Corporate Cosmologies: What do gods profit from creation?
I am really glad that Chromatic Soup 3 is going to see the light of day. As we worked on this zine, a few things started to become my headcanon for the setting that we were creating, things that I implied and slipped into my contributions but were never really the focus of the zine.
For those unfamiliar, Chromatic Soup was a collective zine run by Evlyn M, meaning that a bunch of people got together and made contributions to it that would all be made into something pretty by Evlyn and her art by the end. Unfortunately, Evlyn has decided to distance herself from the gaming scene after some controversy which I will not rehash here.
I admired Evlyn's art and ability to nearly create a zine all on her own and was honored to work with her.
All that being said, there were some cool things which I had started to connect together for a picture of a cosmology that I'd like to talk about. Most of this wasn't a direct part of my contribution but stuff that became my headcanon for the zine.
The concept behind this particular Soup was that, like G+, the gods of a fantasy world are deciding to shut down or "sunset" the world. With the gods out of the picture, alignment goes out the window and mortals, monsters, and others go hand in hand as refugees, trying to escape their darkening world for other realms beyond the astral plains (spelling is as intended).
Against this backdrop of the corporate closure of G+, a rough construction of a different kind of world had already begun percolating in our minds. It was Evlyn who suggested that the world be overrun by chatbots as it comes to a close.
I suggested the Hollow Corp Sales Representatives: pale, smiling batlike salesmen that would inanely spew forth corporate jargon and slogans, endeavoring to sell people things in small numbers. In larger numbers, trying to eat their souls. These creatures would wear smart business suits and be literally empty, shells of never-born flesh surrounding nothing, created by their mysterious Hollow Masters, the strange rulers of Hollow Corp, the cosmic megacorporation that salvages worlds devoid of sun and harvesting all those left behind for their souls and meat. They would convert planets into parking lots and office complexes and people into sports shake mix and "male vitality" pills.
The interesting question becomes: what does that make gods then? Gods seem to take on the roll of small independent creators like indie video game or, dare I say, role-playing game, creators.
It begs the question: how do gods profit from creation? (1d8)
For those unfamiliar, Chromatic Soup was a collective zine run by Evlyn M, meaning that a bunch of people got together and made contributions to it that would all be made into something pretty by Evlyn and her art by the end. Unfortunately, Evlyn has decided to distance herself from the gaming scene after some controversy which I will not rehash here.
I admired Evlyn's art and ability to nearly create a zine all on her own and was honored to work with her.
All that being said, there were some cool things which I had started to connect together for a picture of a cosmology that I'd like to talk about. Most of this wasn't a direct part of my contribution but stuff that became my headcanon for the zine.
The concept behind this particular Soup was that, like G+, the gods of a fantasy world are deciding to shut down or "sunset" the world. With the gods out of the picture, alignment goes out the window and mortals, monsters, and others go hand in hand as refugees, trying to escape their darkening world for other realms beyond the astral plains (spelling is as intended).
Against this backdrop of the corporate closure of G+, a rough construction of a different kind of world had already begun percolating in our minds. It was Evlyn who suggested that the world be overrun by chatbots as it comes to a close.
I suggested the Hollow Corp Sales Representatives: pale, smiling batlike salesmen that would inanely spew forth corporate jargon and slogans, endeavoring to sell people things in small numbers. In larger numbers, trying to eat their souls. These creatures would wear smart business suits and be literally empty, shells of never-born flesh surrounding nothing, created by their mysterious Hollow Masters, the strange rulers of Hollow Corp, the cosmic megacorporation that salvages worlds devoid of sun and harvesting all those left behind for their souls and meat. They would convert planets into parking lots and office complexes and people into sports shake mix and "male vitality" pills.
The interesting question becomes: what does that make gods then? Gods seem to take on the roll of small independent creators like indie video game or, dare I say, role-playing game, creators.
It begs the question: how do gods profit from creation? (1d8)
- Worship: churches and individuals sending up prayers, songs, and sacrifices. Faith is a currency and a source of power in the cosmos.
- Souls: allegiance to a god or alignment send up their soul to a particular afterlife. Lawful gods hoard their souls in heaven while chaotic gods and devils pass souls as pocket change in hell.
- Creation: creation itself is a source of energy that the gods are sustained and empowered by. They are creatures of creation and absorb the incredible creative output of their sentient entities.
- Craftsmanship: cosmic powers exist in a hierarchy of crafting skill. The more artistic, durable, and unique a creation is, the more status is awarded to those deities responsible for its creation. Different strains of thought emerge and compete and these become alignments. Chaotics are really just postmodernists while Lawfuls are classical and Neutrals are Cubist (or what have you).
- Player Base: gods pay cosmic currency to incarnate in worlds, "creating characters" to experience the adventure and ordinary life of different spheres. So long as the player base is active and not driven away by loot boxes (the evil tactics of
EAHollow Corp). - Strategy Game: gods create and fight over worlds as a part of a grand strategy game. The more worlds you have, the more pieces you add to your multiversal army. Hollow Corp creatures are notoriously gaudy and made of low-quality materials.
- Gold: hey gold sacrificed in the temple has to go somewhere, right? Gold is gold, good for leveling for god or mortal.
- Odor: it is said that proper sacrifices and purity are a pleasant smell before the gods. Essentially your world is a universal air freshener. Of course, Chaotics and Lawfuls have entirely different ideas about what smells good.
Hollow Corp's presence in the cosmos adds a kind of additional alignment. You can stand with gothic cathedrals, warhammers, and zealotry, spikes, bdsm, and edginess, or tentacles, cyclopean architecture, and madness. Or you can side with dull corporate cubes, soulless smiles, and lifelessness. The gods all inevitably fall in a more pleasant light since we can commiserate with them as small creators versus an industrial titan. Also, say what you will about Chaos, they are still very much lovers of life and producers of creative, if horrifying, things. Hollow Corp stands with antilife.
A Spelljammer/Planescape-style campaign in such a setting would be kind of like Shadow Run but in gonzo-fantasy-space.
1d12 Adventure Hooks in a Corporate Cosmology:
- Escort a golden barge full of souls to their afterlife.
- Espionage is suspected as glitches begin appearing in your world.
- A god that incarnated in a world has been captured by Sales Representatives and their relatives will pay handsomely for their rescue.
- Escort refugees from a sunsetting world.
- An exceedingly valuable artifact is on a dark world that is only starting to be developed by Hollow Corp.
- Your world is going into a contest with several others. If you lose, it is likely your world is going to be shut down.
- A massive data breach threatens to get your gods to shut down your world unless you can hide it from them or convince them otherwise.
- Your genius, but sensitive god, is being bombarded by criticism. If they get overwhelmed, you world could be shut down. Some suspect Hollow Corp to be behind the campaign of weirdly negative reviews.
- The soul of a loved one is being gambled with in a game of poker between some devils. They have been known to accept mortals at their table.
- A heist at the First Bank of Heaven/Hell.
- Something has been making your cosmic odor rotten. Find the source or get shut down.
- Your world was put in a museum, trapped in stasis in a glass case, while you were abroad. Now the only way back to your world is to steal it back.
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