So while the latest book was bland storywise and diden't really add any interesting characters with much potential other than Remy and maybe the elf goddess, it did establish some new systems. Pantheons are the one that interest me the most. Some of the effects of being in a pantheon are obvious. For example, a quartet of gods such as the elf goddess, the fisher, the serpent and the minotaur would start out with a combined soul summoning limit of 40.000, four times that of any loner god. Scale that up for a 40 or 50 god pantheon and you realize that they have a serious advantage, to the point where you either join a pantheon or you are fucked in the long run because others will. In addition to that, they would be able to pool races and exploit racial strengths while patching over racial weaknesses. A loner god could do the same, but he or she would inevitably have low resonance with a race substantially different from themselves. Any thoughts?
Still to early to form a solid opinion of the deity system. We know from the land that the gods have domains like luck, and trade. How do they develop these?. Is aleron going to ignore what was said during the trading with hafiz’s sons and do something different? What will be the benefit of the gods to the common man? more to the point how would mist village gain from following a god? So far we haven’t really seen anything that would make following an existing god a boon. Following a new god has many benefits, including a desire to use their power to improve the life/tech of their worshippers. Once that base is already established though what benefits would conversion bring the converts? as i said i have far too many questions to have a decent opinion. On the other hand i would love to see richter break the banishment on the existing gods, but i figure that desire comes from the same place as a childs desire to poke an ant hill or bee hive. Want to see what happens.
What benefits did the early christians get when they converted away from their traditional faiths and joined what was at the time a reviled and illegal minority? None as far as I can tell, yet their belief in Jesus, his sayings and the stories in his mythos were sufficient to convince millions to risk life and limb for a foreign faith. To convince others to convert, Remy needs to build on his mythos. He needs to show through his actions who he is, what he stands for, and where he will lead them. The priesthood will take care of the proselytizing and likely the day-to-day as Remy is bound to his relatively tiny holy land. But ultimately it will be Remy who defines the faith. In regards to said priesthood, Remy just gained the sword of the church and his first grand inquisitor. So the military angle is covered, though he might want someone to keep an eye on his crackpot priest because he clearly isn't stable. The administrative role needs to be filled, but after that I would fill the rest of the slots with priests focused on healing and ministering to the flock as it rapidly grows in the weeks ahead. Remy is about to get a huge lead on population, and unlike the others he won't have to sacrifice his cultivation to create an alter, meaning he takes the lead there as well. More people means more faithpoints generated meaning more souls can be summoned which again means more faithpoints generated. Its a self reinforcing loop.
Maybe it's just me (dunno how many threads are gonna be posted for this addition to the universe so right thread or not here we go) But this book... ........ Meh.
Agreed. I liked the first ten chapters a lot, but then Aleron failed to build up characters or give Remy some real agency. A second book would almost have to treat book one as an extended prologue explaining how Remy gained his holy land and got started.
Yes characterization bombed in gods eye. However i did rather enjoy the “minor” wonder that they used, that was pretty cool in my opinion. Gods eye also gave us a look at some of the types of creature richter might run into while doing the ‘right an ancient wrong’ quest. That sea monster seemed to be on the kaiju level.
Oh definitely, Aleron has added a lot of interesting elements to his system. I wouldn't mind playing a game based off of these elements.
I am thinking he is going to start his own Pantheon with the with the Eaglebear being his first inclusion. At that point we'll probably see more of how the system works.
Yeah. With 7000000 gods, the first large scale pantheon has a massive advantage. Being a rogue god might be good in the very long term, but you have to survive first....
I couldn't fall asleep and here is a possible pantheon system I came up with: Pantheons would either have levels that give/increase bonuses as they level up or there is pantheon bonus tree where bonuses can be picked by the leader. There is a leader is either the creator, most influential or most powerful god. He decides who/how gods are invited to the pantheon, can kick people out, and how pantheon points are spent. Base pantheon bonuses: Gods: Receive the stat bonuses like a praying followers do from other gods in the pantheon. If a tribe has a pantheon god as its highest devotion, any pantheon god that has positive devotion can generate some percentage of faith every 10 day based on their devotion level with the tribe. Followers: Can receive the prayer stat bonus from any god in the pantheon based on their devotion level. Pantheon points/xp are generated by: Follower faith each 10 day. Based on pantheon member gods' level/rank/tier each 10 day. Killing non-pantheon gods or tribe members. Killing anything on a pantheon altar Having a relic each 10 day (lower numbers worth more). Major achievements. Pantheon quests. (Maybe something in the lattice?) Available pantheon bonus (or available at higher levels): Allows more gods in the pantheon. Lower the % of faith generation penalty for pantheon gods in pantheon tribes where they aren't the devotion leader Increase the stat bonus level for pantheon gods given by other gods. Allow devotion growth in pantheon tribes for all gods in pantheon. Increase power/production speed/production quality/research speed of pantheon tribe followers. Higher faith/summoning soul limit. Allow long distance communication between pantheon members. Allow pantheon gods to allow other gods/followers to teleport to friendly altars with altar owners permission. Increase rate of bonus point generation with a specific activity (different bonuses that increase point generation from faith, killing, or quests). There are still a couple major things I haven't figured out yet: How do you start a pantheon? What happens to old pantheons? I assume the original pantheons from Telos have all their power drained and it is like starting over for any gods that still exist. What about pantheons from outside Telos? Do they have to reactivate their pantheon on Telos again? Does it start from no power or keep its former power (maybe they can exceed the limit for the number of gods in the pantheon even if it starts at level 1)? To me it would make sense for gods in the pantheon not on Telos to not give bonuses to the Telos gods/followers. The only pantheon god, we have seen so far, was assuming some of the gods from his previous pantheon were on Telos, but he had no idea where they were or what they were doing.
Hmm. Is it guaranteed that the soul limit works that way? Do pantheons work that way? I’m pretty interested to see how it all works out, for sure. I think his focus on luck and that addition to his followers will be good. I assume there’ll be even more gifts for them like finding rare treasures and resources and such. Plus be a practical religion that helps folks right away and over the long term.
A non-mechanical but important benefit of pantheons is a wider variety of build. You can get a god which goes full crafter, which would be really dangerous a rogue god.
