GRACE - Deity Based Collaborative Worldbuilding Game

(c) ghobo 2023

Deity Creation

 1. Name your Deity

2. Determine your Deity's Spheres. This can be something like an element such as fire, or something abstract, such as Dreams or Squares. This will determine your Deity's main powers which will dictate which abilities cost fewer intervention or divine power.

3. Decide on your Deity's True Appearance and Nature Aspect. True appearance can be anything you describe which will be your physical manifestation in the divine realm, whereas your Nature aspect will be a natural phenomenon that represents you such as a star, a faraway planet, or a certain tree or flower. While this nature aspect cannot do much, it acts as a conduit to project your power or influence creatures nearby.

4. Alignment. Decide on your alignment. Such as Lawful Evil, or Chaotic Neutral etc. This will determine your followers' actions and behaviour.

5. Intervention and Divine Power. You start with 6 of each. Intervention is used to enact unnatural phenomena on the mortal realm, while Divine Power is used for checks in the Divine Realm where you attempt to pass trials to gain more divine power or leftover aspects of power left from the Primordial Force.

6. When all the steps above are complete, the game begins.

Gameplay

There are 4 main stages of gameplay, with the first only happening once at the start of the game.

1. Origin
At the origin, Deities manifest and choose the part of the map that they want to project their influence. This can happen in a number of ways up to the imagination of the Deity. This is a sort of intervention that happens for free, e.g., the Deity may decide to manifest a divine tree from which his chosen creations are birthed, bearing an appearance according to Her description, or the Deity may manifest a strange obelisk, from which He influences the local intelligent life to His faith.

2. Epoch
A span of 100 years pass after origin, and the Unseen Palm (Game Master) simulates the happenings of the realm and reports it as a summary to the Deities. Depending on the simulation, the Deity gains some Divine Power. which can be used in the Divine Realm.

3. Intervention
As Deities exist in the fourth dimension (though cannot go to far into the future or past without significant divine power), they are able to intervene in this natural happening to bring an advantage to their chosen life forms, or enact other changes to sabotage other life forms. Should one Deity's actions conflict with another's, the one who spends the most intervention points wins, and if they use the same intervention points, they are to roll 1d100, with the lowest number winning.

Once per Intervention phase, the Deity may inspire a creature in the mortal realm, and dictate his actions for free. But this creature is decided by random.

4. Divine Realm
Divine Power gained from Epochs can be converted into Intervention points at a 1:2 ratio (2 Divine Power for 1 Intervention). But Divine Power should not be hurriedly spent as it is also important to be used to fortify the Deity's palace/realm in the divine realm. For good roleplay and worldbuilding, the Unseen hand may reward bonus Intervention or Divine Power

Divine Power is also useful for passing checks when the Deity decides to fight other Deities or sabotage their palaces, or search in the primordial void for lost power which may bestow them an additional sphere of influence, or some ungodly treasure with strange abilities.

In summary,

Origin (1 time only) -> Epoch -> Intervention -> Divine Realm -> (Return to Epoch)