>>41730797
fuck you I'm gonna make Lavos, but FASTER!

So last thread we were talking about basing character building off of these things:

>your origin (a goddess who ascended from consuming too many souls? Grey Goo that's spread to space? A vore loli who couldn't stop eating?)
>What you eat (Souls? Metal? Matter? Life? Literally everything?)
>your powers (two domains with a bunch of generic power/traits thrown in)

There's also a few Archetypes that'll exist as flavor or stock templates that combine them.

And I think it was stated that Empyreans, no matter their form, are all the maws of a single Prime Empyrean. It was also suggested that they might all be potential new universes.

>>41730797
Nice. The old one was about to fall off the board soon. Though personally I'd probably have chosen a different picture for the OP (since the consensus is to make it into a "serious" game where you play as cosmic entities instead of just "giant space-waifu: the game". Although knowing /tg/ most people would make space-waifus anyway).

Anyway, some fluff on the concept.

Empyreals are huge (size of moons and planets, or bigger) sapient beings, with the potential to grow in size and power. Other than that, they can come in just about any shape, from swarms of nanomachines to not-Galactus. They may all gain their power from a mysterious Prime Empyreal, which may be some personification of a cosmic principle that exists outside the know existence, though whether they gain the connection to the Prime Empyreal because of their ability to consume worlds, or they have the ability because of their connection to the Prime Empyreal is unclear, and likely varies.
Empyreans grow in power and size by consuming worlds, other Empyreals and nonsapient space-monsters. Different types may feed on different things, like minerals, biological matter or souls. There are multiple tiers of Empyreals; Planetary-scale Empyreals are to Galactic-scale ones as regular mortals are to Planetary-scale Empyreals. The ultimate goal for one would be to consume all matter in the universe, at which point the Empyreal may become a new universe in itself, or possibly be able to enter the realm of the Prime Empyreal and either join it or take its place.

>>41731035

Waifu OPs attract more posters.

>>41730797
We still haven't laid down the game mechanics, or chosen the dice system, but the consensus seem to be to use an abstract movement system with a battlemat that has different range bands (things on the same band would be close enough to be able to make melee attacks, while ranged attacks could hit things from further).

Character creation wise, the idea seems to be that we'll have archetypes (like deity, swarm, machine, ascendant mortal) that would grant certain effects (like swarms being difficult to grapple or wound with single-target attacks, but weak to area of effect attacks), as well as skill trees for different abilities.

Experience is gained by consuming things. Different things give different resources (minerals, biomass, souls, energy), and not all Empyreals could use the same kind of resource (you could also make one that can, but they'd gain less beenefit from each type than a more specialized one). These resources would be used to buy staboosts and abilities. After consuming enough total resources you "level up" and become bigger. Eventually you can get big enough to make transition from one scale (planetary, stellar, galactic, etc.) to the next.

>>41731179

I vote 2d6 plus ability like Interlock

>>41731179

I dunno about consumption being tied directly to EXP. I saw it more as something like VtM's blood drinking, since your energy becomes an expendable resource.

>>41731179
For the game system, I would suggest d10, or possibly d100 (ie. percentage). Partly because I'm more familiar with it, but also because I think it's a good balance between being pretty simple and having more variance than d6. Stat checks could simply be made by rolling under your stat, or beating an opposed roll+stat roll. Although I'm not sure how to adapt the effect of different sizes categories.

>>41731416
I imagine that increases in size/scale are facilitated by consumption, as well as it acting as a powersource. Actually increasing other stats/powers you have to get actual exp for.

>>41731395
>>41731428
d10 or 2d6 both sound good. I prefer mechanics that would keep your stats as single-, or at most double-digit, as it would make buying stat upgrades easy (spend X experience to boost your chosen stat by 1).

>>41731416
Since growing by consuming this is supposed to be one of the key concepts, I think it would make sense to link the xp gain to consuming things.

>>41731428

Yeah I suggested 2d6es because its close to d10, but they're standard dice, and nonstandard dice are harder to come by in some places. We could just add 1 to difficulty rolls since the averages are similar (5.5 vs 6.5)

>>41731480

But I assume you'll be eating pretty constantly.

A compromise would be after x amount of Exacals are consumed and converted into usable energy you gain one point.

Consider though that unlike combat, consuming planets as no associated risk of failure.

>>41731604
Maybe while the Hunger needs to be fed from different sources, and defines where you get your energy from...

An Empyreal, after their initial boost of power, can only ascend by gathering more Empyrean energy?

This can come from finding natural sources (which might be how some entities become Empyreals in the first place), devouring other Empyreans, or devouring entities that are infused with it - like the giant monsters.

There might be other methods, and possibly means to force it's appearance through other means for different playstyles (cultivators might cause conditions to arise on worlds that will generate Empyrean energy, at the risk of creating Empyreals that might threaten them) but that provides a good sort of way to gather XP.

>>41731604
That could work. Like, an amount equal to 10% of the resources gained by consuming something would be added to your xp, to be sed for buyng staboost and ranks for your abilities. The resources themselves would act as the "mana" stat, used to activate abilities. Probably should also be steadily consumed at a certain rate even if you're not activaly using it.

>>41731666

Ah, now this is better. This way its controllable enough for you to be able to limit and control XP gain, without forcing your players to not use their powers.

>>41731790
As for things like size gain.. Total level might set a limit in that, and there might be abilities to burn energy for temporary shifts in size beyond normal limits (up nor down).

But having a higher level can shift your limits or natural size up?

>>41731666
I don't know. It is called Empyrean: the World-Eater, so not gaining anything by eating worlds would seem kind of wrong.
I prefer idea like >>41731604 and >>41731730 where part of the resources you gain from consuming planets and other things is added to your xp.

>>41731884
That is a point. There is no reason there can't be a bit of both;

Planet-devouring could be a slow-and-steady way, with a small percentage of the food-energy gained converted into XP.

More active and risky methods might get you more XP, like devouring other Empyreals, finding weird cosmic phenomena, etc.

Sorta the difference between XP gains from off-time study and XP gains from actual adventure.

Nobilis
https://www.mediafire.com/folder/xaud3fj2wt7a5/Nobilis

Gurps lensman
http://www.docdroid.net/9IpH0Zj/gurps-3e-lensman.pdf.html

Amber
http://www.mediafire.com/view/3t40p5b4932fi3z/Amber_Diceless_Role-Playing.pdf


I also have Lords of Gossamer and Shadow. I'll upload them in a bit.

>>41731928
That would work. Like if an Empyreal devours another one, they'll gain the total xp their victim had. Same thing for space-monsters, but they'd have a lot less xp than other Empyreals of same size. Although that might lead to PCs turning on eachother pretty quick.

>>41732000
I would advise against all of the XP because of that, but also advise keeping it as a rather large boost just to give that temptation

>>41732000
XP gains could be something like...

Planets/Solar Systems/Galaxies (and equivs): 10% of resource gain (with modifiers for difficulty - active resistance might give a bonus, total passivity a penalty)

Monsters: 1/10th XP of an Empyreal

Empyreal: 1/5th their XP total.

Alternative Empyrean Sources: Up to GM. This might be finding the energy raw in a phenomenon, doing a mass religious ritual directed by the Empyreal to generate it, a machine building a giant one-use machine to convert energy into Empyrean energy, etc. Should scale XP with difficulty and effort.

>>41732000
>all XP

Oh dear, that could get out of hand.

VtM has an XP rule for Diablerie we xould adopt

>Drink the Mind
>This power may be used whenever a character successfully commits diablerie. The player spends a number of Willpower points equal to the victims Intelligence and rolls Willpower (dif victim’s permanent Willpower +1 per derangement). Each success grants one bonus point that may be spent to purchase or increase the diablerist’s Skills or Knowledges. These points cannot raise an Ability above the victim’s rating, however. This power also allows the diablerist to recall the victim’s strong memories, although such recollections are left to the ST to adjudicate. Stolen memories unfold hazily as from a dream, and should offer cryptic hints rather than plot-breaking insights. Vampires whose players botch the Willpower roll lose one point of permanent Willpower for every 1 rolled, as the character is overwhelmed by an onslaught of disconnected images and hate from the victim’s devoured soul. This power can only be used once per diablerie.

So let's see.

Planet Vi-Rel
Scale: Planetary
Size: Medium
Resources:
Mineral: 6
Energy: 3
Biosphere: 3
Spiritual: 2

Combat Stats would go here.

Loot: (Technology or information useful to the players.)

Something like this for a planet card?

Thinking of possible list of different types of Empyrean (which would be the various archetypes for character creation).

Ascendant Mortal: a mortal being that somehow became infused with Empyreal energy. Could've been though a scientific experiment or magic ritual gone wrong (or right), or maybe they were born with the potential and something caused it to awaken. Would probably be the most varied and generic class, though they generally would feed on biomass.

Deity: Gods, demons and other such being. Supernatural beings that normally sustain themselves through worship or sacrifices. Some such beings might choose to consume things directly rather than relying on worship, eventually becoming Empyreans. Would be predisposed to eating souls and having spiritual abilities.

Energy Beings: various kinds of beings made of energy. predisposed towards feeding on energy and using energy manipulating abilities.

Artificial Beings: giant super-weapons, swarms of self-replicating robots, as well as more esoteric machines. These Empyreans are categorized by being built, either by a mortal civilization or another Empyrean. Some were created to be sapient, others achieved sapience when they became Empyreans. Usually predisposed to technological abilities and consuming minerals, although exceptions do exist, such as soul-fueled Spirit Engines.

Swarm: more of a type that can be added to another. An Artificial Swarm would be Von Neuman Machines. An Energy Being Swarm would be a vast cloud of cosmic energy. A biological Swarm a hive-mind composed of trillions of organisms. Swarms have some advantages over more solid beings, such as single-target attacks passing through them without much harm, but also weaknesses, such as being generally less durable and vulnerable to area of effect attacks.

>>41732720
Are we sure we want to use Archetypes?

I still think it's better to have different traits for certain physiological features or abilities, and these "Archetypes" can just be pre-built packages for easy purchase of common builds.

Having set Archetypes sorta limits things and makes things a bit more class-based.

>>41732769

I think that's what he's doing.

>>41732769
>>41732808
I think the standard character would be the Ascendant Mortal (ie. a former biological being that has somehow ascended to become an Empyrean), but you could during character creation buy traits like "Deity", "Swarm", "Energy Being" and so on, which would give some advantages and disadvantages (an energy being would function quite differently from a matter being, as would a swarm from a single large being).

>>41732908

I'd just assume there's no stock background, and you only get starter powers you buy into.

So you could fluff your character however you want, but the rules are always the same.

>>41732908
For consumption rates: All Empyreals start out able to gain energy from everything very slowly, but can modify the rates and such with traits.

Now here's a question: Do the different sustenance types go into separate pools to be used for specialized abilities? (With all types viable for generic ones?) Or does everything just digest into "Empyrean Energy?"

>>41732984
>Or does everything just digest into "Empyrean Energy?"
I'd vote this one, just to keep things simple

>>41733054
I concur. Most of these entities will be doing weird mass/energy conversions anyway.

>>41733054

Fair enough. Should probably keep everything as simple as possible until it works and decide what we want to add later on.

That said, same can go for archetypes. Get the game working with just basic, generic characters and worry about interesting stuff once you can play it at all.

Can we add something so we can have empyreans who doesn't destroy planets, or at least aren't you know, actively killing what are basically tons of innocent people by just existing?

>>41732955
I do think that even in a rules-light system having characters as different as an energy being, a Tyranid-style swarm and a giant robot should have some differences other than just what abilities they choose to get (ie. the "Swarm", "Energy Being" and "Machine" would themselves be traits would themselves grant some effects).

>>41732984
For the sake of simplicity, I think it would be better to assume all types of resources are converted into the same "energy" resource. The difference would come from some characters not being able to consume certain kind of resources, or gaining extra energy from certain kinds of resources.

>>41733128
I thought we already did? Some feed off of stellar beasts, some don't have any special interest in habitable worlds. Others actively gain energy from worship and such instead of consumption. There's plenty of reasons as is for an Empyreal not to gad about sucking down civilizations.

>>41733128
Some of those suggestions came up, in a sense.

Spiritual consumers might be able to draw energy passively from prayer, acting as gods of their controlled worlds.

There are all-matter eaters who could choose to avoid inhabited worlds.

Some might deal with the hunger in different ways like cosmic beasts, etc.

>>41733128
That would already be possible, since Empyreans can feed on things other than inhabited worlds (although inhabited worlds are supposed to be a very good sources of energy, which is why many Empyreans go after them in the first place). Would be easier for one that feeds on minerals or energy, which could be obtained just as easily from lifeless worlds, but an Empyrean feeding on spiritual energy could probably set up a ritual where they gain power from inhabitants of the planet worshipping them (though less than if they just ate their souls), while one who feeds on biomass would probably just have to find worlds with non-intelligent life or hunt biological space-monsters.

>>41733128
>Can we add something so we can have empyreans who doesn't destroy planets, or at least aren't you know, actively killing what are basically tons of innocent people by just existing?

Hey, if those inhabited worlds didn't want to be eaten, they shouldn't have been so tasty.

So, one thing we need to establish is how empyreans organize themselves in groups or act in concert with each other.

By nature they seem to be overtly individual creatures, but obviously there should be SOME impetus for them to get together to form an adventuring party of some form or another

Do they have any enemies? Any kind of outside threat?

>>41733370
>Do they have any enemies? Any kind of outside threat?

I think there was some ideas for something something extrauniversal cosmic terrors and such. Creatures that would be world-enders to mere mortals but to Empyreans are the equivalent of dungeon fodder and boss fights.

>>41733165
>>41733180
Indeed. An Empyreal could chose to obtain sustenance in ways that don't involve destroying civilizations.
But considering their connection to the Prime Empyrean not only grants them their power but also an immensely powerful urge to feed and grow, it might be difficult for one the resist the temptation to not eat everything.
Essentially, they'd be like Galacta, who does protect the Earth from aliens but also barely manages to supress her desire to consume the world herself.

>>41733405
>Dungeon Fodder

Could there even be pocket dimensions/mini universes these things foray out from that can act as dungeons?

>>41733473
Weird pockets of folded space, or rifts where weird non-typical universes intersect, full of phenomenally weird physics and unusual threats?

And possibly ripe with Empyrean energy?

Definitely. Better yet, they COULD be threatening enough that even Empyreals might think twice before venturing in without proper protection, lest they get torn apart simply by the laws of the space they're entering.

>>41733436
Maybe there could be a faction or broad philosophies based on how the empyreans see the relation with their fodder?

Some see themselves as shepherds or gardenrs, cultivating a sustainable source of sustenance, others think the galaxy is big enough that they can eat as much as they want whenever they want?
>>41733473
A neat dungeon could be something like, say a super massive black hole.

Say, how about there's a race of New God like creatures, who are able to tap into the Empyrean itself and use it to shape and create things? Or a green lantern/nova corps organization of mortals with some sort of related empyrean based ability

>>41733370
>>41733405
>Do they have any enemies? Any kind of outside threat?
Asides from eldricth space monsters, there would also be other Empyreans, especially those of a larger scale. If eating another Empyrean is the best way to gain power, older and more powerful Empyreans would probably frequently prey on weaker ones. I like the idea that the biggest threat to Empyreans are other, more powerful Empyreans.
That would also give smaller Empyreans a reason to band together. Sure, they could try fighting and consuming eachother, but that would not be easy and likely leave the winner as sufficiently wounded from the fight to be easy prey for a more powerful Empyrean. Better for a small group of Empyreans to band together, at which point they might be able to fend off lone larger Empyreans, and maybe even kill and consume them if lucky.
I can't imagine them having an organized society aside from such small groups, though. Their very nature would make them solitary beings, especially as they grow in power and have fewer "natural predators".

