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Old 09-22-2013, 05:45 PM   #71
Genesis
 
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Default Re: Bronze-Age city-states and the gifts of their gods

Ameibo, the God Who Grows Again

Iter is situated on the banks of a broad, meandering river, in a vast and unstable flood plain. Every year the floods lay down fresh silt for the city's crops, but the village is protected by a series of earthen dikes and homes built on stilts.

The god itself takes the form of a magnificent garden that grows spontaneously at the heart of the city. The priests of Ameibo, who tend the garden, say that the god planted his iron walking staff here, lay down to rest on the rich soil in the warm sun, and found the ground so fertile and welcoming that he has stayed ever since.

Every few decades, however, the river floods mightily and washes away everything on the floodplain entirely. The city is completely destroyed, although the god's gift ensures his people survive. All that remains of the city is an iron rod in the silt, immovable and perfectly upright, that marks the center of town. These disastrous floods are an incredibly sacred time for the people of the city. As all the material wealth of the tribe is washed away, so the social ties and bonds of the people are dissolved - debts, contracts, marriages, and bonds of kinship are all ritually declared null and void. The tribe then works together for a year to rebuild a new city over the blank site of the previous one and the god's garden in the center sprouts again of its own accord.

At the end of a year, before the yearly floods come, the god's garden has its first new harvest. It is at this 'first fruits' festival that the social order for the new era finds its form. As the inhabitants take their first bite, Ameibo makes a decision. Social amnesia will wash over the majority of the inhabitants, such that all previous reputations, networks and most memories are instantly forgotten (Nobody loses their skills - they just forget that the know them, treat it like Reawakened, maybe). These individuals will find their new callings over the course of the festival. Ameibo's chosen few, however, will retain their memories of the time before the flood and will be charged with preserving the heritage of Iter. These remembrancers become the new priests of Ameibo and sustain themselves exclusively on the produce of Ameibo's garden.

This produce has magical properties. Those who eat of it annually find themselves unable to drown. This is how the citizens of Iter are able to survive the great floods while the town itself is reduced to brackish rubble. Those who dine in Ameibo's garden daily (i.e. his priests) acquire even greater powers. It is said, for instance, that they can speak with the river fish and influence the tides, and even breathe underwater.

In GURPS terms, all the citizens of Iter who survive a flood, partake in the reconstruction, and celebrate the festival of reawakening gain:

Total Amnesia [-25]
Destiny: Will Not Die of Drowning [5]
Racial Swimmers Talent 1: [5]
Reawakened: [10]

The priests of Ameibo are spared the Amnesia, and instead spontaneously manifest one or two of a handful of magical effects including those listed above - and Doesn't Breathe (Gills), Speak with Animals (Aquatic), maybe even Weather Control from Psionic Powers.
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Old 09-22-2013, 08:53 PM   #72
combatmedic
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Default Re: Bronze-Age city-states and the gifts of their gods

Cool!

:()

I love that the god's form is the garden. The iron walking staff is a nice touch.
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Old 09-22-2013, 11:52 PM   #73
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Default Re: Bronze-Age city-states and the gifts of their gods

Fwolge


Fwolge shambles about the reeking, garbage-strewn city of Ubhol in the form of a filthy beggar. He stinks worse than the tanneries and sulfur pits of Pharzin. Copper nails sprout from his black gums, massed in rows like shark teeth.

Fwolge creeps into the sleeping place of any child of the town who has lost a tooth and jams one of his own metallic teeth into the gums. By adulthood, the citizen has a mouth full of the god’s teeth.

All Ubholites have been infected by a strange mutating disease, probably resulting from their god’s efforts at providing them with free dental care. They cannot smell or taste, which is fortunate for they exude the odor of offal broiling on a dung heap under the summer sun. These folk eat and drink stuff that would sicken most humans; moldy bread, rotten fish, and meat swarming with maggots.

Ubholites who leave their native city take dirty, low-end jobs like beggar, cesspit cleaner,or junk collector.


Gift of Fwolge
0 points
• Bad Smell -10
• No Sense of Smell/Taste -5
• Reduced Consumption/4 (cast iron stomach -50%) 4
• Sharp Teeth 1
• Innate Attack/2 (Septic Bite= toxic 2D dmg, Follow Up to Sharp Teeth 0%, Cyclic daily +10%, can be stopped with Physician roll and proper drugs, Onset 1 hour-20%, Resistible HT-5 -5%, Symptoms; Severe Pain at 2/3 base HP +40 %, net modifier= + 25%) 10

Last edited by combatmedic; 09-23-2013 at 12:09 AM.
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Old 09-24-2013, 10:24 PM   #74
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Default Re: Bronze-Age city-states and the gifts of their gods

Quote:
Originally Posted by combatmedic View Post
Fwolge


Fwolge shambles about the reeking, garbage-strewn city of Ubhol in the form of a filthy beggar. He stinks worse than the tanneries and sulfur pits of Pharzin. Copper nails sprout from his black gums, massed in rows like shark teeth.

Fwolge creeps into the sleeping place of any child of the town who has lost a tooth and jams one of his own metallic teeth into the gums. By adulthood, the citizen has a mouth full of the god’s teeth.

