Can kind of get there by letting cult leaders choose to ally as a mechanic (like Divine allying, but only allying with other Cults in your Order). That way it doesn't necessarily matter which cult you're in as allied cults would have a shared cult-essence pool and would be able to use skills with one another (though only the leaders of each would be able to use the skills, as per your concept of Cults).

Basically would allow different people to use their Cult powers but not compete for membership amongst a small pool of players (unless, of course, they decide not to ally because they want to compete with one another...)

And well... avatar just doesn't seem special to me as a result. Or should I just wait until the day when avatars out number everyone else?


If cults are tied to avatars then I think even if there is no hard cap, the divine should restrict their numbers. Lisaera, for example, might have three with some theme of maiden/mother/crone behind them and the other gods could likely come up with some way for their cults to be a facet of who they are. Though as long as they are still an ascendant thing, cults should be about the org and not the divine.

I could make maybe 3 cults right now, and I'd be sitting at near 0 essence.

Cults are, by their nature, cost-prohibitive.

Well, really, I could actually get a bunch, but I prefer to spend my essence and such on temple expansions.

Anyways, this is really far from topic - cult abilities, etc.

Well, yeah but we are already off-topic as long as we are talking about cults as an avatar thing and not an ascendant thing. Considering that if it happens all we've really discussed is something that makes ascendants less unique.

So, do we want cults as an Avatar thing, do we want them as an Ascendant thing.

If they are an Avatar thing then what do Ascendants get instead as this is one of their unique cool things.

Right now the discussion is very heavy on "Let's make cults an Avatar thing and how do we make them better" but isn't the topic more about demigods, ascendants and how we can change them "for the better".

Cults tied an order make more sense for Avatars, tweaked however you want. Cults for an ascendent make no sense tied to an order and should be org-wide.

Alright. Let's surrender the topic of cults being order vs city-bound, and move on with the idea they're order-bound, since we're considering moving them to be an Avatar privilege. And let's surrender the topic of multiple cult leaders being in a single, as that's pretty non-germane.

Ideas for rites/rituals, blessings, that sort of thing. Ideas for meaningful conflict between cults, if/how it could/should be worked into God Wars, etc.

God wars would need to happen, first. And god wars with affinity is nothing but org conflict, so I don't see why we need a seperate system for it at all. Same problem with cults. Any conflict between them, unless it's between Lisaera and Maylea or something, is just city/commune conflict.

I still think orderheads/cult leaders should have the same ritual item that GMs do, that gives minor experience bonus for order/cult rites. It's a nice boon to lower level people and a nice perk.

Cult Leaders have a power that does this already, if I remember right.

Sigh. Fine. Let's not bother discussing it then.

If we're doing that then it should become a separate thread shouldn't it, as this won't be something that affects demigods or ascendants as a whole anymore. There is also the whole... what do Ascendants get now that you've ripped a substantial part of them away?

Oooh, looks like all the computers at work are crashing, baaaaaai

No, we'd changed the topic a couple pages ago, when Estarra asked about cults etcetera (which would still be available to Ascendants, as an order-bonded thing).

We may just gut the Ascendance skillset completely, since there's nothing left in it. It is a topic that does need to be gotten to, but it'd be nice if we could focus on one thing at a time.

Ah, right, forgot about that.

Meh, if they are divine bonded could have simple things like... minor versions of shrine powers that the cultists could bless others with, drawing from the cult essence pool to act as missionaries for the god?

Gods might be able to assign the cults to a particular set, so Ashteru could be Sword of Twilight and his cult would bless people with war shrine type stuff? Would introduce a slight soft cap because more than three would be kinda pointless.

If this happens then it really has to be removed from ascendence, I don't think it is fair to force something that really has nothing to do with the gods to be linked so deeply with them.

Well, either we give Demigods Ascendance, or we remove Cults from Ascendance. Or we give Demigods cults but none of the abilities.

Which do you think is going to happen? Better question, why do people keep arguing that we remove cults from Ascendance? We've said it's more than likely. Why would we be looking at a system/rites/benefits/etc if we weren't seriously considering it?

Quit arguing for it. It's confusing/frustrating, heh.

