Finally, the email address at which to send the turns is:
pantheon(DOT)allfather(AT)gmail(DOT)com.
Rules Version 2.4
Being a Deity
Being a deity isn't all fun and games; there are rules that must be followed, especially in the case of young, naive deities such as yourselves. To all intents and purposes, you are a group of recently ascended deities who are coalescing into a pantheon. None of you had any significant dealings with the other as mortals, but recent cosmological upheavals caused you all to grasp the chance and arise to divinity. Undoubtly other deities might arise later, either by your intercession or through their own power, but nonetheless, you are the seed of what could become a powerful pantheon - or a monotheism.
Ok, so every deity worth his (or her, or its) salt is the deity of something. After all, there's always need for a patron deity of winter, or a goddess of abundance, and so on. So, as a new player, the first thing you need to do is to decide who your deity will be. Choose a name, and areas of influence from the list placed here:
kevinswatch.ihugny.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=399880#399880
You can choose 1 or 2 areas, but remember you must combine them together. You also need to create your holy symbol - the symbol of your deity - and to make up a dogma - a statement that describes how your ideal worshipers should behave. It's something akin to a commandment, or a sacred teaching: worshipers will strive to adhere to it as closely as possible.
The next order of business for you all is to reveal your divinity to mortals. An unspoken agreement prevents you from meddling too much with the affairs of mortals, and therefore you are unable to appear in all your glory to all mortals in the world to proclaim your magnificence. You will appear to a single mortal, your "first prophet"; the manner of your appearance is left up to you (the first turn you play, you must describe how you appear to your prophet).Domains
A deity can have a maximum of four total areas of influence (called "domains"). They must all be represented in his or her dogma. If the deity wishes to acquire an additional domain, he/she must drop an already acquired one.
From the second turn of play on, each turn will roughly be the same as a season of the world. During each turn, each of you will be presented with situations that require your divine attention: these can be new problems, or the consequences of problems you already faced before. You may react to these problems by focusing your divine attention on them. Each of you has a divine rank, that goes from 1 (the lowest) to 20 (the highest). This rank signifies your power: each turn, you can divide these points as you see fit among the various situations, and the more points you put in each one, the more you are actively trying to influence its outcome. The pool of divine rank points is replenished each turn. You will, of course, also need to describe how you try to do so and what outcome you desire.
Newly created deities, both player-controlled and NPCs, cannot be directly attacked for the first four turns (1 year) after their ascension. Similarly, if their worshipers fall below 200 within this four-turn period, they do not automatically die (see below).
However, this protection is automatically forfeit if the deity willingly and openly attacks another deity, directly or indirectly, with his own power and/or with the power bestowed upon him by other deities. In this case, the attacked deity can strike back at the attacker even if less than four turns passed since that deity's arrival.
You gain or lose divine ranks based on the number of your "worshipers" in the world. This number is a measure of the power the worshipers provide you with prayers and faith, rather than actual demographics: a low number may reflect a small number of fanatic followers or a large number of tepid followers. Losing or gaining worshipers may mean that they die or convert away. In the case of seasonal and monthly deities (see below), the loss of worshipers connected to the taking of such an exalted place simply means that your worshipers start worshiping you more during your month or season than in the rest of the year.A PLAYER'S DUTIES
Preparing a new turn, and generating events for every deity, requires a certain amount of time. If a player misses a turn because of RL, and is unable to let me know in advance, it's allright (although I would expect an explanation later, out of politeness). But if a player unexplicably misses one turn every two, and does not explain why, his/her character will be retired.
Additionally, keep in mind that if a player's character is retired for such a reason, the player will be watched if he/she ever decides to make another deity and join the game again. If the second deity is also retired for the same reason, the player will be blacklisted and assumed from then on to be an undependable player. Players in this situation will be denied the possibility to create a third deity, unless they can convince me to do otherwise.
Example: Naeros, deity of war, is suffering a schism: many of his worshipers have changed their belief about him and interpret his dogma in another, radically different way. He decides to do something about it. He has divine rank 4: given the importance of this problem, he decides to give all his attention to the schism, and uses all 4 points to try and influence the outcome so that the worshipers who have caused the schism are hunted down and executed.
