Pantheon: The Third Age - Rules and Comments Thread

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Pantheon: The Third Age - Rules and Comments Thread

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Rules Version 3.21

AllFather E-Mail Address: pantheon.allfather(AT)gmail(DOT)com
Note: The above address is to be used when sending turn orders.

Summary

- Being a Deity
- Domains
- Courts
- Houses
- Beginner's Immunity
- Contentment
- Divine Rank
- Manifestations and Aspects
- Deicide and Resurrection
- Prophets
- Races
- Monthly and Seasonal Deities
- Vassals
- Artifacts
- Oaths and Consequences
- Order Submittal and Order Results

Being a Deity

When creating a deity, two major decisions will affect the course of the game: the choice of your deity's domains, and the choice of the deity's Court.

Domains

A list of domains available to deities can be found here, along with a list of rules for creating a deity. The choice of domains influences Houses and Courts.

A deity can have a maximum of three domains (a Major domain and two Minor domains). They must all be represented in his or her dogma. The more domains a deity has, the less effective his/her power in each domain. Acquiring new domains after the creation of the deity costs the deity the sacrifice of 1 permanent Divine Rank Point (DRP).

When an event related to your domain and of sufficient magnitude happens in the world, or even better among deities, you can learn of it and gain power from it.

Courts

In the heavens, there exist gods. Mortals call them and organize them by many names, but in truth the gods are divided into two Courts. Mortals call these Courts "good" and "evil", "dark" and "light", "order" and "chaos", but such names are only attempts to explain that which no mortal mind can comprehend. Gods call them the Sunrise Court and the Sunset Court. When a god comes into existence, he or she has a choice: to enter either of the two Courts, or to remain neutral. The two Courts are in opposition to each other; such opposition is the only reason why the world does not fall into stagnancy.

Masters
Despite rumors to the contrary, there is no proof that either Court has a true and eternal Leader. Within each Court, gods can rise to the position of leader and fall from it. It is up to the gods of each Court to decide how to choose their Master of the Court - it can be the most powerful god of the Court, or the wisest, or the most cruel, or any other kind. Yet even though the title of Master does not mean all other deities in the Court must obey the god's commands, it is still a position that must be filled, and with good reason; for only the Master (by whatever title he is known) can consult the Oracle.
Courts are allowed to attract new gods into their fold by offering promises of Treasury, borrowed DRPs, use of DR or whatever else they wish. The offers may come from the Master of the Court, from deities within the Court, or from the Court as a whole. New or neutral deities who wish to join a Court must obtain permission to do so from the Master of the Court. As the identity of the Master of a Court might not be publicly known, a deity who wishes to request entrance into his/her Court may simply send his petition to one of the Court members (or to the AllFather), who will then forward it to the Court Master. After that, all proceedings may be completely secret (the Master need not reveal who he/she is, nor openly admit the new god into the Court through a post in the Game Thread).
Masters of the Court
Masters of the Court can:
- Access the Court Oracle;
- Establish the procedure for other deities to draw on the Divine Right;
- Prevent a neutral deity from entering their Court;
- Call for a Court vote on whether a particular Court deity needs to be punished, if the punishment involves denying the deity access to Divine Right, or expelling the deity from the Court.
- If the majority of the Court agrees on the punishment, the Master is the only deity of the Court who can deny another deity access to the Divine Right, or who can expel the deity from the Court altogether.
- Issue rulings in case of dissent between deities of his Court.
Oracles
The only constant of each Court are the eternal Oracles. Each Court has an Oracle, a collection of wisdom and knowledge which takes different forms for the two Courts, and can be consulted by the leaders of the Courts alone. The Oracles are cryptic, and they don't always answer when consulted; at other times, they may offer unsolicited information, although most often in the way of riddles. The more an Oracle is consulted, the less likely it is that it will answer further. It is debatable whether Oracles are sentient, mouthpieces for more powerful Overgods, or simply "living books" of a sort. Oracles never give orders to the gods, but sometimes may offer wisdom which suggests particular courses of action, or even advise a particular quest; the choice of whether to follow them or not is only in the hands of the gods, though.
The Oracles have names, although they are rarely used. The Sunrise Oracle is named Aethris, while the Sunset Oracle is called Kholtanos.

