Yet another idea from your neighborhood Zepachu.

This idea is specifically designed FOR the Immortals themselves. Go with me on this.

The proposal is that each and every Immortal has a store of 'Faith Points'. They will normally regenerate X amount per *whatever time unit* ... and as people actively worship them (i.e. shrine, donate, sacrifice, blah.) they will be given more Faith Points.

But what's the point, Zep?

Well. I figure it may add a nice little aspect to your Immortal playground, or maybe it is just because it is 5am. This may add somewhat of a playing factor into the Immortal grounds, instead of the complete switch from mortal-play to Immortal-work-work-work-life.

*sigh* WHAT would these Faith Points actually DO?!

Certain actions would cost 'faith points'... Smiting, Transferring, Whatevering. You decide. This would essentially cause the Immortals to perhaps appreciate their followers more. I am IN NO WAY saying that the Immortals need a system coded to ENFORCE that, what I am saying though is that an Immortal would not be able to simply run around and do ANYTHING they wanted. By being actively worshipped they would gain ACTUAL power... if not worshipped, they may have hardly any power, and maybe eventually be overthrown in some way... or at the very least be unable to show much strength.

This may open up some avenues as well... an angry Immortal swooping down on an empowered follower whom doesnt visit the shrine, or sacrifice in his/her name, basically pissed off because it's just a drain.

Oh, maybe each time an Immortal empowered someone it would cost faith points, and maybe would slow their regeneration of these faith points... so they would be discouraged from empowering a lot of people because it would spread them out thin, but if they had a lot of worshippers they could handle it, and thereby grow their religion in an actual sense.

This could open up the arena of players actually feeling they have a say in the future of their God. Yes, you're gods. Yes, you're all powerful... But, even Gods need worship, no? In some way, maybe it would be better if they did, if the current view is that they don't.

This would add an INVISIBLE (to the players) aspects in Asgaard. Perhaps this would even make physical wars between Immortals possible, without needing to be faked through gecho's or scripted prior, or something. It would actually add some strategy.

The max amount of Faith points you can have is up to you, perhaps based on level... the amount you normally regenerate without any worship, up to you... how much things cost, a person's worship restores, still... up to you. Just the basis of an idea that may get killed but hey, one bad idea may lead to an insight to something else... ALL Ideas should be shared, no matter how stupid. Right?

Well, now that I type this, it pretty much seems like a useless and stupid idea. But I'm a strong believer in speaking one's mind. *shrug*

Zepachu.

Maybe you just didn't take it FAR enough.

Forget the Immortals having their power raised or lowered based on the number of mortals they can "Pray for me, and you'll get a 10% kickback... act now!" into their religion.

Set up the faith points, but rather than have it affect the Immortal have it affect a mortal "avatar", or champion, of sorts. Don't make it a method of delivering ultra-powerful abilities, but rather ultra-cool. Very roleplay oriented stuff, but with a small little tweak that's small enough that you wouldn't miss it, yet enough to say, "neat!" over.

The faith points work like mana, but they also work as a booster. The avatar gets a SMALL bonus to his supplications while the faith level is high (I'm not giving any numbers here, since I don't know how the scale would work), or he could use up the faith points to execute those fancy abilities (revolving around the particular faith). So, the more (s)he uses the abilities, the less of a boost (s)he gets. At it's highest point, you wouldn't be able to use the special trick more than, oh... 3 times.

Now, occassionally the Immortal would be allowed to give a FP boost (up to the "normal" FP limit) to their Avatar, but it would do an echo to all the currently active Immortals about what had happened, and another Immortal would be able to respond similarly with their own champion/avatar. The drawback to this being the mortal's life. When that boost wears off, he dies. Not for good, but a death. Consider it the power being channeled just burning him/her up from the inside. The mortal in question gets a flag on his character that doesn't allow "boosting" for a LOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGG time. As long as that flag is there, nobody else can be named avatar/champion, and they can't be boosted again. And have the process of naming a champion/avatar exhaust all FPs.

I just see this all adding an incredible cool "(un)holy war" type atmosphere to what currently just kinda feels like belonging to, well... if cabals are like clubs, then religions are kinda like unions. And let's be honest... it's pretty much a truism of mythology that the gods rise and fall on the worship of their followers, whether it be directly (harvesting the energy of their belief) or indirectly (hard to be a god when your followers are made extinct).

Nice direction you took that in. Yea, in some universe it might work out well and even be fun. Good points.

In other words, if I see someone cheating, and I'm out of transfer gas, I have to try to Vampire Touch them down?

Most Immortal powers are given for OOC and IC use. Their use is also monitored closely. No one on staff would describe their job as "simply run around and do ANYTHING they wanted".

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Hm. I apologize if you took offense to that comment. I don't believe that is the goal of an Immortal, either. I suppose it was the crack speaking, as Isildur pointed out, for in some way my mind thought it would be useful in some aspect.

Oh well, can't win them all, now can ya? :)

Thanks for the reply.

Interesting idea, but no. Among the reasons that I dislike this (I'm skipping a lot of the blaringly obvious ones) is that it doesn't take into account diversity and doesn't award imms with very selective religions. A well done Valgie follower is going to be much more rare than a Shokai paladin. It's the nature of the beast....does this mean that I'm a better immortal than Valg? Probably not. What it means instead is that Valg has a much harder religion to play adequately than I do (this can be debated admittedly, but for sake of arguement let's assume what I'm saying is true)....so in no way should he have less 'prayer points'.


There are a lot of other reasons that make this idea more or less useless, but I think the one above certainly stands out. I appreciate the thought though, it was at the very least worth tossing out and being shot down.

Floofi out.

Hey Unc. Thanks for taking the time to reply. Yeah, you're right, this idea IS pretty much useless. Oh well, some day I'll come out with something useful. *shakes fist* You just wait and see! I'll show you all!

About half a sentence on where "faith points" come from and many paragraphs on how to subtract from that number.

What's right with this picture?

It is a blaringly bad idea.

Zepachu, who is struggling with actually thinking before he types.

You're on crack. No system that limits immortals like that could ever be a good thing. Plus it would turn imm-dom into a popularity contest.

It's not crack m'boyo, it's a random idea to enter the ol' noggin that I felt I would share.

I also don't view it as necessarily a LIMITATION, rather than an enhancement and appreciation system. In theory it seemed perhaps even 'fun' to me.

Maybe you're right. Maybe I am on crack. Input appreciated.

Zepachuchuchooseyou