SO
I've been having this crazy idea whirling around inside my head that's a mishmash of so many of my beloved favorite things and it finally came to fruition inside my head where it makes sense to explain it and offer it up as a potential event!
So! That being said...
Have you ever seen the 1999 cinematic master piece 'The Mummy' staring Brandan Fraeser and Rachel Weisz?
Have you ever loved the goofiness and loved the exploratory aspect of the animated movie El Dorado/Prince of Egypt?
Than look no further than the proposed idea I gots for an event in Essryn :D
THE PREMISE
The basic premise is the cursed corpse of a man who 'tried to become king but never achieved it' comes back to life and is determined to gain the power that was taken from him. With it comes along a plague and other shenanigans!
'The Never king's' reign was short lived and controversial. Some say he never actually 'became king' and was a poisonous usurper. However, he did have royal blood and his claim wasn't entirely fanatical. But whatever he did do earned him a gruesome execution and had his name erased from history - chiseled off of any and all monuments that had been attributed to him in life and the life there after.
This is where the curse comes into play- either he, or someone working with him, cursed him so that upon his return, he will become a 'god king' and assume his rightful throne, punish those who destroyed his short lived empire- and become the last and immortal god ruler of Essyrn.
This idea becomes a site wide event because:
1- there would likely be a small cult following around the newly 'awakened' king who is slowly building up his power and purpose to take the Essyrni throne and to achieve the promise of his curse - to become this immortal god entity. I'm thinking there's a pretty extensive process and he could possibly bring back to life some of his former associates, etc as he's gaining momentum.
Some of his powers would affect things not only on a political level, but plagues and rare diseases cast by his own hand could be afflicted onto the people as this resurrected person goes through all the steps to gain more powers and steps towards immortality. I'm thinking he has his own little guide book that helps him lol in ancient essryni etc etc
But things like plagues, zombies/mummies/liches, crazy weather powers etc begin to arise in Essryn.
2) The other opposing forces would be trying to figure out how to kill this man off and stop him from achieving this 'god hood'. He's clearly a threat to the current Shah and as pieces about his history begin to emerge that hadn't been fully destroyed by those that killed him during his mortal life... scary realizations come afoot and the 'good guys' realize they gotta stop him, least Essryni fall into a frightening era of chaos.
The bad guy can gain more powers through various factors of his curse:1- sucking the souls from enough persons that he can essentially 'live forever' - only catch, the person giving up their soul has to willingly give it. Those souls he can keep as a stock pile in order to use towards achieving god hood. However, if he gains souls by 'stealing' them, they can temporarily gain him abilities, but they're not a permanent solution. Hence why he'd have to establish himself and gain followers willing to give away their souls. He can only 'steal' one soul every 24-hours to feed off of. It gives him 1 days worth of life. So he has to 'steal' souls everyday until he achieves godhood-
Or he just returns to being dead :)
Giving away one's soul doesn't kill a person- they just seem... 'off', muted, not quite themselves. Their constitution and any powers they had before are greatly reduced and they seem purposeless.
Can souls be restored? No one knows :D Maybe read from the book ;)
However, being 'soulless' adds to the many problems arising! Also, it seems if you are soulless, the wannabe 'God king' can use his growing powers to manipulate you to do things on his behalf.
So more people he sucks souls from, the bigger army he can gather.
Those he can willingly suck a soul from are also limited- although it's uncertain if this number is one a day or one a week. Since the food is 'willing' and is being incorporated into his immortal godhood manifestation, there seems to be a 'gestation' period before he can eat again. It does not seem one type of soul eating affects another. Unwilling souls are only temporary sustenance that gets used up and can not be added to his power pool (only the ability to utilize the soulless later as an army). So he could, in a sense, eat both types of souls in one day if the timing was right.
As his power tiers grow, he gains more power.
NEVER KING STAGES OF POWER
In order to make godhood the below stages (or tiers) need to be conquered before the curse/blessing can become 'set'/(permanent):Death,
Soul, Land, Sky, and finally- conquering
Life- to become a true immortal.
