We already had cults...

But now I get to run one... Ilyarin went inactive and the cult dissolved.

There will be a debt that needs to be repaid which will be drained daily. Once it is paid (presuming there is one at all), there is no upkeep.

The cost of raising a Vernal Ascendant will increase exponentially based on the number you have.

There will not - I repeat, not - be a daily drain beyond that.

I wasn't handling the costs, but these were the figures that were used in the base design:

The first 2 ascendants will be 2m each, then each one after that will be twice the previous cost. So Ascendant 1 is 2m, Ascendant 2 is is 2m, Ascendant 3 is 4m, Ascendant 4 is 8, Ascendant 5 is 16m, Ascendant 6 is 32m, Ascendant 7 is 64m, etc.

So, to give a real example, Celest has 2 ascendants. That's a cost of 4m power. They've paid 1m each, so they've paid 2m, owe 2m. Celest will then have a daily drain of y amount until the 2m is repaid. Celest currently has 2,286,039 power. So they're well enough into the clear to be unconcerned. Once that 2m is paid back, Celest will have nothing to worry about. Conversely orgs with more ascendants (Glomdoring, Serenwilde) will be looking at double digit debts if no one is stripped.

There'll be a partial refund for stripping an ascendant, which will probably make the blow of stripping one feel loss painful.

Most of the ascendant abilities are geared towards group combat, and provide very little benefit in solo combat (at least, the benefit is far less cost-efficient when it's 1 person instead of 30 people). The beauty domoth is mostly geared towards tradeskills, particularly design aspects.

I feel like it's a nice mix of useful single-person abilities (like fear aura, aegis), group-oriented abilities (what I mentioned above), and utility abilities (you'll see!). There's also a couple abilities that affect your beasts, too. There will be inherent benefits for True Ascendants as well, so it's not a 'lost cause' for a Vernal Ascendant to try and win - though if organizations want to lose that control they have over them in supporting it is up to them! And I'll admit, the benefit isn't terribly huge, but it's there. All in all I'm really happy with how it turned out.

Cults have been totally redesigned, from the ground up!

Do you know roughly how high the daily drain will be? Are we talking 1k, 5k, 10k, more? Also, what would happen if you ran out of power? Would "only" the guards be dismissed, or would there be more serious repercussions?

How will this change affect me, the consumer, in any way?

While that's a lot less harsh than we expected, it still has the same effect (which is the intended effect, I think) of severely limiting the number of VAs and therefore ensuring that if you're not one already you probably stand virtually no chance of becoming one. So the question still stands: what, if anything, do demigods get? (If the answer is "to shut up and wait for the announce already" I can live with that. )

Well, that is sort of disappointing to hear. I guess I'm only ever going to see demigod.

thank you for the clarification. I assume the drain will be any net gain you get.

The repercussions that occur when power hits 0 will occur as per normal (which I don't think is known!). There's nothing 'special' in regards to this except the drain will be halted until you have power. There may or may not be a 'cooldown period' to allow them to get some power in before it starts up again, I'm not sure.

That was part of the point

I liked the upkeep cost more, personally. Give a bit more incentive to strip inactive ones, imo.

What, and let people ruin my fun? No, if someone wants to know, they should go drain their nexus!

I suppose you could look at it that way. Paying 4m or 8m for what you could instead pay 2m or 4m for seems like a pretty big incentive to me, though.



I think you'll just need to wait and see. There's certainly something in it for demigods to go VA, if that's your question. If it's 'what do demigods get for abilities', I'll admit there isn't a lot beyond customization and a few utility things. As I said, we're happy to listen to some suggestions for new stuff once it's all done!

Okay!

I nominate Serenwilde.

Even though I didn't do much with my cult, I miss it already. Not even a refund of the 10 mil to get it. And no active god to reform it with. I'll go be sad about that over in the corner, I guess.

Lendren's asking about how the new system affects demigods, since everything listed so far is about ascendants and avatars, not about demigods who want to be ascendants.

True, but there's still a difference between an to upkeep cost for 3 or more ascendants that's not maintainable with out being in the negative for net gain, and an excessively high power cost that could someday feasibly be reached.

The question is how feasible it is. Glom could, perhaps, get 1.5-2M power per RL year, so we'd be a loooong way away from our next ascendant, even without powerdebt.

It's still a different mindset with 'this guy is costing us power' and 'this guy is preventing us from raising another ascendant' and I feel the former gives more incentive to strip inactive ascendants, but, eh, that's just what I feel.