Welcome to Gaia! ::

Setting

The planet created has just about everything needed for normal creatures to sustain life: air, clean water, fertile soils and endless plains suitable for both urban and rural development. There are various empty houses in sparse groups, but since the dieties couldn't decide which era, style, or dimension to use, there are medieval stlyle castles with apartment buildings inside their walls, and feudal-era Japan contructs across the street from mud huts.

It is easy to see the influences of certain dieties in different areas of the small globe, however. There are great lakes and volcanic fields, cliffs that seem to fall into nowhere and lush forests. It's much like a smaller, cleaner, more undeveloped Earth.

The planet is currently nameless.

The Dieties

There are six dieties in all.

The unpredictable God of Fire, known as Aestus, takes on the form of a half-man, half-flame with a darkly tanned complexion, and toned muscles fading into a swirl of fire from the waist down. He is very passionate about everything he does; unfortunately, said passion is usually not very long-lived and quite often forgotten within a matter of hours. He has a short attention span and isn't particularily intelligent. Don't expect him to take much interest in mortals; in fact, he would probably only delight in mixing things up by setting one or two of them aflame.

Gelidd is the kind Goddess of Water and Ice and self-appointed moral compass of the group. She is the counterpart to Aestus, and will often take on the form of a tall, beautiful maiden in flowing robes, with long, dark blue hair and matching eyes. She is much more sensitive and patient than the other deities, and will be the most likely to sympathize with the players in the world... but she can be patronizing.

Silex, the God of Earth, will appear as a huge, human-like figure with skin of cracked rock, sort of like The Thing. He, quite frankly... is boring. He talks a lot, and seems to know a little too much about everything. He's more book-smart than street-smart: he knows a lot, but he hasn't experienced it.

Aquilo, the Goddess of Air, will often appear as a smallish woman or child with purple hair and wings. She is playful, happy, and enjoys causing mischeif. In fact, she'll do just about anything if it involves fun--always getting on the nerves of the other dieties, she has since resorted to amusing herself with mortals. She is also surprisingly intelligent (and often uses these wits in order to manipulate poor Aestus), however, she tends to be forgetful to the point that she could be considered a recovering amnesiac.

Impertin, the God of Order, is the head honcho. He, despite all appearances, is a very good leader, it's just that those he leads are of less than high "follower" calibur. Often, he can be found desparately trying to hold things together and mediating the frequent fights between dieties. His appearance is that of a tall, handsome man robed in white, with snowy hair and black eyes.

Erebi, the Goddess of Chaos, is the one that the other dieties don't like to mention. She's oddly alluring, often appearing skimpily dressed with black hair and white eyes. She kinda-sorta used to like causing war and disruption, but it turns out that she was going through the typical rebellious adolescent phase. She has recently discovered video games.

Gelidd, a picture of grace, oversaw the mortals. She, of course, had been against the initial idea of bringing them all here--especially since Aquilo had managed to let one of them out of his slumber early and saw to it that the poor thing had been traumatised for the rest of its tragically short life. But now, looking over the neatly lined subjects floating an an aether of blackness, she was a little more receptive. Most of them were pretty cute, especially sleeping the way they were. A small smile played on her lips as her lucid eyes scanned the line of about a hundred or so various creatures, all lost in a bottomless, dreamless rest.

"Why hasn't it started?"

Aestus. Gelidd closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, as if to ward off an impending headache. She could hear him fidgeting without even having to turn around.

"I said, why hasn't it started? What's Impertin doing now, anyway?"

Aestus had his python-like arms crossed in front of his broad chest, orange eyes and fierce expression showing his impatience. He wanted to let the mortals loose -- finally -- and was obviously bothered by the fact that they weren't out and having wars or something.

Distracted, he glanced around quickly. Nothing was on fire. Why wasn't anything on fire?

Also, where did he put his crystal ball? He'd be needing that to--

"He's busy, as usual," Gelidd replied, interrupting his disjointed thought patten as she turned to face her opposing god. "I don't see how he can be, though. It isn't as if we have any followers to take care of."

"Or to set on fire."

"Yes." Gelidd paused a moment, realising that she had replied without thinking. "Wait, no! Aestus, Impertin told you already--"

"But you let Aquilo--!"

"I didn't let Aquilo do anything. She did it while I wasn't looking."

"Yeah, lunkhead. You shoulda thoughta that." The smallish girl appeared out of nowhere, as she always seemed to, floating upside-down in front of Aestus' face. She giggled.

"You runt!" Aestus yelled. He made a grab for Aquilo, who squealed as she was merrily chased around the 'room'... if you could call an endless abyss of blackness a room. Aestus managed to accidentally set an elaborately-dressed elfin woman on fire, whom Gelidd quickly doused with a globe of water from nowhere.

"Oh, dear--I hope she hasn't been hurt. They can be so fragile," she said, leaning forward to take a better look at the woman's singed clothing.

Silex appeared from behind a row of mortals, adjusting his spectacles (which he only wore to appear more intelligent). "I wouldn't worry yourself, Gelidd. She's an elf, a surprisingly durable creature despite her frail and beautiful appearance. You know, the history of the elves is particularily interesting--"

He would have gone on for hours, had Aquilo not used his head as a springboard into Gelidd's chest, knocking her over and clinging on like a small, winged child. Aestus, ever the thinker, ran into Silex's back. Silex didn't move an inch. Aestus fell back about three feet. There was then a din of shouting voices. Gelidd was upset because Aestus and Aquilo had been careless. Aestus blamed Aquilo, who wailed, which made Gelidd shout more at Aestus. Silex was shouting that he was in no mood to do so, as it brought on a migrane.

Suddenly, as quickly as the quarrell began, it stopped. All the dieties fell dead silent, and the only sound aside from Aquilo's muffled sobs was the agonizingly slow thud of footfalls.

