Hm! Some interesting ideas. I think it'd be interesting to bring cults into godwars, maybe a shine-like effect for godrealm denizens.

Let's not bring up affinity, that's a general soft spot I'd like to avoid (much like the black plague).

Hmm, maybe A godwar duel, instead of having a real "Godwar" they can assign avatars as champions to fight one battle

Not really paranoia, I'm rather apathetic either way. I was just stating previous events that may have alluded to such.

I had mentioned in the Havens last night that maybe there could be cult wars!

I think the concept of two cults warring with each other in their gods' godrealms has potential, just not sure what the "prize" would be (essence?) or whats in it for the cult members besides bragging rights.

I like the idea of tying cults to avatars instead of ascendance. It frees up space for cooler things to be added into ascendance and gives ex-VA's the chance to get/keep cults via Avatar.

I like giving the mini-shrine idea (depiciting the cult leader) for cults, as well as the ability to make minor RP related things. I'm sure I can think of more ideas, but I'm pressed for time right now.

The reason why godwars don't work is that there is an accept/refuse mechanic and no order in their right might will accept an obviously one-sided godwar. On top of issues with 'orders = orgs, therefore your order's godwar = your org's business'. Similar issues exist with godrealms. No one gives a damn whether the denizens die in the godrealm because the essence lost is so minor that you can literally bash the essence lost while the big bad raiders are killing them. So, besides e-pride, there's no truly convincing mechanic for people to visit or defend godrealms.



If it's any consolation, I think Akui is equally paranoid, but she goes the complete other way.

Well, unfortunately, there's a lot more problems with godwars than you might be aware of, that we've been trying to think of ways to address. For instance, a god with a huge realm (myself or Fain) could lose far faster than someone with a small realm. So warring with anyone who is not as 'big' becomes a huge liability.

And my realm's full of quests for my order! They go there quite a lot to do them.

Anyways, I'm fond of the mini-shrine idea, maybe the shrine being raised when/where the cult is formed (ie the God and Avatar need to be in the same room in the godrealm).

I've disliked the whole idea of the order wars since their inception. "Never get involved in a land war in Asia."

As Shuyin says, the boundaries are pretty much the same as city/commune within an order, especially with the advent of affinity (I know, bad word), and that just means it's just another form of the same sort of conflict, except with a much smaller group.

I like the RP of an order, and I think cults could be a lot of fun, but I don't see direct order-to-order combat as a necessity.

Questions / considerations:
1) What about people who currently own / paid for a Cult, but are not Avatar? (I'm probably about the only one, but still. For RP reasons I'm not really an Avatar of Viravain, the Cult is intended to be more Shikari-based with the whole Viravain & Shikari are close, etc., so the cult part makes sense in the Order but Avatar, not so much)
2) Currently an Ascendant in a Cult can use the cult powers whether or not they're the cult leader (they just don't have full privs to all of the Cult things that exist, like being able to read the Cult log). This helps with not "diffusing" things by having splinters of 3 or even 4 different active Cults in an Order. Would this still be the case with the Avatar system (ie, multiple Avatars in the same Cult can use the same Cult's powers, but there is only one who is the "head")?
3) Allied orders have shrine effects that work on one another. Would Cult extensions also take this into account? And / or take into account Divine animosity settings?

Also; I want Order quests.

It costs gods a lot to create an order quest and some gods like to hoard their essence--speak to your patron!

My guesstimate is that Viravain has one of the highest essence pools in the game. Lots and lots of quests!

And, what about the half of the game with patrons that are, for all intents and purposes, dead? Personally, that's one of the attractions of the ascendant/cult system for me, to have more active religious groups in Lusternia.

Or she's just too busy. The god realm hasn't even been expanded, and it's one of the smaller ones!

Less busy-making for Viravain please, so she can play with us?

I've always though that doing more with cults would actually draw away from the overall order unless it was really done well. If we had three Avatars of Maylea with cults, we could have Chaeyr, Ilua, and Ulod cults, which would be cool. With Nejii the only Ascendent we have, I can't think of anything to do with it, really.

Well, I can only answer based on how I would do it, if it were my design. Or at least, my opinion on it.

1) I would refund all existing cults essence to players/gods, and possibly saving the existing cult essence somewhere. Converting existing cults would probably end up being a nightmare.

2) Ascendants being able to use cult powers for a cult that isn't theirs is a bug. I'm a bit perturbed this was only reported a week ago, but whatever. This will be fixed when the system is rewritten - likely, if you 'buy' the ability to have a cult, you cannot be a member of one. Also, you could only be in one cult at a time, irrelevant of 'who' you are.

3) Cult powers generally effect just the cult, so I imagine a lot of your question becomes irrelevant. If we ended up going so far as attacking order enemies with rituals, such as area effects etc, it would function the way shrines do. I can't see why it wouldn't.

Edit: And cults are very expensive. I could raise half a dozen avatars, or make a cult. I suspect that price may go up, not sure.

They are essence-tially dead.

Make the bragging rights really obnoxious? Maybe some really annoying curse, or some kind of combat advantage over members of the cult. Or cursed "I <3 shirts" shirts for the losing side.

Apparently nobody knew about this until about a week ago; I sure didn't. Nor had anyone used any of my cult stuff in my logs.

Edit: That said; my original thought was indeed that it was intentional to let people take advantage of actually having cult powers. Hm.

No one honestly knew about it until recently. I personally didn't even think to try it for kicks. Though personally, it'd be nice to allow this just for cult skills to get used a bit more.