Maybe I'm being optimistic but it looked like Morgfyre was open to consideration as long as it wasn't about A) fixing cults or providing peronal (i.e offensive) power in some way. Too dozy to be bothered looking for the post now but it should be around here somewhere.



Yeah, I just bet exploring cult powers is your motivation for suggesting this...

Well since I am in SW yeah it would be my only reason.... ohhhhh you mean to contest for GC. Heh, nah I haven't a system that is ready for me to do much PvP stuff right now.

I sincerely doubt Fain is the -only- god willing to take an Ascendant.

Just the only one willing to expound disgusting quantities of essence in exchange for an Ascendant's soul.

Well he is the only one who has said they are willing so far (Granted OOCwise). But from what Shuyin has said, he inquired with Lisaera and she never responded. (I may have read that wrong a page or two back, but I think that is what he said) This would give me (if I were him) the impression she was not that interested.

Granted it is alot of essence to expend, but if She is waiting for one of her own original order members to be risen to ascendant, it could cost SW in the long run since Shuyin is a TA and he is not subject to the restrictions of the VAs. So it puts Shuyin in a great position. His loyalties can potentially be bought, if he chose to sell them.

Personally, if I were a Divine who resided in an org that contained a TA. And all that it would take for my orgs TA to be happy was to drop some essence and help him to obtain a Cult. Well I sure wouldn't risk losing him over something as petty as my own precious essence.

And before someone uses the whole "Gods think of us as just tools/Not willing to mettle in normal affairs" approach. This one does take personal intrest in SW affairs, while Fain is more likely to think of us more like tools than any other god, and he already knows what the value of placating a TA would mean for his org and order.

Right now, Shuyin owes no god anything whatsoever. He is and has been more than patient and I would fall over laughing if he decided to leave to any org willing to let him have a cult to play around with. At the rate it is going now, it will be a long time before an ascendant ends up with a cult, and then we can open up another thread about the OP/UP of certain cult skills in which we can only speculate on now because there are no cults, and not because of the lack of Ascendants asking afaik.

Heh, I don't think I'm willing to move Shujiro orgwise just to get a cult, even that'd be a little too desperate for my tastes. Plus there's the whole, you know, "My reason for wanting a cult in the first place is so I can better help the SW" thing I have going. Joining a different org seems a bit counter-intuitive to that.

As far as Ascendance goes, I guess Catarin's right that we gambled on 120 million and lost, so while it sucks, it's life.

I guess I can go about suggesting neat utility and RP abilities now, at least. Gg custom exit/enter message.

I can see Morgfyre's cult contract.

If you betray the cult, I will eat you.

If you make me mad, I will eat you.

If you fail to properly coordinate your outfit, I will eat you.

If it's Tzarin 5th, and a full moon, I will eat you.

If I am hungry, I will eat you.

If I feel like it, I will eat you.

Aegis alone makes the entire skillset worthwhile.

There's a lot of "flavour" there and some nice bonuses.

I assume the trans skill was implemented for coordination during stage 2 of claiming a domoth- which during such a time is damn nice to have.

I think it's fine, if you're bitter about the trans skill, switch omniscience with aegis in the ranks.

Hi,

So it's been a day now, and I've gotten to thinking more about Ascendance. Since I'm in school and have nothing better to do, I might as well keep the ball rolling on asking for a few more flavour abilities to flesh out the skill.

Oh yeah, I'd like this though, if possible, just because I still believe the cost to benefit ratio is still horribly skewed.



Anyway, onward to stuff thrown around that I like and my own ideas:



This makes sense to me and I think would be pretty neat. But it might be redundant if the only people you can induct into your cult are people in the same order as you only. People who tend to be your communemates and might be of the same race and guild as well.



While nice, probably not needed, we've got bashing and domoths for this.



This one's pretty neat, but so long as it lasted maybe an hour at most and cost quite a bit. Maybe not +5% either.

For my own ideas:

-ability to customize entrance/exit messages, requires direction.

-maybe the ability to illusion for a hefty eq cost, costs essence, whatever. Make it completely unfeasible for combat, but so long as we can illusion for RP.

