant, or evil genius. Still, an ambitious and rather powerful human, or some sort of great beast could act as Rogue Constructs and still be from this planet.

Anyone who doesn't want to play as a Keeper in this RP can be a Rogue Construct. While Rogue Constructs can be stronger than normal Constructs, they still cannot create creatures and proper dungeons, or stand up to the might of a Keeper. It would probably be a good idea to ally yourself with a Keeper for protection and access to an army to have some fun with.

My only qualm with having your Rogue Construct being something as fantastical as a hydra would be the lack of originality. The Keepers from Outremar created all sorts of vile abominations, and Elysian is a very magical world. Regardless of whether your Rogue Construct is a native of Elysian or is arriving from Outremar through the portal the Keepers come through, there is the potential to create a very interesting and original character.


4. The World

4.1 Outremar


Outremar was once a massive shield volcano, located on an entirely separate planet (and even in another dimension) from Elysian. Eventually, it became dormant, and humans, trees, and other critters migrated onto it. Cormumag and his children, the Keepers of Outremar, wreaked havoc during five different ages of evil.

Now that you know all of that, you may as well forget it. The end of Outremar's Fifth Age culminated in a great battle between several angelic beings, Keepers, the Horsemen, and thousands of humans. The Horsemen and the Keepers that chose to ally with them were victorious and managed to cause an Apocalypse. As this RP takes place on Elysium, Outremar is being torn asunder and blown to bits.

4.2 Resistance

The various civilizations you will encounter on Elysium do actually pose a significant threat to any would-be conqueror. This large continent is not entirely unified, though it is somewhat politically stable as of the beginning of this story. Various tribes, kingdoms, and empires have existed. They have grown, fallen apart, and even had a few wars in the past. Of course, never in their past did a horde of extradimensional beings show up to enslave and pillage people, so this will be a first.

Keep in mind that magical is very prevalent on Elysium. Sure, there might be an occasional enchanted forest populated with mythical critters and monsters, but the main impact of this is that about every civilization worth conquering will have magic of some sort at their disposal.

Not every human has magic, but it is common enough to transform the type of warfare conducted on this planet. You might send an army of ogres into battle with plenty of armor, expected to face archers, only to find that your enemy utilizes spellcasters instead. You might send a flock of bird-people to fly over the enemy soldiers and drop throwing axes, only to find that your foes have enchanted armor or have used magic to enhance their bodies to the point that any one of them could catch a flying axe and easily hurl back with five times as much force.

This world, in terms of technology, is at close to the level of Earth during the Renaissance. This means that any Keeper or group of humans could have access to cannons and muskets, though they would probably favor the use of magic. I won't forbid combining technology and magic to create potions, magical automatons, or anything like that, just don't have your Keeper or an NPC group gain access to anything ridiculously powerful.

4.3 NPCs

Feel free to create NPC people, organizations, corporations, towns, whatever. Just make sure you don't create anything that is ridiculously overpowered in some way, and all should be well.

There might be a few groups of people who don't have any magic, but for the most part every group of people will probably have at least one caste of people with some sort of magical ability. For instance, you could encounter some desert nomads that are able to transmute small quantities of sand into water. Large cities or empires could enjoy the benefit of having many different people and therefor many different types of magic to make use of.

4.4 Some history

Long ago after Outremar collapsed, men colonized it. However an ancient evil created at the beginning of the world and locked in the shield volcano emerged. Cormumag created the first dungeon on an island in the middle of the atoll. He created evil as we know it, he spawned the first keepers, his children. His dungeon was the largest we know of. His armies spanned miles and his constructs were numerous. He created a great black fleet called the shadow navy that invaded first the jungles of the east reducing many parts of it to wastelands(which later grew back up) and then ordered his armies westward in the north and the south conquering many of the grassland kingdoms. In the Savannah of the west and the great deserts he enslaved whole peoples. He was only stopped when an angelic race, the antithesis of the keepers, arrived on Outremar and bested him, chaining him to his own island, above his now destroyed dungeon. His children crept to the edges of society to lurk and breed. His armies were tossed aside as childrens' playthings and the first age of evil ended.

The next three ages of evil were lead by Corumag's offspring, the Keepers of Outremar. While nowhere near as powerful as their magnificent forefather, the Keepers were numerous, ruthless, and ambitious. With the help of the imps, their demonic allies, they constructed great dungeons and formed armies of all manner of terrible creatures. Blood of slain humans watered the fields of battle, while fires devoured the greatest of cities. Those ages were glorious, while they lasted. But after the Fourth Age, there was peace and serenity for centuries.
When the Keepers were thought of as long dead, or even as mere myths, there came the Fifth Age, one last Era of Evil to bring about a suiting end to Outremar's history. Doviculous the Master of Shadows, a great giant called the Stonelord, a strange Keeper wielding the powers of machinery and technology, and countless other Keepers appeared, bringing chaos and destruction with them.