Impertin marched to the center of the ring of gods and goddesses, white robes flowing behind him. His pitch eyes slowly passed over each of his subordonates, and he simply shook his head. "That's enough, all of you. Erebi should be arriving shortly... are we ready to release the mortals?"

Gelidd stood with the help of Silex, Aestus on his own. Aquilo stayed with Gelidd, still upset. Silex stepped forwards. "We have all chosen our avatars."

The avatars--the individuals chosen after careful observing to be directly associated with the one who had chosen them. If they were as diverse as the dieties... Impertin didn't want to think of it. At least Gelidd and Silex would be reasonable, but he wasn't sure what kind of mass murderer or circus clown Aestus and Aquilo would bring in. And Erebi? There was never any telling what she would do.

With a gentle wave of his hand, Impertin transported the mortals all to the nameless planet prepared for them. They would join the first wave, all frozen in time to this point, and then be realeased. He let a small smile over his lips as his eyes moved over the last of them to be transported... little did they know. Little did anyone know.

"Let the game begin."

Before the woman had called out, another was resting peacefully on the grass, and by all appearances, he was still asleep.

The other was sprawled out on his back, spread eagle, wearing almost nothing but (rediculously) baggy, bright orange pants, with about as many pockets as one could squeeze onto a garment of clothing. Around his waist was a hoodie of the same colour, undecorated and seemingly nondescript.

But the rest of him kind of stuck out.

The teenager's chest wasn't muscled, but he showed little trace of fat either, even though one could not see his ribcage through his flesh.

When the woman called out, an ear atop his head twitched.

That's right. An ear. Atop his head.

It was, in truth, the ear of a ferret, although enlarged to be proportional to his human head. He had two, as he should have, or else it would've been just plain wierd. The ears sprouted up from his mess of white, grey, and black hair, and the same pattern of colours was oddly the same upon his eyebrows as well.

He let out a large yawn, stretching his mouth to its limit, and got up, curling his legs up around him and wrapping his large, fluffy tail around himself.

Yes, he had a tail as well. And, as it was likely to be, it was the tail of a ferret.

He stretched again, sitting up now, and yawned again. After the yawn, he scratched his other arm, and looked around, his jade green eyes curious and inquisitive. He heard a call from a female voice.

"Doesn't sound like mommy." The teenager noted. "Besides, mommy's still on vacation. I wonder if she got my last letter..."

He looked down at his hand, and noted something new. "Well looky! I forgot that I had gotten a tattoo! I'm so manly now!"

The only thing was that the teenager had never gotten a tattoo. Ever.

He looked at the rune tattooed onto his back left hand. It was sort of like an H. Two upright, parallel bars with another, smaller bar slanting, branching the gap, starting higher up at the left side than at the right.

But the teenager didn't stop to study it that long. After all, someone was calling.

"I'm here!" Sunatskei called out, grinning. "Where are yoooooooou?" He called out the question, standing up and looking around. He found her in no time. It was hard to tell anything about her, but she had red hair, at least.

"Wonder if she's got anything shiny..." The ferret-infused teenager asked, dashing off to her. "I'm comin'!" He called out to her as he ran.

The crash of lightning certainly attracted his attention, for at least a bit. The ferret-infused teenager's ears perked up upon seeing the lightning fade, and seeing something... or hopefully, someone, stand up.

The teen was quite familiar with the fact that curiosity often killed the cat, but was content with the fact that he was indeed a ferret, and cats are nowhere near as intelligent as ferrets are, in the first place. So, whatever was over there, this teenager was certain he could handle it.

Dashing over, and then stopping, the teenager realized that he was on a rather large charred spot now. Looking down at the charred spot and kicking at it for a second, resulting in a large cloud before him, the teenager waved his arms in an attempt to clear the haze so that he could get a good look at the newcomer.

He coughed slightly. "Hellooooo?" He called through the smoke. "Who's there?"

This was the only person to not actually wonder where he was.

Probably because he either did not notice he was in another place, or he just didn't care.

"Me?" The teen squeaked. "M'name's Sunatskei, but you can call me Suna." Said the shirtless ferret-boy, the top of his tail curling into itself a bit. "So, since I told you my name, what's yours, lady?" Sunatskei said, not intending to be rude, but simply saying it because he had no real other way of saying it, after all.

He seemed utterly interested in the woman, but then again, the ferret was interesting in anything that was new and exciting to him, be it something that had actually just appeared or something he had not noticed before. The latter was more amazing to him, simply because he hadn't noticed it. Once his behavior was better analyzed by those around him, however, it was easy to see why he didn't notice things.

This could have made him a bit more appropriately an avatar of Aestus, but he was one of Erebi's avatars simply because of his knack for stealing things, evading authorities, and having a great time (and looking goddamn cute) doing so.

And therefore causing the appropriate amount of discord and such to make him worthy of being an avatar of the goddess of Chaos. Plus, Sunatskei loved video games, which Erebi had recently discovered.

(I don't find it that bad...)

"Huh?" Sunatskei asked in disbelief, though he was happy she had taken a liking to his tail. "I like my tail, too..." Sunatskei said, then got back on topic.

"But what do ya mean, 'what's my name'? I don't know you from... well, I'd say Adam, but I'd know you from him because Adam should be a guy. Never really meta girl named Adam. That'd be some wierd parents to name their daughter Adam. Then again some people think my name sounds girly. But I like my name. Do you like my name? Oooh! Shiny dagger." He noted the dagger the woman had, and took it while she was playing with his tail.

"Oooh! I like daggers. 'Specially the shiny ones. This is a shiny dagger. Shiny shiny dagger..." Sunatskei chanted idly.