Kevin's Watch

HEART OF GOD


INTRO.

In the ancient time, God ruled the earth. His will shaped the land and seas; His law ruled its denizens. No power was outside of His grasp. For what must have been countless ages, reality bowed to His will.

No true records remain of that time, for time itself was subject to God's whim. All that can be said with certainty is that it came to an end.

It is impossible, but it is a truth known to all: God is dead.

*

The mortals who had once lived in fear and awe of His will now came to dominate their world, spreading out across its newly-stable surface. Magic had died with God, and no glimmer of true miracle was seen. There were rumours, always, that God's power still lived, hidden, somewhere in the earth, and though some brave few adventured to find it, those who returned did so empty handed.

It was only many centuries later that something changed.

Among a few small enclaves of scattered humanity, there persisted some element of ancient faith - old rituals that lacked a target for their offerings, prayers whispered with no-one to answer them.

Slowly, inexorably, this misplaced faith began to gather around idols, representations of men or women or animals that the tribes had found to replace their absent god. As time went by, the people forgot that these were only symbols with no true magic in them. And so the idols forgot this too.

This is how magic was reborn in the world: An act of drawn out forgetfulness, a sham of meaning become meaning itself. The idols became aware of themselves, and of the power the people had given them, and they began to rule. They learned the world and their place in it, and they learned, too, the tale: Once there was God.

If the people would have their idols be gods, the idols shall wish it also. And so it is that they hungered.

These newly born godlings sent out their faithful from their homes in search of that ancient rumour, that last remnant of God on Earth. And, miraculously - for miracles, too, had returned to this world - they came upon something that had never before been found upon the earth.

At the earth's very centre, in a land hidden from mortal eyes since the beginning of the age, lies the City of Angels. At its centre, the Temple of Light. And within that most glorious of edifices there lies the unliving heart of God Himself.

The idols in their turn came upon this land, the eyes of their people lighting on the City, and in their jury-rigged souls they knew: whoever possesses the heart of God will gain all his lost power.

All they need do is enter the Temple of Light, and God will be reborn.

But nothing is ever so simple.

RULES


I. GODHOOD


You are not God. Yet. Only one who claims the heart of God can truly wield His power.

This doesn't mean that you are powerless. The attention of your followers has given you a portion of strength mimicking that of God, allowing you to perform miracles, to speak through your idols, to command your people, and to manipulate the world - to a small degree.


I.i. FAITH

Through your worshippers, you gather the power of Faith. Sacrifice, prayer, and the everyday devotion of your people increase the amount of Faith you control. It is the strength of Faith that you use to interact with the world.

All idols begin the game with a Faith score of 10. You are new, and you are weak. Faith can be increased based on both your number of followers, and the strength of their devotion to you. There is only so much Faith available to use, however - the strength of a single follower can only go so far, and their numbers are not endless.

At times, events may occur that are outside of your control that can also affect your Faith. Your followers are loyal and superstitious – they will blame their idol when bad things happen, and praise it when things go well. These effects are usually temporary.

If you wish to claim the heart and achieve true godhood, you will need to increase your Faith. There are obstacles between you and your goal that will be impassable if you do not control enough Faith.


I.ii. IDOLS ( Revision 1 here.)

Crafted by your people to provide a target for their prayers, you are the idols, awakened into life by the strength of Faith that had no other place to go.

The forms of idols are many, from graven images to the bodies of animals, and even embodied within human representatives. Whether or not you take on a persistent physical form, you are able to act directly upon the world, as well as remotely through the power of Faith.

You are limited, however, by your form and your strength. Direct action is limited to the physical representations provided you by your followers - such as speaking through an image, or stepping into life by taking the form of a statue of yourself. If you take on a persistent physical body, then direct action would be taken through that form. Remote action is within your power, but you cannot act everywhere at once. For some tasks you must rely on your mortal followers to act on your behalf. (More on this in the Gameplay section.)


