Dwarf Fortress > DF Suggestions
Religion
Dwarmin:
I can imagine dietary customs and holy animals could be added. It would be funny to watch a horde of Dwarves led by a priest to attack your butcher to free a cow from being slaughtered. Then said dwarves starve because they refuse to eat the cow meat in stock-I guess that would be a test of faith...
axus:
The only religion right now is the Elvish protection of the trees, and technically its probably not a religion. Oh and the hell-spawn that attack you, I guess.Religion should probably go in when magic does, in these kinds of games the two are intimately related. Whatever scripting system goes in for magic would be good for religions that have effects too.For now it wouldn't be bad to have generic altars that dwarves congregate at, if you want to roleplay you can say that statue gardens are already a kind of temple with idols.
wallish:
I actually made an account to post a topic just like this an lo! it was there. Well, here's how I could see religion going in. First of all, the item that a temple is centered around would be the altar. Built like a bed, table, chair, whatever, the altar is where you set the size of your temple. Now, there would be several altar types that would be selected much as we now select different workshops. Let's say, oh, eight gods (as Pratchett fans will recall, 8 is a powerful number). You have your basic elemental gods and their opposites: light/dark(or life/death) fire/water air/earth order/chaos(also known as blood...). Now, each altar would have certain requirements/effects. The dark altar may require sacrifices, the chaos alter may require GENEROUS tithing, the water alter may require a channel or the river be run through it, air may have to be built outside, fire near magma, I think you get the idea. Now, you have your altar and you've met its requirements, now what? Well, now your dwarves will congregate upon the temple of their choosing. Will you dedicate your fortress to one deity or allow all religions to prosper? Your choice, of course. Nobles may demand that an altar be built, migrants arriving with religious preferences (found the same place you find out what their favorite stone is) may become agitated at the lack of proper spiritual facilities, traders may jack up their prices because of your heathen practices, who knows?Speaking of nobles, the third and most important part of this would be the High Priest noble. If your temple is doing particularly well (sacrifices made on time, lots o' coins put into the box, multiple or high ranking nobles visiting a temple often) you will be graced with the presence of the High Priest of that temple. Well, what does he/she do? Simple, what every other noble does... make stupid demands. Allow me to illustrate:My fortress "Doom Cushions" is doing well. I'm fairly early on in it's life and have only 30 dwarves living there. One of the first buildings I built was a temple to the water goddess "Bluelighting" (random deity names, of course). The altar required that it be built on a channel of water, so I have a room like this:
code:
#|###|#
#| |#
#|_X_|#
# #
### ###
_ & \ = channel
# = wall
X = altar
Well, now the High Priest for Bluelighting shows up and demands there be two statues in there. Maybe demand a certain material. So now I need this:
code:
#|###|#
#| |#
#|_X_|#
#S S#
### ###
_ & \ = channel
# = wall
X = altar
S = statue
Eventually this temple just wont do, because as the number of followers increases (along with the donations, happiness provided to followers, and of course the number of staff and their wages), the temple will have to become much larger/more detailed. Darkness may require more sacrifices or even DWARF sacrifices (Tobul cancels sleep: being dragged to altar).And finally (I know, right?) I think it would be best if there were no REAL effects to the religions. Have it all be on the followers. If worshippers of the fire deity are able to summon up their god to exact revenge it leads to a sort of magical "my god can blow stuff up better than your god" kind of thing. Dwarf fortress, to me, isn't like that. It is more of a "my god is better than yours and I'll convince of this by using sharp objects" sort of thing.However since magic is planned, it COULD be based around this system where as you gain the deity's favor you are more able to control its magics.But that seems like it should be another post.
Fieari:
Well, you wouldn't be able to summon up your gods -on command-. On the other hand though...
quote:Toady One, commenting on a Threetoe storyGods answer a prayer in the story. The prayer was quite strong, directed and related to the goals of the "vengeful" gods. The game can respect these things. The specifics of the prayer involved world metaphysics and so on, such as what happens to the dead. That sort of thing can be sorted out.
...gods should be able to act on their OWN initiative, and perhaps listen to petitions for action. Only if it really amuses them though.
wallish:
Yeah, that's what I was getting at near the end there with the magic stuff. As my adventurer goes about killing the forces of life, the deity of death will become especially happy with me. Then I become imbued with the magical ability "poison" or "force lightning" or somesuch. As I increase the favor of that god (which would lead to a decrease in the opposite god) I can more easily use those spells, use those spells to greater effect, or learn new spells. If I begin to lose favor with that god I also risk losing the ability to cast those spells. This causes the player to have to decide if they want to worship the life god and get lots of neat healing spells, or worship dark and get damaging spells? Fast movement (air) or magic armor (earth)? Burn your enemies to a crisp (fire) or freeze them in place (water...sort of)? Boost your stats and abilities (order) or drive your enemies mad (chaos)?This also opens up that certain actions will be connected to +/- certain "favor points." For example: I could kill the child that dared to walk in front of me (let's say +10 evil points) or wipe out the whole village out of spite (+500). I could clean out a village of the attacking undead (+100 good points). I could set the village on fire (+10 fire points per person/animal killed), I could help a king stop an uprising (+100 order) or help the rebels (+100 chaos). Every action down to what you eat even (maybe you only eat plants and don't kill animals for food... maybe you eat only people) could affect the favor of the gods.So while fortress mode doesn't quite factor in the favor aspect just the followers aspect, adventure mode is a full on holy battle-royale.
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