For a time all was normal, but things began to go awry when the various keepers found themselves in possession of a number of symbol stones. At about this time. there appeared three new entities appeared on Outremar by the names of Dormammu, Aeternam, and Moros. As time wore on, the new arrivals turned out to be none other than the Harbingers of Destruction, the Horsemen of Conquest, War, and Famine. A Keeper called Escre revealed itself as Death, and the Four began traveling across Outremar seeking the symbol stones and the service of the keepers who possessed them. Those who yielded the potential power in the stones to the Horsemen became the fearsome Harbingers, while those who defied the inevitable were marked as enemies. The master plan of the Horsemen was to use the stones to construct the Iocinor, an artifact of incredible power destined to drain the power of Cormumag, who still lived in a forgotten prison deep beneath the sea. Just when all was fun and games, however, the Antikeepers appeared on Outremar once more. The angelic beings, the most prominent among whom were Zadok, Arial, Sophist, and the phantasmagorical Weaver, had a simple mission: to stop the Harbingers and their Keeper allies in order to save the world.

The final hour of Outremar began with a great battle above Outremar's ancient prison. The Harbingers and their allies, the Antikeepers and the humans under their protection, and a few other Keepers who had their own purposes all clashed together. In the end, the Iocinor successfully drained Cormumag's power and set in motion the Apocalypse.

The Weaver, unlike his allies, cared little for the plights of mortals. A celestial guardian whose sole purpose was to ensure the universe's survival and oppose those like the Horsemen, Weaver was more than willing to attempt to sacrifice Outremar in order to finally end the threat of the Horsemen. However, when the great guardian attempted to cause a cataclysm by severing and unraveling the divine threads that made up the very matter of Outremar, the holy threads proved to have a mind of their own and fought back.

The Weaver, who drew all its power from these divine threads, had been both cursed and blessed. Rejected by the universe that had been both the creator and slave driver to the Weaver, the guardian was finally given free will and the ability to do as it pleased. However, disconnected from the divine powers and now full of negative thoughts and energies, the Weaver was corrupted and transformed into the Ripper.

The Ripper, consumed by its own hatred for the divine threads, decided that it wanted nothing less than to destroy everything in existence. Betraying the surviving Antikeepers, Ripper aided the Horsemen by breaking the Seventh Seal and bringing about the Apocalypse.

At the last moment, the Horsemen created an unstable portal to another world and offered an invitation to all who had survived the battle: die here with Outremar or take your chances going through the portal. Those who entered found themselves somewhere new and very strange: Elysium.



Elysium is a small world originally created by Sophist, one of the mighty antikeepers who fought in Outremar's great battle. Fortunately, the bumbling fool was slain by the Horsemen. With his death, there was no magic seal separating his world from the rest of the Multiverse, and fate was kind enough to have the portal lead us straight to Elysium.

As powerful as Sophist was, his perfect world was still only perfect in the sense that resources were dispersed equally across beautiful landscapes and the land gave plenty. The humans and other creatures, which were taken to Elysium from other realms in the earliest days, were far from perfection. Naturally, not even Sophist was quite able to control an entire planet for long, and so the men split off into various tribes.

Naturally, they then found reasons to get into their petty wars, and found ways to use the abundant magic to kill each other, despite Sophist's vain and petty hopes of peace. This world has seen war, but at present there still isn't near enough bloodshed and anarchy. We Keepers can fix that, and have a bit of fun in the process.

5. Conclusion

5.1 Credits

This RP is migrating here from the Spore Forums. Credits go to Senger Drol/Tri for the original version of this over there, GrandEnder for the second version, Prospo for the next one, and Cavalier for the following two. The map of Elysium was made courtesy of BBeast.

5.2 Rules

Aside from using common sense and following the typical rules, which I don't even feel the need to list, there's just one thing.

In order to help others see your progress and ensure that nobody cheats by advancing too quickly, I ask that you keep count of your progress towards new creatures, constructs, rooms, etc. at the bottom of your post. While not required, it would also be great if you could keep count of your Keeper's current forces and resources, and provide me with a brief description of your dungeon that I can add to the Compendium.

5.3 Compendium

I will try to keep a running record of all Keepers, their appearance and domain (theme over which they preside, like fire or swamps), and brief descriptions of their dungeons and creatures. I find that such records are incredibly helpful whenever two players start interacting. You yourself will be supplying these snippets of information by appending them to the end of your post right next to the obligatory status update. Just a few words will do. If you elect not to do this, you don't get logged in the compendium and it's that much harder to get things done around here.

5.4 Starting

No character sheets are needed, just make a descriptive entry post about your Keeper's humble beginning on Elysium, and perhaps reveal the backstory of your character over time.

It is also worth noting that your character needn't necessarily be from Outremar. As explained in the Introduction, a godly being known as the Devourer has occasionally created Keepers on purpose to manipulate and use to further its goals, or accidentally warped lifeforms into Keepers with its corrupting aura.

As a result, you wouldn't be contradicting the plot or storyline if for some unknown purpose your Keeper was transported from some other plane alongside the other Keepers, or something similar. Whatever floats your boat; I don't want to discourage creativity and the creation of unique character stories.

Remind me how the roleplayers will be starting, again? The portal from the Fifth Age leads here, but where does it end up? Are we going with the Devourer-corrupting-mortals-into-Keepers thing as well?

By the way, it's your call on keeping the Compendium or not. We didn't get far enough this time to see if it was particularly helpful, but even then it was tedious to constantly update. Speaking of such things, it may be hard for me to consistently post on a new DK, especially if it's very inhabited as a place like RPguild would lead me to believe, as I have both school and a part-time job now.

I do like your ideas, by the way. A lot of good stuff going around.