Though if a Galactic Empyrean showed up to try to eat their home galaxy, you can bet that every single Empyrean would join forces to defend it.

>>41733591
Maybe there could be groups who band together to protect something, or are charged in their creation with similar goals?

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>dungeons

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>>41733128
You can eat a planet without destroying the civilization on it. You just have to peel it off very carefully.

>>41733591
Dunno. Good thoughts but part of me still likes the ideas from last thread about art and agriculture, of a sort, bringing at least some of them together into small societies.

>>41733636
Like I mentioned in the last thread, one of the means some Empyreals could gather sustenance is to cultivate and farm it rather than going all nomad. Agriculture can lead to groups banding together and forming civilizations of sort - at least small bands engaging in Stellar Husbandry and nurturing worlds that fit their diet.

I also still think that to keep everything from always being a race to the top, the transition from one Scale to another should require vastly more effort than moving within a scale, meaning there can be a good number of entities who get "content" within a certain scale and settle for sustaining their current existence. That can add some long-term stability to groups of Empyreals and give them other goals and motivations beyond their diet.

>>41733689
You might want to delete that image

>>41733728
Maybe each Empyrean when ascending is charged with a task, or goal or mission to accomplish. Something huge and usually very vague. There's no compulsion for them to follow it, but working towards completeing that goal helps speed up their overall evolution

How would you guys handle non-empyrean followers or enemies? Type 1 civilizations, space monsters from the id, that sort of stuff? Not as strong as the empyrean but able to do more stuff by dint of not being a titanic cosmological entity

>>41733802
Possibly.

Maybe once you hit the max level in a scale, getting up to the next scale doesn't just require gaining enough XP - you need a BURST of it, a lot, in a short time span - to get you over the hump.

On another topic, one thing I was thinking about was environments.

Sure, a bunch of Empyreals might just be content floating around in the void, but there are a lot of options.

>Shrinking and living secretly amongst mortals and mundanes.
>Building great big cosmic ships to act as homes and conveyances, possibly with travel and detection abilities superior to their own.
>Building cosmic-scaled emulations of smaller structures, like Macroplanets or Macrohomes.
>Building artificial pocket dimensions with a different scale - a large community of Empyreals might have a world that looks similar to ours within the pocket dimension, but planets like our own might be the size of marbles there in comparison to them. There could even be a community of Empyreals that has forgotten what they are, cut off from the main universe, and simply treat any accidental visitors as weird Microversians.

>>41733728
>the transition from one Scale to another should require vastly more effort than moving within a scale
I do agree. Not sure how it should be represented in game, but I'd imagine that Stellar-scale Empyreals would be as rare compared to Planetary-scale ones as Planetaty-scale ones are to mortals. Though given how huge the galaxy is, there would still be millions of them. Galactic-scale ones would be even rarer, so rare thay probably wouldn't factor into a campaign unless the PCs become ones themselves.
Biggest threat to Planetary-scale Empyreans would be other, larger Planetary-scale ones, that might attack younger and weaker ones in order to gain enough power to fuel their ascencion to Stellar Empyreans. Actual Stellar Empyreans would largely consider their Planetary brethren beneath their notice.
A group of "farmer" Empreans defending the solar system they're cultivating from other marauding Empyreans would be a likely scenario, and give the "farmers" a reason to sorm small-scale societies to helpt defend their system (you'd still hit a population cap pretty quickly, because it's pretty difficult to provide enough sustenance for multiple Empyreans, especially if they also intent to sustainably cultivate the worlds in the system).

>>41733820

I'd assume we'd stat them at an effective stat level (so an effective intelligence of x would have x stats to all INT related checks, and an effective power of x would have that on their combat checks)

Movement could be handled the same as Empyreals, and we can assume that fleets of humans work as fleets (so they'd be treaded as Empyreals with the Swarm trait.)

Give them a couple dots of powers and you'd be good.

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>>41733856
>ships

>>41733886
If they're cultivating worlds, that could give incentive either to craft new ones or steal habitable worlds from other systems. Possibly those of other 'farmers' creating some inter-group conflict.

>>41733856
All of those sound like amazing possibilities.

I'd like to see some sort of celestial beaucracy or government of beings of similiar power but from a different source maybe?

>>41733886
Not necessarily; given their cosmic powers, certain Empyreals may be able to align planets in relatively compact proximity, emulate certain stellar conditions (like the idea of using force-fields that alter gravity and provide direct, efficient light rather than stars) and using cosmic powers to seed and accelerate the growth of life.

Nomads going after planets of certain types can get relatively big catches with little effort other than moving around all the time.

Skilled enough cultivators can practically battery-farm worlds for at least biological and spiritual sustenance.

Some religious-types who get energy passively from prayer or a parasitic connection to their charges might even go so far as to weave their worlds together into their clothing and accessories, keeping them on hand for constant feeding - or even draining from them for bursts of power, like having a magic battery.

Depending on how skilled they are, Empyreal farmers might be a handful of Empyreals guarding a few planets, to thousands if not more guarding warped regions of space with absurd population density, but also having grown complacent and unable to fend for themselves in the "wilderness" of open space.

>>41733802
I prefer the idea of the Prime Empyrean as a very hands-off power. It (or she; in the previous thread it was suggested that it might be female, mostly to justify the predominance of giant space-waifu Empyreans) doesn't even seem to conciously create Empyreans; instead beings become Empyreans either by somehow establishing a connction with the Prime Empyreal (which migh also happen seemingly at random because of a cosmic aligment or something), or by essentially mantling (to use the TES term) the PE by consuming a world.

It might be that the Empyreans do have some important role in the universe, like if they consume enough matter they'll come to house a new universe inside their bodies, or the entirity of existance might be a proving ground for the Empyreans and the last one standing will become the new PE/God. Or could be that they're just beings that have attracted the attention of a cosmic representation of life/growth/hunger and have no greater goal beyond feeding, growing and surviving.

>>41734036
Given discussion of the prime imperial, especially:
>Or could be that they're just beings that have attracted the attention of a cosmic representation of life/growth/hunger and have no greater goal beyond feeding, growing and surviving.

I could see this. The universe/multiverse having a number of prime powers that different beings acquire shards of to do different things.

>>41734083
If we're looking to Marvel and Dc for inspiration there's a lot of support of Empyreans to have a task or role in the universe- Galactus consumes planets to stop the Celestials from fucking up the universe and eventually to create a new universe from the energy within him

In DC there's an entity known as the Source, a prime cosmic font of power that basically allows the universe to exist. Thousands of mighty god like beings have tried to seize The Source, to control its power and use it to reshape existence to their own purposes, but anyone who attempts to tamper with it is consumed by it, forced to become part of the mighty wall that protects it. The Source appears as a hand writing on a wall of flame to some, and I could see the Empyrean as being very similiar

>>41734271
I think having a lot of ideas on what Empyreans are for is great, but at the same time, I sorta favor the idea that it can vary by GM, including the idea that they DON'T know their actual purpose.

Maybe some Empyreans see themselves as powerful shepherds of life, using their powers to protect civilizations so they can grow. Others think they are agents of entropy who need to devour everything to make room for a new universe. Maybe some don't care what their "purpose" is and just try to look out for #1.

>>41734329
All of this. I don't really care much for "Your character is bound to a specific purpose."

>>41734452
That, and I think there being disagreement can lead to more room for Empyreal conflict.

Maybe you end up having to fight against a society of Planetary Empyreals acting as religious zealots for a Stellar Empyreal, who has duped them into doing their dirty work and is fattening them up in their consumptive crusade to eventually just snack on them all and use the boost to jump up to Galactic.

Should size correspond to speed? So planetaries can move really fast and zip around from one solar system to the next, but stellars take longer time visiting different systems?

>>41734526
Possibly, but I'd think larger Empyreals could just as well have stronger transportation powers, and be able to FTL/Spacefold further.

>>41734488
Exactly the sort of thing I was thinking, yus.

>>41734526

Speed'd be relative to their scale. Planetaries have speed related to their interplanetary movement, Stellars to their movement between stars, etc.

Since a Stellar is already everywhere in the star system at the same time.

>>41734526

TBH stuff like this kinda makes me think we might want to go with that relative scale thing from last thread

>>41734602
If planetaries are slower then stellars wouldn't that make them more vulnerable and ultimately make it harder for them to move on to a new system once they exhaust the resources of their current one?

>>41734645
I assume that the scales they're operating at are so different it doesn't come up. there basically is no to hit modifier between planetary and stellar. The planetary hits, the target is too big to miss, but hurting it is almost impossible.

Stellars have trouble hitting, but their area attacks, if not dodged somehow, are probably going to turn the target into paste.

So i'd go with them being apparently slower, as in their personal movements and things. But their actual velocity achievable is higher.

So, I'm assuming we're using nwod as a base for rules with a title like this, anyone have any objections?

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/a38fmmv8j93a4/Amber

Amber and Lords of Gossamer & Shadow

>>41734951
>nWoD
>n

Are there any books or anything that deal with stuff at this scale?

>>41735236

Cosmic Marvel, obviously

So for the time being let's maybe roll with last-thread anon's 2d6 model. Tests are 2d6+stat to beat target. Plus talents/traits what have you.

Basing combt around 2d6 is somthing I'm not /super/ sure about. Potentially something more pool based in that regard? 1d6+mods vs target.

That lets some attacks use dice differently too. precise attacks need to beat target with the whole dice pool. Rapid fire attacks compare individual dice, so on.

Damage I think is best done as a test of some sort. If attack connects, defender rolls vs its damage value, and suffers it on failure.

I'm fairly set on grids myself. (I love grids) and think I might keep using them in the model I'm working on. If only so movement and terrain affecting powers are easier to visualize.

>>41735904
Thanks for the bump, anon. o7

>>41735925

Use interlock method for combat.

2d6 + combat skill for attacker opposes 2d6 + evasion for defender, then 1d6 per hit die for weapon/power. Or do damage the Mekton way, where weapons do a set whole number of damage.

Of course, damage is mitigated by defensive maneuvers or abilities

>>41736077
Also works! And simpler than my idea.Lemme futz with it a little more. Crunching with a headache is slow going.

>>41736108

There's a homebrew I'm currently working on that uses this system, if you're interested. It's similar to Interlock, and is designed around grids for movement (one point of MOV is one hex square)

http://www.mediafire.com/view/933cbytdotrlp9t/Fuzion_Core_Rules_v5.02_%28Complete_Print_Version%29.pdf

Right, this seems to be slowing off a little. If it drops out, I'll try to be back with something presentable another weekend.

>>41736928
I think it may just be late in the day, we had a huge surge around noon

>>41737031
Oh sure, just tossing that out there in the event something happens/fails to happen while I'm off. 'never know.

In the comics Galactus was really vulnerable to only one thing - the cosmic nullifier- but it was enough to send him running every time it showed up.

should empyreans also have some sort of major weakness to something like that?

>>41737221
They're delicious?
But seriously, they should have at least a minor weakness, maybe more serious ones for better starting power?

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>>41737108

If it falls off the board just make another one tomorrow. Things tend to slow off around evening, then pick up a bit later in the night before dying at night, then pick up again around noonish EST

It's also best to have the OP as an open-ended question, like "how would you build a setting around characters at the cosmic scale?" woth a few details, and adding adding a sentence like "I've been working on a homebrew called 'Empyrean: The World-Eaters' recently, if you're interested in checking it out or contributing."

Also always make your OP image something identifiable that'll make people post, like cute girls. Galacta works, and any non-lewd macro stuff would work too.

People tend to skip over threads they think are ongoing things or look like quest threads. A thread's gotta bring in new people, or you'll get just a few really dedicated people without bringing any newbies in.

But yeah, on the weekends you're normally fine, and there's still a lot of interest. I'd at least try keeping threads going through the weekend. If they don't remain self-sustaining then wait until Friday to try again.


>>41737316
Well, I wouldn't say there should be a kind of kryptonite to them, but a class of "nullifier weapons" could exist to fluff why lower beings are able to damage them, even in ships.

Then there could be specific weaknesses relating to backgrounds, like Machines being weak to Electromagnetic Energy, or Entropic Energy and Creation opposing one another.

Or even specific energy-draining abilities. I'm imagining some kinds of Dark Suns radiating an energy that burns off Empyrean essense, or, on a less dangerous level, something that damages spiritual energy as a threat to Spirit-based Empyreals

>>41737857
Thanks for the advice.
Have mostly lurked for ages and ages, just finally got drawn in because this pushed all my buttons.

Might just save that picture there for later use.

people have already linked stuff from 3.5's immortal's handbook, right? As far as I can tell this is pretty much that

>>41738102

Just the monster manual part

>>41738141
I think the scales are dead-on as well.

>>41734526
I think it would make more sense for the speed to actually increase with scale, or rather be relative (like the game rules just consider system or galaxies to be "nearby" "distant" etc. and not take into account actual distances in lightyears). It doesn't matter from planetary to stellar scale, as distances between solar systems and stars are the same, but on a galactic scale you'd have to be able to move faster or it would take forever to get anywhere.

>>41734656
I'd assume they'd still be fast enough to move between systems easily. And due to differences between scales stellar Empreans would probably rarely bother going after planetary ones. They're tiny by comparison, and they'd probably get more energy by consuming stars, so it's be like a human eating ants rather than the steak infront of him. A large enough group of planetary Empyreans might attract the attention of a stellar Empyrean, and it would suck for ones who are "farming" a particular system to have a stellar Empyrean come over and eat their sun, though. Given the rarity of Empyreans, that would be very unlikely to happen, though.

>>41739488
The scales were posted as well (They're included in the monster manual). If there is a pdf for player caharcters, that could be useful as well, though I think the mechanics are too cumbersome (DnD isn't really designed for cocmic-scale things, and them trying to turn it into that resulted in huge stablocks and complicated rules).

Bump

>>41742019

One thing I wanted to ask before I went to sleep (but forgot) was how we were going to handle relative experience of time and how that relates to speed and distance.

Empyreals are already probably capable of FTL motion, but does this also mean that they'll always be thinking at a human timescale?

Or would larger and larger Empyreals take a much longer relative time to make a thought or put their body into motion, like how the supposed reaction time of a fly makes us big lumbering humans move like slow, dim-witted giants?

Would Stellars and Galactics be so slow that the passage of thousands of years are like seconds to them?

>>41744204
Other random thoughts for discussion:

>Can an Empyreal give some of it's energy - and XP - to jumpstart mortals or constructs into Empyreals too? This could be a possible origin for characters.

>How to handle Empyreals that keep their own bodies small while devouring worlds/stars/galaxies by warping space or shrinking things.

>Defining Achilles Heels for Empyreals, probably unique for each Empyreal.
>As an extension of that, what sort of flaws would be appropriate.

>How to split up powers. I was still thinking something like:
>Biology/Life
>Matter (inanimate)
>Energy (includes forces like Gravity)
>Crossroads (Travel/Speed)
>Soul
>Probability
>Empyreal (Meta-magic, catch-all for other Empyreal abilities. Probably important to have.)

