• Kill One Hundred
• And Then A Hundred More
• Let Them Drown In Their Own Blood
• And Seize Victory Where There Is None

• Kill One Hundred Gods
  
  Long ago, in the land of Magna Orbita, there were a hundred Divinities.
  
  Each God had their own domain, and their own phase-aspect: a manifestation of their domain within their soul, which itself split into a number of minor souls. These "minor souls" were the Gods' children, their angels, and parts of them in the same. Simply put, each of the gods was a crystal or a gem, with multiple facets; and yet, each facet being its own independent crystal.
  
  A hundred Gods, then.
  
  Ten of the Supreme Celestial Circle, and three of the Second Celestial Circle for each of the Supreme, and the remaining sixty children among the Third Celestial Circle. And below these all-powerful Celestials were beasts and monsters: children born of their blood, salt, sweat, and ichor. The Gods of the Terrestrial Circles, of which there are many, and in which the humans dwell almost at the very bottom.
  
  In Magna, humanity is nothing but a low sub-race. A dozen hunters for a less-than-percentile chance to defeat a Divinity of the Third Circle, or a hundred to scratch one of the Second in a manner which it will forget about within seconds. Cogitate not even of a strike against the Supreme - they shan't notice your wan efforts, and you cannot comprehend how to damage them in the first place.
  
  Theirs was a reign of tyranny and brutality: a city of humans displaced and destroyed, for Lethos, the Flowerbed Panoply, the Primordial Deity of Nature, needed a place to settle down. The flower's roots consumed countless homes like merciless spears, destroyed ancient ports and temples by overgrowing them in noxious thickets, and sucked power from the very earth, turning every crop of barley and wheat into a deadly, withered poison.
  
  Its lower souls - its angels, of the Second Circle - assured the humans it meant no ill, it merely required a place to sit down and bask in the sun's beauty... and if a couple hundred thousand meaningless lives were extinguished in the process, who cares? Humanity is a bonfire meant to provide the Gods warmth, affection, and worship: its individual sparks meant nothing and were to be extinguished as the Gods pleased. It was the way of life and the way of being.
  
  Until one mortal, meaningless, decided these Celestials have ruled over humanity for too long.
  
  If you beat flint against stone for a hundred years, eventually, one of the trillion-trillion sparks will fly off, refusing to extinguish like the rest. Where the other sparks of heat died down in seconds, crushed by circumstance or lost to the uncaring cold of the universe, one spark is often enough.
  
  One spark, in the right place, at the right time, shearing its way and ignoring the cold, dodging the leaves carried by the heavy wind, settles down as an ashen ember.
  
  It settles down, and even though it knows it is about to die, with its last breath, it lights a brilliant fuse. The flammable zeal of the fuse will not stop where the spark had - its flame will grow brighter and more brilliant with each day, moving closer and closer, until it finally reaches its terminus...
  
  And the Gods will now drink their own blood for their sin.
• Goals/Traits
  * Participate in a collaborative high fantasy writing experience!
  * Join a setting of unceasing war, where you and your compatriots represent one of the few sparks of hope lighting a brilliant lantern at the end of a long hallway of suffering!
  * Be a badass demigod. A party of adventurers to begin with, monstrously overpowered officers of armies at the end. Comparable to power-scaling in Naruto.
  * Basically Exalted, but there's no Sol Invictus around to save your ass.
  * I won't hesitate to kill you if you rush a Supreme on the same day you learned to use magic.
  * Like, I literally won't. I dare you to try. Say goodbye to your precious waifu.
  
  Setting Details
  
  Twelve winters and twelve summers ago, Lethos settled down on the city of Sheldrake. Within less than an hour, ten thousand people were dead, their corpses turned into fertilizer for the Celestial's glory. A thousand more were exiled, abandoned, orphaned, and lost. Some of them coalesced into minor tribes, warring in the Sheldrake Valley for resources. Others went out on their own, to never or seldom be heard from again.
  
  Ten winters and ten summers ago, one of the independents came back to the tribes, bearing proof of mankind's incandescence.
  
  Humanity was a race of gods, no matter how diluted its divinity. The lowest of the low, at the bottom of the Terrestrial Circle, but humanity was not without its own power.
  
  A lesser animal encounters a river. It sneers at the water and turns around. A man wouldn't.
  
  Mankind's Gift is that of civilization, and civilization means to devour the fruits of nature and use them to expand and grow, to consume yet more. It means to innovate and adapt. A lesser animal turns around, but a human builds a bridge or a boat.
  
