Alright... All this new talk has given me an idea that I wanted to ask people about... Cuz in my head it sounds really cool.

The basic idea goes like this, it would require the whole system of Orders to be revamped, which in my oppinion would be a very good thing, because from what I've seen... Divine Orders are almost all the same over various IRE games... Though I believe Imperian has a bit of a different system...

Lusternia, however is aligned very strongly around its Deitys... Its even based on the idea of ascention to godhood for cryin out loud! So, I think we should focus on the Divine more than we do right now... Viravain, and Lisaera have a LOT of influence in their respective communes, and I like the effect of it, even though Viravain seems content to run people off, the RP generated is incredible. I'd like it if all or most of the Gods were like this, and heres my idea for it.

Give each Order a specific skillset. Rather than being like a normal skillset, these would only increase by the will of the Divine rather than lessons. The various gods would need to use a lot of descretion with these, because I think they should be very powerfull compared to normal skills, because they should increase incredibly slow, and would be impossible to augment with credits, making it so only a lot of effort could increase them. The purpose of all of this would be to give Orders more roleplay potential for world wide influence, making it so the Orders of Patron gods would also be something like an elite part of that city or Commune, making them generally at least slightly more powerfull than those with normal skills if they put effort into their Order.

Shrines would still exist as they are, but with various changes to them. A follower would have to be at a shrine to activate a spell, defence, aura, etc... After they are active, they would last untill the person exits the world, unless the skill specifies otherwise.

The shrines would be used something like this:

Essence gathering would pretty much stay the same... I think that rather than going to the Elder God though, it should be aloted to the Mortal that provides it, making it something like the Orders 'Power'. Similar to nexus power. The essence would be used in all of the Order based skills. If the mortal doesn't have enough essence, or whatever you want to call it... Faith might be a better label... The mortal wouldn't be able to caste the spell or use the skills.

The Elder Gods would still be religious figures, the same as always, this would just give them a more localized system of leadership. All of their abilities to wield their divine powers would remain the same... Perhaps the more faith in them giving them more power to wield on a whole.

Some of the more general skills in the various skillsets would be:

Scrying abilities

Travel abilities

Defences (These would need to be signifigant, not small things, and they should be higher up in the skillset)

Combat skills (Again, not weak, but powerfull skills, making any faithfull Order member someone to be feared and respected... This would rely on the various gods using extreme discretion in allowing people to advance within Orders, but would mean that anyone who gained such a level as to be dangerous with their Order powers would be someone to be seriously respected for obvious reasons, as they would have had to accomplish a lot to gain that much appreciation from their god)

The highest level skills would need to be something very focused around the upper echelon knowledge and philosophy of their Gods alignments and whims, making all of these skills quite powerfull, quite expensive in faith power, and very unique (Adding to the RP factor of the Orders existence)


In short, I would like to see Orders take on a MUCH larger part of Lusternia, seeing as so much of lusternia is based around the various gods personalities, and is in fact oriented around the ascention to godhood, we should really celebrate this difference between Lusternia and the other IRE realms.


What do you all think? Good, Bad, Horrible, Brilliant?

The skills really can't be that powerful, because then everyone will rush to become part of a divine order just to get the skills even if they don't really care about the divine.

As long as they're doing it in a roleplayer fashion.

I like it. Maybe the upper ranks would only have access to them. Or maybe the entire hierarchy could be scrapped so certain positions would have certain abilities (Akin to a guild.. and probably akin to orders now).

No, thats the whole point of it being at the Divines descretion and lessons and credits having absolutely nothing to do with it. The skill levels would increase over the span of decades.... Even longer to get to trans, even if the person did a ton for the Order and the Divine, they would still advance slowly. Its going to be powerfull because of the difficulty in attaining any proficiency in it, all of the offencive and defencive skills would be in the upper half of the skillset, the lower skills would be non-pk, and healing type things.


Also, the whole thing would be in a roleplay fashion. If a person joined the order just for the skills, they'd be SERIOUSLY dissapointed, because such a person would not increase in power very quick... Unless they were incredibly ambitious... And in that case, they would have to show their faith by sticking with the same divine for a long period of time.

Also, they couldn't be extremely powerful because they'd unbalance combat if they were.

People can rush all they like, the divine aren't stupid, and if mortals are in charge of new members, they usually aren't either.

And it's terribly odd to have all these atheists (was that the word I wanted?) anyway.

I don't like the idea of more powerful skillsets on top of what is already available. I think the skills we have now are strong enough.

No matter how balanced it was, asking the coders to create 8 unique skillsets is just... eugh.

Also, people would begin joining Orders just so that they could get the skills. Not to mention how it would be impossible to balance it so that order members were on par with non-order members.

So... nah.

Anyone take into account that the Gods themselves might not want this? It's hard enough to determine who applies to your order because they are serious and who applies only because they want worldburn.

Not to mention Gods need their essence to do basically anything.

Poke nose
You have used 500 essence.
You poke your nose and remove that annoying bit of phlegm.

So giving all essence to the players would basically void the point of having gods in the first place.

Does it cost you essence to sing?

The main problem with this is actually exclusion. This would mean that those in an Order have a direct advantage over those not in an Order. This is a problem because most of Us like to take on mortals slowly, and have quite small Orders, meaning the majority of the active playerbase at any one time are not in any Order.

For this reason if we implemented this there would be an elite group of Order people, on top of whatever other unbalancing groups there are (those with many artifacts, titans, demigods, whatever).

Why not extend out powers to a sort of Order clan type thing..

I have worldburn. No inclination to use it, either Even when I busted someone defiling.





Congregations! Imperian has congregations (kinda like the little church) that followers can join and advance through the (six) ranks of till the Order members/Divine decide they're serious enough/good enough/whatever.

It's pretty cool, unless you just don't have the people to run it.

I can totally see Fain and maybe Hajamin being happy to trans out the best fighters just to have a stronger force.

Also, as Kidaen said, the Divines need their essence. Without it, no more zappings or favours or anything fun like that. And I need my favours.

What if the skills had a more roleplay value? That wouldn't make them overpowered at all - and it would create a richer atmosphere for Order members. Right now, I am just sitting about and waiting whenever I get told to do something, oh and pondering about bashing or not.

Must... bash... ooo, faelings at the Ravenwood...

We all would love new order structures and abilities, and ways to tie them in with the people who are in the order. However, player needs do come first - areas, skills, bugs...those are more important.

I'd like to see more order abilities that have little function for running around and killing each other. Some of those rituals, perhaps, that actually do something neat.

Oooooooo... that sooo just gave me the most kick ass idea

...What is it?