I.iii. FOLLOWERS

Your people are mortal, human. They have their faults and failures, but they are also your only source of Faith. Without them, you would be nothing more than a few clay dolls, or bundles of reeds, or the pelt of an animal raised upon a dais. Convince enough of them of your godhood, however, and you are capable of almost anything.

There are many people on the world, but not all can be drawn into worship. God is dead, and many humans know and accept this. The hidden land of the heart does have human inhabitants, some having entered after the awakening of the idols revealed its location, but the people of the outside world have little interest in finding a new God. For this struggle, you can rely only on those already within the hidden land, and those that have followed you and the other idols there.

The number of people who follow you is important, but so too is the fervour they show in their devotion. The stronger they feel toward you, the more Faith you will receive.



II. THE WORLD


As the legends tell, God once ruled the world, bending the laws of reality to His will. Millennia ago, however, God died. Now, with the awakening of the idols, the last remaining fragment of His power has been revealed - His heart, resting in a hidden land at the centre of the world. It is to this land that your people have brought you, and in this land that your struggle to claim the heart, and become God, will take place.
[And we shall call this land... this land. Rawr.]


II.i. THE HIDDEN LAND OF THE HEART

The land that you have discovered is relatively large - a small country rather than a single valley. In the years it took for you to progress from your first awakening to the great pilgrimage of your people to this land, others have discovered it, and some small towns and villages can already be found near its perimeter.

In the very centre of the hidden land lies the City of Angels.


II.ii. THE CITY OF ANGELS

The Angels were created by God to serve Him. Now, they serve as the stewards of His heart. Their great city surrounds the Temple of Light, where God's heart lies. No mortal has ever set foot within the City of Angels, and no Angel has been seen outside of its walls.

The Angels are a mystery, but it can be assumed that they will not welcome you into their halls.

Even if that were so, the heart has other defences.


II.iii. THE DEFENCES

It is clear from the beginning that to reach the heart is no simple feat. There are layers of defences preventing access to the Temple of Light, and though you cannot perceive them all, you know that each is greater than the last.

The first of these defences are the Towers of the Faithless.

The Tower of the Eclipsed Sun, the Tower of the Dark of the Moon, and the Tower of Fallen Stars - they encompass the City within their triangle, and your power is unable to penetrate this boundary. You have quickly discovered that any mortal of an idolatrous heart who attempts to pass the Towers toward the city is transformed into a pillar of salt.

Before you can attempt the City, you must first find a way to disable this barrier.



III. GAMEPLAY


If you have played Pantheon or Acropolis, you should have a good idea of how to play this game. You come up with a list of actions, based on your character's resources and Faith score, and submit them by email to [ ] (remove spaces). The game master then processes the turn and responds with the outcomes.

The form of your actions can be very flexible, but in the interests of keeping the game moving there are rules in place for how many actions you can make in a turn.


III.i. TURNS

Within the setting, each turn takes place over one [TBD]. Bear this in mind when planning your actions - some things take time.

[Scheduling of turn submission TBD.]


III.ii. ACTIONS ( Revision 1 here.)

A note on use of Faith:
- Though you have power over many things, your strength does not reach outside the earth. The heavens, for now, are beyond your control.
- While you may use your power to aid and cooperate with other idols, you cannot combine the Faith of two idols to perform a single action. The devotion of your followers is yours alone.

There are three kinds of action you can take in each turn: Divine action, Direct action, and Commands. You can only perform one Divine action and one Direct action in each turn, but you can issue as many Commands as you like.

- Divine Action:
This is the most powerful way that you can act upon the world. Using your Faith, you can act in any part of the map to perform miracles and divine feats in an act of pure holy power. This will be the main use of your Faith score throughout the game.

You may only act in one location at a time through Divine action, as it takes the concentration of your Faith to achieve.

- Direct Action:
Through Direct actions, you personally interact with your followers and the world. To act directly, you must do so through use of a representation - through the idols that gave you your form, or your persistent physical form if you have taken one. This limits where you are able to act directly. Your people will of course construct idols in your honour wherever they inhabit, where they worship, and even sometimes carried upon their person, without being commanded to do so. You have the capability to make use of these images, but be aware that form can limit function.

