11.3 OFFERINGS AND SHRINES
Offerings
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Offerings are the major way in which you as a devoted follower may gain your God essence. Many things that a Divinity might do cost Him or Her essence. In order to offer to your God, you must first find a location in which a shrine to that God has been erected.
Once you have done that, you must choose what to offer. You may offer gold, corpses and items imbued with esteem. Be warned that offering gold will automatically offer all the gold in your hands. Simply type OFFER <offering> and you will send your offering winging its way to your beloved patron, who will be notified of your offering.
OFFER CORPSES is also useful to offer all corpses in your inventory at once.
Shrines
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As you wander about the land, you will undoubtedly encounter shrines to various Gods. These shrines have been erected by highly-ranked followers of Gods as testaments to the glory of their God or Goddess, and in order to provide more offering points for followers.
Those who are given the power by their patron by ERECT <type> SHRINE, where the type is either War, Healing, Shield, or Invasion. Different types of shrines can perform different powers, as seen below. Note that only one of each type of shrine can exist in a local area. Rooms adjacent to the shrine (and adjacent to other sanctified rooms) can then be sanctified to that shrine. A number of sanctified rooms are required for certain shrine powers, and in addition they help to protect the shrine, as explained below. Note: Invasion shrines are only usable on enemy god realms during a current order war and will automatically call creatures in an invasion, no beseeching necessary. They can also not be sanctified beyond the shrine itself.
If you wish to help strengthen a shrine, you will do OFFER <offering> TO SANCTIFY while if you wish to harm a shrine, you will OFFER <offering> TO DEFILE. In both of these cases, the God's essence will not be affected. To strengthen or harm a room sanctified to the shrine, use the same commands in the room. Note that sanctified rooms can only be defiled from outwards in, which means that if a sanctified room is connected only to other rooms that are sanctified rooms, it cannot be defiled, and shrines cannot be defiled until there are no rooms sanctified to them left.
NOTE: Though gold can be offered for essence, it cannot be used to sanctify or defile shrines or rooms.
Prayers
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You may also use shrines to send prayers to the Divinity they venerate. This can be done using PRAY TO <God(dess)> <message>. Prayers are an excellent in-character way of getting a Divine's attention, or relaying a message to Them. You do not need to be a part of that Divine's Order to use Their shrines in this manner.
Order Powers
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As you progress in rank in your Order, you will gain the ability to use various powers.
ORDER PRIVILEGES (or just ORDER PRIVS) will show you your order-related powers.
Many of the Order powers are related to shrines. For these, you must be at a shrine, and do:
BESEECH <your god> FOR <power> [WITH KARMA]
All shrine powers either have the range of "personal" or "area", meaning that they will affect either the person that activates them or the entire area respectively. When an area power is activated, it will affect either all members of an Order, and allies of an Order (see HELP DIVINE RELATIONS), or all enemies of an Order, depending on whether it is a defensive or offensive power.
Please remember that using these shrine-related powers will cost your beloved Deity essence each time you use them. However, to save your god essence, your own karma may be used to activate some personal Order powers.
The shrine powers currently in existence are:
-- Area Powers --
WRATH (War) - This power drains the health, mana and ego of order enemies within the area.
DISTORT (War) - This power acts similarly to the Nexus Distort discretionary power.
INVASION (War) - This power summons your God's guardians to attack any nearby enemies.
LIFEFORCE (Healing) - This power instantly heals the health, mana and ego of all order members and allies in the area, and cures them of all afflictions before surrounding them with a temporary prismatic barrier.
REPLENISH (Healing) - This power continuously heals the health, mana and ego of all order members and allies in the area.
ALLCURE (Healing) - This power continuously cures afflictions in all order members and allies in the area.
ARMOUR (Shield) - This power reduces the damage taken by order members and allies while within the area.
PACIFICATION (Shield) - This power means that there is a chance whenever an order member or ally is attacked within the area, their attacker will be pacified.
HERALD (Shield) - This power will ask the Herald of your patron to watch over the area in which the shrine is, and report whenever an order enemy enters or leaves the area.
-- Personal Powers --
NOTE: These powers can use karma instead of your god's essence at your choosing.
SHRINESIGHT (Healing) - This power allows you to sense all of your god's shrines within the realm.
VENDETTA (War) - This power will allow you to do more damage to order enemies.
GRAVITY (War) - This power creates an unnatural aura of gravity around you, making it difficult for enemies of your order to leave you. This power will only take effect in the same area as the shrine from which it was beseeched.
HEAL (Healing) - This power will continuously heal your health, mana and ego.
CURE (Healing) - This power will allow access to the PRAY FOR CURE command to cure several afflictions at once.
PROTECTION (Shield) - This power will create a chance whenever you are attacked that you will bend reality slightly in order to dodge the attack.
CELERITY (Shield) - This power will increase the speed of your mind and body, allowing you to recover equilibrium and balance faster for a time (2/4 bonus).