Divine Right
Each Court has a pool of divine power which can be drawn from by any (or all) the gods of the Court itself. Each year's end, the number of Divine Ranks for each Court is calculated: for each 10 fullDRPs in a Court, the Court has 1 free DRP in its Divine Right. Any deity can draw power from the Divine Right, at the cost of depleting the pool of a similar amount of DRPs until year's end.
If a deity leaves a Court at any time during the year, the maximum Divine Right for the Court is immediately recalculated (though spent points are not restored). If this brings the Court's current Divine Right pool to 0 or less, the Court loses access to Divine Right until year's end.
A Court's DR can only be used by members of the Court itself; it cannot be directly lent to other, non-Court deities.

Waxing and Waning
The actions and well-being of the gods of a Court determine its waxing or waning. Imagine the Courts as two extremes of a spectrum; the growth of one Court leads to the weakening of the other, and vice versa. The stronger Court is waxing, the weaker one is waning. At the end of each year, the gods of the waxing Court become stronger, while the gods of the waning Court weaken. This strengthening and weakening is represented by a bonus or penalty to the Divine Right pool. If a deity leaves a Court at any point during the year, Waxing and Waning are instantly recalculated, so a Waning Court might suddenly find itself Waxing due to a defection in the other Court.

Houses

The five divine Houses are linked with elements: Fire, Air, Earth, Water and Aether. Each domain is associated with one House; the Major domain taken by a god indicates which House the god belongs to. Differently from Courts, the god cannot choose his House except by choosing an appropriate domain.
Gods who belong to a single House strengthen or weaken each other according to the rising or falling of their fortunes: even if the gods belong to two different Courts, a Sunrise Fire god who grows in power will strengthen a Sunset Fire god too. Therefore it is possible that, if many gods from a specific House were to lose power, all the gods would be significantly reduced in power. But it is also possible that if a single deity from a specific House were to gain a large amount of power, all the other deities of his or her House would enjoy smaller but significant benefits as well.

Beginner's Immunity

Newly created deities are granted four turns of immunity. During these four turns, the deity cannot be directly attacked by other deities. The definition of attack includes: actual deific battles; attacks with armed forces upon large numbers of the deity's followers; Prophet intrusion on the part of another deity's Prophet into the deity's lands and among the deity's people; duels against the deity's Prophet; use of divine power to actively harm or hinder the deity. Anything not included in this list can be performed.
A deity who is still enjoying the beginner's immunity and launches an attack upon another deity immediately forfeits the immunity and can then be attacked freely.

Contentment

The people of the world are neither static nor puppets; their environment changes, and so does their faith in you. Apart from the fact that each race has different strengths and drawbacks, each deity's following has an important stat a deity should take into account: Contentment. What is this stat, and why should it be important?
Contentment is a measure of how loyal your following is to you. A low Contentment score means your following is largely dissatisfied with you, and will have a chance to reject your orders, rebel, or act against (or heedless of) your wishes. A high Contentment score, on the other hand, represents extremely loyal followers, possibly bordering on the fanatical, and willing to give their lives for you, if need be. Contentment 0 is average - the worshippers acknowledge the deity and worship him, but with no particular fervor. Contentment can go as high as 10 (fanatical zealots), but it can also go below 0. The lower the Contentment, the more likely will rebellions be, and the more widespread as well. But it also means that worshippers will begin leaving the deity's following.

The Power of Worshipers
Worshipers are more than cannon fodder, and they have power over a deity. If many of a deity's worshipers begin assigning the deity a different domain than the deity currently has - if, for example, the worshipers of a god of war somehow begin considering him a god of fear instead - and the deity does not stamp out the rebellion, he may find that his domains change to reflect what the worshipers believe.

Heresies, Schisms and Zealots
The Contentment score is a double-edged sword. The higher a deity's Contentment score, the more likely it is that small groups of his worshipers will spontaneously become fanatics and start attacking the followers of other deities. Fanatics are notoriously illogical, so they may attack randomly, and if the deity's Contentment doesn't decrease and he does nothing to stamp them out, the percentage of his fanatics is bound to grow. On the other hand, fanatics are very good at converting people, so the more fanatics one has, the more converts he will gain each turn.
The other side of the coin is that having a low Contentment (below 0) means that your following is dissatisfied with your priests, your teachings and your requests. The lower the Contentment, the more likely it is for small groups of followers to spontaneously become heretics or schismatics, developing radically different views of your domains and teachings. When this happens, the faith of these heretics no longer adds up to your power, but the most dangerous fact is that, left to themselves, heretics will keep increasing as long as Contentment remains low. And when enough people have gone heretic, the strength of their faith may interfere with the deity's countenance! If this happens, the deity might be placed before a choice: accept to become what the heretics believe him to be, or risk losing massive power as his or her dichotomy wracks him.