In your Direct presence, smaller miracles are possible, but should you wish to perform greater feats, some portion of your Faith can be applied to increase your power.

- Commands:
These are the simplest actions - commands issued to your followers. Your people are mortal, fallible and frail, but the faithful will do their best to obey. You may issue any number of Commands, but it is recommended that you restrain yourself to ordering only important tasks.

Commands rely on mundane action and so do not use Faith, but you may choose to use Divine or Direct action to aid your followers.


III.iii. TURN SUBMISSION ( Revision 1 here.)

Write up your actions as you like, but include notes specifying your use of Divine and Direct actions, and summarise the intent of your action below any prose submission. Clearly state whether you are using all of your Faith on Divine action, or if not, what portion is being spent on Direct action.

As stated above, submissions should be emailed to [ ]
Clearly mark "Heart of God - Turn # - {Idol name}" in the title.


III.iv. SECRECY

You can, if you wish, try to keep your actions secret from others. But for the most part, once you act, people will be aware of it, and able to respond. You will have more chance of having your followers move in secret than you would in trying to hide a Divine or Direct action.

It is the simple nature of this world, that miracles do not go unnoticed.


III.v. DEFEAT [This section work in progress.]

As your Faith wanes, so does your ability to act upon the world and, ultimately, your self. Without enough followers to sustain you, you will once again become nothing more than the carved images and idols from which you began.

If your Faith score falls below 10, you will become unable to perform Divine action, and may only act Directly or issue Commands.

Should your Faith score fall as low as 1, you will be unable to perform Divine or Direct actions, and may only issue a single Command to your followers. If, after two turns, you have not increased your Faith, then your presence will fade from the world.

Should your final followers be killed, or cease their worship of you, then this grace period will not apply.


III.vi. THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE

Victory: The wards of the city have been broken. The Angels have failed in their defence. The Temple of Light has been laid open. Now, the heart of God may be claimed, and you may take your rightful place as the true God.

Only one idol can take possession of God's heart and soul. In the rebirth of God, all idols will perish as the Faith finds its true home. Though you may work with other idols, forming alliances and partnerships, to increase your power or to break through the defences, in the end, there can be only one victor.


III.vii. WHERE'S THE RULE ABOUT X?

The aim in this game is to allow you to be fairly flexible in how you play your godling. There are no powerful prophets or high priests unless you choose to create them. The structure of your faith is up to you, as is the manner in which you communicate and interact with humans.

There are no domains - all the idols are on equal footing. It may be in your idol's nature to favour certain forms and methods, but none are limited in their capabilities - they seek to become the all-encompassing Almighty, after all.

Manifestation, as it appears in Pantheon, does not occur. Direct action is the equivalent, and it is your normal way of interacting with the world.

There is no permanent expenditure of Faith, only the rise and fall based on the number of your followers and the strength of their devotion.

Okay, above is the game as it currently stands. I'm after feedback on this version of the rules - mistakes, glaring omissions, things you think should be added, things that seem too confusing.

Once I'm ready to start the game I'll have this topic locked or deleted.

If the barrier prevents us from seeing inside, how do we know the Heart of God is in there?

Looks good. Though that may be my lack of knowledge on this or attention)

So, for example, a player can be a large vaguely shaped piece of stone, then get some nice statues and also "inhabit" human forms of some followers, or can get a living body to stay in, but drop it on wish and revert to the idols, or start as some animal's corpse, probably an unusual one, then get those same statues and followers as options. Is all of that possible? And how do direct actions work if the form is immobile, to what extent does inhabiting a statue or an idol make it behave not like normal stone - able to speak, maybe move, even walk from its place?

Also, I'd like to ask if relying on some actual mythological or fictional characters and backgrounds is fine.

And I think better locked, people may be interested in how it started later.