My original reasoning for suggesting these rituals was to give ascendants something they could do for their city/commune other than domoths, some extra and unique ways they could contribute to their community that don't involve PvP and hopefully allow a system where more people could be considered appropriate candidates. Without the divine, cults fit this quite nicely as they could allow for this to be a group activity and spread the reach of the ascendant with lesser abilties.

This has now been taken and appears to be heading towards godsville which is at the least slightly annoying, because the original intent was not something to make orders more interesting but the org as a whole through the ascendant.

I also feel it would be far more interesting if Ascendants and Cults were based around the org/domoth that raised the vernal. I don't particularly think that cults should be changed all that much if they are going to be trapped in orders because there is alot that the admin can do for them already and it would likely be more personal that way. Maybe allowing the cult to spend essence from its own pool to fund certain projects.

Thinking about it is actually getting really boring now, because order cults will always need to be personalised to the god you are talking about. While you could likely come up with abilities that Org/Domoth Ascendants might be able to invoke, on an order level it's like telling a god which skills their favour should bolster. I just don't find order cults interesting, sorry?

Shop ideas (taken from Xiel):
-custom teleport
-custom enter/exit
-custom ascend
-ability to give a room emote when you're in the same room with the demi
-ability to bestow karma blessings for essence
-change damage type of zap
-second tradeskill

More stuff for the shop (my ideas):
-temporary artifacts purchasable with essence (??), might be too much, but it can cost a lot.
-mini-creche, a one-room spot in the havens accessible only by the demi via ascend. You can buy various 'effects' you can imbue into the creche, things like endurance/will/etc. regain, insanity reduction, some protection from scry, etc.
-ability to shove custom text dreams into the heads of sleeping people.
-the chance to erase your family status/bloodline with essence. A demigod has severed his ties with mortalhood, yadda yadda, some rationale can be made.
-a demigod 'bell' artifact you can buy that you can drop in a room. If someone rings that bell, you get an alert regardless of where you are.
-aura of intimidation - no more running into cows
-thunderclap - a demigod can clap his hands for fireworks. The bright kind.
-I kind of want to ask for a demigod to have the ability to cast illusions, but in order to make it unusable for combat, the demigod will need full hp/mana/ego/power to do them + long balance and equilibrium time.
-blowhard - demigods can shout and be heard from anywhere
-personal custom demigod emote, one only, may include a custom pose.
-ability to grant a 'token' of sorts. In my mind, it functions like a favour (without giving any actual mechanical advantages), you give it to someone when you like them or it can be a signature of sorts. It's just a coin with the demigod's mark on it. Gotta collect them all.
-custom qq/login message.
-ability to know how much balance/eq you took when doing an action, server-side. I'd rather the whole game get this though, but since I'm thinking about it, why not.
-ability to purchase knowledge of mortal languages like aslari, elfen, etc.
-the ability to completely customize your description. No more "He is an ordinary human demigod and"...I hate that first 'and' in descriptions.
-ability to change your colour on qw. No more monotonous gold.
-special foods/booze for demigods.
-ability to worsen/improve your tolerance for alcohol.

I'll edit as I think of more stuff.

the first post I ever liked from Shuyin on this thread.

Give Paragons ascendance, let every Demi have the ability to become a Paragon!

Paragon == Demigod with Ascendance skillset and the current reforming (but you cost your org power if you die and take an essence hit that would drop you below 0 essence). None of the other Ascendant-stuff-- most especially not Domoth bonuses.

Then limit VAs to 1 per org.

How many times do you have to be told no?

Also was having vague ideas about Ascendants being able to summon domoth/org specific mobs into any other org. They wouldn't really do anything other than be there and probably require Ascendant tools to remove.

vague idea for how they would be summoned



Would cause something like "A hazy spirit stands here, their sword held at the ready as lush vegetation grows at their feet and the wyrd/taint/blah recoils." to appear all over the targetted org.

Nice little essence dump, does nothing just a bit of an annoyance for the other org to clean up. Probably couldn't strike back at the attacker until they're done cleaning.

Hey, he raised up some other options. This one is more balanced than some of the things he mentioned, and is far less of a punishment / more of a compromise which would be far easier for the players being affected to stomach. There is a reason for bringing it up, after all! Especially if Fearaura is modified, there really isn't much of any combat imbalance to be imposed by this.

Also: Cursing Prime orgs with mobs "just to be an annoyance" is extremely "meh". No thanks!

A lot of Sojiro's ideas look great though.