Children of Ao

"The players, as gods, are composed of tiny sparks of Ao's divine power, which he willingly split off from himself for entertainment. You are incredibly powerful, with Ao himself the only being above you. However, Ao has placed some limitations on you, mostly in the form of rationing out divine power in Acts, Miracles, Curses and Endowments, but also in a few other ways"

Developed by DM Blowhard, The Children of Ao has been a long-running play-by-post Role-Playing Game played on Plothook.net.

The game begins by having Ao create the Player Characters, telling them to begin the age of creation, but to always remember that his big brother presence will always be with them.

Time within the game is intertwined with the real-world time in which the game is being played. This is to speed up the Creation that the gods have made, and to also show how time in the mortal realm and the realm of the gods are inherently different. Each turn (12 hours of real time) represents a year of in-game time. Each day at noon (U.S. Central time), and again at midnight, all gods will receive one Act. This will usually be accompanied by Ao's report on the effects of the previous 12 hours' worth of Acts.


 * Light Is Not Good - Mirali Kall (Shaia is also an unintended example of this).
 * Dark Is Not Evil - Shidara Kall is a goddess of darkness, healing, and comfort. She's the nice one.
 * This Is Your Brain on Evil - Mykonos and almost all of his creations.
 * Our Orcs Are Different - They have empathy and reverse-karma shaman magic!
 * Crystal Dragon Jesus - Dusk. No actual resemblance to Jesus, but he was a prophet that ascended to divinity.
 * Knight Templar - Shaia.
 * Axe Crazy - Krysis and, to a lesser extent, Blaze
 * The Woobie - Melanchion. Poor, poor Melanchion.
 * Beam Spam - The Army of Light's favorite form of armament.
 * Beware the Nice Ones - Melanchion was being pushed further and further towards destroying/converting the planet, with the possible exception of the Laughing Ones (his nominal allies).
 * The Stoic - Kavvir
 * Have You Seen My God? - Balketh dissappeared early into the game. Additionally, the gods themselves slept between Aeons (though the Laughing Ones' followers thought they were awake, thanks to the Lightbringers and Shadowsouls answering prayers). And then there was the whole thing with Loex's daughter...
 * Gambit Pileup - https://web.archive.org/web/20100902065835/http://plothook.net/RPG/showthread.php?t=17671&page=29 Look on their scheming, ye mighty, and despair.
 * Magnificent Bastard - Mirali Kall, Melanchion, Loex, Athe, Dusk. Also count as The Chessmaster
 * Energy Being - Wysps.
 * Psychic Powers - Wysps again. Shaia eventually did this to all the planet's plants, as well.
 * Humongous Mecha - The Lorespire could become this, though it was never put to use.
 * Shapeshifting - Wysps could do this, and it basically WAS their body, as the core was only a bit of light. This made them rather hard to kill.
 * World Tree - Arborea, sort of.