Edit: Syl, the knowledge could be from the time before there was a barrier, or could be purposefully passed to the people outside.

I'm a little fuzzy on the direct use of faith. It says you may have only one such action per turn, but we also have a variable amount of faith we can use.

Do we store up faith over time, if our chosen miracle in some turn isn't that taxing? Or is it just wasted?

e.g. - I am the most powerful god in the game, as far as faith, and it's super important for me that some group of adventurers make it across a desert. So, I use my direct faith action to create an tent filled with food and potable water in it. Let's say that's not a really hard task, given my amount of faith... is the rest of my potential action just wasted? (And knowing that, I'd have to decide between some other, more efficient, action that maybe isn't as beneficial; or this desert thing.)

[Syl Embattled] wrote:If the barrier prevents us from seeing inside, how do we know the Heart of God is in there?

You can't touch within the area bounded by the Towers, but you can see what's physically there. You can tell that there are other barriers in place, but not exactly what or how strong - they obscure but do not totally hide what is within them.

And as a creature powered by Faith, you can feel the Heart of God within. The heart is a miracle in itself, and miracles are very noticable to beings powered by Faith.

(And of course, the humans who don't give Faith to idols could walk right up to the city gates.)

Effaeldm wrote:So, for example, a player can be a large vaguely shaped piece of stone, then get some nice statues and also "inhabit" human forms of some followers, or can get a living body to stay in, but drop it on wish and revert to the idols, or start as some animal's corpse, probably an unusual one, then get those same statues and followers as options. Is all of that possible? And how do direct actions work if the form is immobile, to what extent does inhabiting a statue or an idol make it behave not like normal stone - able to speak, maybe move, even walk from its place?

Yeah, you're spotting where things are a bit fuzzy here. The direct action bit might need to change.

The idea is that your people think of some part of you as inhabiting the idols they make, which is why they build them in the first place - because of this, you can make it literally true and communicate with or act through idols. This is up for interpretation, I'm willing to accept what you make plausible - the how doesn't matter so much as what you're trying to accomplish.

It may be that linking it so strongly to idols in my descriptions was a mistake. I'm thinking now that it just may be a distinction between the two Faith-powered moves you make each turn. One always requiring Faith, the other possible without Faith for smaller tasks. If remove the "speaking through statues" type stuff - though I still hold that as an option - you could have your idol simply appear, in the form your people expect it to, wherever it is needed.

I also wanted to leave open the choice that instead of speaking through idols, you might want your god to permanently manifest in a physcial body. You'd only be able to move in the world like a mortal (well, not quite - you can fudge the rules a bit because of what you are. If your idol is an animal and it wants to race through the night to the opposite side of the map to perform an action, you might be able to convince me).

In any physical shape you would be inviolate, unsusceptible to physical harm, but that wouldn't necessarily make you able to just attack your enemies directly without using Faith to back up your action.

Effaeldm wrote:Also, I'd like to ask if relying on some actual mythological or fictional characters and backgrounds is fine.

You can use whatever you like, just make it work within the premise.

Goatkiller666 wrote:I'm a little fuzzy on the direct use of faith. It says you may have only one such action per turn, but we also have a variable amount of faith we can use.

Do we store up faith over time, if our chosen miracle in some turn isn't that taxing? Or is it just wasted?

I added the "one action" thing to try and keep turns from getting too big and complicated, as a way to make the game a bit quicker and easier to play.

My intention was that you'd always use your full Faith score each turn, either on a single Divine action, or divided between Divine and Direct actions.

To follow your example, if I had a very powerful idol who wanted to provide a group of followers with those things, I might simply have the idol appear bodily to them - openly or otherwise - and provide them with those gifts. Such a small miracle would probably not require Faith, so you would have your full power available to use in Divine action.

Yes, that does mean that you have to use up one of your potentially powerful actions on a small task, and just make the other action more powerful instead - which might not be needed.

