Druidus
Keeper of the Grove
I've got a little game I'd like to play. I'm going to set up the beginning of a story, and anyone can add to it (so long as you're being serious about it, and not just being foolish 
).
btw, it's not a contest, just try to make it interesting and well written. I know that the stuff I wrote in this first post is nowhere near perfect. It's just a collective story, we should just write what we think is interesting, and do it as well as we can. We don't need to strive for perfection in our writing, just for an intriguing nature.
Initial conditions:
All the Gods we've ever dreamed of, throughout our history, exist. The stories about them may have embellished their abilities, but they are definitely superhuman. They live, the breed, and, yes, they die (though only from injuries and diseases, not old age). Some ~900 years ago, a mysterious God that claimed to be the ultimate and ONLY God appeared on the scene. This being was immensely powerful because it possessed an artefact known as a Shardflower. Shardflowers are tools (sometimes alive and sentient, other times mere unthinking objects) created in higher dimensions for the purposes of manipulating lower ones more easily, or even higher ones if it is made right. They are fragments of pure information, 0-D objects of great power; not limited to constraints on other forms of stuff, like matter.
Other Gods have Shardflowers. For instance, Thor's hammer, Mjolnir, is a Shardflower. Odin's ravens are living Shardflowers, and so is Sleipnir, his steed (Loki created this Shardflower as a gift for Odin). Indra's Vajra (similar to Mjolnir) is a Shardflower. Basically, they are the tools of the Gods, all with their own properties.
Humans first encountered Shardflowers before there were Gods on Earth. The naturally existing Shardflowers raised some humans to Godhood - keeping their bodies forever young and healthy, granting super abilities (depending on the Shardflower encountered), and empowered them far beyond their mortal kin.
Over time, there evolved all the various pantheons of our cultures, descendants of the first Shardbearers, with some mortal blood included too. They war, they have peace, they interact with each other, and they used to interact with humans. These Gods are anthropic. Not all of the Gods have Shardflowers, though, some merely possess Shard-granted abilities because their ancestors incorporated Shardflowers into their biology.
The problem is, this new God bearing a Shardflower is not the same as our Gods. He is known to our Gods as "The Painbearer". He comes from elsewhere in the universe, from an alien species, one that is rather psychopathic - "morally evil". He enjoys deeply the suffering of other beings, be they mortal, God, or Shardbearer. Torture of others is sublime joy for this being. He is the Devourer of Shardflowers, and has doomed many worlds before Earth. As he consumes the Shardbearers and Shardflowers of each planet he reaches, he becomes ever more powerful. His Shardflower is of a type that absorbs the capabilities of other Shardflowers he encounters.
Thus, The Painbringer is astoundingly powerful. Swiftly, upon his arrival, he started attacking the native Gods of Earth, absorbing some minor Gods rapidly. The might granted him by his Shardflower is so great that no human God can stand against him. Even whole pantheons are helpless before him.
Acting quickly, a number of Gods broke ranks with their individual pantheons, seeking to unite against this Painbringer. Odin, Quetzalcoatl, Oghma, Thoth, Prometheus, Apollo, Athena, and a number of other Gods devoted to knowledge, managed to convene in secret. They created a plan, a dim glimmering of hope for Earth. Odin, Prometheus, Oghma, and Athena are to leave Earth, and search for traces of the Painbringer's origin. Meanwhile, this council of Gods fuses the essence of their Shardflowers in a manner never before attempted. They seal ALL human Gods into a pocket dimension that is impervious to the Painbringer's assaults. As much as he would like to, he cannot cross through the God-Gate into this created world (prison-like, really, because only the Council of Gods chose it as a plan, and they weren't able to make a paradise). To cross it, he would have to briefly switch the protective effects of his Shardflower off; it is too powerful by far to exist inside God-Gate. With no way to get in, he is frustrated to an extreme extent, as this has never happened before. He bides his time, vicariously enjoying the suffering of our mortals, and waiting for the God-Gate to once again open. Odin, Prometheus, Oghma, and Athena are missing, the only human Gods outside the Gate, and the Painbringer knows they will come back one day to try to regain the power they lost when they fused most of their Shardflower's essence together to create the God-Gate and lock their kin away, safely. The Painbringer's one concern is that his power wanes without feeding his Shardflower with more Gods and their artefacts. He cannot leave Earth again, he is anchored to the hunger of his Shardflower, which lusts for the blood of our Earthly Gods.
But what is created can be destroyed. Not all of the Gods locked into this God-Gate are pleased with their situations. It is no substitute for the real world, just a pale shadow of it. Some of the Gods have gone insane. Some of them fight each other, others try to unify, while some have gone completely into "hiding", like Thor and Lugh (in hopes of either being safe or gaining an advantage). The Gods who created the God-Gate (excluding the Four that left Earth) are not around, as the nature of the God-Gate includes them in its structure so long as it still stands. All wonder where the Four who are absent went, many try to seek escape, and a few aim for domination.
