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Message: <blockquote data-quote="paradox42" data-source="post: 4987492" data-attributes="member: 29746">AlternatesBringing it back to the ideas of the Portfolios (as Dimensions) is a good notion, certainly- particularly if your game features the possibility that other First Ones (and thus dimensions) besides the six, might come into being. Logically, any such being would need to undergo a process of creating the new dimension somehow.I also suggested to the players a few alternate processes besides the nine "official" Methods that work for gods; as I noted in the first post, there should in theory be beings who achieve Sidereal-esque power without being "Immortals" in the manner of deities.Undead are the obvious counterpoint: even though we don't have any Sidereal-level Undead (yet) to look at, the clear implication of the existence of the Akalich (which is effectively an Undead god) is that such beings can/must exist at least as possibilities. One player actually has an Undead PC on account of taking the appropriate Divine abilities and being a Death god; that player naturally inquired after further modes of evolution for his character. I suggested that each major Undead type would have its own means of becoming a planar "soul" (for lack of a better term to use) and thus Sidereal, but only came up with three examples myself (to be honest I was getting rather tired of thinking them up by that time).An Akalich must be over 1 million years old, and must research a method to destroy its own Soul Gems and Phylacteries to remove its one remaining weakness (from the perspective of maintaining immortality). The being then effectively eats its own soul gems and phylacteries, in the demiplane which is to become the new seat of its consciousness, and crosses the divide to become Sidereal. I actually said that this had been done once before, in my cosmos, by a being whose name (as an Akalich) was Ghautanathoa but who now exists as a dim little demiplane called simply "the Dead Zone." I have no planar statistics or characteristics for this Dead Zone, and Ghautanathoa is a name from the Cthulhu Mythos; I just "borrowed" a couple of likely-sounding concepts/names and used them. So far the PCs haven't shown any interest in traveling there to say hi, so good.A vampire, I suggested, must advance through the years and vampiric templates to what is known as a Methuselah or Nosferatu status (this based on the long-held notion among us fans of the IH that the Nosferatu template will be the Vampire equivalent of an Akalich); the being must then exist in that state for no less than 10,000 years. After that time, the being must successfully drain the blood from every mortal or vampiric inhabitant of its current plane, and then go into a torpid slumber for another 10,000 years. After the slumber of millennia is finished, the being awakens with a new hunger, and must again drain the blood from every living or vampiric inhabitant of the plane, and then and only then does its soul merge with the blood-dry ground and become a vampiric plane Sidereal. I said that two beings in the history of my cosmos had tried to do this, but both were killed during the 10,000-year slumber by others seeking the mantle of Nosferatu. I'll also mention that my intent here, since I borrowed the term "Methuselah" from White Wolf's Vampire: the Masquerade, was that a vampiric Sidereal would probably resemble the beings called (in that game) Antediluvians- particularly as they are portrayed in the final Gehenna book.I suggested that a Death Knight is similar to a lich in many respects, and their method of ascending to the Sidereal is similar but involves long existence at a state called the Welkin. Since I've never actually seen a full explanation of what a Welkin is or does, I had no further details to give here, but clearly since the lich and vampire have to evolve from their god-level templates, so too must the Death Knight.There is one final class of being, not Undead as such, that exists in my cosmos and which has a unique method of Sidereal apotheosis. Since I've stated for my cosmos that deities are entities which exist fundamentally as pure energy, and I've also equated quintessence to life-force or positive energy, it logically follows that deities are souls so charged with positive energy that they don't even need bodies to "live" and interact with Reality. Yes, even Undead deities (if they are actual deities and not just super-Undead like Akaliches) are charged with positive energy- keep in mind the "Deathless" idea from Book of Exalted Deeds and the fact that Mummies were in earlier editions supposed to be powered by positive energy rather than negative. But positive energy has its opposite number, and it is possible for souls to become so charged with negative energy that they become embodied in it. Such beings are called Antigods, and they have specific effects when they encounter and interact with regular deities. Much as antimatter is exceedingly rare in our real universe, I've postulated that Antigods are exceedingly rare in my game cosmos; however, they do exist.Antigods have a specific method for ascension to Sidereal that isn't one of the nine- in fact it replaces the Worship Method for them. An Antigod can become Sidereal by killing itself in such a manner that it takes an entire plane along with it. The Antigod doing the Plane-Destruction thing has to be the only divine being on the plane in question when he blows it all up, otherwise it doesn't work. The detritus of the plane, as it dissolves away into nothingness, is pulled along with the Antigod's soul and essentially merges with it- arresting the slide into entropy. The Antigod then awakens anew as a Sidereal ruling a new plane.</blockquote>

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