All Ubholites have been infected by a strange mutating disease, probably resulting from their god’s efforts at providing them with free dental care. They cannot smell or taste, which is fortunate for they exude the odor of offal broiling on a dung heap under the summer sun. These folk eat and drink stuff that would sicken most humans; moldy bread, rotten fish, and meat swarming with maggots.

Ubholites who leave their native city take dirty, low-end jobs like beggar, cesspit cleaner,or junk collector.


Gift of Fwolge
0 points
• Bad Smell -10
• No Sense of Smell/Taste -5
• Reduced Consumption/4 (cast iron stomach -50%) 4
• Sharp Teeth 1
• Innate Attack/2 (Septic Bite= toxic 2D dmg, Follow Up to Sharp Teeth 0%, Cyclic daily +10%, can be stopped with Physician roll and proper drugs, Onset 1 hour-20%, Resistible HT-5 -5%, Symptoms; Severe Pain at 2/3 base HP +40 %, net modifier= + 25%) 10
How come you come up with such icky gods, Combat?
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Old 09-24-2013, 11:13 PM   #75
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Default Re: Bronze-Age city-states and the gifts of their gods

Quote:
Originally Posted by jason taylor View Post
How come you come up with such icky gods, Combat?

I think I'm just wired that way.
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Old 09-25-2013, 09:42 AM   #76
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Default Re: Bronze-Age city-states and the gifts of their gods

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Originally Posted by combatmedic View Post
I think I'm just wired that way.
Well there were some rather icky ones in reality though the Greek and Norse ones we remember are not that yucky by description. That is we learn to dislike them after tales but given just a personality description of them we can often stomach a lot of them. The yuckiest or strangest Greek gods seem to have been relegated to the back corners of the mind as if Greeks were proto-Jungians. Zeus for instance is a wise old man, and Hera is a wise old woman and we don't dislike the image until we find out that Zeus spends his time raping/seducing mortal women, and Hera then kills them in jealousy. Tartarus is usually presented as evil to moderns(not to Greeks, though he is hardly loved), but then he is death(Tolkiens Mandos by contrast is a scary cosmic Inspector Javart but he presents an image of sanitized impersonal justice that can be respected, and not just feared even if it is hard to love).

Dionysseus(yes I know I didn't spell him right and it's because I can't remember not because I am overly devoted to his worship), is an oddball. While he is not necessarily unlikable(that is a matter of temperment) he definitely appeals to the shadow side. Unlike Athena who was a very, well, Athenian, goddess. And Hestia who is sort of everyone's goddess in a way.
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Old 09-25-2013, 04:02 PM   #77
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Default Re: Bronze-Age city-states and the gifts of their gods

I was always rather fond of Artemis.
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Old 09-25-2013, 06:16 PM   #78
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Default Re: Bronze-Age city-states and the gifts of their gods

Rabat, The Forest Lord
Far in the north of the high plain, at the foothills of the mountains is a vast cedar forest. At the southern edge of the forest the city of Mur guards the only road into the trees. Mur is built of stout cedar beams with a high wooden wall.

The god of Mur is Rabat. He is a giant in the shape of an ape, with the skin and tail of a black scorpion. He lives in the forest and patrols it jealously against trespassers.

When a young man of Mur is to become a woodsman, he must go into the forest in search of Rabat and may not return until he's found the god. Once found Rabat will always attack the stranger. Once the boy is stung by Rabat's stinger he will live or die. It is to the survivors that Rabat grants his gift.

Rabats gift is:
Immunity to Poisons [15]
Legal Immunity (May cut trees in Rabat's Forest. Must defend the forest from intruders.) [5]
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Old 09-25-2013, 06:20 PM   #79
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Default Re: Bronze-Age city-states and the gifts of their gods

Nifty.

I like the gift and the way it is given.
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Old 09-25-2013, 09:57 PM   #80
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Default Re: Bronze-Age city-states and the gifts of their gods

Xenops
The God Who Loathes Uncleanliness


Xenops appears as a well-built man with a close-shaved head, dressed in a bleached wool toga and shod in a pair of gleaming silver sandals. He dwells in a tower of rock crystal that overlooks the center of his city of Lirgossa. He feels nothing but disgust for filth and squalor. Every few years he makes an inspection tour of the inner city. If he finds a nasty mess, he may punish the citizen he thinks is at fault by transformation into a wee heap of pink powder (easy to sweep up). The power does not seem to work on people of other tribes; foreigners and slaves of foreign stock are punished by the priests rather than the god.

Lirgossans keep a communally owned slave workforce housed in high-walled compounds. These ‘dirty ones’ remove and transport corpses, sweep the streets (at night), butcher animals, trap and poison vermin, and perform all the other nasty or unclean jobs—even surgery. Individual citizens may rent a slave for a given task. Mistreatment of a slave incurs a fine.


Xenops bestows a divine gift on all freeborn citizens of his tribe, but not on the slaves.


Xenops’s Gift:
0 points
• Attractive appearance 4
• Sanitized metabolism 1
• Squeamish (SC15) -5

EDIT- I might swap out Appearance for something else...

Last edited by combatmedic; 09-25-2013 at 11:41 PM.
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