Gaining essence isn't expensive. Gaining enough is.

I think it is. We can agree to disagree. My suggestion would be "I disagree and here is why..." (I never mentioned guild skills...so I'm a little lost with the comparison).

Sojiro obviously agrees. You guys DO have useful abilities. I disagree with Morgy (sorry!) I think cults should be removed from orders. I can't see Fain letting one of his maggots steal his minions for some special cult. I just think Shiri and I disagree about how useful they should be.

The "here is why" is because your argument is irrelevant. That's just the word that happens to exist for things that aren't relevant. That's what was wrong with your argument. If you don't let me point that out I don't know what you expect me to say instead. I know you didn't mention guild skills: I was demonstrating another argument you would be correct to call out as irrelevant.

I'm not saying we don't have useful abilities. We do! I'm gonna work for Aegis, and maybe portal. Portal is only really for raiding villages, since it only works on Prime (?) and only to the nexus (because cults are awkward.) But I might get that too.

The only reason I can think to keep cults tied to orders is that they may or may not need a god looking over their shoulder so they dont :censor: up rp and abuse things. Reasons not to have it, ascendants probably now only would join an order just to get a cult, that's not a good reason to join, and most gods would know this and dont like it. Cults to my knowledge are not limited to the order of the Cult leader, which means you have potential for order enemies to join, why would an Elder want their enemies joining a cult under their supervision? If they have to be from the order to join the cult, why bother, seems like a waste.

Cults should be separate from orders, but perhaps have them need to write an application or something looked over by an active god before they're allowed to do it, like shouts/zap mesasge?

I think cults are limited to order members. It says "a cult is a subsect of order members." I'm not wasting the essence to test it out since Isune is AWOL but that's what it looks like to me.

Gaining essence isn't expensive, the time spent getting enough of it to trans ascendance is, though.

I already tried to make one. It's not something that we actually have the command for-- I think it's something that the God has to do.

This is just my idea for Ascendance, fleshed it out a bit, though I added more cult abilities than self abilities, changed the position of some abilities. Changes/New abilities are in bold.

You have gained the following abilities in Ascendance:
Meditation Master the energies of the Nine Domoth.
Clairsentience Sense other Ascendant presences.
FearAura The weak shall flee from your might.
Veneration Form a divine cult to venerate you.
Devotion Your devoted cultists may pray to you for guidance.
Destruction Shape globes of liquid power.
Intervention Every flock requires a shepherd.
Prospicience See the world through another's eyes.
Affinity Draw strength from the land.
Flight Rise into the skies on currents of power.
DivineSupper Sup at the table of your benevolence.
Benevolence Lift up those in need.
Consumption Consume your essence to heal your wounds.
Shrine Imbue the land with your power.
Sanctity Your cultists exalt in the sanctity of your Presence.
Embrace Embrace your domothian herritage.
Aegis The strength of your aegis shelters the weak.
Portal Channel a gateway through the planes.
Travel Travel to and from your shrines.
Presence Increase the reach of your influence.
Imbue Imbue your cultists with some of your powers.
Glory A ritual to grant wisdom to your host.
Worship Gain essence from your Cultists.
Omniscience Hear and speak freely on all planes.
Wrath Scour your foes with Domothian Wrath.

Devotion - A copy of pray, allows you to recieve custom messages from cultists, just a rp thing really, i thought it might be kinda cool.

Consuption - Change to stop your bleeding at essence cost, maybe 1 bleed = 50 essence.

Shrine - Create a basic shrine, limited amount, can be moved, need divine approval of description.

Sanctity - Increased experiance, +5%/h/m/e in cult leaders presence

Embrace - Change cult to specific type, Knowledge Cult, Harmony Cult, Chaotic Cult, War Cult, Justice Cult, Beauty Cult, Nature Cult, Life Cult, Death Cult. Allows any domoth blessings of cult type held by cult leader to affect all cult members.

Aegis - Change to only work if the Ascendant is in the same room as the aegis'd person.

Travel - Travel to your shrines, pretty basic.

Imbue - Give certian cult members the ability to use certain cult skills, Travel, DivineSupper, Intervention. Double essence cost.

Worship - Any essence offered to your shrine gives you a quarter of it in personal essence. So 100% essence goes to cult essence, 25% extra goes to personal.

Wrath - Pretty much a cut and dry room damage attack, damage type based on cult type, if dont have a cult or cult type, just magic, based on essence put in, 20K - 1K damage, 45K - 2K damage, 70k - 3500 damage, 100K - 5K damage.

Cults are (and I stand by the administration's decision - should be!) an integral part of an order.

I won't go into much detail (since I don't know how much has really been given), but I hope to acquire one soon.


Sooner than Fain. Fain threatens to do terrible, nightmarish things if he gets one first. *shudder*

A lot of that is pretty interesting, though I really don't think Aegis should be changed at this point. It's pretty much the shining light of Ascendance.

