Genesis (Elephant Guy)

Genesis by Elephant Guy
Thread 1 Thread 2
Discussion

There are multiple quests by this name. For other uses, see Genesis.

Genesis is a world-building quest by Elephant Guy.

A sentient divine glowing ball (later given the name Aldaren) wakes up in a box, coming face-to-face with a man who calls himself "Professor". Given four boxes holding the essences of earth, air, fire, and water, and the Professor's instructions to "do something better with the place", the new godball sets about making a new universe with the aid of the voices of his supposedly shattered psyche, represented by /quest/.

There's now a sequel / spinoff, Stories of Genesis, set in the universe created.

Characters

Aldaren

A glowing ball deity. Made of positive energy, apparently. Routinely causes explosions and creates life. Knows lots of things except for the ones that would actually be useful. Known to the Limbo Gods as Subject Two.

"A big ball? Wouldn't things just fall off?"

The Professor

One of the Limbo Gods that oversaw Aldaren's creation. His full name is Dr. Harvey Professor Langley. He was possibly the one who organized the creation of Limbo and Aldaren. Long-winded and generally cheerful, he wants Aldaren to create a totally unique world and subsequently denies him information about their old world. He seems to trust Aldaren more than the other gods do.

"Who thought you could make trees out of copper!?"

Faden

The deity of the "demiplane" that Aldaren created. She is made of yarn and absolutely detests spearlings. Has the mental capacity and understanding of a small child. Currently locked away after an incident involving a realitysplosion and the slaughtering of a few dozen creatures.

"hrRRRwaAAAAAAaa."

Other Limbo Gods

Aside from the Professor, Limbo is home to seven other gods that assisted in the creation of Aldaren. They lead an unspecified amount of mortals and intend to use the new universe to save themselves after the collapse of their original one. There's Harry, a werebear and "former champion of strength"; Carla, a former champion of good; Primus, god of Law; Reaper, champion of death; Organa, champion of destruction (and according to Professor, a huge bitch); Shiva, the queen of frost dragons and the champion of water; and finally Rok, the god of strength.

Out of all of these, again not counting the Professor, we have only seen Harry, Primus, Reaper, and Organa. Even then, these have been in short cutscenes, and have not yet been spoken to directly.

Mechanics of Reality

As Aldaren experiments, we've discovered a variety of things about the way that existence functions. For the most part, he is able to create anything he wants within his universe, and no form of energy is created without his will. Reality is based upon elemental essences rather than real-world physics, which creates certain inconveniences when it comes to creating lasting complex physical systems; everything has to be manipulated by Aldaren manually in order to be initially created. Since certain essences are consumed by use- notably positive energy- without Aldaren manually providing a continuous supply of it to the world, everything would die.

Elemental Reactions 101

There are four basic elements: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. Aldaren can combine these in different ratios to get different things, including lava (fire+earth) or ice (air+water). Additionally, he also has access to two "energies"; Positive energy and negative energy. Life and death, respectively. These can animate things made out of mixed essences. Negative energy makes "undead" versions. Finally, we have simple flesh. It's pretty much what you'd expect, a pile of different organs that Aldaren can copy and shove into creatures. Raw essences do not have physical forms. What we see as fire, water, ect. are the products of each essence.

Mixing two elements make a "paraelemental". These are materials such as lava, dirt, ice, minerals, ect. This is what most things on Avalon are made out of. Mixing an element and an energy make a "quasielemental", a physical embodiment of an essence imbued with an energy.

As of the time of writing, we only have to ability to animate a creature or plant using one of the two energies. Using a quasielemental only works for a few seconds but shows promise. All creatures on Avalon are animated using positive energy, and require a constant supply of it to survive. Corpses of creatures still have some leftover positive energy, which feeds decomposers.

Mixing two opposite elements (Water and fire, earth and air) causes a realitysplosion, not too dissimilar from an antimatter explosion.

Planar Mechanics and Locations

Aldaren lives in an infinite plane bounded by the Walls of the Universe, in which he has near-unlimited powers. He can tear holes in the Walls to create portals to other planes relatively easily, but on those planes he will no longer possess his massive array of divine powers, and will instead be stuck with only whatever form he had assumed before- and that form will be subject to the mechanics of the new plane. Without divine powers, he'll also have a bit of difficulty getting back home on his own.

Aldaren's creators live in Limbo, a gradually collapsing plane in a shattered universe that was created as a shelter while Aldaren creates a new world for inhabitation. Its time runs at one-tenth the pace of that on Aldaren's plane. The plane has about a hundred years of time left before it becomes unstable, from its own perspective; the hope is that Aldaren's plane will be well suited for colonization at that point.

Portfolios

Portfolios are the source of divine power, granting total control over a single aspect of the universe. Aldaren instinctively possesses all portfolios for his own universe, but he can theoretically give them away if he wants. Whenever he does anything, presumably he automatically creates and then possesses an associated portfolio.

Apparently the destruction of portfolios was what destabilized and caused the destruction of the universe to which Aldaren's creators once belonged. Neither they nor Aldaren are sure how that would even be possible, since portfolios are fundamental facets of reality and breaking them would be like breaking a concept, but apparently anything's possible if one puts their mind to it.

Creations

Plants

There are currently six species of plants on Avalon. According to Professor's books, there were a few hundred plant species on his world.

---

Marble Moss

Small plants that grow in wet areas like shorelines. Have a habit of smothering the fuck out of other plants.

Coppertops

Large mushroom-like trees with small fruits set along the trunk. Made of copper. Commonly used as nests for Bronze Beaks. Found in the deserts.

Black Lotuses

Small black flowers. Their seeds irritate the throats of any creature that tries to swallow them, causing the seeds to be regurgitated and to grow in a new area. Usually grows in plains and wetlands.

Goldenrods

Small rod-like plants made of gold that reproduce via spores. Found in desert environments.

Silverwoods

Gargantuan trees made of silver. Reproduces through nuts. Grows in clusters, forming forests.

Cell Clouds

Floating clusters of fragile plant cells. Causes an organic rain.

Animals

Seven species of animals have been created so far. None are sentient or even particularly intelligent.

---

Swirgs

Small pig-like creatures that live near the shores. They primarily feed on marble moss, but can eat any plant. Reproduce via mitosis.

Skulls

Fleshy, bony predators. Their primary food source is Swirgs. Like Swirgs, they reproduce through cloning themselves.

Slimes

There are currently three types of Slimes; Tophat, Bowlerhat, and Dapper slimes. All slimes share a gel-like body with a single eye-analogue in its' center, with a shell shaped like a hat, corresponding to its' name. All three species can be found in aquatic environments. Tophat slimes prey on Bowlerhat slimes. Dapper slimes are larger Tophat slimes that have developed a primitive brain. They are fiercely territorial and lead other Tophat slimes in hunting parties against Bowlerhat slimes. All species of slimes are omnivores and occasionally graze on Marble Moss.

Tinnies

Tinnies are small rabbit-like creatures made of tin. They live in packs in the desert and feed on Coppertop fruit. They are the first creatures to reproduce sexually. Sadly, they may be going extinct due to the difficulty of living in the desert and being overhunted by Bronze Beaks.

Bronze Beaks

Large, birds made of bronze. They make their nests on the tops of Coppertops and hunt Tinnies. Most live near oasises and other water sources.

Hemortar

Small rhinocerous-like creature. Uses it's horn to launch a sticky substance as a means of self-defense and a hunting tool.