>>41744204

There was some mention of Empyreans losing track of time in the story last thread. I'd say that the more time they spend in space the more their thought processes change scale, but that they, probably automatically, narrow their focus and thought patterns when dealing with humans. Since we're drawing so heavily from Marvel, its a good idea to think about how Galactus works; he thinks almost entirely on a human scale

As for FTL movement, on the whole, what I'd remind people is that Empyreans are pretty explicitly magical. Stuff like it taking exponentially longer for signals to move to and from the brain or for the body to follow through with an action can be handwaved by either latent magic fields, or by saying that all Empyrean action occurs on the theoretical level and the dimension they exist within is simply overlayed over our own.

And regarding weaknesses, I'd say that aside from fluffing Empyrean-damaging weapons by lesser races as Null Weapons, we could do weaknesses as per GURPS or other superhero systems where weaknesses are bought with negative points, to allow for more variations in characters. There needn't be a method if "hard countering" individual Empyreans. RP penalties can be purchased as well.

Their biggest weakness, both in RP and otherwise, is their hunger. To steal from VtM again:

>If the vampire takes more than 3/4 of a human's existing blood, he must make a Resolve + Composure role to pull away. Failing this roll means that the vampire loses himself in the ecstasy of feeding, and accidentally takes too much blood. ... If a vampire is hungry (defined as having less than four vitae in his system), this check occurs at 1/2 instead of 3/4. A hungry vampire is also more prone to Frenzy.

>if you frenzy the Storyteller gains control of your character for that scene. You may spend one Willpower to gain control of your character for one turn or make a Composure + Resolve roll to try to wrest control back from the beast and stop the frenzy early (see below). However, those are the only actions available to you.A frenzying vampire ignores wound penalties to dice pools, until wounds become severe enough to render the character torpid.All attempts to influence the frenzying character’s mind, by Dominate, Majesty or other means, take place at a -2 dice penalty, while rolls for the character to resist or throw off mental influence receive a +2 dice bonus.Of course, a frenzying character cannot perform any action that requires much thought.The character receives one extra die for any Physical Attribute roll. The Beast goes all-out, all the time, and its blinding rage shuts out all distractions and doubts.

>Whatever the cause of frenzy, Kindred may try to resist the Beast and maintain control as an extended action. When a character is on the verge of frenzy, the player rolls his Composure
+ Resolve. If any successes are achieved, the character resists the frenzy for one turn per success. At the end of those turns, the player rolls again in hopes of winning a few turns more of self-control for the character.

cont

>>41744564
Cont

>If the player can accumulate a certain number of successes, the Beast subsides and the character completely avoids the frenzy. If any of the rolls fail, however, the character goes berserk and spends the rest of the scene in frenzy. If the player suffers a dramatic failure on a roll, the character stays in frenzy for as long as the Storyteller thinks is appropriate.

>The greater the provocation to the character, the more successes the player must accumulate. Five successes suffice for most frenzies. Higher numbers represent the most extreme humiliation or peril to the vampire’s unlife.

>If a vampire is hungry (defined as having less than four vitae in his system), he receives penalties to resist Wassail and may be provoked into Wassail more easily.

>The Storyteller may also impose bonuses or penalties to dice pools to reflect a trigger that’s especially easy or hard to resist.

>The rule doesn’t change any, but it bears repeating: A Willpower point earns a character three extra dice on the roll to resist frenzy, as it does with most other rolls
Basically, the more hungry you are, the more penalties you get, and the more likely you are to run run to the closest planet and eat it. Of course, we can just adapt something similar to this; personally I prefer a bit more structure to my rules.

>>41744539
>There was some mention of Empyreans losing track of time in the story last thread. I'd say that the more time they spend in space the more their thought processes change scale, but that they, probably automatically, narrow their focus and thought patterns when dealing with humans. Since we're drawing so heavily from Marvel, its a good idea to think about how Galactus works; he thinks almost entirely on a human scale

This seems to make sense to me. Being able to shift focus, along with some kind of hibernation power, would also let some Empyreals "take a nap" for centuries while waiting for conditions to be ripe for consumption again if they aren't good at cultivation.

>As for FTL movement, on the whole, what I'd remind people is that Empyreans are pretty explicitly magical. Stuff like it taking exponentially longer for signals to move to and from the brain or for the body to follow through with an action can be handwaved by either latent magic fields, or by saying that all Empyrean action occurs on the theoretical level and the dimension they exist within is simply overlayed over our own.

I hadn't even considered it being an effect of signals in the nervous system; I was moreso just figuring that someone who might take centuries to get from A to B even with FTL speeds may want to adjust their timescale to fit their patience.

>And regarding weaknesses, I'd say that aside from fluffing Empyrean-damaging weapons by lesser races as Null Weapons, we could do weaknesses as per GURPS or other superhero systems where weaknesses are bought with negative points, to allow for more variations in characters. There needn't be a method if "hard countering" individual Empyreans. RP penalties can be purchased as well.

I'm a predominantly GURPS player, and while I think this should be more rules-light, I do like the idea of open availability of flaws/advantages priced with points for lots of customization.

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>>41744588
>rules lite

>>41744611
Eh. At least from my experience with GURPS, trying to stat up something similar to Galactus or other cosmic beings quickly runs up an absurd budget - which is a minor problem to how much other bullshit you need to consider. MIght as well have half the advantage list crammed in there with a shitload of modifiers.

I think it would be better to set the base at a high scale and have somewhat more broad abilities in some cases?

Also bear with me, I play predominantly GURPS. My conception of "lighter rules" might be different than yours.

>>41744649

The easiest thing would be to leave the stats scores at the same scale and simply scale down any threats. While you may only have 4 speed its 4 speed on a cosmic level.

This also saves us from having to deal with knowledge stats and skills on a different level; Empyreans may be smart but they're probably just smart on a mortal level.

>>41744731
Mm. Maybe using something like GURPS decade/century scaling might work for some things. Like how decade-scale damage is just rolled with say 5 dice, but you then multiply by 10 because it's rather more like 50 dice.

And I think there is still room for hyperintelligent Empyreals, if they are swarms or hiveminds.

>>41744952

Yeah, I like that. Sounds good.

>>41745035
It could certainly help in dealing with action between scales.

A Stellar could probably swipe even the toughest Planetary's away with a backhand, even if they themselves were weak.

>>41745216

Fusion does a very similar thing with multiple levels of Hit Dice scaled to different sizes of foes.

Applying a different multiplier to each size class seems like a good way to do it.

>>41745257
Mm. I'm also still a fan of having "low-level" games where you start sub-planetary, I.E. as human-scale entities with the same sort of progression and the same difficulty jumping up to Planetary at the upper bounds as Planetary has going up to Stellar.

Maybe a game where several Empyreals develop on the same planet, and are in competition for it's limited resources - maybe some don't even want to get bigger and are just trying to protect the world from the others?

>>41744564
>>41744577
Seems like a good idea. Maybe if the Empyreal doesn't feed often enough, they have to roll to not frenzy, and if they fail they would try to eat the nearest thing (which would include nearly anything, including other PCs).

>>41745462
I think to allow for a slightly larger range of playstyles, there should also be means to combat the Hunger - temporarily.

One idea I had rolling around in my head was that an Empyreal might deliberately suppress their active use of their abilities. They could "lock out" some of their powers (passive and active) and appear to be far more mortal or mundane, in order to keep their hunger suppressed through a sort of partial hibernation. That could help buy them time, make them harder to detect (or masquerade as a lesser Empyreal), but also leave them vulnerable if reigniting their powers takes time and effort.

Eventually though, the Hunger will get too strong, and they might risk a Frenzy that causes their powers to ignite prematurely - and if being shrunken was part of the hibernation, the poor world they were hiding on might suddenly get crushed as they expand to normal size.

>>41745531
Makes sense. Doesn't Galacta work like that? She's masking most of her power to hide among humans. I think she also avoids using her powers if possible, as it increases her hunger.

>>41745954
Yeah.

I also like the ideas of communities of Empyreals forming megastructures as a form of housing/community and having more to their culture than just "eat everything."

Planet-farmers who can gather enough worlds and farm them efficiently can stick to one place, and that gives them time to examine their lives, powers, and what they want to do with them beyond just feeding the Hunger.

That, and it allows for Empyreals to generate a lot of megastructure-scale artifacts that are used for mundane purposes that would be miraculous or destabilizing in the hands of mere mortals.

"See? It's an earring with a habitable zone and a small artificial star in the middle for a day/night cycle. I can wear it as a fashion statement, and keep some of my pets on it to watch when I get bored."

>>41745433
Depending on how scalable the rules end up being, one could probably do that pretty easily, though one would probably need to make stats for mortal opponents.

It would be pretty different as you might not have Empyreal powers (aside from consuming things and increasing in size/power) and there being a lot more things that can kill you, at least in the beginning (once you get to kaiju-size you can probably ignore normal mortals, but at human sized you'd have to be careful).

>>41745531
>>41745954
>>41746056

If we used that guy's example of GURPS's scaling rules, all we have to do is scale down the multiplier. So humans are 1x, planet-eaters are... 10x maybe, solars at 100x...

>>41746270
Well, the d-scale and c-scale stuff is more for handling the huge numbers and dice at higher scales.

I probably wouldn't say they should all scale by 10s

>>41746270
Actually since in a sub-planetary stage you'd be unlikely to encounter a proper Empyrean (since you can't ravel in space yet and if you did encounter one it would probably have come to eat your planet which would kind of be a game over), you could use the same stats as all the stats are relative anyway. Your character wuld still have the same stats and size, only they're now measured in relation to sub-planetary objects and entitites.

Would still be a very different type of game, though, as there are not only a lot of forces vastly more powerful than you, at least in the beginning (such as nations with armies, and possibly things like super-heroes and such), and you're actually going to run into such things pretty soon if you go on a rampage (as opposed to the situation in space, where even if there are Empyreals that are orders of magnitude bigger than you, you can easily not run into them due to space being huge and pretty empty). You'd probably have to either act very subtly untill you've built enough power to act openly, or grow so rapidly that the defenders of the world would have no time to react.

That kind of thing kind of bugs me in the "growth-vore" stuff, since they virtually always skip from the character being roughly human-sized to them being Godzilla-zided and nigh-unstoppable. There's a pretty big gap between the two where they'd be an obvious threat but not big enough to make them impossible to deal with with conventinal weapons.

>>41747151
One problem would be how we deal with physical figures, and how abstract they would be.

Should a degree of strength correspond to a certain lifting capacity?

How do we know how much strength is needed for a 15' tall Empyreal to lift a tank over their head? To lift it at all?

And what about when we get to the bigger scales where we are dealing with planets, stars, megastructures, etc.?

>>41747193
In order to keep it scalable, I think the best way to handle tests would be to also make it relative. ie. in order to throw an object of the same category as you, you'll have to beat DC of X. In order to throw one of one category larger than you, DC Y. Doesn't matter if the object is a tank, a planet or a dyson sphere: if they're all the same relative size categy, you need to beat the same DC to lift/throw/eat them.
For objects of a smaller scale, no tests would be necessary, while for objects of larger scale, moving them would generally be impossible (maybe if they're right at the low end of their scale and you're at the high end of yours, you could interact with them, though it would require a pretty hard test).

>>41747459

This makes sense.

If it's smaller than you, you can throw it.

>>41747657
I slightly disagree, if only for beings with Super Strength (effectively as strong as a bigger Empyreal in a smaller package?) who do things like lift things larger than themselves.

>>41747697
I think that's as simple as having a suitably strong ability allowing you to 'count as' a scale above for certain purposes.

>>41747825
True.

And like I wondered earlier, it would be neat to have Empyreans whose power manifest not as being bigger than everything else, but by dragging everything else down to their level by either shrinking powers or space-warping, so you can have human-scale entities that can nonetheless swallow whole planets.

>>41747657
I would assume that even sub-planetary proto-Empyreans would be comparatively stronger than humans, so they could lift/throw/eat large objects as well. Though the DC for lifting larger objects would be harder.
Since the stat system we're going for seems to be 2d6+stat, we could say that to lift an object of your own size, you'd need to pass a DC of (7+[whatever would be the average strength stat]), so an average Empyrean would have a 50% chanse of succeeding at it. Maybe there would be some point where you wouldn't be able to lift/throw/eat the object at all (like if it's more than one size bigger than you), but it would make more sense just to make it a very high DC. An Empyrean with average stats would not be able to do it due to the DC being higher than their maximum amount they could roll, but one that has put a lot of points to the relevant stat could pull it off. Also, spending some of you Energy could be used to add to the roll, allowing you to succeed more easily. Thus, while the average human-sized proto-Empyreal would normally not be able to lift or eat a tank, if they spend their energy to give them, like, +20 on the roll they could pull it off.

>>41747890
Yup. I imagine that scale can refer to size, but also to the scale of powers. It's usually size, but it's a fairly fluid attribute.

>>41747908
On that note, DCs and stats/attributes.

I'm thinking that the attribute scores could range from 1 to 10. That'd be pretty simple. 3 could be the average, 4 ot 5 something you could get on character cretaion and 10 the result of spending a lot of experience to boost that stat. Or possibly use the DnD style 1-20 scale because a lot of people are familiar with it. We'd need to determine DCs for various actions. Since the size categories are relative, I'm using sub-planetary examples as we're more familiar with them (we can pretty easily agree that a sub-planetary medium size would mena roughly human-sized, but how big would planetary medium size be?).
Some examples for size categories:

Miniscule: insects, small objects
Tiny: mice and other small animals
Small: cats, dogs, children (roughly half of adult human's size)
Medium: adult human-sized things
Large: cars, cows, horses (roughly twice of human size)
Huge: tanks, trucks, elephants (roughly twice the size of large things)
Colossal: whales, passager jets, ships
Titanic: Godzilla, scyscrapers, aircraft carriers

So what kind of DC would an average human-sized (ie. medium size) Empyrean need to beat to be able to lift/throw/eat/etc.? I think they might be able to do these things to objects of up to their own size category, although the DC for some might be harder that others (lifting things would be easier than throwing them, for example). However, if they had high enough stats, the correct abilities and/or used some of their Energy, they could interract with larger objects (so if you wanted, you could totally build an "all-devouring vore-loli" character that can eat objects considerably larger than themselves). What stat would be used for "eat" checks anyway?

Any books or comics that deal with beings on this scale?

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>>41748391
I'd be good with a scale of like 1-10; possibly 1-12 or 1-15 or something.

A full 20 seems slightly overkill.

I like the size categories mostly.

The way GURPS does it is to have Size Modifiers that are roughly 1.5x bigger reach step up, with a clean 10x bigger every 6. Like so in the image.

I'm not sure if we should stick to strict relative size categories, or just use a number that can be quickly linked to some big number like the Size and Speed/Range Table.

>>41748641
The problem with tying specific size classes to measurements is that it requires players to actually determine how many light years tall their character is. Plus on that scale characters of the size we're dealing with would have like, -1000's of speed.

>>41748781
Ah, the negatives there aren't for how fast you are.

They're for determining the penalty for hitting something traveling at that many yards per second.

But yeah, I can sorta see your point. Comparative scaling can be difficult in any case once you get to that point, especially if you still have interaction with smaller things.

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>>41748832
Yeah, I think if you really want multiple weights, have a few weight classes within each scale.

