Agree with the topic in general, but I'm just curious, other than Forren who is "Forjiludad" made up of?

Another thing to consider with this idea: yes, not having a cap is all well and good, but there should be some kind of limitation on the number that can be raised, otherwise we'd have Vernals all over the place eventually as long as an org was willing to shell out the power.

If this were implemented, perhaps there should be a period of time where the nexus has to recover from the strain before it is able to be used to raise someone else? Even so, there should probably be a few more things limiting it, either in a set amount of Vernals that can be raised, or a not necessarily all that easy, but also not impossible to complete method of increasing that base amount, that doesn't come around very often.

Er... well... just some food for thought.

Forren, Sojiro, and Ildaudadid?

Thinking about this is possible it could get out of hand. A million power isn't all that easy to raise of course but a couple years down the road we could have ascendants everywhere. One thought, which I'm not sure is a good thought but it's a thought, is to have mini-constructs you have to build for any except your first VA.

Two schools of thought in what happens when it's destroyed. One is that you are actively funneling the power for the ascension into the construct and when it's destroyed, the attacking org gets half that power. And perhaps you get half the power back as well so it's not quite so painful if it's destroyed in the latter stages. Second thought is it's just a vessel and if it's destroyed you lose the commidites and such you put into building it and have to start over but don't lose a lot of power.

If you have Ascendants raised through these alternative constructs, they are somewhat dependent on those constructs. If their construct is destroyed, they weaken. Perhaps draining a lot of essence from them each month until it's rebuilt. If they get to 0 essence and their construct is not around, they fall from ascendancy.

Hmm. Well, not sure about this but it'd make things..interesting I guess would be the word.

Falling from ascendancy is kind of the problem that this whole thing is meant to avoid, so it's not a million power just poofed. I guess I could see not being able to use your extra-Ascendant powers (beyond the normal Demigod stuff) without your Construct up, and this would allow an org to stop supporting someone who isn't around much for a while, I guess... but would you be able to disable these?

I guess I'm not really sure what problem there would be with a few ascendants a few years down the road. With all the orgs getting very power-happy and Astral being dead, we can raise... 7 ascendants now, and maybe another 7 in another 3 years. Actually, less, if the second constructs are built for everyone else-- that second org construct is a pretty significant additional power hog, itself.

I don't know what kind of power could be generated if people really really cared. I don't know, I suppose the normal ebb and flow of people coming in and people leaving would address there being too many active ascendants at once. Though the game couldn't really support that many people trying to build up and keep essence as things stand now.

Catarin, you really can't generate power fast enough to worry, trust me.

Why are we assuming that everyone who plays now will be playing 'several years down the road'?

Most organizations will only raise Ascendants with a million or so power left over in their nexus. That's about 2 VAs at the moment, and another VA whenever an organization manages to gather 1 million power. Gathering power is a fair bit more difficult now with constructs not adding power - Glomdoring has four constructs raised, and the rising of power in the Ravenwood is painfully slow.

See what happens if you allow multiple VAs? Yea, that's right: power is actually worth something.

We're still considering and would prefer to wait until we see how the domoth system works out a little more.

However, I will say that originally the limitation was because we were thinking these beings would be gods. However, since they are basically level 101 (though with a special skillset), it indeed may make sense to not have a limit.

I thought it was Forren and Xoxo

I fully support this idea. We will never see org ascendants without it or some other significant change. I think you should factor that into your thoughts Estarra. If we were going to have any ascendants through this current system, we would by now.

Maybe you could start with one god per org, that would give each community 5, each being the pinacle paragon of their organization chosen to become a Vernal Ascendant.

I guess another thing that we'd need to see is if the Ascendants have their own special powers and abilities and how they affect the world, other than just the Domoth battles.

...

Do you mean "one per guild"?

Suddenly, I find myself (semi-selfishly) wanting to be a VA.

Wait, so does that make the Elders level 102 then?

Anyway... this idea is probably not that great but...

What if, to raise an ascendant, you first need to build a construct. Lets say that to directly raise an Ascendant through the Nexus is dangerous without some kind of focus, and this construct is that focus. Now, by channeling power through this construct into an individual, you can ascend him or her. Now, after this is done, the Nexus becomes... tired, in a way. It can't raise any other Ascendants yet. It needs to recover first. At first though, we, the mortals, don't know how to restore the Nexus. That'll allow the gods/admins the time to see how this'll work out, and allow them to decide wether there will be the hard limit of ONE ascendant per organization, or only the soft limit of 1 million power. If they decide to use the soft limit only, then just release a quest that allows us to recharge the Nexus and it's ability to raise an Ascendant. It doesn't even need to be that big. Perhaps just getting those gnomish spheres and charge them with energy before putting them in or something. If not... then the only way to recharge the Nexus is by severing it's link with the current Ascendant.