  This man, Zeo Khan, applied the gift on an entirely new level.
  
  For years, he hunted: a great carapace-adorned crustacean lured into a pit of deadly fire, its chitin fashioned into armor that no mere steel could pierce. The armor protected him, as he killed a deadly wolf and fashioned a club with its deadly claws as nails. The armor and weapon a further stepping stone, which he used to slay Hangama, a deity of the Third Circle. A feat unheard of, and yet, it allowed him to call upon the elements of the four seasons.
  
  He shared these gifts with the men of the tribes and became the elected leader. Humanity for once, had a foothold within reality, no longer a source of effulgent and empty praise.
  
  But the Gods were infuriated. Their immaculate hundred was defiled, rendered into a pair of nines. Uneven, unequal, unthinkable; the mortals thought to do this? They would pay tenfold for the grievous offense.
  
  So it became a war, and the Gods found their fury rapidly dwindling into fear. The children of Lethos were destroyed one by one. Its flowers pickled for their deadly poisons used to foment arrows that could slay any beast of the land. The arrows to kill mythical clay golems, the hearts of the golems used to create boundary wards where no plant would grow; mythical or otherwise.
  
  With untold deadliness, mankind advanced into Sheldrake, the Ruined City. Once more, the Gods attempted to stop them. Lethos sent its lower souls, those of the Second Circle. Where Hangama fell, Urja and Isorropia were quick to join. Their gifts were more potent, the ability to manipulate life energies, and to lock away concepts that didn't belong to the world. The last of the Third Circle belonging to Lethos was a mere afterthought; Sprrak, giving the humanity the ability to understand nearly any language or logic.
  
  Even if the gifts were on a lesser scale, now they belonged to humanity, and man quickly used its new deadly tools with the cunning and ruthlessness of a beast greater than any terrestrial creature.
  
  The powers thus accumulated were utilized in a great battle that lasted for six hours. Lethos fought and screamed, as plant-withering cores were propelled using wind magic into its most vulnerable chambers. It fought and thrashed, as its energies were directly sapped away through arcane links. It begged and it screamed as the very existence of its thought was made forbidden to nature.
  
  The Nine remaining Celestials watched with stunted horror, as humanity, the lowest of the low, purged one of their brothers.
  
  A golden age for humanity ensued, as Sheldrake was rebuilt. The corpse of Lethos was used as a frame on which the new city was raised. Its corpse was drained of valuable life energy to power the city's lanterns and factories, its stamen utilized as firewood for the new furnaces of war.
  
  For the next ten years, the miracle continued, and the war slowed down. The Gods were shocked, too afraid they would be next. In their shock, in their terror, they attempted to create something to fight back. A race of demons, the Vormloss, these monsters had managed to infiltrate Sheldrake as a group of distant nomads and slew Zao Khan in his sleep.
  
  Humanity's retribution was swift to follow, but now, both sides are unsure what to do. It is certain, however, the days to come will be of great interest and conflict.
  
  Roleplay Mechanics
  
  The players are going to participate in the roleplay as members of the Gyzyl Ganhor, or the GG, also known as the "Red Slayers" and "Zao's Slayers." Originally drawn from the members of the tribes under his employ, as the most promising, the GG Section now recruits new members to fill the ranks.
  
  The ranks of the Gyzyl Ganhor are trained and employed directly for the purpose of slaying Gods, rarely participating in other, miscellaneous tasks, such as scouting, exploration, diplomacy, or hunting, as needed by the city-state of New Sheldrake.
  
  Although at this point, almost anyone with enough determination can join the ranks of the Red Slayers, it is expected they have at least some combat talent.
• The Stolen Gifts
  
  More can be unlocked by slaying more Divinities. Make note that none of these are "Terrestrial Gifts," of which there are many, and include things like suits of super-hard armor, swords that cut through steel like butter, and so on.
  
  Civilization
  Divinity: Mankind
  
  Humanity's power is that of innovation, adaptation, and consumption. Where a natural barrier occurs, an unnatural solution can be employed; provided the human in question has enough ingenuity. Although this may seem non-magical, it is in fact one of the most powerful gifts for the determined. No other beast in the land would ever consider building a bridge to cross a river. This Gift offers a thousand solutions, it is merely that no solution is immediate, easy, or pleasant to employ. Perhaps the most powerful facet of the Gift is the ability to steal other Gifts from the Gods.
  
