AstriaS
Member
Hello all,
As you may or may not know, I am the Archcanon of the Temple of the Four Divinities (Shameless self-advertisement). Earlier today, while I was conversing with some of the Faithful, a series of ideas were discussed involving quality-of-life and RP-related improvements to Loka's religion system. After the conversation, I found myself struck with the inclination to share said ideas as well as some of my own.
Milestones
The largest of the ideas is the concept of Faith Milestones. This would make faith the determining factor of a religion's "level". With these Milestones, as a religion gains more faith, it will be able to unlock bigger and better things (some of which will be discussed in detail later in this post) to continue growing its level of faith. To illustrate the idea, here is a brief example of what these milestones could look like:
This list could continue as long as is necessary and as long as there are still potential religion perks that could be implemented. Many of these milestones would be purely optional for players, and would not be required for the religion to function. As a result, they would also have no material benefits, and would be entirely limited to the rate at which faith can be generated, quality-of-life changes, and RP potential. For examples, please see the remainder of this post.
Religion Hierarchy
We already have this, in a way, in the form of '/rl title'. My suggested change is to add the option to base promotion on the player's level of contributed faith (hereinafter abbreviated as CF). This would allow religion leaders to more easily assign roles to players within the religion, and make the management of ranks less of a task (especially for those like me who need to look up the Minecraft text formatting code every time they go to give someone a new title). It would, ideally, be a purely optional feature, and those who wish to could simply continue to use '/rl title'. The main goal of this idea is to save religion leaders time and hassle that could be better spent on their faith. Here is an illustration of the hierarchy system in action using the ranks within the Temple of the Four Divinities:
Doctrines
Doctrines would act as a means of adding not only a touch of RP depth to religions, but also of adding some minor benefits and, in some cases, a degree of fun. After the Doctrines Faith Milestone is unlocked, a religion's founder would be able to select a doctrine to add something to their religion. The following are some examples of what a doctrine could look like:
Holy Sites, Shrines & Religious Gatherings
At present, praying provides only +1 or +2 faith, depending on whether or not you are at the religion's Holy Site. For larger religions with members across multiple towns, this poses a problem, as the followers living outside the Holy Site produce a significant amount less faith, due to the impracticality of making three pilgrimages every day. It could be argued that those with true dedication would make the daily pilgrimages, but I digress. I propose instead a means by which other towns will be able to fully contribute to their faith of choice.
Shrines are a structure that boosts the faith output of a tile by +1 faith per prayer.They would function similarly to Loka's beacon in that they would be a structure placed by players, but they would not produce items. However they would come with the following requirements:
This would allow those faithful in foreign towns to produce the same amount of faith daily as those living on the holy site itself. Of course, that is simply not good enough, as the Holy Site will then lose part of its uniqueness and importance. So, to remedy this problem, I propose yet another solution; Religious Gatherings.
Religious Gatherings would function as the Holy Site's method of remaining relevant after the advent of shrines. They would be a weekly event, and would take place at a preset time and date selected by the religion's founder. The gathering would take place within a designated area within the holy site of the religion (ideally a shrine/church constructed by the faithful, and in some way zoned to function as the site of the gathering). When players are attending the religious gathering event, prayers will give +4 faith each. The following requirements and limitations would apply to religious gatherings:
With that, I humbly leave this suggestion at your mercy. May the Grace of the Four guide your steps.
Signed,
As you may or may not know, I am the Archcanon of the Temple of the Four Divinities (Shameless self-advertisement). Earlier today, while I was conversing with some of the Faithful, a series of ideas were discussed involving quality-of-life and RP-related improvements to Loka's religion system. After the conversation, I found myself struck with the inclination to share said ideas as well as some of my own.
Milestones
The largest of the ideas is the concept of Faith Milestones. This would make faith the determining factor of a religion's "level". With these Milestones, as a religion gains more faith, it will be able to unlock bigger and better things (some of which will be discussed in detail later in this post) to continue growing its level of faith. To illustrate the idea, here is a brief example of what these milestones could look like:
100 Faith: Religion Hierarchy
300 Faith: Shrines
500 Faith: Religious Gatherings
1000 Faith: Doctrines
300 Faith: Shrines
500 Faith: Religious Gatherings
1000 Faith: Doctrines
This list could continue as long as is necessary and as long as there are still potential religion perks that could be implemented. Many of these milestones would be purely optional for players, and would not be required for the religion to function. As a result, they would also have no material benefits, and would be entirely limited to the rate at which faith can be generated, quality-of-life changes, and RP potential. For examples, please see the remainder of this post.