Divine Rank

Each deity's power is represented by their Divine Rank (DR). Divine Rank potentially 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 (DRP) is replenished each turn. Describing how you attempt to influence the event also has an impact upon how successful you are.

Unfortunately, the world simply cannot sustain infinite high-powered deities: there is only a finite number of worshipers, and therefore a finite amount of power available. As the deities grow in power, they may reach a point where every living being in the world is a faithful of this or that deity, and therefore no more power growth is possible unless conversion and proselytization - or war - occurs.

A deity dies when its Divine Rank falls to 0, either because it has less than 200 worshipers, or because it permanently sacrificed the last DRP!

Immunity
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.
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.

Permanent Expenditure
While normally, using your DRPs in any single turn does not weaken you the following turn - that is, your pool of divine rank points is replenished each turn - some actions require you to perform a more permanent sacrifice. In short, there are some actions which require you to permanently sacrifice one or more of your DRPs in order to bring them to fruition. Examples of these actions are:
Claiming a new Minor domain: 1 DRP
Becoming the patron of a month (see below): 1 DRP
Becoming the patron of a season (see below): 2 DRP
Crafting an Artifact: 1 DRP (plus an additional, temporary expense depending on the Artifact's power)
Imbuing a new Prophet: 1 DRP


Divine Rank Points and How To Use Them
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.
Example wrote: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 DRPs 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).

Aspects and 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. A god who manifests and is sent DRPs from another god can use these additional DRPs as normal, but only in the area where he is manifested.
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. Their consciousness does not encompass the whole world while they're focused on a physical form.
Manifesting oneself makes one vulnerable to deicide (see Deicide, below).

Because of the enormous DRP cost and the vulnerability to deicide, most deities usually prefer to interact with the world - if they are needed - through the use of Aspects. An Aspect is not a partial manifestation as much as it is the god imbuing a mortal (usually the Prophet, but not always) with a fraction of its power. This entity becomes a mortal extension of the god's will and powers within the world, but it is still mortal, and thus it is subject to death. Additionally, doing so requires a constant expenditure ofDRPs without which the god would withdraw from this possession. As long as the god spend DRPs per turn (the amount depends on how powerful he wants the aspect to become - NOT on how powerful the aspect's host is to begin with), the deity treats the aspect as an extension of himself; he may choose to command it utterly or to leave it some measure of free will, so that the deity may basically choose whether to possess the person outright or to grant him some say in the matter or to make him or her a willing partecipant to a partnership in which they do the god's bidding willingly in exchange for using the power they are imbued with.

Deicide and Resurrection

As soon as a deity is reduced to less than 500 worshipers (after the immunity period ends), it becomes vulnerable to the direct attacks of other deities. Deities who might desire to destroy it can then declare an attack against it, assigning divine rank points to this attack; similarly, it may use its divine rank point to defend itself, and other deities may lend it their points to strengthen its defense. If the attacking deity breaks through, though, the attacked deity is killed, and the attacking deity immediately has the option to absorb its domains (provided the deity sacrifices DRPs as if taking up a new domain, and provided the acquired domain does not conflict with Court or other restrictions) 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.

Prophets

Prophets are a vital part of the deity's cult. They are directly imbued with a portion of the deity's power, and act as the deity's main spokespeople in the world. The longer a mortal remains a Prophet (while on Eiran), the stronger he becomes. Ordinarily, a Prophet is also the most loyal follower of yours.
A deity starts the game with one Prophet imbued during the Revelation: this Prophet does not cost DRPs to imbue. However, like all mortals, Prophets can be slain, and if this happens, imbuing a new Prophet requires a permanent expenditure of DRPs (see above), making the slaying of a Prophet a useful way to hinder a deity's 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 where all Prophets are, unless a deity is making an effort to mask its Prophet's presence.
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 the deity's church, thus relaying its orders to the general following. Obviously a deity can do without a Prophet, but having a Prophet on site when the deity wants to use DRPs to do something will allow it to do more than normal with the same DRP expenditure.
A deity can have any number of Prophets, but he can only create new ones if the total number of his/her existing Prophets is less than one plus an additional one per three full points of divine rank in his status. This means that a 3-DRP deity could create a Prophet only if he/she has less than two already; a 6-DRP deity could do it only if he/she had less than three; and so on. However, a deity can maintain any number of Prophets once created - so an 18-DRP deity (who could have up to seven Prophets) who is suddenly reduced to 9 DRP because of a Crisis of the Faith does not lose any of his/her Prophets, but simply cannot create any new ones until he loses some of those he already has.