  * You can't really choose not to pick this, since you start with it by default.
  * As versatile as modern consumerism.
  * Also takes a long to set up anything noteworthy.
  * Allows you to use the corpses of lesser Terrestrial beasts to create quasi-supernatural items, and harvest the corpses of Celestials to unlock new magics.
  
  Four Seasons
  Divinity: Hangama
  
  The stolen power meant to represent the Four Seasons. Its original spark of power has diminished somewhat in humanity's hands, but it is conversely easy to learn - ever since Zao Khan's seizure of this power, almost one in ten humans are able to learn it without outside tutelage, and almost every single one is able to learn it with enough tutelage.
  
  This power is nothing else than power over the four cardinal elements, each tied to a given season: fire for summer, wind for autumn, water for winter, and earth for spring. Although a person can use any element at any time and their power doesn't dilate quite as much as it once used to depending on the season, it is much easier to train and practice said element when its associated season is dominant.
  
  Blasts of bonfire-lighting red motes, pressurized tubes of air meant to throw bombs high and far, water manipulation that allows the user to call on rain at will, and the ability to carve solid earth and rock as if it were a sandbox with mere thought. This and more is available to the apprentices of the Four Seasons.
  
  Although masters are rare, they can achieve a height of an element: fire that consumes anything and never stops hungering; a gale that cuts and uproots trees; water frozen into ice or vaporized into steam; or the ability to sunder rock into sand or refine its impurities to produce instant metal. Otherwise, they can learn, from time to time, elements that aren't associated with any season, such as lightning, smoke, shadow, or lava. In some of those cases, further mastery is possible.
  
  * Highly cost-efficient.
  * Stupidly versatile if you're willing to put time into it.
  * Immediately useful, applicable in a lot of situations.
  * Also kind of stale and pedestrian.
  
  The Quintessential Flow
  Divinity: Urja
  
  The ability that allows one to snare and manipulate lifesparks and life essences. A lifespark is, essentially, to a living being as a fuel cell is to a nuclear reactor.
  
  Seized, it can be used to produce inordinate amounts of energy in order to fuel other magics, or in the form of rituals. Humans have been known to produce horrendous feedback loops that horrified the Gods: creating a tornado fueled by lifesparks by combining the art with the Four Seasons, and the tornado would further consume the lifesparks of any creature it destroyed, growing larger and more powerful with time.
  
  An adept of the art learns to do more than these basics, however. He can make ritual circles that drain energy from a target constantly, keeping a spell perpetual so long as the target's lifespark continues to operate. He can fire beams of concentrated life energy, or seize this energy like a sucking void in order to deprive his targets of stamina. Many techniques exist for this Gift, and it is vastly under-explored.
  
  * Ridiculous utility.
  * Can probably evolve into necromancy with enough ingenuity.
  * Become a Super Saiyan at higher levels; drain energy to get a stronger body, only to burn that energy off in a furrow-creating beam of energy.
  * Did I mention you can use this to give God the succ?
  
  The Seven Seals
  Divinity: Issoropia
  
  Originally, this ability was meant to "lock away unnatural things." Its purpose was diminished and perverted by the humans who seized it, however. It can now be used to produce "runes" that can lock items and objects within them.
  
  A rune placed over a torch will absorb its fire, extinguishing the torch, but turning into a "fire rune." A fire rune can then be adjusted by an apprentice of the art, fine-tuned to produce a specific fiery effect, such as a fire blast, or producing a torchlight that floats along the user. Runes can either be one-use or reusable, depending on the user's needs and particular talents. There are very few limits to what can be sealed away.
  
  True masters of the art can do more than merely seal things, however. They can lock away ephemeral concepts, such as "love" or "the self." They can reforge runes, combining two runes into one, such as combining a "sword rune" and a "fire rune" then fine-tuning it to create a fire-sword. It makes magical interaction incredibly easy and versatile, and allows proficient mages for easy access to supernatural items, assuming they can reach for the right concepts.
  
  * Utility, utility, utility!
  * Basically fuinjutsu from Naruto at lower levels.
  * Basically the Alchemiter from Homestuck at higher levels.
  * Seal away your own "mercy" and use it to forge a medkit, making you into the world's most ruthless team medic!
  
  The Universal Tongue
  Divinity: Sprrak
  
  The Universal Tongue allows the user to speak in a manner that is almost telepathic with the people around them. Rather than being a true application of telepathy, this Gift is meant to facilitate communication. Content, context, and intent are layered and slotted within each other, removing any possibility of a misunderstanding. The user can read things spoken in ancient languages no brain should be rightfully able to process with a mere glance.
  