So like, you'd have stuff like
>Small Planetary (1p), a Moon
>Medium Planetary (2p), Earth
>Large Planetary (3p) Neptune

On to things like 1s (solar), 1g(galactic), etc.

Here's the weight and hp classes for Fuzion, including Mekton and the DBZ RPG.
>http://www.mediafire.com/view/tfwtnwv83i433d1/Damage_Comparisons.pdf

>>41749196
Usin the scale in >>41748391 (which was also used in previous thread), we could have:

Miniscule: asteroids (would also include things like space-ships built by sub-planetary scale civilizations)
Tiny: Moon
Small: Mars
Medium: Earth (personally, I'd place Earth as large as there are more different sized planetary-scale objects in the solar system that are smaller than Earth than bigger)
Large: Neptune
Huge: Jupiter
Colossal: "super-Jupiters" (extremely large gas giants)
Titanic: brow dwarfs (basically gas giants that are just slightly too small to ignite a fusion reaction in their cores; anything bigger would be a star).

>>41749565

So that's 1p-8p; that works.

>>41749777
I agree. What about say..

Sub-Planetary?
Stellar?
Galactic?
Universal?

What would be 1sp-8sp, 1s-8s, 1g-8g, and 1u-8u?

>>41749867

Yeah, that works.

>>41749867
I posted a rough idea of sub-planetary in >>41748391 (essentially, assume humans are medium and go from there. The scales cover a pretty large amount of sizes, especially on smaller scales, but we don't need them to eb super specific, anyway).

For Stellar and Galactic we can probably assume the Sun and the Milky Way are medium. Not sure about others, since I can't think of very many examples, especially for Galactic scale. For Stellar, I'd assume red giants are huge and white dwarfs tiny. Those ridiculously big supergiant stars would be colossal and titanic. Neutrons stars as miniscule (I think they're smaller than white dwarfs?)? Large and small could be main sequence stars larger and smaller than the Sun.

>>41749867
Thoughts on Sub-Planetary, using a sort of tripling progression:

1: Human size. If we wanted even smaller (starting as some kind of microbeing) we'd put in some new scale, like Micro.
2: Up to 3x human size. Like around 15' tall.
3: 9x. 50' or so giants at this point.
4: 27x. 150' or so giants.
5: 81x. Close to around 500'.
6: 243x. Close to around 1,500'
7: 729x. Something close to 4,500'. Getting close to a mile tall.
8: 2,187x. Close to 13,000'. Several miles tall.

I guess if we went with this, the Miniscule asteroids would be for ships that can actually threaten a Planetary-scale Empyrean - miles-long super-ships, etc.

Spaceships like the shuttle would be stuck in Sub-Planetary.

>>41749196
>>41749565

8p: an Xbox controller

>>41750087
I think it would make sense to keep humanoid size as medium as it's an easy reference point (as humans, we tend to think of things as being either smaller than us or bigger than us), and there's plenty of things smaller than people that are clearly not micro-scale (you can hardly call cats and dogs, or even smaller animals, microscopic). Plus if you do start as a human-sized being, you'll probably first have to consume things smaller than human-sized, so it makes sense to include them in the scale.

>>41750189
True. But having too many major jumps in the scale can be boring, especially if you were one of those people who wanted to do something between "Human" and "Godzilla" scales.

>>41750254
The model with humans as medium (4sp) would still give you 3 categories between them and kaiju-sized (which would presumably be 8sp).

>>41750330
Mm. I think another problem is that there are a wider ranges of sizes between human and "size of a planet" that may not be represented well, like...

Some people might want to do stuff when just a few times taller than a person.

Others, much bigger but not Kaiju-sized.

Then others miles-tall but still very small compared to the planet itself.

But if you're trying to work in scales for different vehicles and such like the list here >>41748391

You jump straight from Godzilla to Asteroids at the high end.

I dunno. I just feel some of the scales might jump around a lot or change their progression too suddenly. Then again I'm tired and it's hard to think.

>>41750254

To be fair, if somebody wants to play a game where they aren't planet-eating cosmic godentitities... Wouldn't they be playing the wrong game?

I mean, that's be like playing Monsterhearts and wanting to be an adventurer who kills monsters.

>>41750461
No, that I understand.

I thought the whole point of the S-P progression though was that you could start from the human-scale up and build up to those - or depending on what the players want, stick around at a certain scale for reasons before jumping up to the next one.

Maybe on the way to becoming a planet-eating cosmic god-entity they get sidetracked with politics and have some fun directing nations around before they get bored enough to eat everything and make the jump to Planetary.

>>41750461
I kind of agree. Having basic scales for sub-planetary objects for cases where the players might shrink themselves down (Galactus himself often appearred as merely huge, rather than planet-sized), or if they want to start at "low level" (since the fluff is that Empyreans would generally start as sub-planetary scale entities before becoming tru Empyreans). But it shouldn't be the main focus so I'd be fine with the size categories being built with planetary and bigger scale in mind and not very detailed at a sub-planetary scale.

>>41750389
None of the scales aside from planetary to stellar really has a smooth transition. With planetary to stellar there can be one because it just happens that there is a pretty smooth transition in nature from a planet to star (brown dwarfs are gas planets barely too small to become stars. Consider them the max size on the plenetary scale and the smallest possible size for a proper star as the smallest size on the stellar scale), but the jump from stellar to galactic would be huge. One idea was that even after reaching the max size of your current scale, you'd still need an enormous boost to actually cross over to the next one, which would fit with the transition between the scales being very big.
Compared to that the jump from sub-planetary to planetarscale isn't actually that big (sp8 includes buildings that can be hundreds of meters tall, while p1 includes asteroids that range from hundreds of meters to tens of km or so in diameter). There aren't really all that many objects on a planet that would be close to the size of objects on a planetary scale. Although you could probably try including mountaisn and continents on the scale, or something.

>>41750536

Perhaps you could play out the proto-Empyrean state if you'd like, but I imagine most of the powers and things would start when you're an Empyrean so most of the core mechanics would be based on that...

I suppose if individual points of Essence are gained at certain amounts of Exacals it could work when you reach that amount; you'd have to eat up to that total in Kcals. Though I suppose at subplanetary scales your powers and growth rates could be accelerated due to a "growth spurt," so you'd get to gain points and grow in scale at lower Exacal totals.

>>41750862
On that note it would actually make sense to boost size categories up to 10, even if there wouldn't really be examples on those. Like, if the biggest know star is s8 and s8 is the max size on the scale, that means you can't get bigger than those stars untill hittting galactic scale, when you'll be hugely bigger. Being able to get to s9 or 10 would let you dwarf even the largest stars and make the transition from stellar and galactic scale easer.
Would also smooth out the transition from sub-planetary to planetary-scale. If s8 is the size of a scyscraper, s9 or 10 could make you miles tall.

>>41751043
I'd imagine taht at proto-Empyrean state you would be limited to the basic "consume things to grow" power and the ability to use your Energy/Essence/whatever to boost your rolls. However, you'd gain experience equal to 100% of the Energy gained by consuming things, rather than the 10% or so you'd normally gain, to compensate with most thing providing very little energy and to represent the accelerated "growth spurt" (which would make sense fluff-wise, as while an Empyrean could probably spend millenias or longer at planetary scale, the transition from a mortal with an awakened Empyreal "spark" to a proper planetary scale Empyrean seems to be very quick and violent).

>>41751173

This makes sense.

So, anybody got ideas for the stats? going from 1 to 10 seems good to me, but what should starting level stats be? And what kind of DCs should some common actions have?

Also, what stat would you have to roll when trying to eat something? I'm assume there would be a DC that would effectively determine how large things you could consume (since at some point the DC would get higher than you can roll), but there could be abilities to affect it (to do the whole "voreloli" thing/letting you consume comparatively huge things). Some anon mentioned an idea of having an Empyrean that doesn't grow in size, but can do some spatial manipulation thing to still swallow planets and stuff. I wonder how that should be represented (though I think that would cause some problem with scale, as it would be hard to have a sp-scale character among planetary scale ones and enemies).

>>41752206

A mental stat, a body stat (for hp), a power/magic stat, a charisma or presence stat, a movement stat, a dexetarity or evasion stat, and a physical strength stat.

So 7 stats, maxing at 10 for "capable of legendary feats within your size class." You could start out with something like 21 points to put into those stats.

Now, one question is that when a character moves up a size class, how are their stats affected? It seems as if a 3SP-sized character capable of herculean feats of strength should be less capable than a 5SP-sized character.

It could be that your size class is added to rolls as a bonus (so my STR roll would be 2d6+STR+Size.) Then the scaling tier could be a multiplier.

So for instance,
>3sp, 3STR Character
>2d6+3+3=9

>4sp, 3STR Character
>2d6+4+3=10

>3p, 3str Character
>(2d6+3+3)×10=90

>>41752701
>Now, one question is that when a character moves up a size class, how are their stats affected? It seems as if a 3SP-sized character capable of herculean feats of strength should be less capable than a 5SP-sized character.

I think that within the same scale, DCs could be determined based on your size relative to the thing you're interacting with.
So you need to beat a DC of X to lift an object of the same size category as you, while lifting an object of one category smaller would be easier.
So while a 3sp-sized character might have a hard time lifting a 3sp-sized object, a 5sp-sized character would do it easily as for them the DC to beat isn't for object of their own size but for one two categories smaller.

For different scales interacting, having the rolls for a bigger scale (at least for things like strenght and durability; probably not for mental attributes) multiplied by orders of magnitude equal to scale difference (ie. by 10 for difference of one scale, 100 for two scales etc.) would work.

To consume things, maybe an unbonued roll (ie. just 2d6, os possibly 2d6 plus some generic amount), with Dc determined by size difference. Some abilities you could buy would reduce the DC (put enough ranks in the ability and even a small character could consume x8-sized objects).

>>41752701
That sounds good. Lets call them...

Intellect
Health
Power
Presence
Move
Dexterity
Strength
Size

Some of them might end up more variable than others. Move might be heavily modified or made irrelevant in many cases if you have a power for teleportation, super-speed, etc.

I like the idea of adding your Size to the DC checks. I imagine if you wanted to do some kind of (relatively) pint-sized juggernaut you would use shrinking powers that treat your strength as at your full size, or take a power that lets you treat your size as higher despite not being able to grow or something.

Are we sure about the progression by 10s? If so, that looks alright I guess. That would also mean higher-scale objects would get the same multiplier to determining DCs for moving them.

>>41753117
I feel that roll should also be modified by the resistance of the target. A full-strength, struggling Empyreal firing plasma bolts into your face is going to be harder to eat than a non-struggling asteroid of the same size.

>>41752701
>>41753257 This poster

As an addendum and to add a question; Is that 21 points with all stats starting at 0, at 1, or at 3?

If it starts at 3, can you sell to get more points back to distribute?

And should size be purchasable at creation, if actually jumping up to a higher Scale requires a combination of high XP purchase AND something else?

>>41753351

I assumed they started at 0 and each had to have at least 1.

I'd assign scale a cost in your Skill/Power Points, and have the GM determine the starting skill points. So if you wanted to start at Planetary size he'd give you all an extra amount of points to purchase that.

>>41753582
Ok. So for a Sub-Planetary start, I would go ahead and treat all physical stats as 1 prior to the Empyrean spark taking hold - at which point your unnatural physical qualities matter. Since you won't be playing very long at all before that happens, just buy them anyway and treat them as not yet taking effect.

Depending on how it takes hold, you might be able to start with just Size 1 and work up, or it might jump up. The hunger affects you all the same, but sometimes the Empyrean spark will just empower everything else and sometimes it'll throw in an immediate boost to size as well?

Sample spread and starting points:

Starting Points: 30 (24 for full plain average in all 8 stats (or 3 in all stats and 2 extra if Size restricted to 1) and 6 extra discretionary)

Dexterity 3
Health 4
Intellect 4
Move 3
Power 6
Presence 3
Size 1
Strength 6

Then again, that's just for attributes... what about powers, and skills? We don't really have anything for those just yet.

And would they all use the same sort of points?

>>41753257
>I feel that roll should also be modified by the resistance of the target. A full-strength, struggling Empyreal firing plasma bolts into your face is going to be harder to eat than a non-struggling asteroid of the same size.
Makes sense. Have a separate increase on the DC based on the amount of reisstance the target is offering.

>>41753351
I would assume you'd generally ahve at least 1 point in all stats.

As for size, I don't think you should be able to increase it at chargen, or it should be extremely expensive. Although I was thinking of being able to reduce your size (from medium to small) to gain extra points to spend on abilities (since being smaller would actually be a pretty major flaw), which would allow you to do the whole "all-devouring voreloli" thing (use those extra points to buy abilities to let you consume things easier).

Speaking of buying abilities, how exactly should abilities and buing them work?

I'm thinking of having essentially two groups: Traits, which would be something you can only purches once, probably only at character creation, that would be things like "swarm" and "energy being", as well as the one that would make you smaller, granting you some advantages and disadvantages compared to the "standard" Empyrean (which would be a Galactus-like big, presumably humanoid, figure),
and Abilities, which would be active and passive abilities (such as energy blasts, or ability to reduce DC on rolls to devour things) that would have multiple ranks that could be bought after during or after character creation.

Maybe you get 5 or some points to spend on traits and abilities, which could also be used to buy multiple ranks in the same ability (so you could, for example, buy one trait and 4 abilities or 3 abilities with two upgraded to rank 2).

Additionally you would have to choose one resource you feed on (more could be bought with experience), or choose to be able to feed on all resources but gain less benefit from them.

>>41753257
DC on nonliving targets just DC. DC on living targets can be handled as an opposing maneuver, like Roll+Str+Size for breaking a grapple, Roll+Dex+Size for wiggling out of it, or (Roll+Str+Size)-OppStr for a reversal.

For the sake of ease of writing, I'd say we should call your Stat+Size your "Sized" stat, so a 3p 3str character could be said to have a Sized Strength of 6Sstr. A roll with a Scale multiplier could be called a Scaled roll.

>Kilia makes a Scaled Strength roll against the moon

It's just a little easier to notate.

>>41753936

What about quick contests, like GURPS?

Like say, if you are trying to grapple someone, it could be...

2d6 + STR + <Skill> + <INSERT RELEVANT MODIFIERS> for the attacker,

And 2d6 + STR + Blahblah for the defender if they fail to dodge

But instead of just checking if each succeeds, you see who succeeds or fails and by what degree.

I.E:

Attacker succeeds by 4.
Defender succeeds by 2.

Attacker wins, margin of victory 2.

>>41753858
>>41753869

For Abilities and Skills I'd say go with a GURPS method and grant a pool of Points to expend as you see fit, so special knowledges, powers, items, etc would be from the same pool.

We'll keep this separate from the stat points, and have a conversion rate for when players want to boost their stats.

>>41754031
Yeah, something like that works too

>>41753869
Continuing on feeding and resources, each object would have a different amount of the four types of resources (mineral, biological, spiritual, and energy). Some planets might have no life, but be rich in minerals, for example. The type of resource you could consume would be converted to Empyreal Essence (ie. the mana-equivalent that is both used to cast active abilities and add bonuses to your rolls as well as sustaining you), with a smaller amount converted to experience points. Consuming another Empyrean would not grant you resources but pure Essence, which would be consumable by everyone and grant you more experience.
If you chose to make an "omnivore" craacter, you would gain essence equal to half of the amount of each resource.
For example, assuming a planet that has 100 of each resource, Empyreans that feed on one type of resource would each gain 100 Essence from the planet, while an omnivorous one would gain 4x(100/2)=200 Essence. You could use experience to buy abilities to let consume other resource types (for the omnivorous Empyrean this would remove the penalty from that resource type).