This is where we begin. ~900 years after the God-Gate's creation, in the year 2015 C.E., things are about to change:
Loki flexed his powerful muscles, feeling the pleasant stretching throughout his body. He gazed at the crumpled form laying at his feet. Thor, mightiest of the Nordic Gods, Powerhead of the universe.
A jest, if there ever was one. He is nothing, not anymore.
Thor was unconscious. Loki had been torturing him for aeons, it seemed. They may share blood, but Loki was not capable of remaining content inside what he termed Nastrond (corpse-strand, literally), this "God-Gate". Thor had refused to let Loki use his hammer, Mjolnir, to test the strength of the God-Gate.
Thor, always trusting in the honour and wisdom of Odin... It was sickening, really. Why could they not see that Odin and the others were trying to secure eternal domination over the world? The Painbringer was a fabrication, thought Loki.
So, blood-brother be damned, Loki had sought out Aphrodite. She had been most willing to trade a portion of her Shardflower in exchange for Loki binding his Shardblood to hers. She knew his plans were toward escape, and she wanted out almost as badly as Loki did. And, so, Loki had used a Shardflower of Aphrodite's to charm Thor. Loki had changed his shape, one of his Shardpowers, taking the form of a beautiful female, one that Thor could not resist.
After bedding the fool, which was enjoyable for the deceit involved, it had been easy to take the hammer from his sleeping body. Using Mjolnir, Loki had tortured Thor for many years, trying to get him to give up his secrets, the keys to unlocking Mjolnir's true potential. As it stood, no matter what Loki tried, he could not even crack the obsidian-like material that surrounded them all, the God-Gate. He needed to collect more Shardflowers. Maybe fused with Mjolnir, he could make some progress. Indra still had Vajra - Loki's next move would involve taking Vajra. Two hammers, of immense power, might just do the trick.
Loki kicked Thor in the head savagely, savouring the power he now held over his blood-brother. Loki had gone delightfully mad. And he knew it. He reveled in his insanity. Nothing could sate the thirst of his madness, save the accumulation of power and the hope of freedom from this Nastrond.
He made a note to come up with something new as a treat for Thor later that night. Maybe he'd try to get something special from Hades or his own daughter, Hel. He had no strong enemies to worry about right now, not with Mjolnir in his hands, and so he was bold; the other Gods were learning much of his plans.
One vision held his mind strongly, though. It burned his soul with its ferocious intensity.
The God-Gate would fall, to his might, eventually. He would declare his freedom with a great shout, from atop the highest mountain on Earth (he vaguely knew it was in Asia). High atop the mountain, with hammers in the wind, lusting for blood and death again.
He would be the new Painbringer, the real one. The Overgod.
).btw, it's not a contest, just try to make it interesting and well written. I know that the stuff I wrote in this first post is nowhere near perfect. It's just a collective story, we should just write what we think is interesting, and do it as well as we can. We don't need to strive for perfection in our writing, just for an intriguing nature.
Initial conditions:
All the Gods we've ever dreamed of, throughout our history, exist. The stories about them may have embellished their abilities, but they are definitely superhuman. They live, the breed, and, yes, they die (though only from injuries and diseases, not old age). Some ~900 years ago, a mysterious God that claimed to be the ultimate and ONLY God appeared on the scene. This being was immensely powerful because it possessed an artefact known as a Shardflower. Shardflowers are tools (sometimes alive and sentient, other times mere unthinking objects) created in higher dimensions for the purposes of manipulating lower ones more easily, or even higher ones if it is made right. They are fragments of pure information, 0-D objects of great power; not limited to constraints on other forms of stuff, like matter.
Other Gods have Shardflowers. For instance, Thor's hammer, Mjolnir, is a Shardflower. Odin's ravens are living Shardflowers, and so is Sleipnir, his steed (Loki created this Shardflower as a gift for Odin). Indra's Vajra (similar to Mjolnir) is a Shardflower. Basically, they are the tools of the Gods, all with their own properties.
Humans first encountered Shardflowers before there were Gods on Earth. The naturally existing Shardflowers raised some humans to Godhood - keeping their bodies forever young and healthy, granting super abilities (depending on the Shardflower encountered), and empowered them far beyond their mortal kin.
Over time, there evolved all the various pantheons of our cultures, descendants of the first Shardbearers, with some mortal blood included too. They war, they have peace, they interact with each other, and they used to interact with humans. These Gods are anthropic. Not all of the Gods have Shardflowers, though, some merely possess Shard-granted abilities because their ancestors incorporated Shardflowers into their biology.
The problem is, this new God bearing a Shardflower is not the same as our Gods. He is known to our Gods as "The Painbearer". He comes from elsewhere in the universe, from an alien species, one that is rather psychopathic - "morally evil". He enjoys deeply the suffering of other beings, be they mortal, God, or Shardbearer. Torture of others is sublime joy for this being. He is the Devourer of Shardflowers, and has doomed many worlds before Earth. As he consumes the Shardbearers and Shardflowers of each planet he reaches, he becomes ever more powerful. His Shardflower is of a type that absorbs the capabilities of other Shardflowers he encounters.