Questions about the Action system:

What do people think of this system? Would you feel too restricted, too much like you needed to ignore small tasks in order to perform two big ones each turn? (I'll note that the City's defences get stronger as you progress, and so will the players you compete against, so your actions will need to increase in strength over time anyway.)

Would you rather be free to distribute your power among as many actions as you like? (This would require rescaling the points system back down to one like Pantheon, and reworking of most of the background stuff.)

Or maybe a compromise, the ability to perform more than one Divine action if you do not use Faith on a Direct action? (So you could perform a full strength Divine action or two part-strength actions so long as you didn't use Faith on a Direct action. Or perhaps this system without the use of Faith on direct action at all - your Faith score modifying your capabilities in direct form without expenditure.)

I'm leaning toward the last option now - allowing one or two Divine actions, and having Direct action work as a seperate thing, where what you can accomplish depends on your Faith score but doesn't require Faith spent.

I'm not sure how direct action is different from Pantheon-esque manifestation. Sounds even better, since we're "inviolate, unsusceptible to physical harm."

Anything like domains? Do the idols limit the kinds of things we can do? Like the shark god can't fly or create winds?

I noted at the bottom that there's no domains, but if you define the nature of your idol a certain way you should try to follow that. Think of whether your followers would believe that their particular god could/would do such a thing. They might believe you can achieve anything, but the methods they'd ascribe would depend on your nature. That's up to the player to apply for themselves.

You create your own limits when you design your character.

The difference with Direct action is just that it's not as powerful as manifestation. You're present in the world, somewhere, each turn, and able to achieve small miracles. It's the same thing Syl keeps bringing up the Greek gods for over in Acropolis, how they'd appear to mortals to offer them wisdom, or a magical gift, or just disguise themselves and nudge them in the right direction. There is no atheist test to fulfill, so you're able to be openly miraculous in your actions, but if you try to overreach through Direct action you'll find it difficult to get what you wanted out of it.

I'm going to say that for Direct action, you need to be aware of belief and Faith in the areas you're acting. I'm scrapping the strong connection to physical images, but I think if you tried to appear in the middle of your enemy's village and try to perform some miracle there it wouldn't go very well, as the Faith in that place would all be directed at your enemy. Appearing in other places in the world, and especially in places where your worshippers are present, will be more effective.

(Performing a Divine action, however, can be very effective anywhere.)

I originally had Faith applied to Direct action so that you could, if you wanted, turn it into something closer to Pantheon's manifestation, but after Goat's questions on the topic I'm not inclined to keep that.


A hell of a lot of this stuff is really down to both my and the player's discretion, and our interpretation of what's reasonable for a god of your strength to achieve.

Example Turn Submission


Heart of God - Turn 10 - Cenarius

Divine action:

Reaching out across the valley with my will, I direct the power of Faith granted me by my worshippers into the earth beneath the village of Xavius' followers. Throughout the streets and in their homes, green shoots begin to grow, rapidly sprouting into long, grasping tendrils that attempt to bind any that come near to the earth.

[I direct all my Faith [20F] to create grasping vines in the village of Xavius.]

Direct action:

At the end of a weary day, a group of sheperds from my village look out to the edge of their field, and see there a vision - a majestic stag watching from the edge of the woods. Recognising this as the image of their god, they approach, and the stag leads them down a path through the trees. The journey seems to pass swiftly, the stag always just before them, until they emerge on the other side of the wood. The stag vanishes into the trees, but before the sheperds on the open grass they find a herd of wild goats. They give their blessings to Cenarius for this boon, and begin the work of driving the animals home.

[I appear to a group of my followers outside the village, and lead them to a herd of goats, a good source of food and fur.]


Commands:

- I direct my followers to explore the caves I have discovered near to my forest.
- I whisper in the ear of the Archdruid the name of the spy that I learned has infiltrated my cult.


-------

The above is flawed, but gives a general idea. The herd of goats thing is the kind of small miracle you can achieve with your Direct action early in the game; you could have Commanded your farmers to go and search for goats to capture, but would not necessarily have been successful. These kind of small miracles can increase the Faith of your people.