Everyone starts off in one big city (we don't have a name or location, because the city will most likely get destroyed pretty quickly and BBeast hasn't posted his map yet) and from there, we can do whatever. Some Keepers would stay and fight against (or with, I suppose) each other over control of the city, while the humans panic with the brave trying to defend the city and everyone else hiding or fleeing. Any Keeper who doesn't want to risk getting injured or making enemies this early on can flee the site, through one of the portals that appear or by any other means of travel.

In the new intro I briefly mentioned Keepers coming from other worlds than Outremar, those would be the mortals who were transformed by the Devourer. I'll try to have a Compendium going and keep fairly good track of every Keeper, but if I get overwhelmed then I may cut back on how much I keep track of. If I'm still getting swamped, then I'll probably just quit updating the Compendium frequently or at all.

As it happens, tomorrow will be my first day of high school so there's a chance I might also struggle to post frequently. I don't anticipate more homework than I'm used to, but Cross Country season starts soon and that will leave me coming home late and exhausted. Just don't entirely abandon us, and I'll still be your friend.  

And thanks for the approval. Your feedback was good and insightful.

I read through the OP. I see you are yet to update it past the Introduction. I've made a list, but I think it will be best if I incorporate it into the post itself. I have colour-coded points for editing, and made minor edits (2 spelling mistakes and the credits) myself. Red means it needs removal or total editing because it pertains to Earth and not this world. Blue means I feel it needs to be clarified or modified, in a way I will specify.

Quote :

Long had Outremar dwelt under the illusion of peace and prosperity. Then we, the Keepers, returned in force, more powerful than ever, to this world. We set about enslaving, pillaging, and slaughtering the lesser beings and their cities that were blights upon the disgustingly serene land.

Then came the Four Harbingers of the Apocalypse, each one of the great ones but mere glimpses of the omnipotent and godly entity known as the Devourer. The Devourer, our great patriarch. It was he who created the scourge named Cormumag, a great demon who terrorized Outremar for years and fathered the first of us, the Keepers. It was the Devourer who came to us true Keepers in the form of the Four Harbingers, united us together to destroy the entire wretched world, and led us to glory. Then, once our purpose had been fulfilled and one world vanished, another came into our sights.

The Devourer has led us, as well as some Keepers from various other worlds, through a portal to a whole new realm. Once again, we have been given a purpose. Mark my words, we will bleed this planet dry. Cities will be sacked. Fortresses will be razed. The pathetic denizens of this world will be bend to our might or be crushed beneath us. There will be blood, whether it is in the name of the Devourer, ourselves, or another.

But be warned, this revolting paradise of a world is not so soft as it may appear. The air is laden with magic. The abundance of such energies has left many of the humans with magical powers, and those warriors who aren't battlemages, summoners, or knights with enchanted armor have access to the so-called 'black powder weapons'. There are those who would use magic to cast spells and kill you, those who utilize magic to be superhuman or enchant their equipment, and then those rare few who would rather blow you to bits with a cannon or shoot you with a musket.

___________________________________________________________________________________



Basis:

As one may have guessed, this roleplay is not focusing on being the ‘good guys’ of the roleplay. Rather, you are the evil overlord you have always been trying to beat(in other, more archetypal stories) during the course of the roleplay. The world we have now has known war, yes...war amongst humans. They call the most recent the Napoleonic wars.
Easy pickings, huh? They may know which way to hold a musket but they haven't believed in magic since the Enlightenment and they would never imagine Keepers in their wildest nightmares. They won't be pushovers, no...we'll have a challenge, especially since we're stuck less than optimal avatars, like human bodies, for the time being. They certainly won't want to venture into our Dungeons, though.

Your real problem, after establishing yourself, lies with your fellow Keepers, as we are not an easy bunch to take down.

Index:
1. Dungeons
1.1 Dungeon Construction & Basics
1.2 Dungeon Heart
1.3 Dungeon Rooms.
2. Keepers
2.1 Avatars
2.2 Death
3. Creatures
3.1 Blueprints & Basics
3.2 Constructs
3.3 Rogue Constructs
4. The World
4.1 Geography
4.2 Resistance
4.3 NPCs
4.4 Some history
5. Conclusion
5.1 Credits
5.2 Starting

1. Dungeons

1.1 Dungeon Construction & Basics

Dungeons are essentially our bases of operation. Without them, you'd basically be no more than overpowered mages or warriors than demigods with huge armies. Dungeons can be castles, tunnels, heck even a floating fortress. The larger the Dungeon, the more powerful the Keeper. Imps are the only ones who can construct your dungeon. This is why, for example, a Dungeon Keeper would attack his/her fellow Keepers. They could assimilate their siblings' Dungeons and become even more powerful. Dungeons are customizable, however there is one structure which must be present in all Dungeons. The Dungeon Heart.

1.2 Dungeon Heart

We are sustained by the first creation we make, the Dungeon Heart. Now, the Heart is our sanctum sanctorum – here’s where we should be if we’re not out killing peasants or spawning our Legion of Evil. You see, while you’re resting in the Heart you can do loads of things – you can expand your conscious mind to your entire dungeon, letting you see everything that’s going on within it at once (your magical powers get downgraded slightly, as they’re being used to keep an eye on everything, but this lets you rain down death upon invaders everywhere); you can directly give orders to your beings all over the dungeon, such as telling them to mass here to prepare to attack the Keeper next-door, and, most importantly, you can create new Creatures. Once you have a heart, you can begin fashioning an avatar worthy of a conqueror and get cracking. Until then, you might do well to lay low.