>CAPTCHA want me to select all food
>Can't select everything

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>>41754562
>>41754162

This works. Somebody suggesting swiping a table from Rouge Trader for generating systems. For worlds, we could have a simple 1-10 table for determining resources, rolled with 2d6, and have a 12 be a second roll. With perhaps a bonus added for Size and Scale

>Kilia wants to eat the 2p moon.
>she is a 3p Empyrean
>her Devouring score is based on Health+Power (assume 3+3)
>So her roll is 2d6+9Sdev=20
>the planet's devour score is *whatever we determine.* Assume she passes.

>we now roll for resource content.
>8 for Mineral, 10 for Biological, 10 for Spiritual, and 8 for Energy.
>we calculate them based on the chart. Lets assume its 0-90.
>So this small moon has 70Min, 90Bio, 90Spr, and 70Eng.
>As an omnivore, Kilia adds these to get 320, and divides by 2, getting 160 Essence.

Of course there'd be some scaler applied to the moon's resources, and we'd have to modify the Omnivore's divisor if we want to add more resources.

>>41755441
I like this, so far, and it leads into what I was thinking about while I was AFK.

Planet/System generation could use some spicing up, and this lead me to think of a few different topics: Features, Constructions, and Vassals/Heralds.

>Features

During generation, planets or systems may have Features rolled for them - sometimes possibly several.

These features add (or subtract) traits to the planet. Some may be simple +/- traits:

>Rich: This planet has unusually high ore density. +50% mineral value.
>Motherlode: This planet has very high ore density. +200% mineral value.

Some might have ongoing effects.

>Forge World: This planet's civilization are masters of industry and technology. They can provide bonuses to construction rolls, can provide bonuses to healing for machine-type Empyreals, and when in proximity (area or carried) can provide bonuses to certain machine-type rolls.
>Religious Mentality: The civilization on this planet is prone to magical thinking. They are more easily swayed by influence abilities and shows of power.
>Death World: This planet is all but inhospitable to intelligent life. Remove any Spiritual resources, but increase Biological resource. If properly cultivated with hardy specimens, Biological resources replenish much faster than on other worlds. The unusual fauna and flora can be researched for possible new abilities for Biological-focused Empyreals.

That last one is an example for obtaining unusual abilities that might be locked without training or a quest - sort of like some feats that require training or quests in D&D, or advantages like "Trained By A Master" in GURPS.

As a result, certain planets may have unusual features that make them more enticing on close inspection. Others may end up being more useful to keep around than to eat, making them act somewhat like allies first and magic items later (around the time you can start wearing them.)

>>41756453
>Constructions

Empyreals may have use for equipment too - they can act as dedicated machines or constructs to amplify powers, provide abilities they don't naturally have, or for the benefit of allies and vassals like artificial Ring Worlds.

Instead of devouring resources to convert into Empyrean energy, certain resources can be worked with certain abilities and skills into constructs of various kinds.

Most importantly, this also means Empyreals have loot to look forward to or craft. Everyone wants loot.

> Vassals/Heralds/Minions

There should be benefits to taking civilizations or lesser NPC Empyreals as Vassals - extended reach, allies in battle, bonuses to certain tasks such as construction.

Vassals are standard allies, like civilizations.

Heralds are lesser beings imbued with a fraction of the Empyrean Spark, subservient to their master. Their skills and abilities may reflect the worlds they come from - tech-savvy Forge Worlders, feral Death Worlders, etc.

Minions are constructed or summoned entities - usually temporary or weaker and less co-ordinated than their masters.

>>41756453
>>41756557

This stuff could be added into the star system generation chart. This stuff makes exploration seem pretty fun.

I like the idea of special worlds being basically stationary magical items until you get the ability to move them.


For the Heralds thing, I'd say to just make things like vassal planets offer a discount in points, like a 10% price reduction when generating a herald from a vassal world.

Hey just a heads up, you guys are being downvoted to hell on suptg

Bump

>>41756759

Makes sense.

I figure things may get more complicated and abstract once you move up to the Stellar Tier - you would focus on conquering whole solar systems in quicker time, commanding much larger groups of civilizations...

On the galactic scale you'd need only bother with Kardashev Type III civilizations. Anything smaller and less powerful is beneath your notice and too much effort for too little benefit to organize yourself. Maybe throw a few smaller vassal Empyreals at a galaxy and make THEM organize those civilizations into a Galactic Empire, THEN you'll consider doing more with that galaxy than just snacking on it.

>>41756838
At least we have foolz.

>>41746015
>I also like the ideas of communities of Empyreals forming megastructures as a form of housing/community and having more to their culture than just "eat everything."

Though I think it should all come BACK to "eat everything", much like how everything in Kindred society in either version of Vampire ultimately comes back to the fact that you gotta have your blood or Bad Shit Happens To You.

>>41758985
Can definitely agree with that. That's definitely a core facet of their being, but having it be the end all be all would just be dull.

>>41758985

I like this. A bunch of thr Empyreals will cluster together and try to form communities and commities to oversee functions of the galaxies, trying to find a function for themselves.

But when it comes down to it, they're all just dying to eat the universe into entropy. Even if they deny their nature and become cultivators of worlds they're still only a few missed snacks away from pacmanning through a solar system

>>41758985

Well of course. Most of those societies would exist at their core for the reasons of getting food.

All the culture and art and warfare or posturing exists because at the end they need something to do while protecting or seeking out their food and making sure someone else doesn't steal it from them - or turn them into food.

I just think there's so much room for stuff to go on around that central struggle to keep the Hunger at bay.

>>41759178
There are still advantages to having a community; banding together for protection from other Empyreals, sharing knowledge, scouting for food sources and sharing the locations (two Empyreals looking can cover more ground, and suggest locations they can't make use of themselves).

And in the event the Hunger grips them, they might be able to mitigate the worst of the damage, lest a frenzied Empyreal destroy all their own work and consume their allies and vassals. Stockpiling surplus resources could help serve as insurance against the worst attacks.

So, things to consider for next thread - this one seems to be on it's way out.

>Traits and Advantages? Non-stat abilities like powers, etc.
>Refining the attributes.
>Settling on the size scales and the modifiers they give.
>What kind of skill system.
>How points used for raising stats and skills work - just one currency? Divided between Stats and Skills/Powers?

Whoever it was running the google doc might want to skim this thread and add some choice bits to it.

>>41762411
Also, do we have a specific set of character templates/traits like mechanical, biological, etc etc?

>>41764086
I don't believe so, not yet at least, so brainstorming some of those would be prudent. Just a few off the top of my head:

>Swarm/Diffuse
Having a body which is either made of many mildy independent parts working on concert, or like a cloud of gas or energy. Very hard to damage, nearly immune to piercing/cutting, but affected by area effects and possibly energy discharge more.
>Homogenous
Having a body that is mostly the same material all the way throughout, and usually a distributed nervous system. No vitals, no specific organs, etc. Piercing and impaling type damage would not be as severe, though cutting could still lop off limbs.
>Unliving
You have complex parts that are of structural importance, but still no "organs" that function in a way that would cause you trouble if disabled.
>Machine
Your body is mechanical and probably non-organic. Can include some of the other traits above. Might be tireless, have no need for sleep, etc, but cannot over-exert itself without risking damage (redlining).
>Soulless
You don't have a soul, and are immune to soul-based draining and mental control. May stunt social skills and limit spiritual powers.

I'm taking some of these ideas from GURPS, obviously.

Certain kinds of entities would have a mix of traits; a giant swarm of deconstructor bots would be Swarm/Diffuse and Machine. A massive being with a body of metal that feeds on minerals might be Homogenous and have vastly increased toughness or damage resists. An energy being would have Swarm/Diffuse, energy absorption traits, and possibly a damaging contact aura to represent being made of Fire/Electromagnetic Energy/Hellfire or something.

>>41758078
On stellar tier or above the different resource types also become a bit problematic, as stars wouldn't really have any other resource types than energy. We could probably solve this by saying stars generate Empyreal energy, which can be fed on by everybody (though if you can also feed on energy, you might get extra Essence).

>>41758985
One idea is that your Essence gets depleted over time even if you don't use it (perhaps the rate could be tied to the size or amount of stat/ability points, so the bigger and stronger, you are, the more often you must feed) and if it gets below a certain treshold you'd have to start rolling to resist going into a feeding frenzy and evouring anything edible nearby. You could increase the amount of time between feedings by not using active abilities or slow your metabolism by locking out some of your abilities/reducing your stats, but in the end if you don't feed regularly bad things will happen. Like you devouring the megastructure you were working on or even your fellow PCs.

>>41762411
>How points used for raising stats and skills work - just one currency? Divided between Stats and Skills/Powers?
I think at character creation it would make sense to split skill and stat points. Like you get x amount of stat points (some anon suggested 21) and y skills.
When buying things with experience, I think you should be just able to use xp to buy either skills or stats.Things you could use xp on would be rasing stats, buying new skills, or improving existing skills that have multiple ranks (like an offensive atatck skill could have mutiple ransk that do increased damage; 1st rank 1d6+stat, second 2d6+sta and so on). These might cost a different amount of xp (the cost of skills could go up as the rank increase, same for stats; increasing stat from 3 to 4 could be cheaper than from 8 to 9).

Size, I think, shouldn't be something you need to buy, but something you gain automatically whenever you reach certain amount of total experience earned. There could also be a template/trait that makes you not increase in size while "levelling up" in exchange for some other benefit, as some people have suggested (in game mechanics the simplest way to handle this would probably be that you still advance through scales, but in planetary and higher scale you always count as the smallest size in the scale; this would make things easier as interacting of things from different scales could be very difficult, and we can assume in this case the scale might refer more to your power than physical size).

>>41764909
>On stellar tier or above the different resource types also become a bit problematic, as stars wouldn't really have any other resource types than energy. We could probably solve this by saying stars generate Empyreal energy, which can be fed on by everybody (though if you can also feed on energy, you might get extra Essence).
That's a good point, if you're a soul or life eater getting big enough that you have to eat stars may lead to problems

>>41764909
>>41765798

I think one thing people might get hung up on is assuming that the only thing Empyreals can or will eat from is what defines their size class.

I also think that some resource types should be worth more than others, or possibly be recognized for their pros and cons:

Matter
>It's loss to generate more of it, but you can eat just about anything you come across. Even stars are made of a shitload of gas.
Energy
>You mostly stick to stars or negative space wedgies, but you can engage in conversion of matter to energy with black holes, etc.
Biological
>Rarer than the previous two, but you can take worlds and use matter/energy resources and cultivation to grow this resource over time. Get enough worlds together and you can farm a steady, renewable supply. Also provides more readily recruitable vassals and heralds than the other two.
Spiritual
>Only found in higher life forms, the hardest to cultivate. But spiritual entities may have a wider range of powers and miracles they can call on, more buffs from prayer, and there are sources other than Type 0-I planets...

There's little reason for a soul-eating Empyreal to focus on stars, other than as gaining Resources for constructions or as points of interest:

>Turn to cultivators. Biological-devourers are also in the same boat.
>Go after higher value targets. Planets may not have as much life... Dyson Spheres may be teeming with so much life on it's massive internal surface, it could give comparable outputs to their parent stars.
>Target different things. Instead of going after stars... go after metaphysical Afterlives that intersect or have a portal in real space. Don't think Siris, think Valhalla. You aren't just dealing with Type-II civs, you're fighting minor Gods
>Turn to devouring other Empyreals and devouring their souls. Omnivores and Soul-devourers might be considered troublesome once they reach the Stellar stage if they are too impatient to battery-farm Type-II civilizations in Dyson Spheres.

>>41767191

This is a good point; some resources become rarer as the scale increases.

Of course, we could just use the planet generation system and apply it to entire solar systems/galaxies, and say its just an average of whats inside

>>41768118
True, that is another option.

I do think it leads to more variety if each of the different diets may require different conditions to fulfill.

Minerals is fairly easy - you can eat just about anything. Even stars have a lot of mineral matter if you can survive the conditions.

Energy is also fairly available, and you can abuse certain systems to generate energy from other things.

Biology and Spiritual are both more difficult but have auxiliary benefits associated with their sources.

You can of course go Omnivore and not worry about it, but I like different play styles emerging from choice of diet, and how different outlooks on your role as an Empyreal can come from that. An entity that can subsist off uninhabited worlds is probably going to have different opinions from one that has to suck planets dry of higher life.

>>41767191
Good point on the spirit-eaters. Considering that gods and magic are established to exist in the universe (it seems pretty similar to Marvel's universe where you have high technology, but also various godlike and magical being, sometimes godlike magical beings with high technology), so presumably spiritual planes like Asgard or Heaven would exist. There may even be races of other types of cosmic beings out there. A high-scale spirit eater wouldn' be just consuming the souls of inhabitants of planets, they'd be eating gods and afterlives.

>>41768458
Alternatively, if you wanted to be a Friendlier Empyreal, you would nurture worlds, uplift species, give them technology and aid, and in exchange get passive energy from prayer.

You could even harvest the dead and build your own Afterlives to carry them around with you to extract prayer and devotion after death, or you could just devour the dead souls and see if they'll buy the whole "becoming one" with their Deity nonsense.

Mineral and Energy Empyreals may be powerful loners that can subsist almost anywhere, while Biological and Spiritual Empyreals would be more social - either because they interact with life more often (for good or ill), because they act as precursors by seeding life for later consumption, because their aims make them more social with other Empyreals, and for having the necessary social skills and powers to build wide networks of allies and vassals amongst the lesser beings of the cosmos.

>>41768553
Dunno if Mineral and Energy Empyreals necessarily have to be as such. That makes a good default, but I feel like there could be positive ways for them to interact with others.

Since they're not after life or spiritual energy, there's not really any special incentive for them to devour worlds bearing such, while there may be incentives for them not too. (Technology the world has to offer, allies, cultural interaction.)

Any Empyreal type I'd think has the potential to be more social and engaged, or more withdrawn and self-interested, though some may indeed lean one way over the other.

>>41768607
That's a good point. They have reasons to be social, but also can get by ignoring it.

Mineral-devouring machines might love to have good relations with a Forge World - improved schematics for it's drones, new mining techniques, repair system upgrades, etc...

And an Empyreal that started as a sociable entity and doesn't have to harm life to subsist may simply be altruistic, building megastructures and moving civilizations to safer, greener pastures as a matter of kindness.

Of course some might just not care that the star they're siphoning or swallowing whole might be in the middle of an inhabited system.

>>41768553
Indeed. Spirit-eating Empyreals would actually benefit from "farming" life even more than biomass-eating ones. Intelligent life is probably very rare, and while biomass-eaters would have to wipe the world they cultivate clear of life every now and then and wait for new life to grow (which could take a while, so in order to sustain themselves by "farming" alone they'd need to cultivate and protect many worlds simultaneously), a spirit-eater can feed without fucking over the world, and so could maintain a single world and feed on the souls of dead followers and on spiritual energy created by their prayer. They'd also have the easiest time obtaining Heralds (a biomass-eater cultivating worlds probably wouldn't wait for intelligent life to evolve since it doesn't make a difference whether they eat bacteria or sapient lifeforms, while a spirit-eater would require intelligent life. Not to mention it wouldn't be hard to find followers willing to become the messagers of their deity and spread their faith to other worlds).

