Fantasy RPG Forum - Standing Trials

She rolled her eyes and grabbed the quill, “You and I both know this gesture,” she licked the tip of the pen before she dipped it into her blood, “Is completely symbolic. Who am I swearing to, Ted?”

“Your self, obviously.” His bony shoulders shifted upwards in their sockets. “I just said That.”

She scribbled her signature, the blood boiling black onto the parchment, “And that’s my fucking point, but --”

“Well of course it’s not the point,” he sighed, swiftly pulling the now smoking parchment from in front of her to gently fan it back and forth as he inspected the signature. More to himself, as Didi was already in the throes of mourning, he added a musing, “It’s merely for my own satisfaction when you go ahead and do it anyway. A signed, ‘I told you so’, as it were.”

“No more hybrids,” her face collapsed into her waiting hands. More than anything, she’d miss the penguin-humans. But more than that, Didi was excited to -- finally -- get moving on a project. “Maybe we can start with Hell?” And the first level could be forced collaboration with fucking Ted. “Or should we stick to the more physical aspects of reality?”

“It depends,” he replied, thumbing through one of the several neat stacks of paper before taking out a thick manilla folder filled with what was most certainly human leather marked with blood runes. “Hell would imply a divine system of punishment. Is that something you’re once more... considering?”

The last time they’d tried that, Didi had gotten bored with all of the “goodies-goodies” and just started condemning everything to “Oh Dang” - the “hell” of the time. She’d sent so many people and souls there that they’d eventually formed their own twisted half-god and gone to war with them. It had ended badly for them, of course, but it had been such a hassle.

“I mean, yeah,” she shrugged, suddenly remembering that there might be a hell or two she’d left abandoned somewhere in the cosmos. She made a mental note to ask Ted about his archival system - he’d have the notes there, but she didn’t remind him anymore of her long ditched projects. “Reincarnation could be fine, too, I guess. Or we could just give them the eternal death and once they’ve spent their time it’s gone.” She tapped a finger against her chin, “I do like it when they know who to worship though.”

“Both possibilities beg the question, ‘What would then be the purpose of a hell?’”

“Oh, storage mostly. The ones that don’t go there will inevitably expect some kind of audience with us,” Ah, the pitfalls of sentience and free-will. Entertaining, sure, but what a fucking pain. “I’d suggest Idols, to distract them, but we both know how that ended up last time.”

Ted very carefully adjusted the contents of his folder. He remembered the idols. The little idiots had made Didi into some sort of gelatinous beast. Out of all her little tantrums that had reset the face of creation, it was one of the few that was, more or less, justified. “Didi, dear, you are aware that both reincarnation and eternal death function most optimally without hell, storage or not, yes?”

“Reincarnation does give us a hard-cap on population. We start with the same number of souls we end with and, trust me, after a few centuries of running the same game with the same faces, you’ll just throw the die and the player board away,” She’d played around with keeping their memories intact, from human to fish to fly, struggling against her power in some desperate gambit for a better form. Fun, for a while, at least until the whole of everything ended up a button mushroom.

“You will, at any rate,” he muttered.

“And eternal death generally breeds resentment. Or communism. Anyway, that system doesn’t allow for resurrection and you know I love a good resurrection.” Zombies, too, were a thing lost to eternal death. Shame. “But, I don’t favor one over the other, at this point. You pick.”

“Specifically, though,” his bony fingers tap-tap-tapped on the folder that was tucked neatly against his ribcage, “Where does your hell fit in?” If creativity and blind-fucking-rage were Didi’s most prominent character traits, Ted’s was patience. Patience and a tenacity to rival intentional obliviousness in the face of generally all-encompassing hatred.

“A motivator, same as whatever the corresponding ‘good place’ is,” The original system, the one she’d sculpted so long ago, had been the basis of everything since -- one good place, one bad, and the player board the pieces screwed on. She made some improvements, but the core tenants stood the test. “We inspire what defines, good or bad, the rules obviously, but the end is what really scares the fuckers into doing some really interesting things.”

“Mhm…” Leafing through the folder’s contents, he pulled out a stone slab and slowly scanned the archaic runes carved upon it. “And I assume if they do not follow these tenants they are then sent to… ‘storage’ upon their expiration?”

“Sure,” Or not. Ted was very much stuck to rules while Didi wasn’t -- even to the ones she crafted. Truth was, the moment she got bored was pretty much the end for all of humanity. Or, that’s how it used to be -- now she would need Ted’s help and he wasn’t the type to blow everything for the next cycle. Damn him.

“We’re going to need something more definitive than ‘sure’.”

“You want something more definitive,” she yawned, the stars blinking into existence around her, “But yeah. They go to the shit realm if they break the rules and get rewarded with eternal bliss - or bliss until we reset - if they stick to them.”


Settling the stone slab back into its folder, he waved away the desk and the documents and the ink and the quill and the stars, while he was at it, with a lazy haze of smoky shadow. “A literal ‘shit realm’, perhaps?” They’d tried fire, poisonous genitalia, and a wide variety of broken glass variations thus far. Actual excrement was an avenue ripe for exploration.

She smiled. Maybe he was finally getting it. “I don’t think I’ve made shit realm literal before -- I agree.”

And with that, they summoned a shit-hell.