Iterative Campaign Building

[Naelwyn]

Mainly so that I don't forget I had the idea to share a story here.

Please consider the thread reserved. I've locked it anyways, but I'll try and remember to come back to this.

 

[Naelwyn]

Thanks to Shimpsy for continuing to remind me about this~

(First Post: Served it's purpose.)

So, a few years back, I decided to try organically growing a campaign world from nothing.

To wit, I started with an absolutely blank multiverse, and then the overdeity explodes into several fragments.

Each player has control of a divine and their porfolios. Game 1, Immortal Combat, begins.

 

[Naelwyn]

Immortal Combat: The Rules

Special, 1:

Divine Creation (Div). All PC Deities participating in this game have the following bonus divine salient ability, known in game as the Spark of Creation, caused by their birth.

Creatre Creature: Instantly Create A Creature. The deity must rest for 10 minutes × the creature’s Hit Dice × the creature’s Challenge Rating for each creature created, with a minimum of 10 minutes per creature. If the creature has class levels, each level counts as an additional Hit Die. The deity can create a creature with class levels, but never with more class levels and/or hit dice than the deity has itself. (Rules Patch after one player's actions, detailed in the story.)
Special: If the Deity devotes an entire week to creating creatures, they may instead create 1000 Petitioners. A Deity must have a realm to do this special action.

Create Item: The Deity can create any non-epic magic item, or a mundane object weighing up to 100 pounds per divine rank, or with a volume of 20 cubic feet per rank, with 10 minutes of work. A Deity can create epic items at a rate of 1,000,000 gp a week. You cannot create artifacts with this ability.

Create Realm: A Deity can establish a location as their divine realm. Using this ability takes one week and either creates a demi-plane or establishes an existing planar area as their divine realm. One use of this ability establishes a radial area equal to 100ft x the Deitiy's divine rank. This radius is halved on the material plane and doubled on the astral. The maximum size of a divine realm is based on divine rank. Alternatively, a Deitiy using this ability can reduce another deitiy's divine realm by half the distance. A Divine Realm that is reduced to an area of zero is destroyed along with any and all petitioners currently inhabiting it. A Deity can have only one Divine Realm at a time. Using this ability while the Deity already has a divine realm instead creates a minor holy site with 1/10 the radius. It cannot be increased further and petitioners cannot be created there, but it qualifies as a target for the deity's remote viewing power.
Special: Overlapping Realms: If by some strange co-incidence (Or Instance of Nefarious Strategy) two divine realms overlap, the following things happen in order:

If one Deitiy has a higher rank than another, the lower-ranking deitiy's realm is negated in all overlapping areas.
If the Deities are of equal rank, the currently larger realm wins.
If both realms are the same size, a hard wall occurs and the DM does something fun.


Divine Creation:

Each Divine starts with a 50-point buy for stats, and can purchase beyond the 18 maximum at the same formula.
Characters can have a level adjustment of up to +10.
Characters have 40 hit dice to spend as they will.
Each Divine Starts at Divine Rank 10. They can have up to four domains, and one special feature or trait derived from their portfolio.

Disclaimer: In the event any of the actual players from the game ever read this:
I derped on some of the character names since it's been a while, the records blew up, and I forgot em. Some of the gods were supposed to be NPCs for you, but the game never got that far, so you'll see them getting written out in ways that make your own look better. Likewise, I had to do all of the builds from scratch, guessing randomly at how to make stats/actions line up.
I disguise all of this with various falsehoods to make things harder for non-in-the-know people to figure out plot in advance~

 

[Naelwyn]

The Players:

Despos, The Iron Tyrant. Lawful Evil.
Dwarven Knight 20/Dwarven Defender 15/Deepwarden 5
Portfolio: Toil, Tyranny, Devotion, Law, Earth, Mining, Dwarves, War
Domains: Dwarf, Earth, War, Law