1.3 Dungeon Rooms

Our dungeons have virtually limitless different types of rooms to be made and utilized. Each new one built increases your power and strength. There are many different types. Below are the ones that are the basic things every fully operational dungeon would want, but do be creative. Boring is as boring does.
1. Dungeon heart, explained above
2.Portal (Or spawning) chamber, here you will build your means to create your minions(you have to have the blueprints for them first).
3. Treasure room, here you store all your goodies and gold. You pile your wealth up here.
4. Lair, the barracks for your creatures to rest in bigger lairs means you can have bigger creatures. Additionally, weapons and gear are kept here.
5. Training room, where as the name implies your monsters or soldiers can grow stronger under a vigorous training routine. Or you can just use magic or steroids. Your choice.
6. A library, to store all of your evil knowledge and research ancient tomes to find new spells in
7. Prison, to keep your various enemies and, er, overactive minions
8. Torture chambers, to get information and entertainment at the same time
9. Laboratories for experimenting, whether it be unimagined magics, alchemy, or other such lovlies.
10. Command centers, slightly less dangerous than having your heart as your headquarters. Additonally, these function as communication and surveillance centers. Scrying is quite the lost art, so a reliable method of knowing what the hell is happening to my castle lieutenant Douglas you squirming piece of worm crap is of paramount importance.
11. Industry! Since the industrial revolution, a whole new world of automation awaits you should you choose to wander down that path. This includes a basic foundry for weapons and gear.
12. A mess hall or some other such way to sustain your minions. An army marches on its stomach.
13. A Channel. Since magic isn't exactly flowing from the seams on Earth, we'll need to build it up ourselves or pull it in from somewhere else, and for that you need a channel of some variety. We'll all start out with a little magic to utilize, but if we decide to really invest in the arcane arts, we'll need some way to amass the energy. Examples of channels would be elaborate thaumaturgical contraptions, some sort of otherworldly tree that gives off energy, and a mooncatcher that draws mystical power from Earth's orbital itself.

2. Keepers

2.1 Avatars

Keepers are demigods in an interesting way. They (allegedly) have immortal souls, as in they will always be conscious. However, their bodies can be destroyed and manipulated by magical and physical means. This means that Keepers can take on the form of whatever they choose, as long as they have the power to do so. This physical shell is called an 'Avatar'. If you wish, you can forfeit certain things for others – you could ditch your magic in order to become the Keeper equivalent of the Hulk, or lose all your considerable physical prowess to become ultra-magical. We all have the misfortune of starting off as a human or worse this time around.

As the game goes on, and your domain gets bigger, your Keeper’s Avatar can change. For instance, when your domain gets big enough your avatar could be a fifty feet tall, fire-breathing daemon with a huge axe in one hand. Do be aware of your limitations, however: in Outremar many keepers possessed innate telepathy, some teleportation or flight, and other such trite. No such convenience on this world unless we set our mind to it. Originality makes me happy. Now, as to why your Keeper exists in this form: when Outremar was destroyed, the parallel dimension known simply as the void that served as the dreamlike limbo for unsummoned Keepers was fractured along with it. The void shifted and opened up into Outremar, which led to two chief events: the apocalypse was quickened, and the souls of the Keepers within the void were scrambled and sent tumbling through the portal. In this weakened state, our souls latched onto whatever we could find on Earth, be it human, beast, object, or legend.

2.2 Death

Your creatures become a disorganized rabble. Your Constructs, if you have them, may be able to keep them under control, but creatures are normally weak-willed things that will be terrified out of their wits that their master and maker has just been defeated.

Assuming you manage to beat back the enemy who just managed to put a serious dent in your operations, then you’ll want to try and resurrect yourself ASAP. A Dungeon without a Keeper is a gilded invitation to your foes saying “Dear Keepers, come here and kill me once and for all”. The first step towards doing that is rebuilding your Heart. After that it’s the standard resurrection sequence, in which you spend a couple of pages with your minions trying to get you back. During that time your dungeon is crippled – you can’t get new creatures, can’t fight off any invaders with magic, and everyone else will probably be swarming to finish you off. Not. Good.

When you’re resurrected, you’ll likely be rather peeved. So stay in that heart, and start giving ‘em payback – remember, they can’t fight back very effectively against your realm itself. Creatures, yes. The very walls and floor, not likely.

If you don’t manage to beat the enemy off, then this is even worse than having everyone swarming to defeat you. Your creatures will all be dead, your forces slain, and your dungeon probably absorbed into the enemies, making him doubly strong. Now, in the spirits of keeping this going as long as possible, you can always say that a few imps managed to run away – they can summon you back to life after a while, just I’d suggest that it’s very, very far away from your old home. After that, again, it’s up to you – I’d suggest building up in secrecy.

3. Creatures

3.1 Blueprints & Basics

The first type of creature you get is the lowly imp, which can be a real imp or a human disciple (If the latter is the case, you'll need some way to coerce those humans—they're not too terribly an agreeable bunch) Genuine imps are magical constructs from an era long before our own – long before Cormumag’s, the father of the keepers, first age of evil even – they are the heart and soul of our operations. They’d rather spend a long evening in the torture chamber than fight, and can run far better than they can battle, but they have their uses.

