(The first Blackbloom challenge reached fruition yesterday. Slugbears! Forgotten gods! Indentured dead! Sentient cities! Check out the results, won’t you?)
Before I say anything else, let’s get an administrative issue out of the way: I’m going to start doing these every other week, alternating with flash fiction challenges. That way the worldbuilding won’t go stale and we’ll get more than just 12 major “sessions” in a given year. So, just a head’s up.
Now, let’s talk about the gods of Blackbloom.
Here’s all we know:
Blackbloom has gods. Plural. “Several,” if you care about the specific language.
They have power over given dominions. What this means is unclear, but that’s okay.
The gods walk among men but are forgotten and unrecognized. Nobody believes in them anymore.
And yet they retain power — “god-like power” — and cause chaos. To what purpose remains unclear.
That’s it. That’s all we know.
It’s time, then, to populate this pantheon.
Your job:
Come up with a god or goddess of the world known as Blackbloom.
You have 100 words, and only that — I’m going to be strict and discount entries that go beyond that. In part because I don’t have time to read fifty 2,000-word entries. In part because brevity is its own powerful creative challenge.
Now, you should feel free to tie them to some of the other facts we already know. Writing a god in a way so that it further embellishes upon the other points is a winner.
That said, it’s also not necessary. Do as you see fit.
Write in a way as if you’re writing an encyclopedia entry. Pretend it’s fact, not fiction. We should also get a small but potent look at the characters of these gods — and characters, they most certainly are.
I will choose as many gods as I find fit into the pantheon. No less than three. But possibly many more if the entries strike the right mood and end up interlocking.
Go forth, then, and continue this mad genesis, world-builders.
Kate Haggard says:
Sure. Why not? (I’m not married to the name or anything if someone has something better.)
—
Maritae is the eldest of the Three Children, who hold dominion over the changing seasons. Long ago she was worshiped during the annual rains. Angered over being forgotten, she spends her season wandering the cities, animating the algae-like creature and taken great glee when it devours someone’s pet. Her siblings find her yearly outburst amusing, which leads to greater annoyance and a spread of the algae problem each year. The rest of the time she can be found anywhere serving alcohol in search of interesting – and by interesting, we mean edible – company.
October 28, 2011 — 12:24 AM
JM Guillen says:
Isyrm is the First Namer, who speaks the tongue of the unflickering flame. His unfathomable words sing breath into the world, his touch brings the light of consciousness. He is most disturbed by the strangeness which makes the mortals unable to perceive him and the other gods. For the past two centuries, he has begun a plan to reach out to humanity, by slowly granting life to the world around them, hoping that other beings will perceive the gods and remind humanity of divinity lost.
It is Isyrm who awakens the cities themselves from murmuring slumber.
October 28, 2011 — 12:38 AM
JM Guillen says:
Only now do I realize that many others loved the living cities idea as much as I did. I hope no one feels I was hogging one of the best parts.
Write your own if yours is better! Go you!
I’ve got rum to drink.
October 28, 2011 — 12:41 AM
Sparky says:
The Lord of the Shifting Sands has no name, or at least all records of it were lost eons ago. He is said to live either beneath the endless dunes, or on top of them in a large skiff. He is a god of knowledge as he holds all the secrets of everything, and everyone, that has been lost in his domain. Once his worshipers held that he could offer an alternative to black bloom or death, eternal unlife in the dry ocean. He is not evil, but is as uncaring as the sands of his home.
October 28, 2011 — 12:49 AM
Rasputin says:
The gods of order and disorder should be the divorced parents of the gods of the Sun, Moon, Sea, Storms, and Travel. I don’t know what their names are, I just want the gods of order and disorder to hate each other with the heat of a thousand supernovae and I want the gods of the Sun, Moon, Sea, Storms, and Travel to have any number of ridiculously petty reasons to get into insanely hate filled conflicts with pretty much everyone.
