Jasper found himself back in the game world, and he couldn't help but sigh as he felt much more relaxed.
He had promised his partners that they should stick together, but knowing they were out there, moulding essential parts of the game was important. It was true that they were just building the world and not the gameplay mechanics, though they were generating the world lore and the world itself. The different gameplay loops should be included as part of the world. It wouldn't be a dealbreaker, but it would create much higher immersion for the players.
Before Jasper got into fixing more things around the city, he knew that he would need to pick some of those Ur-spells that he had picked from his new powers. He opened the Deified spells list, knowing he could only pick four of them.
Name Effect Barred Gates of Forbiddance A designated target cannot enter a particular location for one year and a day. The location can be as small as a room or as large as a nation. Beacon of Celestial Purity Bathe yourself in holy magic. The light stretches to everything within 100 meters and cleanses everything for diseases and poison. It does not cure afflicted people. Any lies spoken within the light become visible as black smoke. The Excision of Days Consume the lifeforce of a human to extend your own life. Extension of your own lifeforce depends on how much life was in your target. Gate of the Planes Break the fabric between realms and open a gate to another plane. You do not control where in the other realm this gate opens. You tie your life to this portal, and every ten minutes this is open there is a 10% cumulative chance the Whirlpool of Souls patches the hole by removing you. Kiss of the Crane Bathe a blade in the target's blood or establish an arcane connection to the target. The blade will then pursue the target no matter the distance or obstacles, always hitting the target for 1d12 damage per Rank the Ur-mage has. Misrush's psalm While the Ur-mage sing, others are not able to acknowledge their presence or anyone they travel with. People are aware of the Ur-mage but cannot act on the information. Pore of the Nether Set a sigil on a flat surface. At your command the sigil start to spew out fire and molten rocks at anything within ten meters of the sigil. This can be set to activate automatically whenever someone get close. This deals 1d12 damage per Rank of the Ur-mage. Ranks of Pale Bone The Ur-mage can raise 1d12 undeads per Rank, assuming enough raw materials are available. Undeads that have been destroyed once cannot be used. They will be loyal to the Ur-mage. If the Ur-mage is slain, the undead will run rampant. Seal of Regal Dominion The Ur-mage dominates the will of a target by placing a sigil upon their forehead. The target will be completely obedient to the Ur-mage, obeying commands that are even outside their normal nature. The Ur-mage can have a number of thralls to this magic equal to their Rank. The Tireless Iron Cavalcade The Ur-mage summons metals steeds to ride for up to 10 people. These steeds are able to pass over 30 kilometers in an hour and does not tire or panic. They are, however, easy to track as their hoofs soak up the vitality of the earth underneath them. The Trumpet of Far Utterance If the Ur-mage has an arcane connection to the target or is close friends with the target, the Ur-mage can summon a faint image of the target and their immediate surroundings. A similar effect happens to the target. The target and the Ur-mage can talk with each other, and a single object no bigger than a cart can be passed between the two, with a 50% chance of the item being lost to the void. This connection lasts for an hour.
He looked at the list and realized these were worse versions of some of the Domain powers. It made sense, since these were still within the realm of mortals. Jasper could see how these would be useful to mortals. Getting to live forever and creating armies, these were, without a doubt, archmage level spells that bordered on what a new divine would be able to accomplish.
Jasper wanted to pick The Trumpet of Far utterance to communicate with his friends, but the cast time would be long. He still needed to pay Energy even if he cast the spells slowly... well, he could spend a day casting the spell, which would probably not be optimal for a conversation lasting only an hour. He kept the spell in mind if there was nothing else he wanted.
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Getting metal steeds that he could ride was good, too, but with his new wings, it wasn't really necessary. So he skipped The Tireless Iron Cavalcade.
Seal of Regal Dominion was cruel. He didn't use much mental manipulation despite having access to Mentalism, since he really didn't like the idea of forcing people to think a certain way. He could see why it was needed for some evil advisor to the emperor, but as a god he really should be better.
Jasper didn't even consider Ranks of Pale Bone. Celeste had said no resurrections, and creating undeads might not be popular with her. As such, it was out of the window as well.
Pore of the Nether was perfect, though. It allowed for some much better attacks, especially since Jasper could just store it up for later use. It would be some incredible traps, and he was pretty sure that he would pick that one.
Misrush's Psalm was interesting. Not because Jasper was going to sing. Jasper didn't have a lyrical bone in his body. In fact, it was so bad that in his younger days, he had played bass and had never really learned how to play a proper instrument. What was interesting was the name. With his Omniscient Scholar power, Jasper knew it was part of the world's creation myth. Apparently, according to highly academic religious scholars, Misrush was a being entirely created from darkness, which had clashed with a being created from pure light called Kallean, and the first god had been a product of this clash, which then elevated all other gods, except the Drow goddess Daikia.
Jasper had never heard about Misrush and Kallean in his life, and he assumed that it was simply names created by the scholars in effort to produce a thesis. Gods knew that Jasper had been in that position when he was taking his masters degree.
Returning his focus to the spells before him, he decided not to pick the spell that required him to sing constantly.
Kiss of the Crane was really good too, allowing Jasper some much needed range whenever he was fighting, even though it wasn't a ton of damage, it was still enough that he would be able to kill almost anything if he wished to do so.
Gate of the Planes was probably a must if he wanted to continue his work with closing the walls between his planes, however picking it wasn't really his first choice. But he had a task he needed to do so it went on the must have list.
The Excision of Days wasn't something he needed. Jasper was effectively immortal, so he didn't really need this to extend his life.
Beacon of Celestial Purity was probably good too, however, he knew that he wouldn't be able to detect if a Divine lied to him, and the other effects were essentially something the he didn't need.
Barred Gates of Forbiddance, on the other hand, was something Jasper could definitely use. It was powerful and intense. Pretty much sending people away for long periods of time was something that could be useful whenever he didn't want to kill someone. The fact that it had a set time for the banishment was probably the biggest downside. Essentially, it didn't allow him to choose between what crimes had been committed. He didn't care.
Once done, Jasper picked the following four Ur-spells for the Deified path.
Name Effect Barred Gates of Forbiddance A designated target cannot enter a particular location for one year and a day. The location can be as small as a room or as large as a nation. Gate of the Planes Break the fabric between realms and open a gate to another plane. You do not control where in the other realm this gate opens. You tie your life to this portal, and every ten minutes this is open there is a 10% cumulative chance the Whirlpool of Souls patches the hole by removing you. Kiss of the Crane Bathe a blade in the target's blood or establish an arcane connection to the target. The blade will then pursue the target no matter the distance or obstacles, always hitting the target for 1d12 damage per Rank the Ur-mage has. Pore of the Nether Set a sigil on a flat surface. At your command the sigil start to spew out fire and molten rocks at anything within ten meters of the sigil. This can be set to activate automatically whenever someone get close. This deals 1d12 damage per Rank of the Ur-mage.
Jasper felt spent picking the spells, and he had only done the weakest of the Ur-spells he could. He hated himself for having to analyse every choice he took. It felt like he was diving much too deeply into this, and had he been as carefree as Celeste, he might have picked the one he liked without having to turn each one over in his head.
The god of magic took a deep breath and decided that he had done enough internal monologuing for one day and might as well get some midgame activities up and running.
Jasper thought about what kind of activities he could create from world-building. He should be creating loops, but rather foundations for what the main branch would be coming up with. As such, creating various guilds for the players to join during the midgame might be a good start.
With that in mind, Jasper headed into the human Capital to start beefing up the guilds.