You may also use your divine rank points to actively try to proselytize (whether via intimidation, terror, gentleness, or whatever). The more points you use to proselytize, the greater the chance you will get more worshipers, but of course every point you use to proselytize means one less point you can use to care about the other problems of your church. Also, you can use your divine rank points to spy on another deity, trying to learn what's happening in his church - and possibly, to influence it.
Finally, you may use your divine rank points to start a particular event yourself, even if it is not among those that happened to you that turn (send a comet as an omen, order your followers to found a city, and so on).
POSSIBLE ALLOCATIONS FOR DIVINE RANK POINTS
-Internal affairs.
-General events in the world.
-Proselytism.
-Spying on another deity.
-Attempting to influence another deity's events (only if they are known via spying or otherwise).
-Attempting to start custom events.
Remember: the more points you allocate on a given situation, the more you're trying to influence its outcome; you will need to describe how, and what is the outcome you desire. Attempting to start an event is also demanding, and may not always yield the desired results. Also, remember that spying on another deity has a chance of getting caught, and attempting to influence another deity's events is much tougher than influencing your own!MANIFESTATIONS
Gods can manifest in the world. Choosing to manifest in the world takes up all of the god's DRPs for the turn; however, manifesting means that the god becomes a focus for the fulfillment of his wishes (or for the destruction of his foes), which means that manifesting oneself is more effective than even spending all of one's DRPs for the same reason, but without manifesting oneself.
Manifested gods do not know what happens to their followers in other parts of the world: they only receive events related to the area they are manifested in.
A manifested god can receive power from other gods, but he or she can only invest it in the area he or she is manifested in.
Manifesting oneself makes one vulnerable to deicide (see Deicide, below).
Each turn, the Pantheon 2.0 thread will list all major events - whether related to a single deity or to no deity in particular - that a deity cannot or will not conceal (appearance of new races, building of cities, and so on). Concealing events is possible, but requires divine rank points.PROPHETS
Your Prophet is, in many ways, your worldly voice and extension of your will. He (or she) acts following your orders and focuses on fulfilling your commands. He also may, or may not have minor powers derived from his faith or bestowed upon him by his god(dess) - Kjoller's ripening effect, for example, comes to mind.
Nevertheless, your Prophet is the single most important figure in your religion. If your Prophet is slain, you may of course choose another, but to imbue a new Prophet, elevating him above your other followers, you will need to expend one Divine Rank point. Thus, killing another god's Prophet is a possible way to hinder his actions.
Because Prophets are so important and so exalted, they cannot hide from the eyes of other gods like most other followers can: each god knows if and when another god's Prophet is approaching areas he is interested in. For example, Vadhaka would immediately know it if Jameak sailed towards Shama. You may hide your Prophet's presence from your divine brethren, but you must spend Divine Rank points to do so as if you were trying to hide your own actions, and if another deity suspects your Prophet might be there, he may choose to use Divine Rank points to attempt and break your cloaking power.
So why bother with a Prophet? Because a Prophet is a catalyst: around the Prophet, people convert more easily and more frequently, miracles are easier, and the Prophet acts as the temporal leader of your church, thus relaying your orders to the general following. Obviously you can do without a Prophet, but you will find that having a Prophet on site when you want to use DRPs to do something will allow you to do more than normal with the same DRP expenditure.
While a deity can begin the game with only one full-fledged Prophet or two weaker ones, deities can always invest new mortals, either to replace or to increase their number of Prophets. A deity can have up to one Prophet, plus an additional one per three full points of divine rank in his status: a 5-DRP deity can have only two Prophets, while an 18-DRP deity can have up to seven.
Each situation (whether listed in the thread or not) will affect the number of worshipers you have; the higher the number, the greater your divine rank and your power. If you lose all worshipers, your divine power extinguishes itself and you are cast out of the pantheon. This rule does not apply for the first four turns (one year of game time), to give you a chance to establish worshipers.