  Although weak at lower levels, at higher ones, it allows one to communicate with strange and noteworthy things. Celestials of the First Circle could be understood and spoken with on even terms; nature itself communes with as if it were a person, in order to gather information or ask favors; to a master, there is almost nothing that can't be spoken to, including their inner demons, the hatred of their enemy, or the very mountains and winds around them. Although a given "thing" might not always be convinced to agree to something, the ability to try is something most people wouldn't dream of. It opens a communication channel to spirits and elder entities, who offer their own, minor Gifts to skilled users, in exchange for the right services.
  
  * You can speak with anything at higher levels, including stupid abstrata that shouldn't exist. Do you know that trope where you have a little devil and little angel on your shoulders, representing your conscience? You can do that now. Except it's literal and non-comedic.
  * Make contracts with local spirits to obtain a veritable swiss knife of minor superpowers. Pay for it with favors and heroic deeds.
  * Become the unceremonious team translator.
  * If negotiations with the First Circle Celestial looming over the party break down, they'll probably blame it on you.
  
  Blood Magic
  Divinity: Aarde
  
  Blood Magic, although it sounds grim, isn't in fact the sacrificial rite you might associate with its usual portrayal. Rather than using blood to enhance rituals, the user learns to directly manipulate their own blood to accomplish superhuman deeds.
  
  At lower power levels, it allows the user to "draw out the heat" of their own blood through their skin, to produce weak flames, or they can match their body's movement with their heartbeat in order to achieve a degree of super-speed and super-strength. An adept will be able to clot wounds instantly, or form spears and whips they can use to punish targets. The more a user progresses in this art, the more hypertension their circulatory system experiences: blood pressure is magnified, as is the quantity of the blood in their system.
  
  A true master is, quite literally, a bloody nuclear bomb. If they were to cut their wrist and allow the blood within to flow freely, without using their magic to mitigate it, the sudden deluge of pressurized blood might be comparable to a railgun or a bomb exploding.
  
  * Simple and fun to use.
  * Requires you to bleed, so make sure to replenish your blood supplies often by becoming a cute vampire loli.
  * Shoot projectile blood at your enemies to kill them, then cannibalize their circulatory systems for more blood to use.
  * Become a walking, breathing, (heart)beating nuke that will likely condemn everything in a one-hundred-meter radius if someone were to pinch you with a skewer and accidentally break skin while you were sleeping or something.
  
  Flower Magic
  Divinity: Lethos
  
  A magic ruthlessly plundered from the core of one of the Ten Celestials.
  
  Its uses are not fully explored, but they follow as such: pick a flower, and then form a bond with it by meditating. After being planted, the flower will grow as normal, but once harvested, its seeds can be used to produce a series of 1st-generation magical plants. If their seeds are planted, a 2nd-generation magical plant is achieved; this can be repeated ad nauseam. The effects of the plants change with each generation, usually becoming stronger over time.
  
  Effects can range from simple physical interference to bedazzling conceptual effects. A 1st-generation rose might yield basic "rose armor" across the vital bodyparts, while a 3rd-generation rose might become a full-body armor with thorns, and a 5th-generation rose's throns will automatically extend and jab at nearby opponents in a counter-attack. A chrysanthemum might instead result in the "prolonging" of effects with a duration, orchids may increase physical strength and constitution, while a sunflower might emit solar light beams.
  
  Flower magic is difficult to learn, but experienced mages often maintain entire gardens for practicing their craft.
  
  * High-maintenance.
  * A lot of your time will be spent caring for a bunch of plants.
  * Your lilacs can resurrect the recently dead, your smilax can constrict the movement of awesome beasts and stab them with thorns, and your cordyceps allows for the raising of short-lived undead minions.
  * Pretty fun though.
  
  
• The Divinities were indestructible.
  
  They had glaives made of thunder, sinews made of stone. Lashes of lava that could flagellate a mountain-range, sear devastation across nations at whim. They had hordes full of screamers, stoic nether-saints, thousand-headed giants with teeth like calcite crags, fists like falling stars. They had a wind full of swords, serpents spun from nectar, horsemen forged from nightmare, and gleam. They had world-leveling thunder, sky-puncturing fangs, the Apocalypse fury of their proud and immutable King.
  
  But Zao Khan had cunning, courage, a heart full of hatred and a strong sword arm. And there were thousands of him.
  
  What are you waiting for? There are ninety-four Divinities left. Go and reap, for the harvest shall be bountiful.