Races

The world of Eiran is home to many intelligent races, some of which were naturally born into the world and some which were brought into being by the machinations of gods long past. A newborn deity must choose from which race will be drawn the majority of his or her followers; races have different attributes, so that different gods may select different races, based upon their own attitude. Races are divided into major and minor: the members of minor races are individually more powerful than the members of the major races, but they are also less numerous and their population grows more slowly, which reduces the rate at which the god's followers increase. In the game, each race is evaluated on five criteria: magic potential, fertility, war attitude, nature affinity and stealth skills. Since each race starts with the same point total, it follows that races can be strong in one or more criteria and weak in others. The values are not shown on purpose, to reflect a more natural choice of races. Minor races have a slightly higher point total than major races, but they all share a low fertility. The races among which a deity can choose include:

Major Races
Centaurs - an uncivilized but resourceful race of half-human, half-equine hybrids with a nomadic culture.
Dwarrows - an old and stout race of short, grim humanoids with an affinity for crafting.
Houka - a race of feline humanoids with a great talent for skulking.
Humans - skilled but short-lived humanoids, capable nonetheless of adaptation to both creation and destruction.
Ice Titans - giant creatures of elemental ice and great strength and rage, spawned from the ice walls that protect Eiran from the Abyss.
Merfolk - a playful aquatic race of half-human, half-fish hybrids.
Orcs - a proud nomadic race that keeps itself aloof and chooses to avoid others.
Satyrs - a half-human, half-goat hybrid race, gifted with a great affinity with nature but cursed with a very short attention span.
Yekiths - secretive and mysterious black wormlike beings, physically strong and magically gifted.

Minor Races
Elakiths - aberrant race derived from the yekiths, red-hued and gifted with membranous wings, as well as a greater magic potential.
Giants - a race of large humanoids whose skin and flesh are resilient to harm, and gifted with great physical strength.
Fallen Ones - an enigmatic race of blood-red humanoids with pure white feathered wings, the Fallen Ones keep to themselves and favor mountain peaks. They are skilled in both magic and war.
Nhruuk - powerful creatures, hideous hybrids of human and stone, physically very strong as well as gifted with an affinity with the earth.
Nouka - an aberrant offshoot of the Houka, a race of feline humanoids gifted with great stealth and with the power to meld into the shadows.
Ssathiss - mysterious race of humanoids with snake tails instead of legs and scales covering their bodies, skilled int he arts of murder; follows a very ritualistic culture and a supremacist worldview.
Tree Elders - race of stout tree-like beings resembling old stumps, blessed with tremendous affinity for forests and jungles, but followers of peaceful ways.
Vangoryth - a ghoulish race of skeletally thin, pale and wasted eaters of the dead, capable of implanting corpses with their essence, creating more of their kind. Very powerful with magic, especially necromancy.
Weredolphs - an aquatic race of humanoids capable of shapeshifting into dolphins at will, equally at ease both in water and on land, competent in both the ways of magic and the ways of war.

Monthly and Seasonal Patrons

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 1 DRP permanently. A deity cannot become a monthly deity if all twelve months already have monthly deities.
To become a seasonal deity, a deity must sacrifice 2 DRPs permanently. 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, gaining back part of the power he or she sacrificed when he gained patronage.

Vassals

Powerful deities can take lower-rank deities as "vassals", if both parties formally agree to the arrangement. 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 must belong to the same Court (or both be neutral), and 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; but also, a good Sunrise Court god cannot take as vassal a good Unaligned or Sunset Court god). Once this is done, both deities 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.
A vassal deity cannot increase its divine rank to the point where it would no longer be legal for it to be a vassal of the current liege: so a vassal to a DR 7 liege cannot go over DR 2, unless the agreement is broken or the liege increases its DR.
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.