Tip: Being a nihilistic god can lead to unpleasant results if your followers are required to kill themselves or do not proselytize. Remember: your survival depends on that of your cult and your worshipers!
Your worshipers also affect your areas of influence. If your worshipers start believing you rule over something else, in addition or in exchange for what you rule now, and you do not succeed in stamping the thing out, you will find that your areas of influence change to match your worshipers' expectations of you.
Finally, as for areas of influence: if an event you hold dominion over actually happens among the deities of your pantheon, you may gain additional power from it. If, for example, two deities fall in love with each other, the deity of love will receive additional power. Watch out for the traps laid by other deities!
Seasonal and Monthly Deities
A deity can choose to sacrifice some of his power in order to establish a foothold as a seasonal or monthly deity (but not both). A seasonal deity is associated with one of the four seasons; he or she is especially venerated during that season (a game turn), and therefore gains a temporary boost in his powers during that season. A monthly deity is similarly associated with a given month; he or she is specially venerated during that month (1/3 of a game turn), and therefore gains a temporary boost during the turn in which his month falls. The temporary boost in power of a monthly deity is less than that of a seasonal deity, but becoming a monthly deity requires considerably less power than becoming a seasonal deity.
To become a monthly deity, a deity must sacrifice one divine rank (reducing his worshipers to the minimum amount needed for the previous divine rank); he can then increase his divine rank as normal. A deity cannot become a monthly deity if all twelve months already have monthly deities.
To become a seasonal deity, a deity must sacrifice two divine ranks (reducing his worshipers to the minimum amount needed for the divine rank two levels lower); he can then increase his divine rank as normal. A deity cannot become a seasonal deity if all four seasons already have seasonal deities.
A deity can renounce the title of monthly or seasonal deity at any time; he gains back a number of worshipers depending on his current divine rank, and on the kind of title he renounces.
Just a couple of additional clarifications. For the intents and purposes of the game, usually not even a direct attack from other deities can kill you (but see Deicide, below); normally, the only way for you to die is to lose so many worshipers that your Divine Rank goes down to 0. This means having less than about 200 worshipers in total; this rule starts from the fifth turn, so hurry up with your worshipers! For additional rules about death and return from the dead, see below.VASSALS
As gods become more powerful, new or weak deities can be tempted by the thought of allying with the more powerful ones in order to enjoy a degree of protection. Apart from informal alliances, powerful deities can take lower-rank deities as "vassals", if both parties formally agree to the arrangement. Becoming a powerful deity's vassal (and, in turn, gaining a deity as vassal) has advantages that an informal alliance does not allow.
To form a vassal-bond, there must be a difference of at least 5 divine ranks between the "liege" and the "vassal" deity. So a rank 7 deity can get vassals up to divine rank 2, and so on. The two deities must formally notify the Pantheon of their agreement. Additionally, the two deities cannot have opposing areas of influence or behave in wildly different ways with their worshipers (a god of tyranny cannot take as vassal a god of good chivalry, for example, or a goddess who kindly nurtures her followers). Once this is done, both deities reap the advantages: they both gain an increase in power depending on the rank of the vassal (for the liege) and the liege (for the vassal). While the liege gains less direct power this way, he has (supposedly) the fealty of the vassal, who in any case is forbidden from hindering, disrupting, or attacking the liege's followers and actions for as long as the agreement is in effect. The liege and/or the vassal can choose to terminate the agreement at any time, but they both immediately lose a portion of power correlated to the power they gained when they entered the agreement, and there may be other consequences depending on the terms of the agreement and how it was broken.
Deities of Rank 10 or higher cannot be vassals, and if they previously were vassals, the vassal-liege bond dissolves automatically upon reaching rank 10; in this case (and only in this case) neither ex-vassal nor ex-liege lose power due to the dissolution of the vassal bond.