I can se a spirt-eating Empyral operating by finding inhabited worlds, devouring their old gods and afterlifes, and establishing themselves as the new deity in order to feed on their prayer and souls.

How about all types get a flat rate for eating stuff but you get a bonus if the object also contains the element you're specifically interested in

To stop mineral types from getting a bonus every time, how about the consumed object has to contain a rare element like vibranium or unontanium to count

>>41768659
Mm. There should be distance limits for drawing power from prayer; that could give reason to having lots of vassals or Heralds that can pick up the prayer energy for you and bring it back, making sort of supply lines?

>>41768975
I disagree with that. That effectively makes ALL Empyreans omnivores of a sort. That should be an option, not a requirement I think.

>>41769102
Yeah. If I made an Empyrean construct, then under normal circumstances, I wouldn't be able to see it getting energy from spirits or prayers.

>>41769177
Unless it chose that for it's diet, of course.

Holy Machine Spirits or that machine from 9 that ran on oil but prefered human souls comes to mind.

>>41769469
>that machine from 9 that ran on oil but prefered human souls
I should probably watch that movie one of these days

This thread will probably fall off soon. Has anybody actually started composing the rules yet? We do seem to have at least a rough idea how the stat system and stat buying should work, but less about the skills. Would be good if we could get the character creation system done since that would help with thinking about how experience is handled and what kind of characters you can make.

>>41772386
Other than notes and archiving everything I haven't yet, no. Whatever I've come down with is making it hard as hell to think.

If the thread falls off and doesn't get replaced, feel free to email me or leave contact info in the doc, and I'll try to get things sorted out as soon as I'm able.

>>41772524

If it does, I know I'd be wiling to drop my email in the doc. We can make another on Friday night and start compiling things

>>41772837
>>41772524

I agree. Make a little section for other interested parties to put a little contact info

>>41772858
>Make a little section for other interested parties to put a little contact info

That's been there as long as the doc. In any case, looking forward to getting stuff done on this in the near future.

>>41773445

Totally. I've been making some paper notes to do some mechanics testing.

I also put out feelers for planet/solar system generation charts in the PDF request thread

>>41773983
Depending on what you're after I remember there being an absurdly comprehensive one in this old space war game. Can't remember the name of it, but I can see if I can figure out where I left it.

>>41774107

That's be perfect, yeah. Somebody also suggested one in Rouge Trader

>>41774155
The RT one isn't very complicated, but I suggested that as an example since it's the only one I have at hand. I think one of the books (that I don't own myself, though) has a more detailed one, but that's mostly focused on setting colonies on planets, with charts for what kinds of valuable stuff you could find on the planets.

I used to have a pdf with a planet generator chart that was pretty detailed, but lost it when my old laptop broke down for good.

>>41769102
The thing is though, wouldnt that make the game unbalanced? There are ALOT of rocks floating out in space, and only a handful of those would have the right conditions for life to arise, and even fewer of those would have sentient life capable of spiritual belief

So you'd have minerals leveling up faster by dint of there just being more of their food around

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>>41774505
I think we discussed earlier that spiritual/biological food sources would lead to better abilities and/or benefits, at the cost of being harder to find. See >>41768221

Although we should sort out what that actually entails.

>>41774505
Maybe different resources could grant you different amount of experience. ie. instead of a flat 10% of resources consumed count towards xp, the amount would vary between resource type. Mineral and energy could grant the 10%, but biological would grant a higher percentage (maybe 20%) and spiritual higher still (50%?). Fluff it as living things, especially intelligent life, having more cencentrated Empyreal energy or "life-force". This would only apply if you had the appropriate trait (life-eater or spirt-eater), though, so an omnivore would only get the flat 10% from them.

>>41774505
True, but consider that Empyreals may have a wide range of cosmic-tier powers.

A spiritual Empyreal doesn't necessarily have to FIND life all the time. Essential skills for cultivators might include the following:

>They can drain the excess or leave enough intact on a world to let it regrow.
>They can terraform planets and move them to habitable zones
>They can break apart marginal or inadequate worlds for resources and reassemble them into suitable worlds.
>They can make heralds do some of the work for them and cover wider ground, task civilizations with this, or also likely: band together with similar Empyreals to form communities that engage in subsistence (or even surplus) farming.
>With stronger abilities, they can encapsulate planets in force bubbles that can regulate temperature, light levels, gravitational forces, etc. - providing worlds with a shield against cosmic assault and acting as a sort of Hydroponic pod that could enable incredibly dense farming of biological and spiritual resource.

Some people seem to be stuck with this idea that Empyreals response to hunger must ALWAYS be mindless consumption - the Hunger should always be in the back of their mind waiting to take over and drive them to a feeding frenzy, but these aren't all mindless swarms of locusts. They have cosmic power and sometimes intellect, and they can put that to work building things that make it easier to eat.

>>41774628
So how does advancement work?

We should knock out skills if we're going to work on this long term

I feel like a simple roll over success mechanic might be best

What kind of skills do Empyreans need?

>>41774640
Yeah. Different Empyreans might have a very different outlook on things. Some (particularly the mineral-eaters who can feed on just about any planet or asteroid, or the omnivores who are likely to just consume the whole planet) might just go around space, looking for things to eat, while others could use their cosmic powers to move worlds into habitable zones and seed them with life or construct Dyson spheres or ringworlds that could house huge amounts of biomass. Spiritual ones especially could set themselves as gods, protecting the solar system in exchange for getting the souls of dead worshippers and prayers of the inhabitants.

I don't really like the idea of having proper "communities" of Empyreans, though. Quite simply, space is so big and Empyreans so rare that the odds of more than a handful being in the same place would be stupendously unlikely. Small groups tending a Dyson sphere and "farming" food in it I can see, but not communities of tens or hundreds.

BTW, is the "official" spelling Empyrean or Empyreal, cause I see both used? Personally I use Empyrean as the name of the beings since that's how it's spelled in the OP, and use Empyreal as an adjective pertaining to them (ie. Empyreal Essence, Empyreal Spark).

>>41774910

Mm. Honestly, I think that could vary based on the setting and GM.

In some settings, they might pop up enough to allow it - stellar conditions may be different, there might be more of the Empyreal Spark going around, etc.

I had suggested a while back the idea that there could be warped pockets of space or adjacent dimensions with conditions more or less ripe for bigger populations.

I would probably say that you would only get larger concentrations at the planetary level - and even then, most would probably be just the size of a player party, possibly some at bigger levels like small villages where conditions are particularly ripe. Past that competition may be too great and the number of Empyreals that make the jump from Planetary to Stellar may be too small to permit larger groups.

As the default, though, I think just calling large gatherings very rare and making a big show of it when they do show up for some reason could be a plot hook if desired.

And so far, I think there is no consensus on whether the entities are Empyreans or Empyreals. Based on what you are saying, I am sorta favoring Empyrean for the entities and Empyreal for things about them and the force they draw their powers from.

>>41775044
>And so far, I think there is no consensus on whether the entities are Empyreans or Empyreals. Based on what you are saying, I am sorta favoring Empyrean for the entities and Empyreal for things about them and the force they draw their powers from.

I agree.

On the subject of food, remember that there are other cosmic entities they could consume as well. Or, if life is significantly rarer, we can just apply a multiplier to it in some way. For instance, though life may be 10x rarer than minerals or energy, life eaters are sustained on less energy than those other types.

So 10 units of Life could effectively serve as 100 units of Minerals, but be 10 times rarer.

>>41774781
>So how does advancement work?

The general consensus seems to be that once you reach a certain amount of experience gained, you advance in size category. Advancing in scale would be harder, though, requiring you to gather a much larger amount of energy to cross the "potential energy barrier", as it were. Like, I'd imagine that to transition from sub-planetary scale to the smallest category of the planetery scale (size 1), the proto-Empyral would pretty much have to consume the entire planet they're on (which for an Earth-sized planet would be size 4 on the scale), or at leats all of the appropriate resource type. Nobody has worked on the exact numbers yet, though.

>I feel like a simple roll over success mechanic might be best

The consensus on the mechanic seems to be 2d6+stat to beat a difficulty check that would vary depending on what you're doing and the size of the object you're interacting with. Skills could have multiple ranks that would boost their effectiveness (reduce the DC for rolls, or increase damage of attacks, for example)

>What kind of skills do Empyreans need?

Skill to consume things, obviously (which would come standard), stuff like being able to fire energy blasts, manipulate gravity, create megastructures and Heralds, seed worlds with life etc. (some of these might be tied to specific traits, like a spirit-eating Empyrean might have access to different skills than a mineral-eating one). Some skills could just be passive abilities (like a skill that gives bonuses to rolls), while others would require to roll stuff in order to succesfully create megastructures and so on.

>>41775044
On scales larger than Planetary, the kind of "farming" that would allow multiple Empyreans to live in one system would also be difficult. A Dyson Sphere built around the habitable zone of a star would produce enough biomatter to easily feed multiple Planetary-scale Empyreans pretty much indefinitely (since the surface area would be thousands of times larger than a planet: they could easily regularly consume amount of biomass equal to a normal planet's supply from it and keep the thing self-sustaining), but a Stellar-scale Empyrean would probably consider the contents of the same Dyson Sphere a single meal.

Part of me would want to see a Drake's Equation style estimate on the amount of Empyreans in the galaxy. Assuming that Empyreans require a planet with some form of life, probably intelligent or at least quite highly evolved (I rather doubt bacteria could hold an Empyreal Spark) and the ascencion of the proto-Empyrean to a proper Planetary-scale Empyrean would pretty much destroy the world, then their number would be limited by the amount of habitable planets in the galaxy (admittably, "habitable" could refer to a considerably larger spread than what we consider habitable; you could easily have silicon-based Empyrean and the like), and any planets still habitable would not have spawned an Empyrean yet.

>>41774781
A few skills off the top of my head, not suggesting all of them. Some of these might be more categories to consider.

Melee Combat
Ranged Combat
Knowledge/Technical (Specializations)
Medical (Specializations)
Repair/Maintenance (Specializations)
Diplomacy (Specializations)
Empyreal Power (The "Magic" skill for raw Cosmic Power)

Knowledge/Technical skills would cover things like "Biology" or "Architecture" and have a required specialization, listed as follows:

Knowledge (Architecture) - <Skill Level>

Certain physical skills like Climbing/Swimming seem all but irrlevent, unless you are playing a game where Empyreans will be shrinking a lot, tele-operating smaller bodies, or engaging with macroenvironments where there are things vastly bigger than them and they can't just fly or teleport for some reason.

>Party of Empyreans enter a dimensional rift, leading to a Macroplanet teeming with life at their scale.
>Empyreal energy/field fluctuations allow for sustained existence but little advancement.
>Side plot where party dicks around as traditional adventurers looking for loot before going back to normal universe.

>>41775986
>Certain physical skills like Climbing/Swimming seem all but irrlevent, unless you are playing a game where Empyreans will be shrinking a lot, tele-operating smaller bodies, or engaging with macroenvironments where there are things vastly bigger than them and they can't just fly or teleport for some reason.
I think such situations are niche enough that, especially in a rules-light system, havinf specific skills for them would not be a good idea. Othervise you're likely to either get situations where one player spends tons of points to Perform: (intrepetive dance) and complaisn he never gets use of it, or you end up in a situation where you really need Knowlege (underwater baske weaving) and nobody has the skill.
Handling climbing and swimming as simply taking strenght (or whatever stat would be appropriate) test would be simple and result in less skill bloat.

>>41776132

I agree with that, makes sense. More important to have skills for skills that are relevant at that scale - knowledge, use of powers, self-repair and maintenance, navigation, and social skills.

>>41776132
>>41776626

Yeah, the rare human scale adventures can just use raw ability scores or something.

In addition to skills we should think about powers, and how they should be priced. Maybe looking at examples from GURPS Powers or Mutants & Masterminds might be prudent, though scaling up the effects to the cosmic level.

Create/Control/Transmutate/Destroy different categories of things, energy projection, mental abilities like telepathy and mind control, personal traits like superspeed or regeneration, stuff like that.

>>41775487
Considering the number of habitable worlds that may contain or be affected by an Empyreal Spark may be an even smaller subset of those habitable worlds, and they could be very few...

Alternatively, if it is unusually high, that might explain the Great Filter. Not that many civilizations get that far before they get eaten. I'm sorta leaning towards rarity, though. Even with a small number of them, a galaxy can support a whole bunch of Planetary-scale Empyreans.

So....how big would be too big for you?

Big enough that you'd be bathing in her navel? Or even bigger?

>>41779710
My personal preference for giantesses or for the game?

Personal preference I'd prefer if she stayed small enough she could interact with people, ideally where a normal person was comparatively just small enough to be swallowed whole or be used as a dildo

The game?
I'd personally prefer if she stayed in the planet eating range, at most big enough to swallow something the size of a star whole

>>41779710
>talking about beings on the scale of galaxies
>come up with this tiny-ass example
Try to keep up.

He does give a good point. What's out size cap? I'm thinking that on the order of the distance between galaxies might be a bit too big. Maybe 1 million light-years? Any suggestions from anons who've already been contributing more than I have?

>>41779789

I figure there's not much reason to be too stingy about size caps, aside from on a per-campaign basis.

We already discussed Sub-Planetary, Planetary, Stellar, Galactic, and even Universal scale.

While it would eventually get rather esoteric, it's entirely possible to do things at a scale where entities are Multi-Universal in scope and so big they probably contain multitudes of realities, becoming some sort of Godhead for quintillions of universes.

The rules could ideally just keep scaling up and up.

>>41779895


The scales are basically what they prey on, right? Planetaries/Planetesimals prey on Planetoids and small stars, Solars on solar systems and stars, Galactics drink galaxies, Universals consume...universes?

Or is it their range of predation, or both?

>>41779789

Well I just wasn't sure how you could do stuff with a girl with Sun-sized tits besides an endless trek across the world's sexiest desert

>>41780082
It's roughly their range of predation AND size.

A mid-sized Universal would probably be as big or bigger than an entire universe, and capable of predating on them. Probably existing in some kind of multi-versal void between universes.

>>41779710
>>41779771
>>41780108

Some of these are starting to get a little too off-topic Magical Realm. I know the thread is pretty close to death but come on guys.

>>41780173
>magical realm
>in a thread that literally evolved from a magical realm derail
Nothing kills a project faster than insisting people stop having fun

>>41780173

I want prudefags to go

>>41780173
>Some of these are starting to get a little too off-topic Magical Realm. I know the thread is pretty close to death but come on guys.
He asked, I answered, I do kinda prefer if they don't get too big where planets are a non factor

>>41780353
>>41780273
Relax, it's natural that someone try to keep on to the less fetishy aspects.

That said.

Killer mechaswarm of robobees that consume metal to make more robobees is how I'd like to go at it in this kind of a game.

>>41779771

For star-eating, a smaller Empyrean could probably feed off a star's energy by just drinking it a little bit at a time

>>41780108
>endless trek across the world's sexiest desert
Half the fun is in the nomadic journey up those legs that (literally) just won't quit

>>41780419

I had an idea for a homogenous, mineral-based Omnivore that has a crust-like skin of habitable terrain, carrying it's population of vassals along with it and providing for their needs like some kind of planet/star-sized literal Gaia. Although shaped like a humanoid. The bigger it got, the more varied the environments would become, and the more it's skin would look like some kind of cartographic patchwork.