They’re our first creatures, and they’re the only ones that can dig and build. Without imps, we’d be unable to do anything. If we didn’t have imps, regardless of their cowardliness, then we wouldn’t be able to dig out new segments of our dungeons. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to build buildings above ground. Without the lowly imp, you wouldn’t be able to install the devices that will harvest magical energy or resources from the land. In short, they get everything simple done for you. They’ll also fight to the death to protect your Heart if they must, since imps need a master and abhor not having one. They’re worthless fighters, often having only a pickaxe and a sack to fend off attackers with, and no armor at all, but they’ll still do fight if backed into a corner.

Now, just having imps could be a bit boring. After your Dungeon Heart is completed, you can go wild with your creatures. You make ‘em. The process is quite simple – you go into the Dungeon Heart, you invent what you want to create – let’s say an ogre, not imaginative but it’ll do – and then you start creating the blueprint for it.

Now, this is where you got to be careful. You get interrupted while making the blueprint then things go bad. This means you can’t try and organize a defense for your base if it comes under attack, you can’t rain down death from the heavens, you can’t do anything. Your life, and the safety of your base, rests firmly with your existing creatures. All your avatar’s attention is focused on the creation of a new blueprint – someone kicking open the door of the Heart will be enough to break his concentration, and everything goes pear-shaped. In short, your avatar, the Heart and a large chunk of your dungeon explodes from misdirected magical energy. If the thing you were making survives, somehow, it will be malformed and probably not going to last more than two minutes on its own, so best to put it out of its misery. Just throw it at the enemy, since if they got this far you need all the help you can get provided the enemy survived as well.

We’ll be using a thing called the Fibonacci Sequence, starting with number three, for creature creation. Just type it in on Google if you don’t know what it is – basically, your first creature takes two posts to create, the next one three, the next one five, eight, thirteen and so on. Not your posts, someone elses' – so if you start making your first creature, you can’t spam two posts to get it straight off. They’ve all got to be everyone elses' posts.

Your creatures don’t increase in power as your dungeon expands – they stay just as you have created for evermore, and your first creature has to be something fairly weak. As your dungeon expands, you can create more complicated creatures and, if you so wish, destroy the weaker ones to reduce the amount of time it’ll take you to make a new one. Just, you have to destroy the old ones first before you make the new ones – no distractions or things go boom, remember?

Please note, magic isn’t just limited to you. Your creatures can have magic too, just theirs is far, far weaker than yours is. After all, they’re just creatures, shaped by our will – we’re the demigods around here. For instance, they can’t view the whole realm (Not that we can on this blasted rock), or create entirely new creatures no matter how strong they become.

Once you’ve created the blueprint, then more of the creatures are far easier to create. A Portal is the usual reagent for this, but feel free to use another method of increasing your numbers. Portals are a sort of magical repository which can create new creatures for you after the initial blueprint for them is completed. Extremely minor changes to an individual cast of minion is easy enough to do, whether it be a physical change in, say, pigmentation or a replacement of swords with spears as standard weapon. Any serious modification, however, requires an upgrade. Upgrades take the same amount of other peoples' posts to complete as the creature (that is being upgraded) took to create as a blueprint. Luckily, this process doesn't incapacitate you, though.

3.2 Constructs

Think of Constructs as the link between you and the rest of your normal creatures – they’re the halfway point. They share the same basics as normal creatures – same look and natural weaponry – but they’re overall better. Their skin is tougher, their brains far more developed, their magical prowess greater… They’re normal creatures on steroids. This comes at a cost, however – they take time to make as well, and your Avatar has to do it him/herself. For example, let’s say you wanted to make a Construct of your first creature. This would take your avatar another three posts, following the exact same laws as the creation of the creature blueprint. The avatar can’t be interrupted, of course, so do be careful. Once completed, a Construct acts as a sort of general, able to organize your forces into more than just a rabble of raiders – What was at first a crumbling defense can pull itself together and win the day if a Construct shows up. Your own presence on the battlefield has an even greater impact on your creatures, inspiring them to commit greater acts of service. With a Construct leading them, rather than just killing everything in their way during the next peasant raid your forces will actually take the time to take prisoners and thoroughly check the place over for hidden loot or undiscovered foes before they leave. After all, you can’t very well lead your forces in a common raid, you’re far too busy managing your dungeon or fighting the Keeper next door

If a Construct is in the area, you can use him as a sort of conduit for your will – won’t be able to stand up to another avatar, but it’s still handy. This will allow you to lash out at any enemy who dares get close to your direct servant, so long as you are in the Dungeon Heart at the time. If you’re outside of the Heart, then you’re a bit too busy being in your own body, and thus won’t be able to spare the time and concentration to project yourself through the Construct’s. Keep in mind that this feat does not give you total telepathy with your minions, just commands with the Constructs if you're inclined to magic. You create Constructs from an existing creature and they don’t count as blueprints, so if you want to make a Construct ASAP then do it with your second creature. As one can imagine, Constructs can be fairly useful. You may only have one for each type of creature.

3.3 Rogue Constructs

After the wars thousands of years ago, some constructs fled their dungeon when their Keepers we're destroyed or imprisoned. They have been hiding ever since, and now that Keepers have risen, may even return. Anyone who doesn't want to be a Keeper can be a Rogue Construct, but should quickly find a master or risk death by the hands of one.

At least, that was on Outremar. On Earth, there aren't really any vestiges of bygone rune wars. Just your occasional superhero, mutant, or evil genius. Who knows, though? You might run into Santa Claus or Nessie and recruit them.