Also, each turn has a deadline. This is so that eager players who react first will not then have to wait too long before they can act again; and it also helps if any player has to unexpectedly leave for an extended period of time, and has no chance to warn. For now, there is going to be only one turn per week, on Sunday. Turns are GMT+1 based.DEICIDE
As soon as you are reduced to less than 500 worshipers (after the fifth turn since you entered the game), you become vulnerable to the direct attacks of other deities. Deities who might desire to destroy you can then declare an attack against you, assigning divine rank points to this attack; similarly, you may use your divine rank point to defend yourself, and other deities may lend you their points to strengthen your defence. If the attacking deity breaks through, though, you are killed, and the attacking deity immediately absorbs your portfolio (areas of influence) and remaining worshipers.
Manifestation and Deicide
If two deities manifest and meet, regardless of the number of worshipers, they may battle each other and the loser may be slain. If a deity wishes to engage another in direct battle, he must manifest as well, in the same location as his target. Battle is then joined, with each deity able to count on his or herDRPs as well as any DRPs other allied gods may offer them. No other god can use DRPs to affect the battle in any other way.
A direct battle between two deities takes place in "real time", outside of turn continuity: blows are exchanged back and forth until one deity is declared the victor. However, once the total number of availableDRPs for each deity has been calculated at the beginning of combat, no other deity can grant additional DRPs.
Once each deity knows how many DRPs he or she can use for the battle (a deity's DRP pool), battle is joined. Divine battle is drawn in rounds, with each round granting each deity the ability to strike and the ability to defend themselves. Each round, each deity can draw power from his or her DRP pool to attack or defend. SinceDRPs drawn from the DRP pool aren't replenished each round, deities must be careful, lest they leave themselves open for an attack. TheDRPs drawn from the DRP pool must be assigned to attack or defense, as the deity wishes. A deity's Attack rating is equal to the number ofDRPs assigned to it; a deity's Defense rating is equal to the number of DRPs assigned to it + 3. An attack is performed by rolling 1d6 and adding the DRPs assigned to attack; if the result is greater than the Defense rating of the other deity, the other deity suffers one hit.
Each deity has as many hits as his or her original, unmodified DRP total. When a deity has suffered as many hits as his ~DRP total, he is declared the loser of the battle. As long as the other deity has at least one remaining hit, he is victorious. The winner has three options:
* Slay the deity: doing so does NOT grant the winner the deity's domains or remaining worshipers, though.
* Banish the deity: the loser is banished from Eiran for a time which depends on the winner's original, unmodified Divine Rank (from just a turn for a winner with Divine Rank 1 to possibly an Age for a winner with Divine rank 10 or higher).
* Trap the deity: the loser is trapped in an item, unable to affect the world and stripped of his or her DRPs and divine rank until a certain event comes to pass (as chosen by the victor) or until a certain amount of time has passed (as per the banishment option), whichever comes first. As long as the deity is trapped, the winner can draw power from the item (if he or she has it in his/her possession) to boost his/her own Divine Rank.
If both deities are reduced to 0 hits simultaneously, both deities dissipate their manifestations and cannot act for the whole next turn, but neither is considered the loser.
RESURRECTION
Just as deities can die, deities can also return from the netherworld. Upon death, deities do not enter the afterlife ruled by the King of the Dead, like mortals do, but they exist in a state of eternal slumber. Any deity who died due to lack of worshipers can return to waking life if his or her cult rises again; this can be an event inspired by other deities, or due to pure chance. If enough worshipers gather for the deity to return to Divine Rank 1, the deity returns from the dead and rejoins the pantheon. If the deity's spheres of influence had been claimed by someone else, the deity immediately recovers them, stripping them from the usurper. The deity will likely have to rebuild his clergy, religion and holy sites from scratch, although he could always try to restore the old ones.
Deities killed by other deities (see Deicide, above) cannot return from the dead.
If you want your moves to be correctly calculated, you must send them by 11 pm GMT on Saturday at most!
Finally, one important note: please do not send multiple emails or PMs about your actions on any given turn. Take your time, send the email only the day before the end of the turn if needed, but try and do not send more than one email per turn with your moves. The more you send, the more it is difficult for me to keep track of who does what, and the more likely I'll miss or skip something you deemed important. Thank you!
At first, no, you can't go for more than one race. This doesn't mean that the race you choose is the only that worships you, only that most of your worshipers belong to that race.