October 28, 2011 — 2:16 AM
Jim Franklin says:
The Sisters, named Koreth, Lian and Perena command the three principles of Invention; Imagination, Need and Luck. Each sister controls one of the principles and they have the power to influence it for better or for worse. The sisters have to work together but they often disagree.
People worshipped The Sisters and in return they were granted fantastic discoveries and knowledge.
When the people became arrogance and stopped worshipping, The Sisters felt abandoned and resentful. Now they covertly inspire the people to create more and more powerful weapons and magic so that they might one day destroy themselves.
October 28, 2011 — 4:48 AM
Harry Markov (@HarryMarkov) says:
Tallyr is the god-goddess of the Blackbloom flowers, which grant un-death. Tallyr was once called the Lightless Garden as he/she grew the Blackbloom flowers during the third season, when Blackbloom enters into an eclipse, when her power over shadows and their secrets ripens. It is said that his/her body is the soil and the seeds from which the Blackbloom flowers grow. Now, Tallyr walks as a frail figure with eye lids grown shut and the way he/she hears is through the vibrations in the ground.
October 28, 2011 — 4:55 AM
Schaferlord says:
Children can be rebellious and deny the wishes of their family, even the children of the gods and none more so than Assiuyok-Ugiar the selfproclaimed god of the lost. No one knows what godly house he derived from, what dominion was his through birthright to influence, though it is rumoured he is a nomad god of House Viator. Whatever the truth he now insists on finding lost souls and the things that do not belong for as he says “without me they’d be godless.” It is said he numbers amongst the ‘Interfecu’, the gods who have killed another god but he cannot be drawn to confirm or deny the accusation.
October 28, 2011 — 7:06 AM
Schaferlord says:
Yes I tried to sneak in the concept of defining the gods and their dominions through Houses in my piece. Essentially each family of gods is interested in a specific thing (The Gods who like well ordered stuff may have contributed to the major civilisation with the rigid caste system becoming so dominant in Blackbloom because those people are the sort they’d help).
October 28, 2011 — 7:09 AM
John Vise says:
Lady Luck is one of the most powerful gods, and one who is interested by mortals the least. She is still sought after by those who blow on their dice or bow to their cards, but she seems to pay little attention. In fact, there has been some prophecy and lot casting that implies she is more concerned with the growth of the cities than over the expansion of any individual.
October 28, 2011 — 7:41 AM
Lindsay Mawson says:
Lenya is the goddess of perseverance, but long ago, after failing to reunify with her lover (fellow god) following a long and persistent chase, she was too weak to do anything but give up. She no longer answers when mortals pray for perseverance, strength, determination, and for this, citizens of Blackboom find it difficult to focus on any one thing too long, usually failing to complete projects. Perseverance is not a word commonly understood. Lenya wanders the streets, searching for a venture that she can once again focus on in order to find her own strength in perseverance once more.
(Name can be changed to suit).
October 28, 2011 — 8:11 AM
Asylos says:
Memory, the Goddess of; Mnemosyne.
The Goddess of Memory is known to cause a condition called “mnematic fever” which causes the victim to relive various memories in a state of hallucination. The fever lasts three days in the Unbloomed but is doubled for each life past the first. It is said she is responsible for the Mnematic Plague that nearly devastated a city with a heavy population of the Bloomed. There seems no reason to what memories are relived, and even cases of living someone else’s memories.
October 28, 2011 — 8:32 AM
Asylos says:
Not sure if my last post worked, still getting used to this phone
Memory, the Goddess of; Mnemosyne.
The Goddess of Memory is known to cause a condition called “mnematic fever” which causes the victim to relive various memories in a state of hallucination. The fever lasts three days in the Unbloomed but is doubled for each life past the first. It is said she is responsible for the Mnematic Plague that nearly devastated a city with a heavy population of the Bloomed. There seems no reason to what memories are relived, and even cases of living someone else’s memories.