4. The World

4.1 Outremar



In the distant past, the continent of Outremar was a gigantic shield volcano that gently sloped downward into the great Panmundus Ocean. The volcano had been dormant long before men found their way to Outremar as it‘s magma filled interior drained and hollowed out. In more recent antiquity however, a terrible earthquake shook the great volcano to it’s core. The earthquake caused much of the inland region of the Outremar volcano to collapse and fall into the deep hollow center, forming a huge caldera. The earthquake tore chasms and valleys through the continent all the way to the Panmundus Ocean, allowing a great flood of seawater to pour into the caldera, creating the atoll of Outremar as we know it today, this is why the shoreline of the sea in the middle of the atoll, the Basthis Sea, is made up of jagged, sheer cliff faces while the outer shore is gentle and mostly consists of sandy beaches.

Outremar’s climate is quite warm. Moist ocean winds blow from the east, drenching the eastern slopes of Outremar in rain and coating it with jungle, and in the case of the great eastern cape and the cape islands, a forest of giant, bio-luminescent mushrooms and other fungi. On the northern and southern slopes of the great atoll of Outremar, the rain forest makes way for verdant grassland, nicked with ravines and chasms and studded with small stands of palm trees and other jungle-esque growth. To the west, the grasslands become dry savannah grasslands, as the moist winds from the west are depleted of water. On the far western slopes, the deserts and dune ergs can be found, where the coastal sand mixes with black sand from volcanic rock to form a distinct grayish sand.

Now that you know all that, forget it. We're on earth now, you silly sausage. Think 1800s. Europe is the focal point of the world and has influences in Africa and Asia. America's got its independence but hasn't had it for very long. So on and so forth. Take High School history or something.

4.2 Resistance

The various civilizations you will encounter in this time period do actually pose a significant threat to any would-be overlord. Britain commands its fearsome navy, France retains military strength despite its recent defeat, and the Russian and Prussian armies are no laughing matter. Any nation you might try to conquer will resist, but the European and Asian ones will be the hardest nuts to crack. Better to try for the Balkan nations or the Germanic states—they haven't had their unification yet. Better still, move beyond Europe to colonial Central America, Africa, Australia, or the United States of America. Mind you, the Americans won't be a pushover either, and if your chosen area isn't a nation or part of one it might very well have irritable natives. Of course, Keepers do need their slaves, and the trade is in full gear at this time. Your enemies will pack guns, from cannon to musket, refined and ready for war since the industrial revolution. Tactics are fairly sound and the soldiers well-trained.

4.3 NPCs

Feel free to create NPC people, organizations, corporations, towns, whatever. Just make sure you don't create anything that is excessive in the fields of technology, magic or sheer physical power. By now I expect you've grasped our setting and what it entails. So no flying purple dragons, sadly. By the way, I do fully intend for us to change history, so as long as you have a general idea of what's going on at the time, go for it. Nothing extremely major, though unless you know your stuff.

4.4 Some history

Long ago after Outremar collapsed, men colonized it. However an ancient evil created at the beginning of the world and locked in the shield volcano emerged. Cormumag created the first dungeon on an island in the middle of the atoll. He created evil as we know it, he spawned the first keepers, his children. His dungeon was the largest we know of. His armies spanned miles and his constructs were numerous. He created a great black fleet called the shadow navy that invaded first the jungles of the east reducing many parts of it to wastelands(which later grew back up) and then ordered his armies westward in the north and the south conquering many of the grassland kingdoms. In the Savannah of the west and the great deserts he enslaved whole peoples. He was only stopped when an angelic race, the antithesis of the keepers, arrived on Outremar and bested him, chaining him to his own island, above his now destroyed dungeon. His children crept to the edges of society to lurk and breed. His armies were tossed aside as childrens' playthings and the first age of evil ended.

The second age of evil was led by his children who were now powerful and with many descendants. They set up dungeons everywhere and no angels arrived to stop them. Soon however a new breed of hero brought their downfall, the adventurer. He dared to head into their dungeons with small forces to sabotage their operations while they were away. Through this it was discovered how to kill a keeper and many were destroyed. It is said that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse effectively began in this age and first tried to end the world, but failed so catastrophically that the notion is barely a rumor nowadays. Only three of Cormumag's children survived this age. The keepers left and sailed to the isle of their father.

The third age of evil was the last one for a while. The grandchildren of Cormumag led this along with two of his surviving sons. They rained death from the skies in their new tactic. Keepers literally fell from the heavens(from the dark magic cloud bases of the keepers) to build their dungeons and terrorize the country side. These new sky bases stopped the method of destroying the last wave of keepers. The clouds could not be touched by the pitiful humans. Cormumag's island had begun to sink and soon his chains rusted and his power grew again. His descendants who had lived on his island for the millennium between the second and third age had unknowingly helped to weaken his bonds and give him strength. He broke free and began rampaging about Outremar. However he was stopped when his three children were tempted by a human hero to usurp their father. They tried to do so and were killed. The grandchildren who led the war did not escape his wrath either and were decimated, in the process destroying their shadow cloud bases. Cormumag had effectively reduced the keeper population and the remainder were banished or fled to shadow realms to be summoned at a later date. Cormumag stood as the last threat to mankind and lords from all of Outremer banded together and marched their armies against Cormumag. They attacked him ravenously and stole his heart which he had incorporated into himself, making his body his own dungeon. They destroyed it and Cormumag was no more. But he may yet return through some unknown means, in fact it is common keeper belief that at the end of days Cormumag will march from the mother dungeon below the earth with all dead keepers to conquer Outremar in the final battle.

