Gods
From Neverend
The gods are not simply powerful beings. They are forces of nature, thought, and physics. They drive the world around us, like a scientific theory would today. Three categories of gods include:
The gods of nature: personifications of phenomena like rain and fire.
The gods of the poets: invented by unscrupulous bards to stir the passions.
The gods of the city: invented by wise legislators to soothe and enlighten the populace.
Looking at the gods as influences rather than mere beings, how will they affect the game world?
Assuming a god can do whatever it wants, it may wander around the landscape performing various miracles and disasters, similar to the creatures in Black & White. Or, it may be confined to one area.
Since each god represents a natural property, what happens when that god dies? Perhaps positive and negative attributes are associated with that property now that the god is happy, sad, angry, or temporarily deceased.
Take Baccus/Dionysus, god of revelry. While revelry happens on its own, a displeased Baccus may have more negative consequences for actions associated with revelry, such as getting drunk in public, public sex, etc. This includes negative yields of grapes, negative fermenting of wine, negative attitudes of strict guards, less peace, etc.
An angered Aphrodite would affect sex and beauty negatively. NPCs might refuse sex more often, or see normally beautiful clothing and appearance as normal or ugly.
Pleasing a god would have a positive affect. Hephaestus would give better results at forges. Athena would affect combat. Apollo would aid in many crafts and skills. Helios provides sunny weather.
These are all indirect affects of god attitudes. The community must sway them positively or negatively. In a PVP environment, enemy players and NPCs might actually try to prevent god worship by destroying temples or preaching atheism.
Direct affects require the god to be in the presence of players. This is a rare sight. Gods will provide tremendous benefits to believers, imbuing them with superhuman skills, attributes, temporary items, luck, etc. Displeased gods will issue plagues and make followers unlucky.
God worship occurs at temples. Simply donating money and sacrificing goods has a small affect on god attitude. A greater affect, however, is simply performing the acts that would best please a god, and performing them well. Thus a successful winemaker will be in favor of Bacchus. A hunter or animal lover will be in favor of Artemis. Day to day activities will please and displease gods.
To receive the blessing of a god, one must either be a devout follower, or perform a challenging task. In the first case, the devout follower is blessed easily, but has spent so much time pleasing the god that he has less time to do other things.
In the second case, one who is not a devout follower can be blessed by accepting a challenge. This allows blessing even when the player isn't in the god's favor. Of course these challenges have consequences. You may be asked to betray another god, or do something that would anger a rival god. You may be sent on an impossible task intended to kill you, and in fact anger the god by completing it.
Blessings give a similar effect as a "direct god effect" where the god is within close range. It also allows you to be unharmed by an angered god, and avoid negative affects of a deceased god.
You can try to please gods by having statues, pendants, emblems, or other symbols. But you may anger other gods by favoring one over another. Gods will backstab and betray one another, so it's nearly impossible to maintain a perfect balance.
Deceased triggers- Some events, catastrophes, landmarks, and natural phenomenon will change when a god is sent to the underworld. This may set off floods, rain, volanoes, wind, etc. It may also affect economy, NPC personalities and behaviors, and other major and minor differences.
Personal relations with the gods- one can become a close friend, or a close enemy, to a god. This is a hard thing to do, as most gods will overlook the average person, or pity those who come in their presence. To be able to speak in close conversation to a god requires some notable or legendary act that pleases or angers that god. The god will be interested in you, in a positive or negative way. A positive influence will make you a legend, a hero, a personal advisor or confidant. A negative influence will have you hounded by minions, assassins, disaster, and attacks on your favored town by a god or their minions.
Atheism and Agnosticism: Few choose to deny the gods their existence. Those who do tend to be disfavored by all the gods in the realm, unless they are gods of treachory who wish to betray others, or gods of wisdom who understand their view. While there are negative aspects, there is a greater ability to fight the gods and their temples.
Most every creature in the realm is aligned with one or more gods. There are some godless creatures, who are more rare. Humans, of course, have free will. Gods really hate that.
