Unfortunately, the other thread has descended more into a debate about the nature of Vernals and an argument about how they "stack up," so I'm making a new thread based simply on how to tweak Vernal Ascendants (and perhaps some tweaks to the Domotheos/True Ascendants as well). Please keep the discussion about Vernals as a whole to the other thread, and use this one as a springboard for tweaking. This is a list of ideas I've compiled from the numerous threads scattered around the forums, but condensing them into one place seems beneficial.

1) Vernal Ascendants are supposed to be for the organization. Cults are a neat concept, but are extremely limited (and force an Ascendant to Order-hop to an active Order). Vernals should have specific monolith that can be offered to within their organization, and all essence offered there is *split* between all Vernals the organization has (active and inactive).
* Alternative: A percentage of essence offered at any Divine's shrine located within the organization is split up between all Vernals of that organization.
2) Examine the power produced from Sceptres/Orbs/Crowns. It could very easily be lowered to something still desireable... but at the moment, it's a pretty major source of income which is based entirely on the number of Ascendants/Demigods you have. The more you have, the faster you can make more (so the more you make). It'll eventually get kind of depressing.
3) Examine the amount of essence it takes to learn Ascendance. Personally, I think it's fine as-is. There could be more skills in it, from what I hear, but what I think most of us would benefit from would be a way to check how much essence to the next learned skill (kind of like ASK BRENNAN KNIGHTHOOD). Knowing how close you're getting would give you a goal to reach, instead of the current, "We have no idea where the heck we are!" that Sojiro and Ilyarin are talking about.
4) Along the lines of point 1, give Vernal Ascendants some things that are more organization-related. There've been ideas such as being able to perform minor rituals, etc. I think it'd be neat to have things we can directly do for our organization. It could be the ability to raise a cult that's divested from Divine Orders, perhaps-- or maybe even getting Avatar-powers for your organization (Avatar Rez, etc.) as you are, essentially, an Avatar of Glomdoring/Celest/Magnagora/Serenwilde. (This would tie in to idea 1, in that your organization would be helping to fund the essence you use to benefit them directly)
5) What have I missed?

The power from sceptres/orbs/crowns definitely needs to be reduced. The rich should not get richer.

I agree that Ascendants should have some way to get an idea of how far along they are in Ascendancy. Also, Ascendancy should have skills that are organization/Seal dependant (or just Seal dependant, if Vernals are allowed to take on the aspect of a Seal). It would certainly make the skill far more interesting (though I understand that a skill available to all of four people may not be top priority at the moment).

Vernal Ascendants really should not be God-dependent. Organization dependent would make a lot more sense, and even then, I feel VAs should be given as much freedom to form their own ideals and whatnot as necessary . They may not be Vernal Gods, but they are still supposed to be damn powerful.

There needs to be some link between vernals and orders for the sole purpose of the Divine patrons not getting "jealous"

Something needs to be set up in that relationship so that Vernals are still Vernals and not mortals, but umm, yeah you get what I'm saying.

edit: I like the 4 suggestions, they sound resonable to me.

Everything Xenthos said, plus please make Vernals different in some way from True Ascendants (that isn't just worse i.e the throne things. The cubix matter is one thing, but they have the accelerated domoth-acquisition going on too - please compensate that for Vernals somehow!)

That said, Synl's "only available to 4-8 people" is quite true...but still!

While I disagree that vernals should have a boost to seals like true do (true had to earn it, vernals get selected) Sorry Shiri :/

Power generation and essence generation... make it easier to rise another and pay to go back up again? That is all kind of eww. But Domoths will remain something to screw up the balance of combat in any places they are used seriously, yay damage boost? +2 con? +2 str? Etc. I would rather see a way for Demigods to bring themselves to ascendant, would give us a new goal since we cant do anything other than just kind of build essence

Uh...your judgement for "earnt" seems to be slightly off. While I don't want to demean the work Ilyarin and Shuyin did in the Ascendant event, I will say that (for example) the service required to an org over a long period of time so that all the leaders pick you for it is at least as much "earning" as submitting a really good design once ever, and then having a good side fighting for you for an hour or so on Astral (and/or having the other teams give up.)

Yeah, this is spot on.

but they sacrificed themselves for the first world, the rp of the service to the entire world is different there.

They don't sacrifice anything anymore.

I'd like it if True Ascendants get their own mini shrine that's for them and only them, otherwise, I agree with the proposals here. Though, the power thing isn't as big a deal as others make it seem, IMO.

A bit more distinguishing between Vernals and Trues would be nice too, on a personal level.

I don't know about anybody else, but I'd personally like more info about exactly what kinds of skills are in this skillset before even thinking about commenting on changes...I asked in the other thread, but I reiterate, are they more combat-focused, rp-focused, or what?

Also, yes to the shrines thing! Let the VAs design it! It'll give them more RP.

Hrm could be interesting if Vernals actually required the support of the commune (offering and the like)

A pool of essence that is only generated through commune members, the ascendant would have no power over it. (bahaha make city/commune members sit around focusing on the ascendant for a while, when it hits a certain time limit the ascendant could draw essence from the ritual and the members could be rewarded with... karma/exp?) People would be forced to stop for a moment and unable to do anything but say/emote during the procedure?

A random idea, but it could prevent the concerns about ascendants being pressured into bashing. (Could still have essence and a method to convert it at loss to the secondary pool, but actions which require support and a community effort would provide more)

I don't plan to tinker with Ascendants right now, simply because the full scope of their powers has yet to be seen and so any observations do not take into consideration the breadth of their abilities.

I will look into adding a way for you to see how close you are to the next skillrank in Ascendance.

By the way...is it intentional that ascendants are actually -less- equipped to deal with stages 1 and 3 of the domoth battles (unless they're liches) because they take arseloads of time to reform and thus even two deaths - to the mobs, doesn't even require players - will make it impossible to get, where demigods can keep trying? I actually don't mind this death system in the general sense - gives me a bit of time to cool down and whatnot - but it seems weird that demigods are actually better equipped for it than I am in that respect.

I thought Ascendants could reform for an essence cost?

Yes, a 500,000 essence cost each time no matter where we died. And unlike demigods we need essence for things that aren't dying (i.e ascendance skillset.)

Personally, I think game mechanics pretty much forcing an Ascendant to not only join an Order, but Order hop in many cases, promotes bad roleplay.

Example: Bob is a member of John's Order, but John has gone inactive, and the only active god in the Org is Sally. So never showing an interest in Sally's Order, Bob quits John's Order to join Sally's Order merely cause Bob can't do half the "fun things" involved with being an Ascendant, unless joined with an active god.

EDIT:

It also promotes bad RP on the god(dess) side of things. They either have to feel guilty about refusing Bob, or let Bob in knowing Bob has one reason for joining and it isn't cause Sally's Order was an attractive Order to Bob.

It seems to be the full 300k every time, no matter where the death occurred. Makes it a bit tougher than a 100k loss for a death in the Domoths.

Edit: 500k? Hmm. Well, I'm never going to have enough essence on me to reform. Every time I get 500k, it goes into Ascendance. Oh well.

To Gregori: Yeah, that's very frustrating.

Wait, if it's 300k that's not so bad. Where did you get that number?

That's just the one that was coming to mind. I certainly haven't tested it. Haven't died off-Prime yet, nor do I really want to waste the essence. Better things to use it for! Note the edit, though. I'm not going to stick to 300k as fact, since I don't know.