>>41780108
>>41780469
>>41780489
I sorta suggested back when the idea was still sexy planet eating giantesses that a possible power could be that they have a servant civilization living on their body acting as their own version of planet defenders

Also that they could easily sell back point put into it (represented by them eating the tines crawling across their form)

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>>41780419
>>41780489

But how will they wear their Royal Order of Water Buffalo helmets?

I just want a big armored lady. Maybe with a white and teal color scheme.

>>41780607

I figure power-wise it could be done by having the right kind of body - artificial beings like machines, or golem-like beings could cover themselves with materials to emulate a habitable surface and use different powers to bind an atmosphere to themselves - and to make the gravity survivable. Just add biological life and wait, or invite existing civilizations on.

It's like traditional planet/solar cultivation, just using one's own body as the growth medium.

Alternatively, those that don't have the right kind of body could "tattoo" or bind strips of land to themselves to perform the same purpose, fashion clothing that acts the same way, or other sorts of weird things.

The patchwork idea I had also would have had hollow tunnels and spaces within the body for extra population density.

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>>41780607

That's a pretty good idea, actually.

Something like adding a dice to certain attacks or something, but being able to eat them in a pinch for a pick-me-up. They could also be something that could be lost in damage, though.

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>>41780738

I think he just meant points-wise. However it's fluffed, it's just be an expenditure of some points mechanically to make it habitable.

Thinking about enemies, other than enemy Empyreans and extra dimensional threats, there could also be generic space monsters that also fuck up planets. Things like the cloud monster from the story, or the Sun-eaters in DC comics. Some of these natural fauna could sometimes be twisted by some outside force, and become ravenous for Empyrean essence. They could essentially be like how wild animals can become maneaters once they get a taste of Essence.

That'd give a reason for Empyreans to be on the defensive on occasion, since it'd provide actual reasonable threats.

>>41780759

I figure that having a habitable surface is probably a power of some kind of "equipment" depending on it's source, while having the population shouldn't necessarily be paid for with points.

It's a (temporary) ally you gain in play, it sounds like.

>>41781075

Ideas were mentioned before for things like giant space monsters that might carry the spark, the bioengineering creations of bigger Empyreans or Type II/III/IV civs, etc.

Even smaller civs could be dangerous enemies with the right approach: Consider how many stupidly powerful entities and absurdly intelligent super-scientists originate from and dwell on Marvel and DC's respective Earths.

And hell, sufficiently powerful civilizations could be a threat all by themselves. There are probably plenty of floating Empyrean corpses floating in the void blasted apart by Type III civs that use neutron stars as ammunition.

LILIUM

>>41781143
Could we write some concrete fluff on galaxy spanning factions that the players may encounter during play?

>>41781170
What's that?

>>41781232
Story of the train wreak
>Started with someone asking what your cleric/paladin would do if their goddess revealed to them that she was in fact a redeemed succubus
>Some folks decided to start working out a religion heavily focused on love and redemption lead by a redeemed succubus goddess
>Much arguing/trolling on the subject if demons could be good/such a thing was most likely her pretending so she could nom souls
>Somewhere in there someone joked she turned souls into boob fat
>Now soul vore and becoming tit/assfat is added to the trolling
>More tolling, original goddess idea is mostly done
>New idea of a good/"good" goddess of redemption that still has some unsettling but still technically good behaviors (such as mindfucking unrepentant (or willing) evildoers into being good, using small amounts of mind control to push folks on the right path, or giving the souls of her worshipers the option of becoming one with her, existing in a state of bliss, and boosting her power as an option in the afterlife) emerges, good or "good" variations depends largely on if she's honest about the bliss part or just nomming soul
>A whole lot more trolling, people working on it declare original and new ideas done
>Some asshat starts making new threads, making sure to include the most fetishy interpretation in the OP
>More trolling, mostly on vore
>Someone jokes all the souls would make her huge and getting big enough to eat the planet
>More trolling, mostly trolls trolling trolls at this point
>New idea emerges, all devouring succugoddess elder evil big enough to swallow planets and determined to eliminate evil and bring bliss to every single soul in the multiverse by making them one with her
>More trolling, elder evil version done enough to be workable in game
>Mod finally deletes blatant troll threads during discussion of the multiverse actually being a series of matryoshka doll-like succugoddeses with each existing with in the previous iteration of reality

>>41781225

Go for it. If there's a faction you want to add, just make them. If somebody doesn't want them they don't have to use them, but I'm of the mind that the more fluff available the better.

For Empyrean clans, I've thought of some things like
>some who consider themselves gods, or are all ascendant gods who consider themselves 'true' gods. They play petty politics and are generally self-absorbed, and feel that toying with mortal civilizations is their duty.

>machines who focus on the consumption and mechanization of the universe. They eventually want to create a single perfect mechanized universe

>a group that views themselves as galactic protectors. They primarily focus on cleaning up invading threats from outside the universe

>a warrllike clan that ravages across the universe eating indiscriminately, trying to wipe everything out.

>>41781269

Sounds hot

>>41781367

>Isolationists, who wish to avoid getting tangled up with the other groups or pissing off the resident - if hypothetical - mega-civs. Tend to try and find ways to hibernate, escape the universe into parallels, or keep themselves from showing up on everyone else's radar.

>Scientists who focus predominantly on developing their powers and analyzing the universe. Think like someone crossed Galactus with Brainiac. Less interested in the mineral content of a planet than any information it can extract. May engage in weird experiments that litter the cosmos with phenomena, monsters, and weird civilizations.

>Nostalgic Empyreans who cling to their former identity and attempt to emulate or stay connected to it. Liable to attempt reconstructing their home worlds if possible, enforce their culture on other worlds, and create esoteric megastructures resembling their native architecture. Maybe touched in the head.

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>>41781232
October last year

Some faggots keep posting about what would happen if a paladin's deity revealed herself to be a 'redeemed' succubus.

Angry neckbeards outraged at the thought of a succubus becoming a goddess spammed the threads with paladin imagery.

/d/fags implied that the succubus goddess was just pretending to be redeemed so she could feast on her followers' souls.

Multiple threads later, the succubus goddess somehow became a planet-eating space horror who converts the souls of entire worlds into assfat.

Last thread was about her eventually devouring reality itself until a new universe forms inside her.

Good times were had.

>>41781518

Granted, you could probably do something similar as a Spirit-eating Empyrean...

Hell, it sounds pretty much like how the progression would go.

>>41782280
Well it was pointed out as in inspiration for the spirit eating ones in the last thread

For inspiration regarding scales:
http://scaleofuniverse.com/

And if size 8p is defined as being about as big as brown dwarves...

How about a list like this for Stellar and Galactic, at a glance?

>Stellar
1: White/Red Dwarf
2: Subdwarf
3: Main Sequence
4: Subgiants
5: Giants
6: Supergiants
7: Hypergiants
8: Super-Stellar (At this size, even Hypergiants may be small enough to be easily ingested)

>Galactic
1: Solar System
2: Small Nebula
3: Medium Nebula
4: Oort Cloud/Parsec
5: Large Nebula
6: Dwarf Galaxies
7: Galaxies
8: Galactic Clusters

>>41783976
And for a hypothetical Universal...

>Universal
1: Galactic Superclusters
2: Local Supercluster Group
3: Large Supercluster Groups (Virgo Supercluster)
4: Supercluster Complex
5: Sub-universal
6: Observable Universe
7: Whole Universe
8: Small Multiversal

By the end of this scale, the Empyrean would be the size of and may contain entire universes.

Does this project exist for any reason other than fetishes? I'm having a hard time imagining anyone wanting to play or run a game for planet-sized and up beings for any other reason. It seems impractical, not to mention really hard to have any kind of character drama or site-based adventures at such a scale.

>>41779789
I don't think there really is a theoretical size cap. In practice, the energy required to clear the hurdle from one scale to another would be so large that very few Empyreans from planetary scale would actually make the jump to stellar scale. Galactic-scale ones would be rare enough to be considered largely theoretical, and universe-scale ones mythical (because it's not like you could even perceive something bigger than the universe; for all we know the entire universe could actually be an univeral-scale Empyrean). It's possible that once you hit the largest possible size (high end of universal scale) you trancend the multiverse entirely and go to wherever the Prime Empyrean exists, either joining it or replacing it. Some Empyreans may belive the purpose of existance is to serve as a proving ground for Empyreans, and the last one standing would become the new Prime Empyrean/God.

>>41784258
Granted there is a lot of Magical Realm in the idea but there are a lot of other things to do.

You're basically playing gradually more powerful God-like beings, with a focus on interacting with other such beings and civilizations towards whatever goals you may have.

Coupled with the gnawing Hunger, I guess one way to look at it is some kind of bastard child of god/divine being games like Nobilis and Amber mixed with Vampire: the Masquerade?

Run civilizations, deal with or cause apocalypses, go on adventures through parallel dimensions with weird physical laws, get into arguments and fights with other Empyreans over what your greater role in the cosmos is.

I mean, it can be a bunch of giantesses eating everything, but it can also be:

>Giant living planets devouring others to provide living space for it's pet civilizations.
>Unhinged grey goo swarms posing a threat to every civilization within it's reach.
>Gods shepherding civilizations and forming interstellar or galactic empires.
>Size-shifting Macroscale entities fighting supermassive monsters, like some kind of bastard child of Tokukatsu super hero shows like Kamen Rider meeting TTGL-scale shenanigans.

>>41781075
On thing mentioned eithe rup-thread or in the last one was that if the Prime Empyrean is a personification of some cosmic principle (perhaps something like life/evolution/growth/hunger), there could be others, with their own types of cosmic beings empowered by their essence. They wouldn't have the ability to consume things and grow, as that would be within PE's portfolio, but they could have powers based on whatever concepts they represent.

>>41784509
Or all of the above.
I do like the ideas that Empyreans come in a huge variety and none of them really knows why they are the way they are (the Prime Empyrean may very well be just a theory or myth) that every one of them could have a different way of operating and a different view on what it means to be an Empyrean. Some might see themselves as gods, others as the protectors of the galaxy. Others migth believe themselves to be agents of entropy and their duty to be wiping the universe clean so it can start anew, while others believe they must reach Heaven by violence and replace God/PE as the new supreme being. Others might just not care and eat things because they're hungry.

>>41784720
Huh. I hadn't considered the idea of there being other beings like Empyreans but for different concepts.

While the Empyreans represent life and hunger, there might be other classes of beings antagonistic to them (generally, most would be - Empyreans wanting to eat everything problem doesn't win them many favors).

(Reach heaven by violence? I can't imagine treating the universe as a buffet is a valid Walking Way.)

>>41781143
I wonder if a Type III civilization could become an Empyrean. I could see such a civilization cruising around on a mobile Dyson Sphere, breaking down planets and moons for raw contruction material.

Probably wouldn't count as an Empyrena, as it's not a single being that has an Empyreal Spark (even the Tyranid- or Von NEuman-style swarm Empyreans would have a single hive-mind) and wouldn't have the essentially limitless potential for growth.
Although given that a being might also become an Empyrean by essentially Mantling the PE and gaining an Empyreal Spark by consuming a planet (rather than the normal way where they gain, or already have, the Spark first and then consume a planet to grow big enough to be a proper Empyrean), the Dyson Sphere itself could gain the Spark.

>>41784774
If Empyreans represent life (since when you get down to it, consuming things to grow it pretty much what life boils down to), maybe there could be beings that are their exact opposite and represent stasis/death. I wonder if they start huge and shrink to sub-atomic levels?

>(Reach heaven by violence? I can't imagine treating the universe as a buffet is a valid Walking Way.)
It might be when you're path to ascencion is Mantling the cosmic representation of Hunger.
And wasn't reaching Heaven by violence something Vehk suggested to the hortator as an alternative when he expressed doubt that he could remember all that "Walking Way" crap.

>>41785028
>Although given that a being might also become an Empyrean by essentially Mantling the PE and gaining an Empyreal Spark by consuming a planet (rather than the normal way where they gain, or already have, the Spark first and then consume a planet to grow big enough to be a proper Empyrean), the Dyson Sphere itself could gain the Spark.
If that could work, it could be a pretty interesting origin for a character. Imagine some interstellar civilization being a planet-consuming superweapon, like that thing in one episode of Star Trek, to use on ther enemies, and upon consuming the first inhabited world it develops an Empyreal Spark, gains sapience and promptly decided it doesn't want to be a weapon and fucks off into deep space to do its own thing and eat uninhabited planets, leaving the civilization that build it very confused and angry because they just spend most of their resources building a super-weapon that immediately went rouge (and then they get promptly wiped out by their now very pissed off enemy because using most of their resources on said super-weapon left their conventional armies chronically underfunded).

>>41784774
yeah I can't see them being particularly popular

>>41785136
A cold war between two planetary superpowers comes to a sudden end when the entire species has their souls consumed, leaving a dead planet and several very confused military AIs.

Discovering the nature of the threat, their programs demand retaliation. The AIs set aside their differences and combine their resources, quickly turning the planet's mass into an enormous mobile weapon.

"my parents are dead"

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>>41784258

fucking jack kirby

always forcing us into his magical realm

>>41786186

was jack kirby "THAT DM"?

>>41786186
Damn right. All those brightly coloured giant dudes in silly hats.

>>41783976
>>41784228
That's good work on the scales, especially on the Galactic and Universel ones as it handles the problem with there being a huge gap between the size of galaxies (or the universe) with stars (or galaxies).

>>41784258
Not to mention all the mechanics are centered around just...eating stuff. Even if it wasn't fetish shit (it totally is) that sounds really fucking boring.

>>41788411
I don't know, is VtM boring/fetishy because having to drink blood is a key part of both the background and the mechanics?

I mean, I'm not saying you can't play this as "katamari damacy with cute girls and vore", and it'd be a lie to say that that wasn't the original premice, but you could also play it as cosmic beings dealing with other cosmic being with varying ideologies, while creating megastructures and stuff. The fact that you do have to consume worlds to survive doesn't have to be the main focus, but it is something the players would have to plan around, potentially doing things like seeding worlds with life and "farming" them for sustenance, which in itself could lead to some intresting plothooks.

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>>41788411
>Whole array of cosmic powers
>Skills for creating megastructures and engaging in stellar husbandry and galactic-scale engineering
>Skills and discussion of leading civilizations and forging empires
>Alternate environments for human-scale adventure shenanigans
>All sorts of entities and monsters like living planets, grey goo swarms, and Matrioshka brains
>Themes ranging from being Celestial Bureaucrats to being Macro Power Rangers

>Not to mention all the mechanics are centered around just... eating stuff.

>>41788572
>VtM boring/fetishy because having to drink blood is a key part of both the background and the mechanics?
VtM is more than just
>find planet
>eat planet
>find new planet

>>41788637
>find human
>eat human
>find new human

>>41788597
>>41788572

It's the same samefagging shitposter that's been targeting all homebrew threads with his concern trolling.

Report, hide, and ignore.

>>41786177
I'd like to see how the hell you manage a bat signal at those scales.

>>41786177
Actually that sparks a thought. Since we can't decide on mechanics terribly easily, should we built the archetype characters as fluff/power bundles and then backmath what the chargen needs to look like?

>>41789817
That works. Make a couple standard characters, playtest them, then we can break them into pieces so they can be mixed and matched.

>>41789924
Just a suggestion, use characters at the scales we're dealing with. Stat out things like the 'nids, Galactus, Unicron, etc., and use them as the playtest characters.