Artifacts

Deities can create artifacts to channel their power into a form that can be given to mortals. A death deity could craft a sword that slays all those it wounds; a life deity could create a staff that, when planted into the earth, causes grass and trees to grow. Almost any effect is possible, as long as it iis related to the deity domain(s). However, to imbue an artifact with power drains the deity of a portion of their own power; this is represented by the permanent sacrifice of one DRP, in addition to the temporary DRP cost of the artifact (a cost which depends upon the power of the artifact itself).
Artifacts can be lost or stolen, or old artifacts can be found; often, these artifacts are found by worshipers of one deity. Artifacts are usable by any mortal; however, a deity can find an additional use from them. To do so requires the deity to formally claim the artifact (by having it brought into the deity's temple, where it can be sanctified). Once a deity has claimed an artifact, it gains the option, as long as the artifact remains in his possession, to destroy it to feed upon the essence of the artifact itself.
A deity can always destroy artifacts it created, as long as they are in its possession (even if they're formally claimed by someone else).
Destroying an artifact causes the deity to gain a number of temporary DRPs for the turn, depending on how many had been put into the creation of the artifact; if the deity also created the artifact in the first place, it can also recover the 1 DRP it sacrificed to make the artifact.
The destruction of an artifact is often just a temporary measure; in the course of an Age, most artifacts can eventually coalesce back into physical form and return to the world - but most likely not quickly enough for a deity to destroy them a second time.
Destroying artifacts can sometimes be a risky business: a good deity who uses the power derived from the destruction of an evil artifact could find that power acting strangely...

Oaths and Consequences

Oaths are ways deities have of either guaranteeing the veracity of their words, or pledging a certain course of action.
Conflicting oaths cannot be sworn, even if they belong to different categories (i.e. a Court Oath and an Oath to the AllFather). If a deity swore an Oath, he cannot take on a conflicting one without breaking the previous one.

The Oath to the AllFather
This is the most powerful Oath. An Oath to the AllFather can be used either to swear upon the truth of the god's words ("On the Oath to the AllFather, here is the truth about the matter at hand"), or to promise an action - or refraining from an action. Deities can only swear one Oath to the AllFather each per year without fear of retribution: calling upon it more often can bring about unpleasant consequences.
An Oath to the AllFather can be broken in two ways: if the deity who swears it is known to the AllFather to be speaking falsehood (or to be betraying the Oath); or, if the deity swears the Oath and then later performs actions which reveal he/she betrayed the Oath (in case the AllFather was not aware of everything the deity thought). In either case, the consequences are dire. A deity who willfully breaks the Oath suffers a massive reduction in power and number of worshipers, depending on the severity of the Oath-breaking. Alternately, the deity could be stripped of domains, or even - in the most extreme circumstances - banished from Eiran for a variable length of time.
Deities who accidentally break the Oath (because they are forced to by others, for example) do not trigger this response if the AllFather is convinced they did not do it voluntarily; in this case, the deity responsible for making them break their Oath is punished instead.
If a deity tries to trick the AllFather into believing he/she is keeping his/her word while in reality he is breaking it (or setting into motion events that will break it), the severity of the punishment is increased.
A deity can only swear an Oath to the AllFather of his/her own free will: he/she cannot be coerced.

Court Oath
A Court Oath is a less powerful version of the Oath to the AllFather, available only to those who belong to one of the Courts. Essentially, it works similarly to the Oath to the AllFather, but it calls upon the Court instead of the AllFather. Because of this, the Oath (while it can be kept secret from most deities) is automatically known to all deities in the Court of the god who swears it. Also, a Court Oath can be taken once per season by any single deity. A deity who willfully breaks the Court Oath (as described in the Oath to the AllFather) is automatically cast out of the Court he/she belongs to, and cannot rejoin for at least one year. During this period, the banished deity is considered unaligned, and cannot be brought back into the Court he/she betrayed, even if the Master of the Court is willing to take him/her back. After one year has passed, the Master of the Court has the authority to deny re-entry to the banished deity, just as if the banished deity had been a neutral deity who wanted to join the Court in the first place.

Order Submittal and Order Results

This chapter deals with general informations on how to submit turns, in order to streamline and speed up processing, and how to read order results.