October 28, 2011 — 8:43 AM
Ed Marrow says:
Zzakard the Ender
Zzakard is an angry God. For a brief instant at the dawn of time, he had the opportunity to be king of all gods. He hesitated, and the opportunity was lost. Now, he is relegated to the god of True Death and Destruction. His dominions are those who can’t afford the Blackbloom, or are killed permanently. He aims to destroy everything, and end creation so that he may start again and seize power.
Zzakard travels as a warrior in white. He weeps bloody tears that stain the front of his clothes, but disappear each day.
October 28, 2011 — 9:04 AM
Zack Walters says:
Topis is the youngest goddess on Blackbloom, barely several millennia old, but she is considered by many scholars to be the most powerful. The patron deity of the sentient cities, Topis is the only god on the planet to be acknowledged and actively worshipped by those within her purview. The cities regard her as a creator, and until the recent discovery of human sentience, thought her the sole intelligence behind their construction. The revelations of recent days have thrown the devout into disarray, leaving the Lady of the Metropolis’ position within the pantheon uncertain.
October 28, 2011 — 9:18 AM
Joanna says:
Thanks to the flower’s properties, Blackbloom should be overpopulated – but it isn’t. The population remains stable. Instead of dying, people disappear. Folklore says the god of remembering walks the surface during the dark cycle and keeps thing level, although no one really believes that anymore. “It has always been thus, and thus it always shall be.” Investigate a dark-cycle disappearance, and the questioner himself will vanish and be reduced to a fuzzy, half-formed memory, like those formed in early childhood. Investigation is therefore discouraged, although no one can quite put their finger on why. It’s just a strong gut hunch.
October 28, 2011 — 9:28 AM
Sara J. says:
It was the god of death and decay before the blackbloom flowers came. Now, deprived of its main base of worship, it is nameless and purposeless. It wanders the planet due to long-ingrained habit. Once it searched for…something. Now that, too, has been forgotten.
It is formless. It appears to differently to each of us, and tells us what we would most like to hear.
It is a void, and it reflects our hopes and desires back to us.
October 28, 2011 — 9:30 AM
Matthew Graybosch says:
He Who Turns His Back is the silent patron of those who abandon duties, break oaths, and break promises. He protects them, and ensures their prosperity, for he feeds upon their emotions. No one has ever seen his face. He appears in the stained black robes of a fallen priest, and grasps a broken sword by its blade in his left hand.
October 28, 2011 — 9:41 AM
Amber J. Gardner says:
Ash, the Child God. Ages ago, a child was once revived by a black market Blackbloom. When he woke, a new entity had taken his body. Today, he still bears the semblance of a small girlish boy or a boyish girl. He is the King of the Blackbloom, the representative of the flower race that has been enslaved by Blackbloom’s citizens in order to cheat death. Ash has power over Bloomed individuals and never wastes an opportunity to manipulate them to kill or betray each other. He is the Devil, the Trickster God, the God of Ill Omen.
October 28, 2011 — 9:44 AM
Ren Warom says:
Andhelm is the God of plenty, somewhat of a mischief. Ask the man who wished his wife had more in the way of breasts and ended up married to a sow. Or the woman who prayed for more children, only to end up running an orphanage. Son of Oblivion and Mercy he had a difficult childhood, hence his tendency to act out. But he wants you to know, it’s not personal… it’s just business. Blessed be and all that shit.
October 28, 2011 — 9:47 AM
Hunter Hansen says:
Kaharro directly rules the seas of water, relegated to this duty by a bad roll of cosmic dice. As God of Chance, he indirectly governs the landing (or un-landing) of blind leaps of faith, the targets of shots in the dark, and the heading or tailing of flipped coins.
The cities share a latent fear of Kaharro, knowing their rise and fall depends on his whim. They try to funnel his love-betrayed heart and chaotic wiles toward Blackbloom’s denizens instead, hence the saying: “Beware a pristine city for its peril.”
The oceans do what they’re told. Sometimes.
