Wednesday, September 09, 2020

Ascension Address: After the Flood

A hundred thousand years passed.

For a hundred thousand years, the surface of the earth was quiet and calm. Water lapped up against itself as it moved through the stages of its dance with the moon. Fish teemed, swooping around in elegant school a mile in length, carefully watched over by birds who gradually evolved away the need for solid ground. The clouds drifted aimlessly through the sky and the sun shone.

Another hundred thousand years passed, and then another hundred thousand more.

Gradually, the gently meandering waves found themselves disturbed. A choppy patch of water frothed and heaved and broke. The blue planet briefly developed a small patch of white.

A hundred thousand more years passed, and now the sea was in a rage. The outcrop of rock had asserted itself and the water found itself powerless; its moment of apotheosis was gone and now, most days, its rage was impotent, unable to raise itself above the level of the jagged earth, which had started to dry in the sun. Birds had rediscovered their vestigial legs; lichens and molds found footing on solid ground and found it to their liking. What had once been a mountaintop was now an island. A hundred thousand more years passed, then a hundred thousand more, and more, and more, and there were islands throughout the great sea, the tops of great mountain ranges popping through the surface like daisies in spring. Seeds and smells drifting on the wind, propogating life over the new land, but each island alone, a small experiment for how land-based life could begin anew.

Throughout the ruleset, change Pathfinder to Island and Computer to Gaia, and repeal all dynastic rules. Make the Imperial Deferentials and Traitor special case rules inactive.

Comments

Josh: Observer he/they

09-09-2020 19:43:17 UTC

I don’t have a strong view on the theme of this dynasty: it might be about lichens, or humans who have lived on the bottom of the sea in geodesic domes reclaiming the surface, or the gentle interaction of flora and fauna.

Bais:

09-09-2020 21:21:55 UTC

Let’s give this bad boy another go;  unidle please

Clucky: he/him

10-09-2020 00:41:32 UTC

I too am unidling