The Fourth age of evil was one of havoc. A new devotee, the humble imp, pioneered the art of summoning Keepers back from their various prisons or dimensions. More Keepers than ever before appeared on Outremar, causing great tragedies and destruction. Their names ring throughout legends: The Being of the Void (Known to the later civilizations as Effigia, which is Immaterial), Avak Iascor the First Rage, the twins Zorthax and Sladway, which are also known as the Atra Gemini, Reidan the Heavy-handed, and many others who are lost to time. The mentioned Keepers met on a plain in two alliances: Avak and Reidan versus the Being and the twins. In the end, Avak, on the brink of death, destroyed himself in an immense explosion that also took out the other Keepers. Reidan alone had escaped, who sensed that his time had come to leave Outremar. The war was called the Battle of Five Armies, and the plain was called Vastatio, which is Devastation.

From chaos and oblivion arose a new generation of Keepers in the Fifth Age. Doviculous rose from shadows. Detuiron, a mere human, traveled here from the distant future to find he had the power to shape the world. Shral'nok the ancient one stirred in his sandy crypts. Reidan returned to Outremar only to find his position as keeper of the earth usurped by the stone giant Gorsik. Two tempestuous twins of ice and water claimed their birthrights. Strangers like Irifiers returned from bygone eras and new beings like Dark Thorn were born and unleashed. Finally, the quiet spectre called Escre found its way back to the continent from the land of the dead.

For a time all was normal, but things began to go awry when the various keepers found themselves in possession of a number of symbol stones. Three new entities appeared on Outremar at about this time by the names of Dormammu, Aeternam, and Moros. As time wore on, the new arrivals turned out to be none other than the Horsemen of Conquest, War, and Famine. Escre revealed itself as Death, and the Four began traveling across Outremar seeking the symbol stones and the service of the keepers who possessed them. Those who yielded the potential power in the stones to the Horsemen became the fearsome Harbingers, while those who defied the inevitable were marked as enemies. The master plan of the Horsemen was to use the stones to construct the Iocinor, a self-aware orb of power destined to drain the power of Cormumag, who somehow lived still, bound beneath an island in the center of the inner sea. Just when all was fun and games, however, the Antikeepers appeared on Outremar once more. The angelic beings, the most prominent among whom were Zadok, Arial, Sophist, and the phantasmagorical Weaver, has a simple mission: to stop the Keepers and save the world.

The final hour of Outremar began on the island at the inner sea's center. The Horsemen succeeded in stealing Cormumag's power and soul, thus finally killing him, before the Antikeepers arrived and disrupted the ritual. Some of the power was released in the ensuing struggle, sending the island in pieces high into the air where it hung like the mobile of a babe. There the final battle over the Iocinor was fought between the Harbingers, defiant Keepers, and the Antikeepers while armies of humans and the knightly Vindicator order valiantly battled the hordes of the Keepers far below. Severe casualties were sustained on both sides but it ultimately resulted in a stalemate—until, that is, Zadok called a meteor from the heavens that utterly decimated the battlefield and all who fought upon it. The Iocinor was sent flying into the air as the Weaver readied its last-ditch assault: it sought to sever the threads that constituted everything in the hopes of destroying the Harbingers forever.

The threads, however, had other plans. They reacted against the Weaver, condemning it and breaking it until nothing was left but the Ripper, a hateful and destructive entity that ultimately shattered the last seal of the apocalypse that lay within the Iocinor, thus dooming Outremar.

At the last moment, the Horsemen created an unstable portal to another world and offered an invitation to all who had survived the battle: die here with Outremar or take your chances through the portal elsewhere. Those who entered found themselves somewhere new and very strange: Earth.

5. Conclusion

5.1 Credits

Credits to Senger Drol/Tri for the original version of this, GrandEnder for the second version, Prospo for the next one, and Cavalier for the fifth one, on the Sporum and RPProject

5.2 Rules

You know the rules. And I'm so confident of that that I won't even bother telling you. A bit of a warning, though: do stuff that rubs me the wrong way and bad things can happen to your character. Persist with said rubbing and you might find yourself banned and your character brutally killed. I reserve the right to deny anyone everything, but I will endeavor not to.

5.3 Compendium

I will be endeavoring to keep a record of all Keepers, their appearance and domain (theme over which they preside, like fire or swamps), and brief descriptions of their dungeons and creatures. I find that such records are incredibly helpful whenever two players start interacting. You yourself will be supplying these snippets of information by appending them to the end of your post right next to the obligatory status update. Just a few words will do. If you elect not to do this, you don't get logged in the compendium and it's that much harder to get things done around here.

5.4 Starting

No character sheets are needed, just make a descriptive entry post about your Keeper's humble beginning on Earth.

Here are what I suggest doing in the blue areas.

3.1
First creature- Either, we clarify that this 'first creature' is the Imp or we shift the Fibbonaci sequence to start at 3 not 2.

3.2
Constructs from creatures- we should express that you are allowed to create constructs which are unrelated to your existing minions. Say that they will take up the next number in the sequence to create from your last Construct.