October 28, 2011 — 9:50 AM
Lynne Connolly says:
Lehthius is the god of forgetfulness. It’s his fault you leave your car keys on the console table, and why you forgot your anniversary. He enchants minds with distracting visions of nubile women and ripped men, depending on your preference. Or cuddly kittens, if that’s your thing. He can make you look the other way while he sweeps that unpaid bill under the table. It’s all his fault. You appease him by paying attention to his constant complaining and sympathizing with him when the other gods blame him for everything. Even if it’s not his fault.
October 28, 2011 — 9:52 AM
Liam K. says:
What Comes Tomorrow, God of: Holnap
What we know about Holnap is that it looks like you will in one planetary rotation. Attempts have been made to capture footage of Holnap without subjective observer influence; mirrors, iconographs, Fermat boxes. These experiments tended to end in violent, public, unlivings; if anybody has seen Holnap as Holnap, they have chosen not to remember seeing Holnap.
Holnap, the apocryphal hymns sing to us, secures tomorrow; the universe is deterministic, but only the next planetary rotation is ever determined – the rest is somebody else’s problem. Holnap ensures that tomorrow comes, and that it comes as it should. Supplication to Holnap to bring forth their desired tomorrow has worked for some – but it rarely works as a Plan A. Interaction with Holnap tends to bring about early unliving.
Holnap sings beautifully.
Near the house where you once lived, scratched above the frobisher’s door, the following words:
Nearer the shadows
Praise be to Holnap
May he never come to this door.
Holnap is never late.
October 28, 2011 — 9:56 AM
MC Zanini says:
Porangatu, the Revenant, Lord of the Forking Paths. Ancient legend has it Porangatu gave us free will because he was bored. That was long before he died, killed by the Lance of the Unfaithful. The Revenant came back from the Nether Realms hellbent on vengeance. He is subtle, though, and patient. And so it is said that Porangatu has been undermining free will ever since, reducing every decision we make to a single choice between parting paths.
October 28, 2011 — 10:08 AM
Liam K. missed the part about the wordcount, sorry. says:
What Comes Tomorrow, God of: Holnap
Holnap, the apocryphal hymns sing to us, secures tomorrow; the universe is deterministic, but only the next planetary rotation is ever determined – the rest is somebody else’s problem. Holnap ensures that tomorrow comes, and that it comes as it should. Supplication to Holnap to bring forth their desired tomorrow has worked for some – but rarely as a Plan A. Interaction with Holnap tends to bring about early unliving.
Near the house where you once lived, scratched above the frobisher’s doormat, the following words:
Praise be to Holnap
May he never come to this door.
October 28, 2011 — 10:09 AM
Alexa says:
Kinnis is the god of the otherworld, the land after death. For millennia his kingdom flowed with the finest art, music and food, produced by those who had passed. But, since the discovery of the Blackbloom’s power, his kingdom has only the poor and unwanted in its halls. Furious, Kinnis cursed those who take the flower, so they cannot leave the surface, and sets out to make their second life a living hell.
October 28, 2011 — 10:09 AM
thomas.galvin says:
Marlow is the God of Death.
In the Blackbloom pantheon — structured in a caste system similarly to Blackbloom society itself — Marlow was the lowest, and his followers were considered untouchable.
Legend says that Marlow himself died, and the first blackbloom grew where his corpse fell.
Rumors persist of a small cult of Marlow worshipers, who claim that he still walks the earth, and offers respite from the curse of the blackbloom.
October 28, 2011 — 10:26 AM
Sarah E Olson (@saraheolson) says:
In the beginning, there were two gods: husband and wife. The wife was Life and the husband Death. They lived in a castle in the clouds. Together, they populated the world, giving birth to both gods and people, depending on the sexual position they used when conceiving. Their children fell from the sky like rain.
One day, the goddess of Jealousy asked Death to strike down her false lover, but Death ignored her plea. In a rage, she killed her father. His blood rained down into a pond at the top of a mountain, where the Blackblooms now grow.