To Eventru: Maybe going into some detail would be nice, because I really don't see how it's fair to either Nocht or myself if I join his order just for Cult (and, really, 90% of my reason for even considering the order is the ability to create a cult, no offense intended to Nocht). That might change, plus or minus, given time-- but right now, that's where I stand in relation to the thought.

Same with Sojiro considering Lisaera, from what he's said.

Personally, I find the IC idea of my character being in another cult as..disturbing. I mean, Ali's known Shujiro and Nejii both for a pretty long time, since they were both mortal, I guess you could say. Add a million power and I'm going to have the option of praying to them and offering to them as I would an actual Elder? Awkwardddd.

Yeah pretty much, I tried joining the Order and expressly stated that I wanted in for the Cult, but if I was given it, I'd do my best to loyally serve ICly just as well as any other regular order member would. That doesn't seem to be panning out for poor Shujiro ICly, though.

I ICly felt that it'd be a waste having this much power and not being able to make use of it.

I guess I can sit and think of more abilities that don't really help with combat at all, though.

How about one OP offensive skill, perhaps around 50% mythical, that has a very long cooldown?

What about the ability to bestow mini-divine favours on cult members (+5% h/m/e boost)?

Passive boosts to cult members when their mini-patron is online/in the same area/room?

Something that double experience gain for a person under level 20?

Something to trade essence for gold?

How about a rezz skill?

How about channel-able area-wide abilities, similar to shrine powers?

No worries there, Mag needs an ascendant first, and then one who is in Fain's order.




Whoever said this, ummm seriously?? First off demis and ascendants help in domoth realms, so not many people to call home too normally, and MSG is a much more powerfult tool.

When Xenthos got the trans skill, there were tears, tears of sorrow and tears of laughter, but mainly just tears. The one thing that Xenthos did do though was set the bar for what the ascendants who were online and heard what they would get for the the trans skill would be. They decided max to bother putting into it was to Aegis, some to Portal, but no one even considered trying to get any higher than that.

I am sorry, even Stan and Kyle were more rewarded when they beat Guitar Hero.


As for cults, They sound cool, and time will tell. All I have heard about is how hard it is to even start one. So it would be neat to see. Hopefully they won't be hard to start in the future. And it would be pretty neat for Shuyin to go to Lisaera's order, start a cult and preach the teachings of Charune and not listen to Lisaera at all. (That would be cool... it won't happen, but still would be cool)

That... would actually be quite something, wouldn't it.

Leave Seren, join Mag and get into Fain's order... WHAMMO CULT! Oh wait ascendants can jump org to org, or did they make it so they just drop down to demi? If ya popped down to demi, well that would suck.... you are stuck in Seren forever now with all the essence you have put into that skillset.


edit- @xenthos, darn tootin it would. It would be a neat pissing contest between them... one with a little zap, and the other with a big ol zap! but neither of them can die, 1 just has to wait 15 mins to reform

Shuyin can jump org, Xen/Mali/I can't. Though that's a "drawback" I'm fine with.

Ahh, even scarier for Eventru then. Shuyin can end up with a Cult in a few hours if he and Fain happen to speak about it..... skeeery!!!

I can see why there is disappointment that Ascendance is not much more than a flavor skillset. 120 million essence is a lot, especially if you are trying to do it in a limited amount of time. I'd agree with making it cost a bit less (not giving it as a trans skill right out the gate for ascendants) but the idea of making it much more useful than it is really seems to be pushing it.

An Ascendant gets level 101 instantly from whatever level they were. They get all the benefits of demigods. They get access to a skillset that no one else has that they don't have to spend lessons on to get skills and is no way even necessary for them to bother with, but is still there. It's a rather prestigious and exclusive reward. I am with Geb in feeling that more than that is excessive.

For these early adopters of the skillset who were apparently expecting something different and went above and beyond to finish it off, it is rather difficult and annoying I am sure. However, in the future it is likely to be what it seems to be intended to be. A purely optional activity that an Ascendant can choose to invest in if they see a use for the abilities.

And people will invest in it. Because there is not much else for Ascendants to do with essence since domoths are not nearly as draining on them as they are on demigods. Not everyone will think it's worth it, certainly. But isn't that a good thing? Do you really want a "must have" skillset? Sure, those who already have finished it or are about to would like it since they're already there but I doubt every Ascendant wants to feel obligated to bash up 120 million essence to learn a supposedly optional skillset in order to remain competitive.

Do afflictions and wounds and all that other fun stuff stick to the person or do they get moved to the Ascendant too? Depending, it sounds like the only thing Aegis will really protect the guarded person from is being damage-killed, which while damn spiffy isn't the OMGWTFPWN that some people seem to be making it out to be.