Thus, The Painbringer is astoundingly powerful. Swiftly, upon his arrival, he started attacking the native Gods of Earth, absorbing some minor Gods rapidly. The might granted him by his Shardflower is so great that no human God can stand against him. Even whole pantheons are helpless before him.
Acting quickly, a number of Gods broke ranks with their individual pantheons, seeking to unite against this Painbringer. Odin, Quetzalcoatl, Oghma, Thoth, Prometheus, Apollo, Athena, and a number of other Gods devoted to knowledge, managed to convene in secret. They created a plan, a dim glimmering of hope for Earth. Odin, Prometheus, Oghma, and Athena are to leave Earth, and search for traces of the Painbringer's origin. Meanwhile, this council of Gods fuses the essence of their Shardflowers in a manner never before attempted. They seal ALL human Gods into a pocket dimension that is impervious to the Painbringer's assaults. As much as he would like to, he cannot cross through the God-Gate into this created world (prison-like, really, because only the Council of Gods chose it as a plan, and they weren't able to make a paradise). To cross it, he would have to briefly switch the protective effects of his Shardflower off; it is too powerful by far to exist inside God-Gate. With no way to get in, he is frustrated to an extreme extent, as this has never happened before. He bides his time, vicariously enjoying the suffering of our mortals, and waiting for the God-Gate to once again open. Odin, Prometheus, Oghma, and Athena are missing, the only human Gods outside the Gate, and the Painbringer knows they will come back one day to try to regain the power they lost when they fused most of their Shardflower's essence together to create the God-Gate and lock their kin away, safely. The Painbringer's one concern is that his power wanes without feeding his Shardflower with more Gods and their artefacts. He cannot leave Earth again, he is anchored to the hunger of his Shardflower, which lusts for the blood of our Earthly Gods.
But what is created can be destroyed. Not all of the Gods locked into this God-Gate are pleased with their situations. It is no substitute for the real world, just a pale shadow of it. Some of the Gods have gone insane. Some of them fight each other, others try to unify, while some have gone completely into "hiding", like Thor and Lugh (in hopes of either being safe or gaining an advantage). The Gods who created the God-Gate (excluding the Four that left Earth) are not around, as the nature of the God-Gate includes them in its structure so long as it still stands. All wonder where the Four who are absent went, many try to seek escape, and a few aim for domination.
This is where we begin. ~900 years after the God-Gate's creation, in the year 2015 C.E., things are about to change:
Loki flexed his powerful muscles, feeling the pleasant stretching throughout his body. He gazed at the crumpled form laying at his feet. Thor, mightiest of the Nordic Gods, Powerhead of the universe.
A jest, if there ever was one. He is nothing, not anymore.
Thor was unconscious. Loki had been torturing him for aeons, it seemed. They may share blood, but Loki was not capable of remaining content inside what he termed Nastrond (corpse-strand, literally), this "God-Gate". Thor had refused to let Loki use his hammer, Mjolnir, to test the strength of the God-Gate.
Thor, always trusting in the honour and wisdom of Odin... It was sickening, really. Why could they not see that Odin and the others were trying to secure eternal domination over the world? The Painbringer was a fabrication, thought Loki.
So, blood-brother be damned, Loki had sought out Aphrodite. She had been most willing to trade a portion of her Shardflower in exchange for Loki binding his Shardblood to hers. She knew his plans were toward escape, and she wanted out almost as badly as Loki did. And, so, Loki had used a Shardflower of Aphrodite's to charm Thor. Loki had changed his shape, one of his Shardpowers, taking the form of a beautiful female, one that Thor could not resist.
After bedding the fool, which was enjoyable for the deceit involved, it had been easy to take the hammer from his sleeping body. Using Mjolnir, Loki had tortured Thor for many years, trying to get him to give up his secrets, the keys to unlocking Mjolnir's true potential. As it stood, no matter what Loki tried, he could not even crack the obsidian-like material that surrounded them all, the God-Gate. He needed to collect more Shardflowers. Maybe fused with Mjolnir, he could make some progress. Indra still had Vajra - Loki's next move would involve taking Vajra. Two hammers, of immense power, might just do the trick.
Loki kicked Thor in the head savagely, savouring the power he now held over his blood-brother. Loki had gone delightfully mad. And he knew it. He reveled in his insanity. Nothing could sate the thirst of his madness, save the accumulation of power and the hope of freedom from this Nastrond.
He made a note to come up with something new as a treat for Thor later that night. Maybe he'd try to get something special from Hades or his own daughter, Hel. He had no strong enemies to worry about right now, not with Mjolnir in his hands, and so he was bold; the other Gods were learning much of his plans.
One vision held his mind strongly, though. It burned his soul with its ferocious intensity.
The God-Gate would fall, to his might, eventually. He would declare his freedom with a great shout, from atop the highest mountain on Earth (he vaguely knew it was in Asia). High atop the mountain, with hammers in the wind, lusting for blood and death again.
He would be the new Painbringer, the real one. The Overgod.