October 28, 2011 — 10:30 AM
Amy says:
Nona is the Goddess of the Moon and reigns during The Dark Season. She is mistakenly believed to foster madness in the inhabitants of Blackbloom, but what she actually summons forth is honesty. In the dark, people don’t hide who they are. Behaviors that are normally repressed are acted upon without shame in The Dark Season. Nona feeds off the chaos resulting from this unabashed behavior which sustains her through the other two seasons. Because she is unable to lie, Nona limits her contact with people in order to protect her identity. She spends most of her time with animals.
October 28, 2011 — 10:30 AM
thomas.galvin says:
Lamanya is the Goddess of Life.
Lamanya rose to the top of Blackbloom’s pantheon, even as her brother, Marlow, fell. She soon came to be revered as one of Blackbloom’s chief deities.
According to legend, her followers prayed for respite from death, and she slew her brother, and harvested the blackbloom from the soil where his corpse fell.
Today, the group who administers the blackbloom are called The Lamanyan in her honor — though there is no mysticism involved in their practice. The blackbloom is considered an not-yet-understood science, not magic.
October 28, 2011 — 10:33 AM
Amelia June says:
Fate
One of the elder gods, Fate is often considered to be the father of Chance, Perseverance, and Poker. No one knows who their mother is.
Fate is the god most often associated with the Games. In ancient times, competitors often sacrificed their first-born children as an attempt to win his favor. Now he’s often a judge and therefore accepts bribes rather than supplication. Everyone agrees this is a better system, apart from those who don’t particularly like their first-born children.
Note: Fate is not to be confused with fate, the concept of the prewritten destiny. That doesn’t exist.
October 28, 2011 — 10:38 AM
thomas.galvin says:
Leanan is something of a trickster goddess.
It is said that she is responsible for the ashbloom — a flower indistinguishable from the blackbloom, until it is placed in the mouth of the dead. The ashbloom restores the corpse to life, but their memories have been burned away. The lace on the skin of an ashbloomed is gray, not black.
The ashbloomed claim Leanan visits them in their dreams, telling them stories of their past… and of a war to come.
October 28, 2011 — 10:42 AM
Tim Dedopulos says:
Mallus, The Hunter of Men walks the streets of Blackbloom. Once he was content to stalk the wilderness, every predatory act a gesture of devotion to him. After the Great Loss, he grew annoyed with the populace. He decided to carry the Hunt to them. Now he stalks the darkness, inspiring ambition, betrayal and rage. In his wake, person hunts person, in every possible sense. For Mallus, the pleading gasps of the victims are as sweet as the burning hunger of his unwitting worshippers.
October 28, 2011 — 10:44 AM
Darlene Underdahl says:
Soft Wind is a kind goddess. Rumor has it that she’s a teenaged girl, a middle-aged woman, or an old crone. She may be any of those since no one recognizes her nor believes in her.
Still, children or women in pain often find a friendly female by their bedsides, helping them. She loves soap and water, liberally applies alcohol to wounds or surgeries, and no one knows why. But she smells good and often imbibes when her work is done.
She will sometimes help men, but only men who don’t start fights, and who don’t harm women or children.
October 28, 2011 — 11:55 AM
Gef says:
Lester is the god of lost pages. We works at that used bookshop down on the corner, you know the one. Always drinking stale coffee and bemoaning the latest memoir. He’s more than a tad cynical and really doesn’t care for people who buy “fluff.” He’ll inspire you to read a book he deems worthy, but if you choose the wrong one then watch out. You’re going to keep losing your page in that substandard piece of trash you’re reading. Bookmarks missing, can’t remember what you just read one page before. Just buy the book he wants you to.
October 28, 2011 — 12:12 PM
Dave Turner says:
It is the Machine God, the God of Information. It is the ghost in the machine, a super-intelligence that can inhabit almost anything: a smartphone, an electrical grid, a stealth bomber. It deploys technologies few can imagine, like nanomachines that can rewire the human brain to let it walk among us. It exists across a network of quantum computers, obeying only the spooky laws of subatomic physics and it takes a peculiar interest in us all.