You can share information you already possess with your followers through Commands, as well as direct their actions.

If you want them to attack an enemy, you can Command this also. You could give an enchanted sword to a single hero - think Sting, not Dragnipur - through a Direct action, but if you wanted to enchant all of your warriors' swords, it would take Faith. Not that I'm encouraging open warfare, mind you. Don't get reckless.

And already, I'm thinking that what the story needs is a foil. Not only are the idols competing against each other for goodhood, but there should be a group of athiests out there as well. They know that God lived, and that God died. They could know that these villages of idolitors are on the move, and claiming to perform miracles. It seems to me that in that context, some mortal institution would choose to try to stop any idol from apotheosis, just on principal.

And if so, I call dibs on playing that group. No divine nothing, but a way bigger group of mortals that I can give an unlimited set of Commands to.

"We've done fine without a God for all this time, what makes you think we want one now?"

I'm fine with the mechanics as is, honestly. Even if I have to have powers, having only a limited number of uses for them seems reasonable.

To that, I'll just say I have several things under consideration to bring out if I think the gameplay needs it. Waiting to see how many players and how they play first.

Your call if you allow it. But if you do, I got dibs.

That's all I'm saying.

(And if you think you're gonna allow it, don't let me go through all the hassle of making an idol before you tell me, please.)

Not planning to have a player do that, no.

TBH don't think I thought through what you were suggesting enough before I answered there. I don't have plans for that kind of thing - a group of mortals opposing the idols. What I do have is some tricks up my sleeve in case the competition needs spicing up.

Well, if you can have a game with a defined "win" scenario, and the game ends... you can have a declared "bad guy" as well, right?

Long Live the Athiests Alliance!

Murrin wrote:It may be that linking it so strongly to idols in my descriptions was a mistake. I'm thinking now that it just may be a distinction between the two Faith-powered moves you make each turn. One always requiring Faith, the other possible without Faith for smaller tasks. If remove the "speaking through statues" type stuff - though I still hold that as an option - you could have your idol simply appear, in the form your people expect it to, wherever it is needed.

I also wanted to leave open the choice that instead of speaking through idols, you might want your god to permanently manifest in a physcial body. You'd only be able to move in the world like a mortal (well, not quite - you can fudge the rules a bit because of what you are. If your idol is an animal and it wants to race through the night to the opposite side of the map to perform an action, you might be able to convince me).

In any physical shape you would be inviolate, unsusceptible to physical harm, but that wouldn't necessarily make you able to just attack your enemies directly without using Faith to back up your action.

Effaeldm wrote:Also, I'd like to ask if relying on some actual mythological or fictional characters and backgrounds is fine.

You can use whatever you like, just make it work within the premise.

So, would stealing from Rowlings and appearing in portraits, being able to move from frame to frame with the same appearance as from the way one looked in the first portrait, be a way to move rapidly without having to be permanently physically manifested, or having stay with the same shape?

I suppose it could, but it seems an awfully limited form for a people to imagine their god would take. ("What's your god like, then?" "Well, she's a talking painting of herself.")

Revised sections:
(I am leaving the originals in the first posts but will link to revisions alongside it.)

I.ii. IDOLS

Crafted by your people to provide a target for their prayers, you are the idols, awakened into life by the strength of Faith that had no other place to go.

The forms of that humans give to their idols are many, from graven images to the bodies of animals, and or even embodied within human representatives such as oracles and prophets. The idols chosen by your people form an important part of how they think of you, and in turn delineate your nature.

Your awakening into power has granted you a presence in the world, and the ability to act within it. For some idols this comes as the ability to interact with the world at will, appearing wherever Faith in them is held – often taking the same forms ascribed them by their people. For others, it means a true emergence of their bodily presence in the world, a physical god-on-earth, to live among and direct their people.

Whatever the form you have taken – and there are as many different forms and methods as there are idols – you are enabled by the power of Faith to act upon the world. As well as acting directly upon the earth, you can call upon the Faith of your people to perform great feats of divine power, directing it into whatever task you require.

