Rise of Ants is a series of play-by-post games hosted on the Giant in the Playground Forums, of The Order of the Stick fame. The premise is simple: the players control a colony of ants by voting on its actions. However, these ants are sentient and magical, and quickly develop both technology and magic. Additionally, each player gets a “hero ant” as their personal character, part of the colony but able to work independently.
The first game
was started by user Croverus, but the role of Game Master was passed to Xihirli a few pages in. Xihirli would continue running the game through the entire first thread and on, until it went on hiatus partway through the second thread and didn’t really come back. The second game is run by Sniccups, a player from the first game, and is ongoing despite lots of Schedule Slip.
The Rise of Ants contains examples of:
- Ant War: Any major conflict, considering that the main characters are literal ants. The first game features several, but the second has been more peaceful so far.
- Egopolis: The colony in the first game was named Hive Xihirli, because Xihirli was the only player at the start.
- Magitek: Everywhere. In the first game it was mainly fire magic being used as an energy source, but the second game has reached Organic Technology by way of Biomanipulation.
