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[Hague]

Keeping in the random nature of the game, random gods with priests would be interesting. Gods are generated for each symbol in the game with individual names for the gods of every race. For example, Dwarves would have gods of Earth and Artifice. Anyone can build an altar to any individual god, but only Dwarves who share a fascination with that particular god (as a personality trait) will actually be valid to tend to the altar as a noble position (Priest of "So and So") Priests will arrange services for other followers which will make them happy and allow them to cope with hardships and death.

Altars are room furniture. That is, when an altar is constructed it allows you to designate a temple or shrine around it. Depending on the god, there might be requirements for where your altar is located. Depending on the quality of the altar and the value of the shrine will grant you a higher maximum "divine favor" (see below). Some gods will have stringent requirements for where the altar is built and what actions take place in the temple. A god of the sky will want the temple to be built outside with more favor given if the temple is higher in the air. Alternately, an earth god will require you to build your temple out of only stone and deeper underground and so on. Temples have levels for value: Shrine, Temple, High Temple and Grand Temple.

There are several options to access at an altar:
(s) Sacrifice
(m) Form Mass
(p) Pray for a miracle

Sacrifice brings an object, animal, vegetable or mineral and utterly destroys it for the sake of the god. Using a menu similar to the trade depot menu you can send these items to the altar to be sacrificed. Once hauled to the site priests will queue up the "Sacrifice at Altar" task and the value of the good sacrificed will give a boost to Divine Favor. Beware, that certain gods may take offense to taboo sacrifices. Some gods will forbid animal sacrifice while others will demand even the sacrifice of a sentient being.

Form Mass allows a priest to acquire the "Lead a Mass" which will take all aligned followers and lead them in worship. Not as effective as sacrifice, a mass will grant a smaller amount of divine favor, but all followers in attendence of a mass will get happy thoughts from doing so.

Praying for a miracle expends Divine Favor for a miracle to occur. Divine favor is the key ability of a temple and it's priest(s). It allows you to ask for a favor of the worshipped deity. These favors take the form of miracles such as the miraculous healing of a critically wounded citizen, a speed increase for all friendly units, rain, earthquakes, faster growing crops, divine inspiration, and so on. The effects are relatively indirect and random. You won't be able to choose which dwarf is healed by miraculous healing, but rather the god will pick the most injured one. Even crippling ailments like nervous damage can be healed with the proper amount of divine favor.

Divine inspiration is an invokable fey mood. Using a large amount of divine favor will grant a random craftsperson an inpsired mood. However, unlike normal fey moods, the craftsperson will not go insane if their mood is not fulfilled. It is recommended that the divine favor cost of this miracle be very high. Obviously, much of the artwork done with the resulting artifact will be rife with symbolism of the granting god.

Of course, once you have a temple, you will eventually receive a noble priest who will want to assume the authority of the temple in your fortress.  They can act as a priest but will make demands as any other noble. The noble priest however, is unlike normal nobles in that they have preferences for their mandates and demands related to the god and not their personal tastes. For example, a god of reverie might demand wine and purple-colored robes. Also, once your temple becomes very reknowned you will attract NPC pilgrims who will come to worship in your temple and grant a sporadic increase in Divine Favor. If these pilgrims are killed, however, that may anger the given god.

Opposition gods exist as well. Followers of one god may send crusaders to destroy your temple or holy place. Also, if two opposing temples exist in one fortress, their followers may argue and produce bad thoughts eventually leading to hostility and violence.

Gods are randomly generated at world creation with symbolism raws. That is, the god's name and specific preferences will be random but will still follow a set of rules with tokens. Tags like [BLOODY] will demand live sacrifice and bloody walls while [PURITY] will demand that no blood be spilled in the temple, and so on.

[ December 29, 2007: Message edited by: Hague ]

[Bullion]

that's a good idea, but there is only 1 god, Armok.

[Helmaroc]

quote:Originally posted by Bullion:
<STRONG>that's a good idea, but there is only 1 god, Armok.</STRONG>

LOL I was about to come down and say that exact thing 'the only god in df is armok'

[Torak]

quote:Originally posted by Bullion:
<STRONG>that's a good idea, but there is only 1 god, Armok.</STRONG>

Power goals.

[Hague]

Where is that written at, anyway?

[Draco18s]

Wow, sounds like Black&White.

Could be interesting, and it would make the Giant Temples to Armok actually BE giant temples...

[Hague]

Yeah, and they would be demanding blood sacrifice constantly and then some elvish crusaders would get all uppity and try to attack. You catch the elves in some cage traps and then sacrifice them for more power *maniacal laughter*

[penguinofhonor]

.

[Yat]

dedicate a pond, but choose to fill with blood, though a dwarf who fails to make an artifact that was wished for with divine favor seems to be the sort of thing that a god would smite one's fortress for. Suddenly every underground level collapses due to earthquake. Dwarf cancels job; rapture.