Religion Hierarchy
We already have this, in a way, in the form of '/rl title'. My suggested change is to add the option to base promotion on the player's level of contributed faith (hereinafter abbreviated as CF). This would allow religion leaders to more easily assign roles to players within the religion, and make the management of ranks less of a task (especially for those like me who need to look up the Minecraft text formatting code every time they go to give someone a new title). It would, ideally, be a purely optional feature, and those who wish to could simply continue to use '/rl title'. The main goal of this idea is to save religion leaders time and hassle that could be better spent on their faith. Here is an illustration of the hierarchy system in action using the ranks within the Temple of the Four Divinities:
Founder: Archcanon
100 CF: Canon
80 CF: Curate
60 CF: Devotee
40 CF: Adept
20 CF: Acolyte
0 CF: Initiate
100 CF: Canon
80 CF: Curate
60 CF: Devotee
40 CF: Adept
20 CF: Acolyte
0 CF: Initiate
Doctrines
Doctrines would act as a means of adding not only a touch of RP depth to religions, but also of adding some minor benefits and, in some cases, a degree of fun. After the Doctrines Faith Milestone is unlocked, a religion's founder would be able to select a doctrine to add something to their religion. The following are some examples of what a doctrine could look like:
- God of Revelry: After praying, players have a random chance to gain the drunk status effect for a short time. Once every 24 hours, players have a small chance to gain +2 faith from consuming alcohol.
- Divine Harvest: Once every 24 hours, players have a small chance to gain +2 faith from farming.
- Pious Laborers: Once every 24 hours, players have a small chance to gain +2 faith from mining.
- Wabbajack: After praying, players have a random chance to gain a random status effect for a short time, and a small chance to die instantly. Once every 24 hours, tiny chance to randomly gain +1 faith.
Holy Sites, Shrines & Religious Gatherings
At present, praying provides only +1 or +2 faith, depending on whether or not you are at the religion's Holy Site. For larger religions with members across multiple towns, this poses a problem, as the followers living outside the Holy Site produce a significant amount less faith, due to the impracticality of making three pilgrimages every day. It could be argued that those with true dedication would make the daily pilgrimages, but I digress. I propose instead a means by which other towns will be able to fully contribute to their faith of choice.
Shrines are a structure that boosts the faith output of a tile by +1 faith per prayer.They would function similarly to Loka's beacon in that they would be a structure placed by players, but they would not produce items. However they would come with the following requirements:
- Religions must reach the required milestone to construct shrines.
- The town that wishes to construct a shrine must first have produced (for example) 40 faith for the religion to which they intend to dedicate their shrine.
- Certain materials would have to be provided to construct the shrine.
- In order for the shrine to continue to function, 10 faith (5 prayers) would have to be produced in the town per week. If this requirement is not met, the shrine will become defunct.
- Shrines cannot be constructed in the Holy Site of the religion to which it is dedicated.
Religious Gatherings would function as the Holy Site's method of remaining relevant after the advent of shrines. They would be a weekly event, and would take place at a preset time and date selected by the religion's founder. The gathering would take place within a designated area within the holy site of the religion (ideally a shrine/church constructed by the faithful, and in some way zoned to function as the site of the gathering). When players are attending the religious gathering event, prayers will give +4 faith each. The following requirements and limitations would apply to religious gatherings:
- Religious gatherings can only be held once the religion reaches the requisite milestone.
- Religious gatherings can only be held after at least 2 shrines have been dedicated to the religion.
- Gatherings can only be held once per week, and will occur during a specified timeframe on the same day weekly. This will allow players in different time zones to still attend and get their +4 faith.
- The time and day of the gathering would only be able to be changed once per month (possibly during the truce period).
- Gatherings would not forgive the poor timing of prayers. If a player prays and the 8 hour cooldown prevents them from praying at the gathering, that is the player's fault. This would mostly be to prevent praying immediately before the gathering and then again to get +6 faith.
- The zone within which the gatherings take place would need to be approved to prevent people from setting their entire town to be a gathering site.
With that, I humbly leave this suggestion at your mercy. May the Grace of the Four guide your steps.
Signed,
Archcanon Astria
EDIT: PS Thank you to Curate Thanius_, Initiate Raxel_J (BushidoNBourbon) and Devotee Nickrocky213 for the ideas they contributed to this collection of thoughts.
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