Just a random thought I had, which I feel might be able to please both sides.

I fully agree that throwing one million power out of the window, with the fickle hope that the VA will stick around, is the main reason why everyone is so hesitant about making the first move. I don't know about other orgs but seeing one million power gathered in Magnagora would take a -long- time. If memory serves me right we managed to gather between 500-700k whilst I was the Minister of Power in about 10 IG years. However, that was like the best time for the Megalith ever with me constantly on people's backs with a whip AND a ton of power generated by the constructs. I would even go as far as to say it was grace of the constructs more than anything else.

I understand the IC reasons for making it such a costly endeavour and the histories back up that great strain too. However, from a really OOC point of view, said person would be expected to be at the beck and call of their nation and almost constantly involved in trying to claim the blessings for itI'm not really sure about the 'constantly' as I didn't study the Domoth ins and outs that carefully yet ). That's a huge responsibility and 'work' right there, with pressure enough to actually do make someone leave regardless. It's almost like holding a Ministry position, with the exception that you hold all of them at the same time.

My suggestions would be as follows:

- allow more than one VA per organisation but still put a final cap on the number and allow them to be 'ousted' from their position

- perhaps lower a bit the costs for Demigods to participate since it seems really troublesome and not worth it for them at the moment, even if they are paid, built statues in honour of, worshiped for it etc

- allow half of the power put into the VA to return to the Nexus should the VA be ousted. Maybe half is too much, I don't know, but allow at least -some- of it to return and some should be the actual cost paid to turn a mortal into a VA

- if we were to go the constructs way about this, then each VA should perhaps have a little construct devoted to them (A sarcophagus! ) which would be the focus of their power and taking that down by the org would be the actual ousting of the VA + return half the power

- and lastly, if constructs were to be implemented then I would loathe for them to be part of the usual weakening conflict (they don't actually have to be constructs, could be just a 'something' untied with weakenings). However, if they were to be part of them then a complete destruction should either be impossible or not give the destroying org insane amounts of power as then it would be the prime way of gathering power for raising VA's and it would be too easy (not to say destroying a construct is easy but if you do sit down to it and rally and get it done then getting even 250k power for a, say, two weeks worth isn't cool). Not to mention the VA's already have to worry about Domoth conflict and tending to their constructs for fear of their power being stolen so easily would add yet another dimension to strenous work they would already be expected to do.

I had more ideas but I'm afraid my confusing line of thought managed to confuse even me.

I've thought about it some more, but there's something I'm just not getting-- why are you two so excited about making it more complicated when it's really not necessary?

It's already very self-limiting. Imagine Magnagora's power intake when they have their second construct giving a second 600-power-drain-per-day. You're not getting much power *now*-- to actually aim for it, you're going to have to knock down a few of your constructs.

We've already got plenty of things that exist just for tedium. Many event-quests are "Gather X objects and bring them to Y," which is generally considered the tedious part of the event. I'm not really sure what benefit placing this requirement on raising an Ascendant is-- it will not matter at all after each organization raises their first two (excepting Magnagora-- it just won't matter at all for them). It's just an extra requirement with no purpose.

Same with Constructs-that-are-coded-to-not-be-Constructs. Why? Perhaps I'm just not getting it. Neither of these ideas really scream "Hey, that'll make being a Vernal awesome!" to me.

Does a demigod's essence transfer over into essence if they are raised as a VA? If so, then that would be an advantage to raising a demigod. They could instantly participate in domoth battles without having to try to build up an essence Pool first. Not a huge advantage but it would be one. If the essence doesn't transfer...yeah.

How important is raising one more Ascendant for a given org, to both the citizens and the player under consideration? A milllion power represents almost half of the total collected power for some organizations, and an even greater share for others. You obviously don't want promotions to Dragon for everyone, but how to make sure that the player commits a city-sized responsibility to this? Ascendants betraying their organization or going inactive are a huge question mark hanging over the entire concept, awesome as it is.

Personally, I wouldn't vote for an Ascendant candidate who donated less than 15 million gold, or 3000 credits, to their respective org. Talk of devotion is cheap, which is why most of the people who would give this responsibility the seriousness it deserves won't even think about accepting the honour.

Because as is, if you raise one, that's it. Should they go inactive, as happens, OOC should come first, then the org is screwed, there goes their one shot...unless they oust that person, but that isn't fair for the person, nor a good thing for the org to do. If the person was a positive enough impact upon their org to be VA, booting them due to RL things isn't rightly fair.

So, while I don't think it is necessarily the need to have multiples - the option is what makes the difference. If one goes inactive, they can still come back, and the org isn't SOL.

For the player under consideration...eh, I can just imagine the weight of you being the org's one shot, if you can't handle, they're loss of 1 mil power that won't serve them in any way, and you were their one shot...oust or deal with inactive. It's not a pretty prospect.