[PresidentEvil]

I think that religions should be randomly generated. It'd be a great way to add

Membership: Hereditary, anyone can join, warrior's order, etc.
Deity: One supreme god, pantheon of gods, earth worship, spirit worship, nondeific (like Buddhism)
Clergy: Monastic faith, supreme papacy ruling over the entire church, personal relationship with deity... lots of possibilities.
Temple: Massive grand cathedral, small prayer rooms, personal shrines for rooms.
Practices: Dwarves might simply pray every so often, or there may be complex religious rituals involving confession, offerings, and animal or even dwarven sacrifice. Also, life rules (thou shalt not eat turtles, for they are sacred. Only members of the clergy may handle silver, for it is sacred. And so forth)
Holidays
Beliefs.

So, you may end up with the Supreme Order of Fancyness. They require dwarves to worship the Stone God, Urist Rockseals, in their huge cathedral every month, and eating surface plants is punishable by excommunication.

Or you could have the Fancy Supreme Order. A secret cult, which worships Armok and sneaks around mutilating animals.

See what I mean? Randomly generated religions could be a great way to add a little spice to the game.

[valcon]

I'd think maybe monestaries would be better suited towards dwarves ...

dwarven monks would be very good in the game, monks base their entire existence around beer and wine, so, ya, kinda works out

[Pyro93735]

While I like the sound of this, unless it's incorporated as part of the magic system I fail to see how it would differ in application. It sounds like the only real difference between this and the potential magic system would be switching the origin of power from something arcane to something divine.

Also, saying Armok is the only god isn't exactly a limitation. To quote a real life situation, God (or Allah) is said to be the only true god - there are other gods noted, just they are lesser deities or false gods. In that sense, you could have other gods besides Armok. It also depends on how you define a god. In a religion like Christianity, God is an omnipotent omniscient all-powerful being incapable of death or injury and cannot be glimpsed in his natural form on this plane of existence. If you look at other religions, such as the Norse or the Greek/Roman religion, the gods more closely resemble human beings and fight among themselves, often times wounding or killing each other and having their actions influence the earth without direct input from humans. They are somewhat whimsical beings, prone to random requests and motives, following urges and impulses in a manner which resembles humanity.

[ January 01, 2008: Message edited by: Pyro93735 ]

[Zonk]

Nice and well thought ideas. Here are my comments:

1)Perhaps having frequent miracles would be a bit too high magic considering the game as of now. I would make it a pretty rare event, or perhaps make the "miracles"be non-apparent - that is, you wouldn't be able to be 100% sure that your latest artifacti was divinely inspired, or if it was caused by a normal mood.
IDEALLY, religion in the game could be a "world setting" - you could have a world where the gods are pretty active, another where there might be a miracle once in a century or so, and another where the gods don't exist or just don't do anything material. You could also have a "random"option - you wouldn't know if your prayers are actually doing something, although the dwarves might still get happy thoughts from religion.
Also, dwarves should have a "religiousness"personality trait.

2)Miracles, effects and sacrificable items should vary a lot between different gods, depending on their sphere of influence. Gods could have "likes" and "dislikes". When randomly generating a god, they would get one, two or sometimes three sphere of influences...For example, Vulcan/Hephaestus was a god of Crafting and Fire.

Examples:

Crafting/Artifice:
Miracle is dwarves being more likely to produce artifacts also increase the average quality a bit.

Earth:
Miracle is random chance of a miner having a dream about the specific location of a vein of a precious metal or gems.
If the god dislikes you, there could be an increased chance of caveins.

Water:
Miracle is a "miracolous catch"of fishes.
If the god dislikes you, you might get water monsters attacking your fisherdwarves/fishermen, and in the more extreme cases the monsters would be amphibious and WALK OUT of the water. the god might also flood the map.

Fire:
Can't think of a miracle. Might make smelting easier/faster perhaps.
If the god dislikes you, there's a small chance of burnable items catching fire, and also items that are on fire will be harder to extinguish.

War:
Miracle would happen during battles, all your military would go berserk/trance at the same time.
If the god dislikes you, dwarves wouldn't go in battle trance anymore.

3)Don't worry about "Armok the only deity"thing. I think some time it was mentioned/estabilished that Armok is pretty indifferent to worship, and that while he is the SUPREME master of the game universe(actually, of all the randomly generated worlds and universes), there can be many lesser gods and spirits which have material interestets. Note that "lesser"is a relative term - if you want a Greek-myth related example, Armok is Fate, that is an almighty force to whom everyone must obey, while the gods the dwarves whould worship would be Zeus, Poseidon, Hades and so on..

[ January 01, 2008: Message edited by: Zonk ]

[ January 01, 2008: Message edited by: Zonk ]

[Zonk]

Super-Toady is already working on this stuff, including random generation of pantheons, it seems :-)

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/dev_now.html