-ability to send special room messages (i guess something like the warning zap mechanic that doesn't actually hurt anyone but lets people know something happened in the room) to cult members, can range from something like the aforementioned warningzap example to "the leader wants you" kind of messages.

-a special cultmember emote/item?

-Alter consume to be able to to just devour (suck the soul of?) mob corpses to raise satiation level. Only useful for curing hunger. Something reasonable.

-Alter omniscience to allow us to speak all languages as well as read divine script while it's turned on.

I guess if I think of more, I'll post.

"-Alter consume to be able to to just devour (suck the soul of?) mob corpses to raise satiation level. Only useful for curing hunger. Something reasonable."

Just going to point out....


Ascendance, for all intents and purposes, are level 101, to my understanding.


Food requirement cuts off at 80.

Hunger tactics don't.

Yeah that's pretty much the only reason I'm asking for it. Plus it's my own take on keeping with the "idea" of the ability. I also mentioned mob corpses so that in and of itself should regulate its use, as well as I'm hoping that it'd take a reasonable amount of "consuming" for it to really matter. Maybe make it dependent on mob weight, so a weevil wouldn't be as filling as say a cow.

I repeating it so Eventru knows what you mean more specificially.

There are attacks that give the hunger affliction, which makes people pass out, etc when they are hit enough times by these types of attacks. Like PB's rupture gut.

If it were that all people became immune at 80, The Bard Guild Necroscream would by far be the worst guild in the basin, since their songs revolve around the hunger affliction.

-------------------------------

@Soji:

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.

This would actually be useable, if you think in terms of cult members from outside your org. Which is not going to end up being unlikely. Remember Ixion after leaving Serenwilde even, is still in Charune's order or was for the longest time. And if they make totems and statues untunable to orders (and cults in that matter, although cults would make more sense being that Ascendants actually raid other orgs) You could wind up with People in the Cult of Shuyin residing in Celest.

Just going to put up a bit of a proposal for the skillset. Since there's been no comment yay or nay on removing the Cult things from the Ascendance skillset, I'm going to suggest an alternate skillset without that. At present, it's very frustrating to have the Cult things being such a major part of the skillset as the ability to create and use a Cult is extremely limited, and then spending another two months (or more) of hunting beyond that... is really excessive.

None of the Cult abilities are really powerful, so having it limited just by the need to be an Ascendant in an active Order with a large stockpile of essence and a willing Divine should be limiting enough on its own, as well as the daily essence drain that impacts the ability to learn Ascendance.

I'm also moving the order of things around a bit, simply because Aegis is the best skill of the skillset. Skills in bold have some comment / suggested change / are something new, and are discussed below.

Meditation Master the energies of the Nine Domoth.
Clairsentience Sense other Ascendant presences.
FearAura The weak shall flee from your might.
Destruction Shape globes of liquid power.
Flight Rise into the skies on currents of power.
Benevolence Lift up those in need.
Consumption ?????
Shrine Imbue the land with your power.
Portal Channel a gateway through the planes.
Affinity Draw strength from the land.
Realm Create a realm within the Havens.
Bless Bless those within your presence.
????? ?????
Embrace Embrace your domothean herritage.
Aegis The strength of your aegis shelters the weak.
Omniscience Hear and speak freely on all planes.
Ascendant Your bond to your home is unparalleled.

I'm not quite sure what to suggest for Consumption, and there's space for one more skill at the moment, hence the ?????.

