Chapter 10.1 Faith Systems
Altars
Tinder is burned at a settlement or property hub to maintain protection spells and thwart monster threats. In contrast, altars are used exclusively for worship and faith-based effects. We discussed favor and disfavor in the ecology influence section, and briefly in the crafting for monsters section. This specific section will discuss altars in more detail.
Altar Functions
Players can unlock the ability to build altars, offering items to raise a character's affiliation with a target, providing favor towards a monster, or to express disfavor. Expressing disfavor will also lessen a player's affiliation with a monster. Players can link altars to specific monsters, creatures, NPC and even players, alive or dead, regardless of their activity state. Some altars themed towards a certain monster or creature will automatically be linked to a monster or creature, and cannot be linked to anything else. Other altars can be outfitted and linked depending on how it is set up. Altar tasks (hints) can help guide a player.
Increasing Altar Efficiency
Higher church complexities, and culture skills, will increase the effect radius of prayers and offerings. Higher complexity altars will transmit more of a prayer and/or offering value to the chosen target at the altar. Churches can have more than one altar, but most altars can only be linked to one entity at a time.
Player Based Altars
Altars runes will glow when the player is online, and runes will turn off when a player is offline. Allowing followers to determine when they would like to send offerings. All offerings, offline or online will go towards a player's favor, which can be then spent on favor based skills and buffs, unlocking certain skills and abilities. Offerings sent will add to a player's favor legacy. Players can also offer disfavor based prayers and offerings for the same affect, it will lessen a player's active favor total, and will add to a player's disfavor legacy. Just like tinder, favor will fade overtime, and will also fade when a player is offline. However, unlike tinder, there is no mechanic to slow favor loss.
Creatures (Animals) and Monsters - Faith Influences
Worshiping creatures and monsters increases their base stats in their influence radius, and may even increase their influence radius. However, the final total will compete with disfavor, and opposing NPC and player factions that are also sending favor and disfavor. Some creatures and monsters in opposition, will automatically add disfavor to affected creatures and monsters that are in opposition of it.
Gaining Faith Skills
As players continue to increase their affiliation with particular groups of creatures and monsters, (or a specific one,) players will gain faith based skills that increase base stats for these creatures. These faith based skills add buffs to their prayers and offerings that can make affected creatures and monsters better resources for crafting, increase their spawn rate, and may make other changes in the world. Increasing a faith skill proficiency may allow players to communicate better with monsters and creatures, allowing them to be notified of quests of certain needs from them at altars. These players can then post these quests publically, if desired. Other players completing these quests can also gain affiliation with creatures and monsters outside of the faith system.
NPC - Faith Influences
NPC are able to add influence as players can. But they often need to already be aligned to a creature, monster, NPC or player to offer prayers and offerings to them. Faith based players can unlock skills to influence NPC to change alignments, or newly indoctrinate NPC. Other NPC will also have abilities to do the same to NPCs. NPC cannot forcefully change alignments of players, but can offer faith based quests. Completing faith based quests can change a player's alignment.
Players - Faith Influences
After a church is built, the owner of the church hub, can light a faith torch, and link a faith marker to the church. A faith marker is a tool/item that indicates a player's connection to a faith. A faith torch is offered to a player with a faith marker, if the player accepts it, they must keep the faith marker on them to obtain favor, as well as use favor. The player holding or equipping a faith maker becomes a worshiped player. A church based on a player will be less effective at sending favor if altars are linked to other beings, or have specific creature/monster altars built.
Examples of Assets That Can Be Turned Into Faith Markers
Crown
Amulet
Cape
Gauntlets
Weapon
Tool
Ring
Tattoo
Outpost Faith Rules
Outposts can set laws on if creature, monster, NPC, or player deity churches are allowed, or if no churches are allowed. Setting up church mechanics in secret locations will be applicable to crime laws if discovered, that are naturally applied to the faith torch bearer (church owner,) not the followers.
(Note that church ownership is actually defined at the altar level, but linking a torch to an altar activates a radius that counts the building it is in as a church, and then affects all altars in the radius (if outside) or building. Thus visitors and followers who interact with the atlar/affected altars aren't specifically linked to it, but can identify as so.)
Church Owner - Basics
The faith torch bearer, is able to make an altar once linked to a player. Similar to culture points, a church owner can unlock controls, that can be used to affect them. A linked worshipped player can stop the link at any time if they find their choices disfavorable, but will slowly lose deity status if they don't gain new followers. More advanced controllers will need more tinder to activate.
The Player Deity - Basics
The chosen player will need to select which items they will accept as proper offerings, and which items displease you. By default, these will be selected based on your current archetype. For every item you choose to allow as offerings, you will need to match with another displeasure. This is similar to in-game creatures, monsters, NPC and deities, to determine your own alignment or disfavor, as well as future altar theming. However, if you choose more items that displease you, than favor you, the more potent the ones that grant favor will be. Players who wish for you to not gain power, can offer any of these items of disfavor to desecrate you. Causing your strength as a worshiped player to go down.
Players - Deities
With enough favor, the game will define these figures as deities, and can cause quest triggers that may put other faith marked players against each other, or support each other. Faith marked players will function similar to monsters, where players of the same category can uphold each other, but players of different categories are marked as outsiders. Needed given favor has a base value, but also scales by all faith marked players to keep deities uncommon. A player will sense if they are losing their deity status, and deity specific skills will no longer function after some time of their lost status. Deities are the only entities that are able to use magic, and they use favor to do so. Using favor doesn't make a player lose deity status, it is the rate of worship activity in a cycle. Some deity types will be coded to be more rare than others.
Faith Connections Breaking
If a player's favorability reaches 0 for too long, their link to a church will break, and the church can offer partnership again, or find someone else. Churches can also break a bond at any time, but the player's faith marked item will still have leftover favor, until the favor points reach 0 for long enough. From there on, a player can't use any skills or abilities in relation to being worshipped. Until then, a church owner can relink a faith connection. When a faith connection is broken, you still retain the history in your favor and disfavor legacy.
Faith as Community Based Power
Prayers are the magic system of Spirit Relics, and it is community based power and influence. Another option is to build up NPC to follow them, but both player and NPC based prayers will create a radius of faith spirit, with tinder being burned attracting monsters to their location. These monster threats scale up just like in any claim/outpost, and if connected to a claim/outpost, it will add threat to it. Player specific altars can only be linked to 1 player deity at a time. But in the world, there can be many of these altars feeding favor and disfavor. To create more altars, either for favor or disfavor for a player, go to an active player altar, and light a link torch, and light an unlit altar to make a new connection. Worshipped players are not able to use altars for any reason, (prayers and offerings don't work,) or light any linking torches, (they just go out,) and cannot build altars (they will burn up and collapse after construction).
Variety of Player Worship
With wars, pirates, and nature based characters, soloers, restaurant owners, inn keepers, smiths, bounty hunters and so forth, there are many types of players to be praised. Some outpost founders and leaders may end up becoming deities.
Destruction of Altars
If an altar is destroyed, it will need to be repaired by any able player. While it is destroyed, it is inactive and unable to affect favor or disfavor. As long as the tile's warmth hasn't decayed, it will immediately relink upon repair. However, if the warmth has decayed, it will need to be relit. A worshipped player can offer a light while they have favor to create a new faith torch if another person or NPC is carrying one. (If they didn't want it lit, they can remove it easily.) A deity cannot relight their own altar, but can relight an empty faith torch, for someone else to use.