Order Submittals

- Add an OOC summary of your moves to your turn submittal, if your submittal presents your moves in an extensive, descriptive form. In other words, if you write lengthy turn submittals, with lots of descriptive text, remember to add a short summary of your moves at the beginning or the end of the submittal, for ease of processing.

- Don't include "if" statements in your submittal. In particular, try to avoid using "if" statements regarding the use of divine power (such as "if X does Y, then I spend these DRPs towards purpose Z, but if X doesn't do Y, then those DRPs will be spent towards another purpose.")

- Avoid too many non-DRP powered moves. If your turn submittal includes many more non-DRP powered actions than DRP-powered actions, there's something wrong there. In particular, please avoid generating countless named characters (simple captains, ship crew members, tavern patrons, and the like) and then writing dozens of non-DRP powered moves to check on these people and move them around.
Too many non-DRP powered moves slow down processing time; if too many players follow this trend, non-DRP powered moves might be forbidden altogether, as it was with non-DRP blessings!

- While writing your moves, resist the temptation of creating characters who, "coincidentally", can help you overcome an obstacle. For example, if you are attacking a city, avoid writing something like "it just so happens that in that city, Mr. X is sympathetic to my cause and decides to open the gates to my army" unless you already were informed of Mr. X's existence, or you're willing to spend power to accomplish this end.

- Be aware that if you use DRPs to perform an action, but for some reason that action cannot be performed by the time it should be processed, the DRPs will be lost. If, for example, you declare you want to use 2 DRPs to destroy a city at the end of the season, but another deity destroys it at the beginning of the season, those 2 DRPs of yours are lost.

- Do not make dangerous assumptions. In particular, do not try to assume the existence of certain races, creatures or events, if that existence was not already confirmed or unless you're using DRPs to create them. For example, do not write a turn submittal describing your deity's interactions with the Iksphikix, unless you knew via previous turn results that they do exist.

- Remember that, if you're coordinating a move with another deity, especially when DRPs are involved, all involved deities must submit that move in their turn submittals. If you say "deity X uses 3 DRPs to grant me a boon" but deity X doesn't write anything of the sort in his/her turn submittal, the move is considered void and null.

- Active players have precedence over uninterested or lazy players. If you miss turn deadlines twice in a row by more than a couple of days, or if it looks like your turn submittals were just written lazily, as an afterthought, you'll get a warning in your PM box. If, after you got a warning, you miss yet another deadline or your turn still looks like you are not even paying attention to the game, and you haven't offered a good explanation as to why that is the case, you will be removed from the game.


Order Results

- In general, if the result of a non-DRP powered move is not listed in the order results mail, it means the move went smoothly. DRP-powered moves will always have their results described in the order results mail.
Last edited by Xar on Thu Apr 30, 2009 1:00 pm, edited 30 times in total.
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Post by O-gon-cho »

Xar wrote:
Murrin wrote:The races are on this thread, but the section hasn't been filled yet.
They haven't been filled yet because I'm waiting for the last turn of P2 and the final boon... if all goes well, there'll be a lot more races in P3 to choose from.
Excellent!!!

Will we still be limited to choosing only one primary race?
Xar wrote:Oh, and yes, you can comment in the Rules and Comments thread for P3 now :P
...yay...

...I guess...

Wow...interesting situations with the Wealth and Contentment categories and the changes to the Vassal stipulations.
Additionally, the two deities must belong to the same Court (or both be neutral), and 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; but also, a good Sunrise Court god cannot take as vassal a good Unaligned or Sunset Court god).
This makes sense, but I do agree with Zephyr that it directs more towards forced alliances if even neutral deities are out of reach for Court-alligned deities.
A vassal deity cannot increase its divine rank to the point where it would no longer be legal for it to be a vassal of the current liege: so a vassal to a DR 7 liege cannot go over DR 2, unless the agreement is broken or the liege increases its DR.
Interesting.
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.
This almost seems moot to me, if the dfference must remain a full 5 DRP difference. I suspect most vassal relationships will be dissolved long before a vassal attains 10 DRP if the liege must be at 14 DRP to keep a 9 DRP vassal.
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Post by I'm Murrin »

Given that there are now various disadvantages associated with taking on domains other than you Major one, is this still relevant?
If the attacking deity breaks through, though, the attacked deity is killed, and the attacking deity immediately absorbs its portfolio (areas of influence) and remaining worshipers.
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Post by Xar »

Murrin wrote:Given that there are now various disadvantages associated with taking on domains other than you Major one, is this still relevant?
If the attacking deity breaks through, though, the attacked deity is killed, and the attacking deity immediately absorbs its portfolio (areas of influence) and remaining worshipers.
You're right, I need to rewrite that part.
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Post by I'm Murrin »

The maximum population thing should be interesting. I suppose it fits with the other balancing feature in the game--the waxing/waning of the Courts &c. The rise of one depending on the fall of another. It'll be good to see how people play it when that stage is reached.
Will it be indicated how close we are to the stage where the full population is wirshipping the various gods?