Destruction Shape globes of liquid power.
This skill has slight improvements over other bashing attacks, but comes with a cost-- it takes 25 essence per attack. This significantly detracts from its purpose-- while it does kill faster, it also essentially reduces the essence you get from killing a creature. Options are:
1- Remove the essence cost against NPCs
2- Scale the essence cost down until it's something like 1 essence per use at Transcendant against NPCs.
3- Remove the "magic source" part of the skill, so it is a flat amount of damage for all Ascendants, and can then be tweaked from that base.
Shrine Imbue the land with your power.
You can create a custom shrine. This shrine *cannot* be offered to. Others can walk to your shrine and PRAY TO ASCENDANT *message*. This is pretty much entirely for flavour, but the shrine can be built anywhere (even in a room with another shrine) as it cannot be offered to.
Realm Create a realm within the Havens.
You may create one room within the Havens, that is yours and yours alone. When standing before your Shrine, you will be able to teleport directly to your realm, bringing anyone who is following you. (Again, this is mostly for flavour)
Bless Bless those within your presence.
Those in your vicinity, assuming they are your allies, will get +5% h/m/e. This is something that must be MANIFESTed, costs 5000 essence to active, and 500 essence per minute it remains active after that. (It may or may not affect the Ascendant-- either way, it's not a huge thing)
Embrace Embrace your domothean heritage.
You may choose to attune yourself to one of the Nine Seals. Once this is done, there will be some benefit for members of your organization who seek that Karma Blessing. Half the karma cost and half the drain, maybe. Maybe or maybe not have it further affected by the Ascendant also holding the Medallion of that Seal (doesn't really matter either way).
Ascendant Your bond to your home is unparalleled.
You gain a very small portion of any essence offered at a shrine within your organization. 5%, perhaps-- so if 100,000 essence is offered, you gain 5000. Not really a huge thing, but it allows for people of your org to support their Ascendants as well as the other way around. I don't see this ever comparing to the essence gained from even one Domotheos crown (25,000 essence passive every hour, which would require an organization to offer 500,000 essence every hour to equal). 1,000,000 essence offered an hour to equal 2 Crowns. I don't really see that happening.

We don't want to do shrines or anything that mimics existing god powers (customisable enter/exit, look description, etc.). The direction we moved after Ayridion was to make Ascendants more like players and less like gods. I don't want to reverse on that course and basically make Ascendants players with all the perks of being an admin god, and none of the responsibilities.

There are 2 main reasons for that:
1. It cheapens godhood, which is the only reward for being an admin beyond enjoying the duties themselves. It cheapens it not only for existing and future gods, but also their place in the mythos.
2. It puts Ascendants in conflict (or at least "friendly" competition) with Gods. In a competition or contest with an Elder God, RP dictates that the Ascendant gets thoroughly spanked - no mortal can compete with the power of a God. It doesn't make sense to have a player competing with an entity that can destroy them with a mere flick of the finger.

Understandable.

Can remove Shrine and Realm from the list and try to think up other replacements... any thought on the rest of it? Is that the sort of thing you're looking for?

It's on the right track otherwise, yes. I can't see removing Cults from Ascendance, but I don't mind adding new skills if there are interesting ideas.

Here's an updated list with a few replacements. I'm not so sure about some of the newer replacements (Gateway especially), so if others have ideas, feel free to help out.

I guess Cult stuff can still be sprinkled into it, but with this as the base, it wouldn't really feel like cults are the main point of the skillset (and would be worth learning on its own merits, with cults being a bonus). In my opinion, at least.

I think cults should be powers granted to ascendants, sort of like being an Avatar, an ascendant has the honour of being the head of a cult, and make the powers associated with being cult leader optional powers that the god may bestow on the cult leader as wanted.

Morgfyre already said he wants to keep the Cult skills in the skillset. Still, I'm approaching it as if the Cult ones are removed, and trying to make a decent 'base' skillset-- that way the Cult stuff is more of a 'reward' for seeking out an active Divine and making a Cult, as Ascendants would still be interested in transcending the skill even without having a Cult.

Since it pertains to the topic I should probably post this:

** ASCENDANT NOTE: The AB file for FearAura has been updated. **.

Relevant part:

Certain Ascendant powers draw strength from a particular Domotheos.
Where this is the case, that power will be stronger or expanded for the
one who controls the Domoth. In the case of the fear aura, the ruler of
the Domotheos of Death shall find their visage afflicts with frightful
visions more often than others. What effects the Domoth might have upon
other powers remains a mystery...

Since that only works for the one controlling the throne I can't tell what mine does yet (since I guess omniscience is the knowledge power, and that's months away). And Shuyin and Xenthos are lazy Americans and passed out already.