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Cults Should Not Perish In Totality
Xenthos
Shadow Lord
Cults are a huge investment of time and energy for players and Administrative staff both- something which needs to be set up correctly on the Administrative side (for example, the custom messages) and then which the players need to throw an extremely large amount of slaughtered beings at (1,200,000,000 in offerings, or as little as 133,000,000 of the cult leader's personal essence if they choose to go that route). Most cults choose a mixture of the two, with the bulk of the work being done with personal essence invested by the Cult leader.
This is a process that takes RL months to complete, symbolizing the drawing together of the cult and the God to which the cult is bound.
A problem exists here, however; there are circumstances during which the Cult can be destroyed, through no fault of the players therein. If the God chooses to dissolve their Order, all attached Cults are summarily dissolved. Everything invested in them is essentially deleted from existence.
Unlike most other facets of an Order, this is something that actually destroys real, quantifiable achievements. Shrines, the God's realm, the Temple, and all of the various little enhancements and additions that they make for their order are a different matter. They are entirely put together by the God, using the God's own essence (which admittedly is gained through player input, but the players do not see the total numbers or how they are spent and so there is no real sense of "ownership," nor should there be). These things are entirely the Gods' creations and should be seen (and enjoyed) as such.
The problem with Cults is that there is a very real and personal counter of what the player must put into it, above and beyond the God's contributions. This personal investment is used to make the bond feel more real, but when it is thrown away it also causes a great deal of frustration. Not only have you just gone through the trauma of losing your God, your Order, your quests, and everything else associated with Them (which is by itself a huge source of RP to work with), but there is an exact loss which you know down to the last little mote of essence that just feels extraordinarily personal, because that is something that you invested and threw in with a huge amount of your own time and energy.
So. What I would propose is the following:
When a Cult is disbanded through the God's death, there would be a form of "backlash". This backlash would encompass the dissolving of the Cults, the Order, the Temple, and the associated items / cleanup thing. However, there would be a strange effect of this backlash on Cults; when the Cult is destroyed by it, the essence invested in it is severed from the God in question and shoved back into the Cult leader (as the primary investor).
This would remove the "personal" end from the entire equation, allowing the whole thing to be viewed in the manner in which I think it is intended to be- a tragedy, but not one that feels like it is directly punishing specific individuals who did invest heavily. As a further note, I will point out that other things are not destroyed; order beasts and stoles both remain useable because they were investments by the players in question. Given that Cults are irrevocably tied to an Order (and I don't think there is any intention nor desire of changing that), a simple return of the essence accomplishes much the same goal without destroying or re-writing the concept.
This is a process that takes RL months to complete, symbolizing the drawing together of the cult and the God to which the cult is bound.
A problem exists here, however; there are circumstances during which the Cult can be destroyed, through no fault of the players therein. If the God chooses to dissolve their Order, all attached Cults are summarily dissolved. Everything invested in them is essentially deleted from existence.
Unlike most other facets of an Order, this is something that actually destroys real, quantifiable achievements. Shrines, the God's realm, the Temple, and all of the various little enhancements and additions that they make for their order are a different matter. They are entirely put together by the God, using the God's own essence (which admittedly is gained through player input, but the players do not see the total numbers or how they are spent and so there is no real sense of "ownership," nor should there be). These things are entirely the Gods' creations and should be seen (and enjoyed) as such.
The problem with Cults is that there is a very real and personal counter of what the player must put into it, above and beyond the God's contributions. This personal investment is used to make the bond feel more real, but when it is thrown away it also causes a great deal of frustration. Not only have you just gone through the trauma of losing your God, your Order, your quests, and everything else associated with Them (which is by itself a huge source of RP to work with), but there is an exact loss which you know down to the last little mote of essence that just feels extraordinarily personal, because that is something that you invested and threw in with a huge amount of your own time and energy.
So. What I would propose is the following:
When a Cult is disbanded through the God's death, there would be a form of "backlash". This backlash would encompass the dissolving of the Cults, the Order, the Temple, and the associated items / cleanup thing. However, there would be a strange effect of this backlash on Cults; when the Cult is destroyed by it, the essence invested in it is severed from the God in question and shoved back into the Cult leader (as the primary investor).
This would remove the "personal" end from the entire equation, allowing the whole thing to be viewed in the manner in which I think it is intended to be- a tragedy, but not one that feels like it is directly punishing specific individuals who did invest heavily. As a further note, I will point out that other things are not destroyed; order beasts and stoles both remain useable because they were investments by the players in question. Given that Cults are irrevocably tied to an Order (and I don't think there is any intention nor desire of changing that), a simple return of the essence accomplishes much the same goal without destroying or re-writing the concept.
13
(c) Iron Realms Entertainment 2012.
Comments
Asking... How would conspiracy theories start, then?!
06/30/2014 19:37 Silvanus channels the power of the Megalith of Doom for you, stripping you of your Vernal Ascendant status.......bastard!!
I'd be fine with that as an alternative too, though.