>>41789817

I guess I'll submit a sample real quick, then.

Nickname: Patchwork
Morphology: Homogenous, Mineral
Size: Planetary-6 (Jupiter-size Gas Giant)
Diet: Omnivorous, Spiritual

Background Fluff:

Patchwork used to be a geologist on their native planet, who performed surveys and studies for prospective mining companies. During one fateful survey, inspection of an anomalous mineral vein led to the unearthing of an Empyrean Spark, which bonded with her in an energetic event that caused a cave-in. She was presumed dead and that section of the mine closed off for months.

Although her original body was destroyed by the cave-in, her spirit was empowered by the Spark and managed to reach out to the nearest objects to consume - the minerals and bedrock of the cave system. Gradually her consciousness and influence spread through the crust like an infection, eventually becoming noticeable on the surface first as earthquakes and volcanic activity, and then as masses of earth pulling people and structures underground and converting the surface.

Eventually her consciousness settled and converted even the core of the planet, and the world was reshaped into a humanoid form resembling her former body. While most of the planet's population perished and their souls were consumed to fuel the process, she became aware of the consequences of her actions and managed to save a fraction of the population. Having nowhere else to put them, she made spaces of her body - her "skin" being the former continental plates cracked and stretched over her form - into safe havens.

[Cont]

>>41791171
Gradually as she explored her solar system and consumed more mass, she began to develop her powers and focused on correcting the mistakes of her rebirth, terraforming her own body and making it a livable surface. Alterations to gravitational fields, reseeding of rescued flora and fauna, landscaping via geothermal activity and cosmic telekinesis, and capturing and transmuting gases from Gas Giants has turned the surface of her body into a virtual paradise for the recovering population.

By now, she has consumed worlds across many solar systems, but has done her best to invite civilizations to move to her body. Recognizing her particular taste for spiritual energy, she absorbs the souls of those who expire on her surface, though she provides enough safety and luxury for her inhabitants that many believe this to be an acceptable price. Those who die flow into a "Lifestream" of spiritual energy coursing through her body, where the memories remain intact and preserved while the consciousness and spiritual form is absorbed. This can permit some form of resurrection or reincarnation.

She is nicknamed Patchwork because of her habit of stripping the crust and continental plates off worlds and binding them as her flesh, preserving the original biospheres of her consumed worlds. This causes her skin to look like someone had stitched a bunch of maps together.

>>41791191
Powers and Feats:
>Terraforming: Can create the conditions for basic lifeforms and encourage their development.
>Matter Manipulation: Can work her will over minerals and metals, to be reshaped, absorbed, or transmuted. She can attack by ejecting plumes of magma from her limbs, or propelling small projectiles of matter at high velocities like a railgun.
>Biological Manipulation: Can accelerate the growth of living things, and has recently taken a greater interest in engineering new forms of life to assist her population.
>Spiritual Manipulation: Is capable of using her Empyrean energy to manipulate and affect souls, either creating them (lossy), empowering them, causing spiritual miracles, consuming them, binding them, or destroying them outright.
>Resilience: Being made of minerals and metals, her body is extraordinarily tough. Because she is a spirit bound to matter, she also lacks vital organs.

>>41790005
'Nids might be difficult as a whole - a hive ship as a single Empyreal could work.

Galactus, despite being one of the major inspirations, might be very difficult. Do we have any concrete numbers on his abilities? His version of the Power Cosmic mostly seems to be pulling things out of a hat.

Unicron is a good choice. His moon form is basically a giant planet with weird mechanical fauna and flora, if design notes are the be believed.

>"The surface of Unicron was originally a dense jungle of metal and mechanical creatures."

He even has an appropriately Empyrean mindset:

>"His massive form is powered by the consumption of planets, moons, stars, and even the very fabric of existence. Unicron will not be sated until his ultimate goal is attained: to bring an end to the annoying creation boasting independence around him, and find peace by becoming the living center of a swirling, infinite torrent of nothingness at the end of all things."

And lastly...

>"Seen at a detached distance from the multiverse, this collective "Unicron Phenomenon" acts with the characteristics of a virus or plague seeping through reality and succeeding where it can, and retreating when it cannot. [4] Various permutations of Unicron can spawn into existence outside the trappings of the larger entity, hailing from a more mundane origin but possessing the same consumptive traits. [5]"

Which sounds a lot like how we've been phrasing the Empyrean Spark.

>>41791827
>'Nids might be difficult as a whole - a hive ship as a single Empyreal could work.
Threat a Hive Fleet as an Empyrean with the swarm/diffuse template that feeds on biological matter (the Hive Fleet is effectively a single organism with its "body" formed from a swarm of hive ships). You could also do a swarm of von Neuman machines by giving them the machine trait and making them feed on minerals intead.

https://youtu.be/9LRuuuOWkw4

ay yo watch this cartoon- The Silver Surfer. Closest thing to what we're going for.

Deals with Big G a bunch, including things that are threats to him. Other than that we can just scale up SS's stuff to Big Girl sizes

>>41792769
Cool. Watching it now. Thanks for the link.

For the "power cosmic" thing being the hat trick power, we could apply a system like luck or destiny points, where you have a pool of points to add to rolls or bid on exceptional feats. Maybe something like Power + a chosen primary stat.

Although...that might be what Essence points are for.

>>41793774

Another facet of it might be something like Variable or Modular Abilities.

Pay a premium of points to have a pool of points you can shift around to other powers.

You can emulate a BUNCH of powers, but not all of them at the same time.

>>41793774
I figure that would be the other main use of Essence (ie. spend X amount of Essence to reduce a roll's DC/add to roll). The other being the "mana" equivalent used to power special abilities.

>>41793952
Another idea might be to allow the Empyrean Power to power things like GURPS Power stunts.

You make a roll against something analogous to Willpower or Health or Intellect (depending) and spend essence, and you can not just get small bonuses to rolls, but possibly even improvise single-use powers related to ones you already have, or boost the potency of existing abilities.

You might also modulate abilities you already have. Some examples:

Amplify: Turn a telepathic communication ability into a Psychic Scream stun power

Moderate: Turn a Terajoule Laser into a blinding flash of light.

Target: Make an imprecise ability more precise. Turning a sonar-ability into a makeshift radio-comm ability, for instance.

Broadcast: Opposite of Target.

Reverse: Perform the opposite of the normal effect. An ability that controls air might be improvised to control vacuum, Precognition may become Psychometry, etc.

Until (or in lieu) you can afford to be spending points to fully own abilities and use them at-will without issue, you could spend a bit of Empyrean essence and make a roll to bullshit a stronger or more creative use of a lesser power.

>>41794588
Ooh, I like this.

If you've got the GURPS book, would you mind screencapping the pages?

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>>41794867
Sure, here you go.

Spent today thinking up some ideas on mortal factions, most based on DC/Marvel comics- let me know what you guys think:

The Galactic Patrol: "Order through law, and justice through mercy."

One of the oldest and perhaps largest organizations in the galaxy, the Galactic Patrol was created many hundreds of thousands of years ago under circumstances even the oldest of creatures no longer remembers to protect and preserve peace in the space lanes that allow the interstellar nations of the galaxy to conduct trade. As the lanes expanded, so to did the Patrols mandate, with patrolmen helping to tame the wild frontiers of the unexplored. Patrolmen are known for their independence, and their authority is unchallenged in the space between stars, enforced with the aid of their Existocrystals, mysterious objects of great power that patrolmen use to power their Mantles, which give the wearer incredible power. Strength, speed, and agility of patrolmen using their crystals and mantles are increased to superhuman levels while a personal forcefield protects against impact and energy weapons of even the more powerful common starships.

Theirs is a lonely duty, served far from home and family, at the behest of the Patrols mysterious and rarely seen Chief Patrolman, but it's a job that needs to be done and not without its own perks.

Currently the Galactic Patrol is stretched thin- though it draws recruits from every corner of the galaxy, it has a very rigorous training procedure that most applicants fail. As civilized space expands, their ranks continue to shrink.

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>>41794980
>>41794867
Whoops, fucked that image up. Will delete when board lets me.

>>41795000

Could be a group of space nomads made of survivors of worlds eaten by World-Eaters, focusing all their tech on nullifier weapons or other anti-Empyrean weapons- perhaps even destroying worlds before the Empyreans can eat them.

>>41795000
The tribunal: "The scales have been weighed and you have been found wanting."

This race of mysterious beings can be found in almost any place, though finding them is a feat most mortal races are incapable of. The Tribunal consists of almost identical creatures, humanoid in appearance and almost matching empyreans in power, but they rarely ever exercise that to do anything other then watch and remain unobserved. Some fixate on individuals, while others chart the courses of great wars, while still others seem to be interested in gazing at nothing in particular, contemplating the deep void of space.

Occasionally though, they will act- individually their power is comparable to that of a newly born planetary empyrean, but when the Tribunal acts they generally do so in great concerts of hundreds, their collective might capable of reshaping the fabric of reality for a time. Why they choose to act is a mysterious- the most popular theory being because they feel what they are watching is 'wrong' though it's anyones guess as to what these alien monitors of reality are really thinking.

>>41795254
The Procession: "Neat!"

An fleet of interstellar ships of unknown origin, its inhabitants and crew having never deigned to reveal anything about themselves other then the fact they're looking for a good time. The procession travels from system to system, harvesting resources where it can and leaving in its wake baffling and often nonsensical creations of incredible size and scope- moons reshaped into giant statues, asteroid fields rearranged to form multipoint paintings, suns tampered with so that their radiation fields emit strange quixotic poetry - these are the objects d'arte the Procession creates.

meandering with no set destination, it moves slowly and inexplorably onward. Occasionally, when it happens upon an 'interesting' inhabited planet, the Procession will set up shop around it for a time, raining the surface with technology and art and waiting to see what the critics think of it. Generally if the planet is destroyed in a massive gravitational anamoly within the week or bits and pieces of it are flung into far distant futures and pasts, the Procession will count it as a good review. Needless to say this fleet is in posession of amazingly advanced technology and capable of tapping into an unknown and extremely powerful source of energy to fuel it. Very fuel mortal nations are able to stand up to or stop the procession

>>41792769
I watched the first few of the episodes, and there's definitely cool stuff in there. Personifications of space and time, a living planet, a refugee armade made from people who'se worlds Galactus has destroyd looking for revenge, A planet containing untold abount of knowlege from the beginning of time, a virus that turns people into a hive mind of gelatinous blobs...A lot of that stuff could be used in a game.

Also, Galactus here appears to be an energy-eater. And I wonder if it would be possible for players to build something similar to his ship, which appears to help him in consuming the energy of planets?

>>41795610
Also, a being like Thanos would make a pretty good villain, if one wants a powerful foe who isn't an Empyrean. He wants to destroy everything (could tie it with the idea of there being other representations of cosmic principles than the PE, and make not-Thanks be a being empowered by the principle of Death), which would obviously suck for the Empyreans as well, since they obviously have vested interest in keeping existence existing. Could lead to a sort of "enemy of my enemy" situation with Empyreans and other galactic powers.

>>41795500
The Masters of Hate: "THE GREATEST IN ALL THE GALAXY"

There are many would be prospective Conquerors, Tyrants, Overlords and rulers of the Galaxy- each marshaling powers to enslave the weak, persecute the innocent, and bring star systems into their iron grip. However, the galaxy is a REALLY big place, and even if each one spent their entire lifetimes conquering every planet they visited (however many that could be) this would still leave an impossible to contemplate amount of unexplored space between them and their nearest would be rival for power. The masters of hate is a leaderboard of a sort, for each villain to check in on his neighbors activities and see who is the closest to claiming the coveted number one ranking. Each member goes up and down the scale depending on number of planets conquered, peoples enslaved, rivals defeated and potential heroes killed.

Not the Anon currently putting down ideas, but I just had one sorta stolen from Starslip.

The Twilight Lords

At a certain point in time in some universes, an event occurs. A universal singularity, drawing all matter, minds, and energy together into a single being. While this being tasks itself with the long and arduous task of answering the ultimate question - "Can entropy be reversed?" - it needs to ensure that nothing can threaten it, either extra dimensionally or temporally. In order to break out of cosmic cycles or become reliant on time travel or universe jumping, their aim is nothing less than to forge a new reality with new and more preferable universal laws.

It gathers as much matter and energy as discretely as possible and waits in the cold, dark realm at the end of time, during the Heat Death to avoid detection, but this cannot ensure it's survival against threats in the past.

To this end, it maintains a retinue of beings from across time and space, given a portion of it's reality-shaking technology and tasked with ensuring the events that lead to it's formation in each universe come to pass.

The past may do as it wills, so long as it does not affect it's light cone. When it does, it sends its agents from the end of time to make sure history goes exactly as required.

>>41795773
The Empire of Sand: "A thousand shifting grains, to form a greater whole."

This Confederacy of Type II civilizations is one of the larger political entities in the galaxy, representing tens of thousands of semi-autonomous star system governments working together to form a mighty confederacy marked by its trading outposts. Any world can enter the Empire as long as it submits to its rules, and in the process gains advantage to the vast treasury of knowledge and technology it has at its disposal. As the Empire of sand expands, so does its technological base, its many scientists seeking to incorporate the many disparate elements of each culture it encounters to form a better understanding of the universe.

The empire can be very unscrupulous to maintain its dominance, and has in the past made very messy examples of worlds that accepted technology but went back on their agreement

>>41796208
The Divine Agency: "I AWAKEN."

Similar in size and power to Empyreans, the Divine Agency were creatures of a previous age of which very little is known, other then the fact that the Divine Agency fiddled with EVERYTHING during that period. Tweaking genetics of undeveloped semi-sapient species, adjusting the rotation of stars, altering the the trajectory of comets by a few meters. They left their foot print on the galaxy in a big way, but what their legacy was is up for debate. Some credit them as the creators of all life. Others believe them to be a super advanced predecessor race with too much time on their hands.

Whatever the case may be, the agents of divinity have retreated for the last hundred million years- dieing off? Banished? Sleeping? Who can say for certain. Some purport to have found their tombs, surrounded by exotic regalia. Others have even said to have made contact with the agents, claiming that they are returning from a space between spaces, and that they are now PISSED OFF.

This is the last one from me, I'd like to hear some feed back from you guys though on what you think and what some other niches could be filled.

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>>41796412
Are funny hats mandatory?

>>41796523
Optional
But only plebs choose not to

>>41796412
>This is the last one from me, I'd like to hear some feed back from you guys though on what you think and what some other niches could be filled.
Being pretty heavily based on the Marvel universe, the not-Green Lanterns and not-Watchers would definitely fit in. As well as having other kinds of cosmic beings and some interstellar empires with enough power at their disposal to make themselves unapetising targets to at least planetary-scale Empyreans.

Having a "civilisation" that consists of a huge fleet of survivors from planets that were detsroyed by Epyreans that have banded together for the purpose of fighting Empyreans would also fit in. Unfortunately, in their anger they make no distinction between Empyreans, and will attack any they encounter, even the ones that do not feed on worlds harboring intelligent life or are sympatetic towards mortals.

Then there's the classic "mysterious precursor race that's the excuse why 90% of aliens look like human actors with cheap makeup" trope. Really, if it's found in Jack Kirby-esque comic and cheesy sciffy serials it probably fit in somewhere.

Well, we've hit the bump limit. Any one wanna start a new thread?