STOLEN SOULS- if your soul is stolen unwillingly, you only have 24 hours to get it back before it's permanently digested
WILLING SOULS- your soul is stuck inside him in his pool of power unless, HE decides to relinquish it... or his death comes, whichever happens first. However, your soul is lost forever in this process if he ever DOES achieve godhood because he then digests those souls and manifests himself into a 'god'
*The below tiers are subject to change - these are just the first draft! the land and sky tiers are likely to be edited as we move onward with the plot as I feel these are the least fleshed out aspects of the tiers- and could possibly end up just being merged, depending on story and circumstancesGod tier- he will achieve 'immortality and godhood' but first has to go through the other tiers to achieve this! (More on this below)First tier- (DEATH) he is awakened from the dead (I mean- conquering death itself IS impressive!) and can eat souls to survive and begin his 'pool of power'Second tier- (SOUL) his second awakened tier allows him to tap into the first level of god powers, this also gives him access to his control of 'soulless' and can begin to tap into first tiered abilities. This also begins his own gestation of creating his 'god soul' needed to gain him the god power he desiresThird tier (LAND) this tier takes some time to gain- as he needs so many souls of the living to create enough power to begin to manipulate and lay claim over aspects of the lands around him- and they come and need conquered in no short order: Sand, Water, Earth, Plant-life (tbd)Fourth tier (SKY) this tier takes just as much time to gain and allows him to lay claim over the following: insects, winds, storms, and stars (would be pretty gnarly if he could pull down an asteroid to smash things to bitty bits) or create other such phenomenon like perma-eclipses etc (tbd) Might even be cool if aspects of flying or what have you, come into play.Fifth tier (LIFE) this tier is insane and takes some time to even get close to achieving-in the end he has claim over the following and then is able to become 'immortal' and achieve godhood and digest all of his souls fully to achieve the final outcome. But on his way there he has to lay claim over the following: Objects of Man (he can breath power into inanimate objects men have created- such as clothing, ropes, buildings, etc), Disease and Pestilence - lays claim over the diseases and plaguesSeed of an heir (right before he can become a god, he will obtain the ability to ensure a legacy by now begin able to sire children) and in fact, has to do so before he can move onto the final tier of immortality, which then earns him the next step God Hood.God Tier- he has reached immortality and can do all of the previous abilities. Each ability takes some usage of the pool of souls he's obtained, and he only has so many uses before they have to 'recharge' and he can use them again. Now that he's come onto God Tier status, he can continue to gain souls to a point where this 'wait' period is more or less nonexistent and he can bend the world to his will. Also, at this tier- he no longer has to eat souls to live and it is nigh impossible to kill him.The only way to fully be rid of the god king as he grows is to either:
1) remove all his souls
2) don't allow him to eat a soul for 24 hours so he can die
3) I'm sure there's some secret in the "Book of the Dead*" he follows but he won't share that with you! - might have to do with him eventually siring an 'heir'...
*note 'Book of the Dead' is the place holder >_> I'll make neph come up with something far more clever to name in it's placeSUGGESTED OPEN CHARACTERS/ROLES FOR CLAIM
(Further Ideas on Involvement Welcome!)
1)
Does anyone wanna play the God king? If not, I'm game for playing the big bad I designed!@nephero - They have..
credentials. 2) Anyone wanna be a minion or design someone from his past? Whether they're on his side or someone opposing him? Clearly Mr. God King wannabe needs friends!
@GoblinFae - Opposing Rival Hater Faction (minions welcome)
3) This will *obviously* affect the Shah, so I'll need those to rally around her to help her figure this all out! So clearly, a rag time group of wannabe heroes and also everyday knights and warriors who are already loyal to her crown
@visualspice - Shah
4) Current day myth searchers who want to be for or against the God king's rise
5) Innocents and 'Ostriches'! - Unfortunate bystanders and those who refuse to believe there really is a problem forming.
OOC EXPECTATIONS AND REQUIREMENTS
1) While threading, we'll just ask that you remain reasonably active so the event doesn't go stagnant! We're estimating to have the event move forward each time we finish plots per tier event *based on the god kings tier growths
This means that plotting into said portion of the event closes once we go live and get knee deep in Threads.
Threads still exist in liquid time like all other threads on the site, just major event arcs are only open for discussion and creation during the active plotting stage! i.e.- if the big bad guy is on tier three and we're actively playing it out but you have ideas for tier one.. unfortunately it's too late for said idea to affect the event plot.
2) Additionally for the main, major plot important threads we do ask again for regular activity (approximately a post/week to these threads where necessary). Obviously exceptions apply but we want to try and keep the ball rolling and not stagnant. If you have concerns during the threading process, don't be shy. We can work on this together!
3) We are looking to keep each tiered active plotting open for roughly 2-3 months - but will keep said boards updated so members are aware! We're hoping overall the whole set of arcs will take about a year total OOC gameplay time. Obviously your individual or side threads can continue to be written for as long as you want but this should hopefully keep your characters from getting locked in an event with no end and you unable to do other major plots them when you want because of the uncertainty of THIS event.
4) To start off some discussions and plots, please list your characters and where you'd like them to get involved and why!Stay tuned for the next post which will go into a little bit more history on this God King Wannabe and how we aim to go about creating this consortium of fun. Nephero has expressed interest and will be working on the BBEG (big bad evil guy) and we'll be working on finalizing locale and fun scenarios to toss characters into!