4.3
NPCs- we must mention that these NPCs are magic races. Each race has a single primary magical field, typically characterised by an element (fire, earth, electricity, etc) or ability (telekinesis, flight, strength, etc). And speaking against flying purple magic dragons may no longer be valid.

5.4
Starting- our new entrance makes starting somewhat more complex. I have a suggestion for something more useful than an 'entry post' yet still more free-form than a character sheet. Get players to write a few paragraphs on their character. This may be either from 3rd person, as we normally post, or from 1st person, to give a more personal perspective. This post would include the identity of the Keeper (or Rogue Construct), their appearance, their abilities, their personality and any other useful information which the player would like to share. In short, the character, having just either been scrambled through inter-dimensional travel or been transformed by some force, has to figure out or remember "who am I? what am I? what do I look like? what can I do in this form? what now?". For entrants during the beginning, we'll then spit them out that portal. For entrants after the beginning, we'll then ask them to drop in wherever they like.


Also to be added, in section 4, is the geography (you can do that when I get the map to you, of course) and the history of Elysium. Although this may have been built as a paradise by Sophist, they have obviously faced war otherwise they would not have weapons. I think it is clear that there must have been a divide between people somewhere since creation. A classical story would be that we had several tribes of siblings, each with different powers. They go their own ways because there is not enough room for them in one place. Over time, they become strangers to each other. Naturally, conflicts occasionally arise, and the tribes split further as those with different magical abilities developed. However, war is uncommon here, as there is plenty of resources for all, but they are familiar enough with conflict to know how to fight and have armies, or be able to pull together one on short notice. This is, of course, merely a suggestion.

It's a good suggestion, though.  I applaud your efforts.  I'm not kidding when I say that this might be the best DK on forethought alone.

I'll keep your suggestions in mind, BBeast. I went back and edited that post, so now there's a few more sections of the new OP that are drafted.

How's the map coming along? Anything to show yet?

Not yet, I'm afraid. A weekend with nothing on helped me to get the mere globe (which was no easy feat), but I am yet to draw anything resembling a continent.

Up to the point you've edited (end of 2), it seems good. There is a typo in the first line of 1.1, where it says 'more overpowered mages' where it should say 'mere overpowered mages'. That was there initially.

Good job spotting that one, BBeast. I fixed that typo, changed a few sentences to add clarity or make them sound better, and rewrote Section 3.1, the part about creatures.

There's also in 4.1, in the paragraph it is talking about climate, it says 'drenching Outremear in drain'. But you'll get to that later.

In 1.1 paragraph 2, you have repeated, or forgotten to delete, the phrase 'Dungeons and become even more powerful.'

In 2.2 paragraph 2, in the first sentence, then word 'then' after the comma is grammatically incorrect, or at least doesn't follow continuity. Remove it.

In 3.1 paragraph 3, sentence 2 should begin with an 'If'.

In 3.1 last paragraph, line 3, 'cast' should be spelt 'caste'

I like your modifications to section 3.1. Makes it nice and clear.

Thanks BBeast, maybe I should start using you instead of some crummy spellcheck. I fixed what you pointed out, but haven't gone on to the next section yet. I suddenly recalled you asking me to clarify that section and allow for the constructs to not resemble the tier of creature they are matched with.

I know you did that with Gaothivus, (I hope that was spelled right) but from everything already in that paragraph that we followed in the Sporum's RP, the constructs are meant to resemble the creature and are the link between the Keeper and it. I'm not really sure if it's a good idea to let someone create an orc and have a dragon construct.

I'll try to remain active for the next week or so, but it may be difficult because my family is moving and our new house might not have the computers (or even WiFi) set up for a while.

It has been done before. In the Fourth Age Cav made a giant 100-foot monster construct which would be very hard to link to any of his creatures. Vampiress's Keeper created Juno, a sister to the Keeper. You could obscurely link it to the underelves, but you shouldn't have to.

It isn't always possible to create a viable link between a creature and a potential Construct. For example I could not conceive a Construct idea for my Sailors. I could have built a 'better Sailor', but there would be very little special about it other than stronger and has magic, unless I wanted it to be really out of place. I decided Gaoithavis would be much better, and much less dull.

I see a number of options. We do not allow Constructs to be unique; we allow players to create unique Constructs if a related Construct is considered unsuitable; or we allow players to, once, instead of creating a related Construct, create a unique Construct. I prefer the second option. It means players will avoid creating unrelated constructs for the sake of it, yet still allows them the creativity which this RP is supposed to exhibit. And it doesn't impose arbitrary limitations. If you agree, I'd suggest appending to the second paragraph of 3.2 something along the lines of "If a Construct that is related to your creature is inconceivable or unsuitable, you may make a Construct following a different design. Normal rules still apply. Nothing more powerful than it should be."

Alright, we can go with the second choice. One last question before I redo the next section: should we do away with the limit of one construct per creature?

No. I see little reason to do away with that limit. It prevents players from building an army of Constructs, or creating duplicate Constructs. That might be overpowered.

In the time it would take to build an army of weak constructs, everyone else would no doubt have larger armies that consist of better creatures and a few higher leveled constructs. Besides, much of a construct's power comes from its Keeper, an entire horde of them could have be empowered all at once.

It's about time I finish up the OP, so I won't mention a construct limit. Depending on what we end up agreeing on, I'll later add a sentence or two to clarify.