Gwrforack, Title-less, Chaotic Evil
Fire Giant Barbarian 10/Frenzied Berserker 10/War Hulk 10/Legendary Dreadnought 10
Portfolio: Chaos, Blood, War, Fire, Slaughter, Orcs
Domains: Destruction, War, Madness, Chaos

Tomie, She-Witch, Beguiler. Chaotic Neutral.
Succubus Spellthief 7/Egotist 5/Psychic Trickster 8/Chameleon 10/Warshaper 5
Portfolio: Trickery, Deception, Fey, Elves, Pain.
Domains: Chaos, Charm, Trickery, Luck, Pleasure[Extra Domain Ability]

Rudios, The Maker. Lawful Good.
Warforged Artificer 20/Archivist 20
Portfolio: Creation, Engineering, Mechanisms, Constructs
Domains: Artifice, Creation, Protection, Rune

Nerazzad, The Lich, Neutral Evil. (The Divine Name came about from the following conversation: "Why is it that all these necromancer's names start with Ner-?" "Probably an homage to Nergal." "...Done.")
Demilich (Skull) Cleric 20/Necromancer 20
Portfolio: Death, Undead, Planning, Evil.
Domains: Death, Darkness, Evil, Planning

Broseidon, Lord of the Brocean. Chaotic Good. (No, I'm not kidding.)
Human Fighter 20/Ranger 20
Portfolio: Water, Oceans, Fish
Domains: Water, Weather, Liberation, Glory

Uriel, Title-less, Neutral Good.
Solar (Special Exemption - Required Outsider Hitdice) Outsider 40
Portfolio: Light, Good, Healing, Redemption
Domains: Good, Sun, Healing, Air

Vindashaen, Infinite Serpent, Lawful Neutral.
Couatl Outsider 20/Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil 10/Incantatar 10
Portfolio: Astral Plane, Magic, Knowledge, Time and Space
Domains: Magic, Knowledge, Travel, Time, Portal*[Extra Domain Ability]

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NPCS/Plot Devices

Gaia, Title-less, Neutral
Gaia is a rank 20 deity who, being a more powerful shard of the overdeity, came into being first. She has been traveling around the material plane making worlds, seeing them with all kinds of life, and then leaving them to a 'survival of the fittest' role and never returning.

 

[Naelwyn]

Story of the Game, Part 1: The Beginning Hectic Rounds:

Round 1 Begins. All PC divines coalesce at once, next to each other, floating in empty space on the prime material plane.
Vindashaen acts first, planeshifts out to the astral.
Rudios planeshifts to the etheric on round 1, then to the elemental plane of Mineral on round 2.
Uriel planeshifts to the etheric on round 1, then to the elemental plane of Positive energy on round 2.

Despos, Gwrforack, Tomie, and Nerazzad dogpile Broseidon, and have killed him by round 4.

Despos then moves to the elemental plane of earth, Gwrforack to fire, Nerazzad to the Negative. Tomie creates the elemental plane of Limbo within the Astral Plane, and goes to make her home base there.

Roster/Locations:

Despos: Earth
Gwrforack: Fire
Tomie: Limbo
Nerazzard: Negative
Broseidon: Dead
Uriel: Positive
Rudios: Mineral
Vindashaen: Astral

 

[Naelwyn]

Map of the Inner Planes, Game Start:

Legend:

Our Larger Colorspots are representing the Primary Elemental Planes. In Clockwise Order, Positive, Air, Water, Negative, Earth, Fire.
The Smaller Colorspots represent the Quasi and Paraelemental Planes.
Paraelementals:
Between Earth and Fire, Magma. Fire and Air, Smoke. Air and Water, Ice. Water and Earth, Ooze.
Quasielementals:
Positive, Left to Right: Radiance, Mineral, Steam, Lightning.
Negative, Left to Right: Dust, Ash, Vacuum, Salt.

 

[Naelwyn]

Map of the Outer Planes, Game Start:

My, that one was nice and simple.

 

[Naelwyn]

...Lost this post somehow. 's-it for today.