Altars

[Nalzaxx]

This is a simple proposal to encourage the use of altars and as an extension religion within the world of Illarion.

Currently we have altars dedicated to each of the gods which produce a random message upon being used. The altars of the five can also be used to upgrade magical gems.

I'm proposing to widen the scope of the altars abilities to encourage their use. That being implementing rewards / punishments for 'praying' at them. These events could take on a number of possibilities:

- +/- To an attribute
- Restoring Health/Food/Mana
- A divine item of some sort (Gem/Money/Potion/etc)
- Summoning a hostile creature
- Casting a random spell
- Teleporting the player somewhere
- A blessing/curse of some kind
- A message or sign of some sort
- Or perhaps nothing happens at all

Which would be picked according to a number of certain criteria. This could include the essence of the character, items worn (priest robes perhaps) or even the God to which you pray.

There are a number of ways to approach this:

- Firstly would be through a skill based system akin to using an instrument. The amount of times you use an altar the better your 'faith' becomes and the better the rewards the altars return.

- Secondly you could implement an offering based system whereby items are either used with, or placed ontop of, an altar in an attempt to acheive a specific result. For instance placing a few coppers could entice a small healing spell. Offering a sword could encourage a bonus to the characters strength. In a similar fashion a poor offering could encourage a negative effect from the altar. Offering old boots could incur a curse to be given or a fierce monster to be summoned. The worth of specific offerings could change according to the God the altar is dedicated to. Offering flowers would be favourable to Sirani but not to Moshran.

With either system it would be wise to implement some limitations to the amount of prayers/offerings that can be performed. Perhaps decreasing the chance of being heard at all with each subsequent prayer or only allowing a certain number of prayers each day.

Its just a little something that would encourage a little more religion in the game, knights will be encouraged to pray to Malachin for strength before battle and crafters to Irmorom to guide their tools more accurately. Its far from a priest system of any kind, and is in no way meant to be such a thing, but perhaps we can enrich religion in the game a little more by giving it some more support in the engine.

For your consideration and criticism.

EDIT: Oh and you need at least 6 essence to use an altar.

[Pellandria]

there is allready something like that in production within the priest developing group.

[Tanistian_Kanea]

@ Pell: however much is in "the works"

@Nalz: i like general concept. work on balancing the effects. "Faith" would be a simple and interesting skill, should be "automated" like beating wheat to grain to prevent super fast clicking millions of times like with instruments (mind since they have no use outside RP they can stay that way for now)


Offerings get difficult. A good god would base the value of what is being offered on what the person has (A farmer, giving up an animal or some small trinket would be highly praised by the god since the farmer has little to give. While at the same time the same god may want a cart of gold from the king since he has so much at his disposal) now the best idea would be to somehow total all of what the character has and judge the value of what is being given. that is not practical though, or even possible for all i know. based on what is being worn? can be abused... badly... the only real idea i can think of is to simply limit the usefulness of what is being offered. so something worth 1 silver would score an 80% something costing 5 silver would score an 85% 10-90% 15-92% 20-94% 25-96% 30-97% 35-98% 40-99% 50-100% (example, not my actually idea for numbers. Also % is imply % of the max offering something would give to skill "favor gained") and limit number of offerings to like 1 per IG week or something.

[pharse]

there is allready something like that in production within the priest developing group.

Aye. It would be a waste of working time to develop such a system if it had to be revised anyway in the course of the upcoming priest system.

Don't be afraid, you all will get your faith skill to powergame