I have an idea to allow secrecy for clans. This is based on issues Visaeris, Verithrax, and others have had.

Allow Totems to be aimed at Organizations, Cities, and Orders. However, for clans, to tune a totem or statue against a clan, you need to pay the same amount as it costs to buy a clan. That is, spend 500,000 to allow a city to tune themselves against a specific clan--maybe it's a special "Marquee" letter one has to buy from the clan registry if you need logic involved in why it would work this way.

This allows some flexibility. If the city discovers a secret clan on their own, they can decide to pay the amount, but this should prevent willy-nilly use of the totems and statues to detect secret clans or use them as "divining rods". If you count the number of clans, this would cost a lot for them to do.

(As for the amount, it could vary, I'm not sure how big the coffers of each city/commune are currently)...

Also--for orders, if gods really want to encourage stealth and deception, they could spend their own essence to cloak one or more "champions" with an aura that would not allow Totems/Statues to detect the troublemaker. It would take the direct intervention of an opposing deity to counteract this. This would allow players to maintain deception and even involve the non-"super-admin" gods to have some political chess games of their own.

I like these ideas!

I've always thought it was a little unfair that people couldn't secretly belong to clans or Orders cause it was so easy to root out members with statues and totems.

God forbid they actually, y'know, go undercover. Without codedly being part of the group.

Sure, that's possible. Even done, and I bet it's really fun too! But what's the big deal about putting something in to make it more possible for them to be codedly part of the group? So they can use the channel and read the news? It'll mean more people could potentially be spies or whatever? So what? Adds a level of intrigue and fun, I think.

There is.

It's called "a secret clan." Name it "Fluffy Pink Bunnies" for the long name, so that the clan leader having it show up in honours doesn't mean much. Give it an appropriately mild CLANHELP summary. Then use it as an actual secret clan, news posts and all, misleading all others as to its purpose-- so even if you are 'caught' in it, it doesn't matter. Not that anybody would ever tune a statue to see if Noola is a member of Fluffy Pink Bunnies...

I suppose so. Maybe it's an unnecessary change - but I still like the idea.

I did that for many many years.

Damn divine consulates!

God forbid a clan could actually, y'know, exist with all its members being secretive about it.

Luckily, if all its members are being secretive about it, it can exist! It would require someone knowing the clan, its purpose, and its name to even tune a statue.

I have a secret clan that consists entirely of Order members assigned to infiltrate the clan and report on its actions.

Why does one's affiliation with a particular clan has to be detectable anyway?

But is there a secret handshake?

They have to flash little patches of pink fur, which they hide behind their ears.

You're making me want to buy a clan now!

Not really. Due to the nature of the clan's constituency, that usually looks like this:

Member1: Want to do the secret handshake?

Member2: Sure. Why don't you start?

Member1: Why don't -you- start?

Simply answer, make them not able to be tuned to orders period. That is a way to bypass a stealth skill and should be a bug if it hits anyways. On top of that in a city no one knows what secret society another person is in unless they are told. There are not all mighty totems of power in DC to zap people who are Freemasons.... get over it, fix statues to only be fixed towards orgs.

kthxbai