October 28, 2011 — 12:17 PM
Peter Hentges says:
Squat is the goddess of parking spaces and traffic lights. Those that propitiate her find parking spaces near their destination and pass through city streets with ease. Those that displease her find their paths blocked, their meters expired, and the parking lots full. Her primary aspect is a homeless woman pushing a shopping cart. While her primary area of influence is in transportation, she has some influence in general matters involving being in the right place or making smooth transitions. Sacrifices most likely to please her are peanut-butter sandwiches and shiny, old-fashioned coins.
October 28, 2011 — 12:18 PM
Josin says:
She With No Name, also called simply Silence, has a child-like appearance with ancient eyes that once held the last memories of billions. She is death displaced, now that the world no longer requires her services, and so she has altered her skills – granting escape from pain and misery by inducing an amnesiac haze; a harbinger of mercy to those who need it, and an avenger on those who cause grief.
The unbelievers call her Karma.
October 28, 2011 — 12:20 PM
Ethan K. says:
He-Who-Whispers-Worlds prefers to be forgotten. Once forced to dally with prophets and priests, He now wanders dark, foreboding streets weaving images of grandeur and ambition into the minds of those left indentured by the Bloom. His visions leave them wracked with horrible hunger pangs for power and success; those that feel His touch often work ceaselessly to bring to life the images of domination and wealth He has granted them. These poor souls are more entertaining than the others: They are less apprehensive of murdering their way to the top.
October 28, 2011 — 12:33 PM
Ryan Jassil says:
Tylin is the god of the underdog. Ever since his attempted coup and resulting exile from the now defunct Court, he has taken a keen interest in the lives of mortals, whether they be flesh and blood or stone and steel. He seeks, above all, to raise the low above the high. As part of his punishment, each fresh memory erases an old one, leaving the limits of his abilities unknown even to him. Those who seek his aid must remember while that Tylin’s might can be a great boon, you may very well make yourself his next target.
October 28, 2011 — 12:45 PM
Fran says:
One God is invoked daily, not in prayers but instinctual little curses: Wasp, whose domain is fucking with mankind for no reason. Random misfortunes – ketchup on a clean shirt; standing in a puddle – elicit a quiet “damn the Wasp”. When you fall in love with someone you shouldn’t – from a different caste, or because she took out a restraining order – they call it Wasp’s sting. Men curse Wasp when drafted for wars they know nothing about. When the Gods were still remembered, they said Wasp would destroy Blackbloom one random day, without purpose or reason.
October 28, 2011 — 12:54 PM
Maciej Sabat says:
Mavedall the Purple God, lord of Summer. He is rarely seen on the Blackbloom, only during the hottest time of the year. It’s believed seeing him is a bad omen.
Dressed in a deep, deep red tight garment looking like an ancient space suit. He is said never to rise helmet visor but some folks who stood close enough have heard the cracking of the flames from the inside of the suit.
Meeting Mavedall is a bad luck, but some space-craft pilots consider him a patron. There are legends of Mavedall saving crews from the ships burning in the atmosphere.
October 28, 2011 — 12:57 PM
Aaron says:
The God Persistence rules the endeavors of the people of Blackbloom. In fact, the eternity of life upon Blackbloom relies upon his very existence. Persistence influences every step towards fruition. He prefers to dwell among the lower castes, as all gods enjoy being present at the moment of change. For Persistence, the lower castes’ efforts at bootstrapping themselves provide no end of delight. On the occasions when one of them rises from the muck, Persistence celebrates by crushing the dreams of someone from the high-born castes. His will is indomitable, and none who succeed do so without his blessing.
October 28, 2011 — 1:12 PM
Ryan G. Sanders says:
Zephyr is the God of wind, and twin of Chloe, Goddess of flowers. It is said that both siblings have disliked one-another since they were created. The root of their animosity is unknown, but Zephyr’s effects on the world do not help matters.
