At this point, I’d rather not look at an overly complicated system. I’m not a big fan of trying to cater to “peak” hours (do people in off time zones just not get to participate?) or having systems that trigger when someone makes an aggressive action, etc. So, for the sake of simplicity, here’s my idea:

Planar Repellence
If you enter an affiliated plane where you are an enemy, you cannot return to that plane (once you leave) for one hour unless you are killed on that plane (in which case you can return immediately).

Dharma
In Lusternia, dharma is a form of social karma, which the organization can accumulate and use to benefit their own organization. A city or commune can accumulate up to 10,000 dharma. One dharma blessing can be used at any one time, and they last for 10 game months. A city or commune can temporarily increase the number of blessings up at one time at a cost of 25,000 power, up to a maximum of 3 blessings.

Dharma Blessings

• Increase in Dross Power (1,000 dharma)
  
• Increased Movement (2,000 dharma)
  
• Increased Critical Hits (3,000 dharma)
  
• Increased XP Gain (4,000 dharma)
  
• Increased Gold Gain (5,000 dharma)
  

Dharma Initiatives
Every game month, one cosmic, elemental or commune ethereal plane quickens, the plane of which cycles every month (except commune planes quicken twice). This is called the Dharma Initiative which is peculiar to each plane. Dharma Initiatives always occurs on the turn of the new month so is easily trackable. For example

• Month 1: Lunar Flowers grow throughout Ethereal Serenwilde, accompanied by lunar fae.
  
• Month 2: Nightbloom Flowers grow thoughout Ethereal Glomdoring, accompanied by night fae
  
• Month 3: Tainted crystals sprout up on the Earth Plane and Nil, accompanied by rock demons.
  
• Month 4: Fire spouts shoot up on the Fire Plane and Vortex, accompanied by flaming flesh mounds.
  
• Month 6: Water spouts shoot up on the Water Plane and Celestia, accompanied by golden angels.
  
• Month 7: Silver clouds appear on the Air Plane, accompanied by crystalline orbs.
  

Collecting Dharma
When a Dharma Initiative occurs, the city or commune that is affected can accumulate dharma as follows:
Immediately claim the dharma centers (flowers, crystals, spouts, clouds). There are always 8 dharma centers, and they are worth 500 dharma each. Only one dharma center can be claimed per game day.

Influence the dharma entities (fae, demons, angels, mounds, orbs) and lead them to a dharma center. This will increase the dharma of the center by +100 per entity. When a dharma center reaches 1000, it will automatically be claimed.

Members of opposing orgs can kill the dharma entities and place their corpses within a dharma center. This will decrease that dharma center by 100 dharma and give the opposing organization +100 dharma.

Conclusion
That’s it! It’s rather simple. You don’t attack another organization’s dharma store (but rather their potential for more dharma). Orgs can just claim their centers early for minimal dharma if they don’t want to bother with questing or fighting (albeit they probably will lose a few centers completely).

Please share your thoughts and ideas!

You lost me.

Yuk yuk yuk.

Kialkarkea:

You lost me.

Yuk yuk yuk.

...

I like it. How does killing players fit into this?

Quick question: How does claiming a dharma center work?

So this is something between/a combination of a village revolt and a raid?

I'm a bit concerned over the influence bit. Mobs can be killed by groups, and criticals with demi+ tend to (more often than not) give a 'one-hit, moving on' scenario, as opposed to one person having to stand still and influence the denizen. Depending on how hard they are to influence, of course, this could be a non-issue.

Pretty cool idea, and it would certainly be a neat source of conflict. I also echo the concern over influencing mobs being far more difficult than killing, and also in that you would then have the challenge of getting the mob safely to the dharma center. It'd be far easier to kill the mob in transit than a raider carrying a corpse, which would also be deliverable.

I would suggest adding faethorn as a possible place to flare dharma too.

I'm also not particularly a huge fan of increased movement as a bonus myself. Partially (selfishly) because it dilutes one of stag's bigger bonuses.

Edit: Its also a pretty big bonus for people wanting to constantly run around being a nuisance, as they're harder to track to.

If your first priority is to get the movement boost blessing, I question the values of your organization :P

I predict a situation where some orgs have every blessing, and the others maybe one or two.

Continue to not be a fan of the lockout thing, considering smob raids,, and even a few smaller raids.

eritheyl:

If your first priority is to get the movement boost blessing, I question the values of your organization :P

I want it so I can go SUPER SPEEDY FAST, like greased lightning.

I missed that actually Eritheyl, thanks.

Speed buff is still pretty good though.

Provided the experience gain is for overall experience (not like the construct that applies only to aetherbubbles), and is something substantial (even 10% would be amazing, I think), I'm drooling over that one in particular.

Man, the gold buff must be pretty hefty if it's gonna cost 5000 dharma :P

I disagree with adding more mechanics that give any sort of buffs when the problem of the existing buffs being so centralised to one half of the game, and subsequently completely inaccessible to the other half, isn't going to be addressed.

Seriously, I would rather this coding time be put into other things.

Maybe each city/commune receives a special influence skill (like with influencing villages) that only works on dharma entities which is much stronger than normal influencing (i.e., can do grab them faster).

How is it completely inaccessible when other orgs can raid too?