Also, if there is an absolute world population, how difficult will the high-DRP levels be to reach? Argothoth had millions of follwoers and was only rank 11.
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Post by O-gon-cho »

Xar wrote:
Murrin wrote:Given that there are now various disadvantages associated with taking on domains other than you Major one, is this still relevant?
If the attacking deity breaks through, though, the attacked deity is killed, and the attacking deity immediately absorbs its portfolio (areas of influence) and remaining worshipers.
You're right, I need to rewrite that part.
If the attacking deity breaks through, though, the attacked deity is killed, and the attacking deity immediately has the option to absorb its domains (provided the deity sacrifices DRPs as if taking up a new domain, and provided the acquired domain does not conflict with Court or other restrictions) and remaining worshipers.


Wow...that was quick.

So, the victor can choose to do this immediately. But, if they choose to pass, do the domains then become available for other deities to acquire the following Turn by spending a DRP, if they choose to do so?

...not that I plan on ever engaging in such battle...
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Post by Xar »

O-gon-cho wrote:
Xar wrote: If the attacking deity breaks through, though, the attacked deity is killed, and the attacking deity immediately has the option to absorb its domains (provided the deity sacrifices DRPs as if taking up a new domain, and provided the acquired domain does not conflict with Court or other restrictions) and remaining worshipers.


Wow...that was quick.

So, the victor can choose to do this immediately. But, if they choose to pass, do the domains then become available for other deities to acquire the following Turn by spending a DRP, if they choose to do so?

...not that I plan on ever engaging in such battle...
Yes - but not just spending, SACRIFICING a DRP. It's a permanent expense.
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Post by O-gon-cho »

*nod*

I understand that, like acquiring a month or season.

Will you explain further what you mean by having more than one domain weakens all of them? Could you give an example of how an action would work if a deity has only a major domain, versus if they attempt the same action if they have a major domain and a minor domain please? I understand there will be a difference, but before making a decision it would be helpful to know how much of a difference.
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Post by Xar »

O-gon-cho wrote:*nod*

I understand that, like acquiring a month or season.

Will you explain further what you mean by having more than one domain weakens all of them? Could you give an example of how an action would work if a deity has only a major domain, versus if they attempt the same action if they have a major domain and a minor domain please? I understand there will be a difference, but before making a decision it would be helpful to know how much of a difference.
A deity who has a Major and a Minor domain will have about 75% efficacy when using the Major domain, and 25% when using the Minor domain... if he has two Minor domains, he'll have 50% efficacy with the Major domain, and 25% each with the two Minor domains.

For example, a sea deity wants to start a tidal wave. If he only has the Major domain "Sea", he'll spend, let's say, 4 DRPs in order to start the tidal wave. But if he has the Major domain "Sea" and another, minor domain, he'll have to expend 5 DRPs to do the same (because he has 75% efficacy), and if he has two minor domains, he'll have to expend 6 DRPs to do the same thing. In exchange, however, he has more flexibility because of additional domains.
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Post by O-gon-cho »

Ah, OK. That does help.

Thanks.
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Post by balon! »

The Power of Worshipers
Worshipers are more than cannon fodder, and they have power over a deity. If many of a deity's worshipers begin assigning the deity a different domain than the deity currently has - if, for example, the worshipers of a god of war somehow begin considering him a god of fear instead - and the deity does not stamp out the rebellion, he may find that his domains change to reflect what the worshipers believe.
HAHA. I would've been SCREWED last game. :P
A deity who has a Major and a Minor domain will have about 75% efficacy when using the Major domain, and 25% when using the Minor domain... if he has two Minor domains, he'll have 50% efficacy with the Major domain, and 25% each with the two Minor domains.
Does it make a difference in the domains coincide? Like if I had Weather and Storms, and were making a Storm. Would the cost still increase, even though the domains help each other?
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Post by Creator »