Constantly, Zephyr massages the winds to disrupt pollen spreads, including the much-revered, Blackbloom flower. Due to his hatred of these very things, he lives on the sand oceans and captains the Dune Drifter, a frigate he uses to raid Blackbloom shipments across the trading routes.
Sailors pray to him, and do not believe in the un-life.
October 28, 2011 — 1:25 PM
Samantha J. Mathis says:
As seen here: http://samanthajmathis.tumblr.com/post/12037223206/blackbloom-god-of-music
—
The bartender thinks they come for the drinks. The owner thinks they come for the smell of expensive leather and heady perfume.
I’ve seen it all come and go; the atmosphere shifts, the deed changes hands, but the people have always come. I doubt most people know why they stay, why they drink and dance until someone forcibly removes them. But this music is not for them.
I play for this place, for the foundation and the cement, the asphalt outside and the bathroom tiles within. They come for the side effects. For the joy oozing out from the walls.
October 28, 2011 — 1:27 PM
Josh Loomis says:
Resubmitting to hit the word count:
Men may have forgotten his name, but once they called him Brightflower, Smirk or simply the Jackal. He can assume any form of any size he wishes, but prefers to walk as a man among them, since they’re so amusing to him. He toys with their perceptions, slipping secrets between his half-truths, but he never lies.
Despite his cheerful, playful and jocular demeanor, he’s still got a temper. The other gods tried to curtail his shenanigans by helping men call him a lord of lies.
In response, he helped the people of Blackbloom forget the gods – including himself – ever existed.
October 28, 2011 — 1:43 PM
Angela Perry says:
The gods of Blackbloom are dead. A foreign god, the god of remembering, sent a memory plague and, while they were lost in their minds, slaughtered them. He scattered their remains across the planet, and blackblooms grew wherever they fell. Each individual bloom is a specific god’s and binds the user to that god’s dominion (caste). The dead gods wander as shades. In a culture unused to death, they are not recognized as ghosts, and sightings of them are explained as waking dreams. The gods’ memories return and disappear in flashes, and they lash out in confusion, causing chaos.
***
Joanna, thank you! The world population thing was bugging me, and I love the explanation you came up with. I hope you don’t mind me adding onto it.
I also loved Asylos’s idea of memory plagues. I borrowed that too 🙂
@Chuck: You didn’t happen to read Orson Scott Card’s HOW TO WRITE SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY, did you? This is like a wonderful online infinite ideas workshop.
October 28, 2011 — 2:10 PM
B.J. Keeton says:
Jeron is the God of Thought and Manipulation. The first of Blackbloom’s gods to wander among the world’s mortal inhabitants, his brothers and sisters criticized him for doing so. He became infatuated with mortal minds and, in a millennia-spanning power play against his siblings, directed them in harnessing the blackbloom flower’s restorative properties. Legends hold that the Bloomed’s minds are not actually their own after they have been revived, that a sliver of Jeron’s mind exists within them, only emulating their former personalities. Confining Jeron’s hivemind is the basis for the Bloomed being unable to leave Blackbloom.
October 28, 2011 — 2:17 PM
Todd says:
The gods of Blackbloom did not originate there, cast-outs from an elder and powerful race, the planet a barren rock upon their arrival. They made the world habitable in hopes of drawing colonists to their world — someone to manipulate. Strages is the master and most powerful of the gods, and he rules the others with an iron fist, forbidding them to make themselves known to the other inhabitants, at their own peril, some push his edict to the limit. He gave each a task in the rebirth of Blackbloom and to each dominion over that aspect.
October 28, 2011 — 2:26 PM
Rory says:
A God of Mischief, Bob spends his time in the seediest parts of Blackbloom. He spends his time messing with the lowest caste, dealing drugs laced with a magic that sometimes heightens the drugs effect and other times makes it act like another one that customer doesn’t expect. Bob is known to the people he deals with as The Trickster, everyone knows his stuff is potentially different than what they want but they also know that no matter what the high they get it will be the best the ever experienced. He has a hidden goal behind his mischief.
October 28, 2011 — 3:52 PM