Whether or not you take on a persistent physical form, you are able to act directly upon the world, as well as remotely through the power of Faith.

These feats are limited, however, by your form and your strength. (More on this in the Gameplay section.)

***

III.ii. ACTIONS

A note on use of Faith:
- Though you have power over many things, your strength does not reach outside the earth. The heavens, for now, are beyond your control.
- While you may use your power to aid and cooperate with other idols, you cannot combine the Faith of two idols to perform a single action. The devotion of your followers is yours alone.

There are three kinds of action you can take in each turn: Divine action, Direct action, and Commands. You can only perform a limited number of Divine and Direct actions in each turn, but you can issue as many Commands as you like.

- Divine Action:
This is the most powerful way that you can act upon the world. Using your Faith, you can act in any part of the map to perform miracles and divine feats in an act of pure holy power. These acts are how you will use your Faith score throughout the game.

The use of Divine action requires the concentration of your Faith into whatever place you wish to act; you cannot act in all places at once. Each turn, you may perform a single Divine action using all of your Faith, or you may divide your Faith to act twice, each action only being as strong as the amount of Faith you choose to assign it.

- Direct Action:
Through Direct actions, you personally interact with your followers and the world. The forms an idol can take are many – in one turn, your presence might descend upon a stone idol and grant small blessings to followers who touch it; in the next, you might appear to someone in need and grant them some small boon. For an idol residing bodily upon the earth, these would be the feats accomplished in that physical form. There are few limits to how a god might present itself to the faithful – your limits are defined by your own natures.

In your Direct presence some small miracles are possible, but you cannot match the feats achieved through Divine action. What you can accomplish, however, will increase as your Faith grows.

- Commands:
These are the simplest actions - commands issued to your followers. Your people are mortal, fallible and frail, but the faithful will do their best to obey. You may issue any number of Commands, but it is recommended that you restrain yourself to ordering only important tasks.

Commands rely on mundane action and so do not use Faith, but you may choose to use Divine or Direct action to aid your followers.


III.iii. TURN SUBMISSION

Write up your actions as you like, but include notes specifying your use of Divine and Direct actions, and summarise the intent of your action below any prose submission. Clearly state whether you are using all of your Faith on a single Divine action, or dividing it between two actions – and what amount of Faith you are using on each.

As stated above, submissions should be emailed to [ ]
Clearly mark "Heart of God - Turn # - {Idol name}" in the title.


***

I am, alas, still stuck feeling like an idiot about this particular problem:

[And we shall call this land... this land. Rawr.]

Rather than bury this in the bottom of the previous post I'll add it seperately here.

Although I initially asked for opinions about it, I've gone ahead with my own idea of allowing one or two Divine actions and decoupling Direct action from Faith use entirely. I am still interested in your feedback on the topic.


As you'll note in the Defeat section, a god with less than 10 (9 or lower) Faith cannot perform Divine action. Consistent with this, I am considering making it a rule that you must use at least 10 Faith on a single action, rather than relying on players to realise that splitting their Faith early in the game would result in extremely weak actions - but at the same time I feel like it's being too prescriptive.

At this point the Faith system still feels a little arbitrary to me, and limiting it in that kind of way increases that feeling. It's almost as if I might as well give you 1 Faith to begin with and have the Defeat grace period occur at zero - it would accomplish the same thing, but mess up some of my behind-the-scenes stuff (those things aren't entirely necessary, but I spent time on them and I just like the ideas).

Murrin wrote:I suppose it could, but it seems an awfully limited form for a people to imagine their god would take. ("What's your god like, then?" "Well, she's a talking painting of herself.")

Well see, I wasn't clear in what I meant, then.

As a means of communicating and getting around, could a wanna-be g-d appear in portraits, and be able to move around between portraits that are near each other, or between portraits that show the same scene in extremely remote locations? But not have it be the permanent physical form?

Sort of a means of being able to communicate with followers without having to stay in one form.