Balon wrote:
The Power of Worshipers
Worshipers are more than cannon fodder, and they have power over a deity. If many of a deity's worshipers begin assigning the deity a different domain than the deity currently has - if, for example, the worshipers of a god of war somehow begin considering him a god of fear instead - and the deity does not stamp out the rebellion, he may find that his domains change to reflect what the worshipers believe.
HAHA. I would've been SCREWED last game. :P
You would be the only NEGATIVE DRP God!! :haha: :haha:
He/She who dies with the most toys wins! Wait a minute ... I can't die!!!
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Post by O-gon-cho »

Somehow I missed the whole section on artifacts earlier...
The AllFather wrote: Destroying artifacts can sometimes be a risky business: a good deity who uses the power derived from the destruction of an evil artifact could find that power acting strangely...
Ooooo...

Now this sounds like fun!!!
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Post by Xar »

Balon wrote:
A deity who has a Major and a Minor domain will have about 75% efficacy when using the Major domain, and 25% when using the Minor domain... if he has two Minor domains, he'll have 50% efficacy with the Major domain, and 25% each with the two Minor domains.
Does it make a difference in the domains coincide? Like if I had Weather and Storms, and were making a Storm. Would the cost still increase, even though the domains help each other?
No, if the domains help each other the cost is actually slightly reduced.
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Post by O-gon-cho »

Oh...good question Balon.

And I like that answer. :twisted:
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Post by I'm Murrin »

Ooh new rules. Artifacts, eh?
I take it that last bit about old artifacts 'coalescing' is so that you can use the various relics and powerful items that were destroyed in P2, as well as those that survive it?

Edit: also, how about my previous questions, about the populations and power levels?
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Post by Xar »

Murrin wrote:Ooh new rules. Artifacts, eh?
I take it that last bit about old artifacts 'coalescing' is so that you can use the various relics and powerful items that were destroyed in P2, as well as those that survive it?

Edit: also, how about my previous questions, about the populations and power levels?
In many cases, yes... there were several artifacts which I thought really interesting in P2 (many of them courtesy of Simjen, admittedly) and I'd like to drop them around again. It's a pity Maeror won't be around this time... :P

As for your question: yes, you will be notified when new faithful begin to become scarce ;) And, high-DRP levels will still be difficult to reach - mostly for two reasons: 1) higher DRP levels means more actions, which means more work on my part, which means longer intervals between turns (and with 16 deities in the game, that could be a considerable time, since they'll more or less advance together), but also 2) because I want to make sure that only very few gods manage to reach high-DRP levels (I don't want a flood of 15-DRP gods, for example), so as to preserve the "flavor" of a pantheon where there are weaker and stronger gods. Plus, the reduced rate at which one gains DRPs when he reaches 9-10 allows players who got in much later to catch up somewhat, if they work hard.

Keep in mind that in this context, the Divine Right pool of the Courts can be very useful as a "substitute" for your own divine power while you grow...
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Post by I'm Murrin »

Xar wrote:In many cases, yes... there were several artifacts which I thought really interesting in P2 (many of them courtesy of Simjen, admittedly) and I'd like to drop them around again. It's a pity Maeror won't be around this time... :P
Oh, damn. Can you believe that I actually had completely forgotten about that when I asked the question? Wow. I don't want someone else to get it! It's mine! :(
(And so's Hope, while we're at it!)
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Post by O-gon-cho »

Xar wrote:because I want to make sure that only very few gods manage to reach high-DRP levels (I don't want a flood of 15-DRP gods, for example), so as to preserve the "flavor" of a pantheon where there are weaker and stronger gods.
*snort*

...not to worry about weaker deities hanging about... ;)
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Post by Xar »

Murrin wrote:
Xar wrote:In many cases, yes... there were several artifacts which I thought really interesting in P2 (many of them courtesy of Simjen, admittedly) and I'd like to drop them around again. It's a pity Maeror won't be around this time... :P
Oh, damn. Can you believe that I actually had completely forgotten about that when I asked the question? Wow. I don't want someone else to get it! It's mine! :(
(And so's Hope, while we're at it!)
With Maeror not returning, both are up for grabs - if they survive P2 :P
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