the (B) Namespace

[bcadren]

Just a thought. The presence of one god that you can only use if you are a particular race (about 1/26th of games [I think there are to be 26 races in the next stable release]); I'd just like to advocate the idea of having multiple (B) gods [but in no case would two of the be open to the player in one game; all of them being only open to a single race or a few races...such as a god that only accepts the undead; or a god that only accepts swimming creatures; or elves, etc.]

My only thoughts on what any of these would actually be are...an undead equivalent of a 'good god' (defensive abilities, helping in hell or heal self; though with immunity to torment they don't really need the hell help.)
a god that provides water magic or helps control dungeon features to have more water (would be really helpful to Merfolk that get EV boosts thereof; and somewhat helpful to Octopodes (everything else stumbles you don't...or a lot of things CAN'T REACH YOU; [if deep water]))
a god that defrays spellcasting penalties on heavy armor and gives racial (elven) drops of heavy armor. [it IS possible to cat even level 9 spells in CPA as is, with enough INT, STR, Armor and Spellcasting skill. At 27 (all skills) and 15 STR/15 INT you get a 17% fail rate on fire storm; chei or demigod level stats can get it down to 2%; a god specifically to help with that could do more...especially in protecting the fragile Deep Elfs.]

[DracheReborn]

How about we just let every species worship Beogh. Now that orcish gear is gone, there's zero gameplay difference.

Themewise: The orc savior doesn't have to be an orc. Orchood is more than skin deep, etc etc

[Hirsch I]

It would be much more interesting if beogh where a god of armies, that allows you to convert any intelligent monster to your cause. or something like that. having to play an orc to get the cool leveling army thing is not cool.

[bcadren]

It would be much more interesting if beogh where a god of armies, that allows you to convert any intelligent monster to your cause. or something like that. having to play an orc to get the cool leveling army thing is not cool.

At one point I thought about the idea of him as a god of racism, where you get followers of your own race; regardless of race and being reverent to YOUR RACE, while killing OTHER INTELLIGENT RACES caused piety gain. Plus you can be all {foo} Master Race! But, the usefulness of followers of your own race (and the ease of finding any in the dungeon) varies vastly between races; from some of the most powerful enemies in the game (Elves, Mummies, Draconians) [but very late in the game in the latter two examples] to doesn't even exist [Halflings, Felids].

[Hirsch I]

I think this would not work. lots of races just dont have monster versions, and the difference between the amount of, Idk, Fo and Mf in the game is huge.

[khalil]

@ Hirsch I
There's more orcs than merfolk I think. What makes me think this proposal is bad is Mummies.
You go from being a combustible pile of -2 aptitudes to a combustible pile of -2 aptitudes that has some of the most powerful casters in the game on his side spamming torment left and right.

[dpeg]

The idea to open up Beogh to other species is old, of course (with Ogres and Trolls as the canonical candidates). I don't think it's a good idea. Hill Orcs are a very broad species, so you can combine Beogh with anything Crawl offers you. The fact that Beogh is the orc god adds great flavour: Crawl orcs are an extremely well organised society. Orc priests are distinguished enemies, and the Orcish Mines is one of the first branches you ever see. To me, that makes all talk about "any other species would work just as well" completely obsolete.

The distinction between temple gods and secondary gods is intentional. Beogh is a secondary god.

bcadren: the proposal to have 26 (actually species-many) gods under the B slot is out of the question. Designing new gods is fun and not too hard, but implementing and maintaining them is not exactly trivial. This won't fly.

[bcadren]

I feel like

1. Though there is a LOT of flavour there; Beogh being for one race only is 100% flavour and 0% practical. Opening him up would only mutate all the flavour stuff around the orc mines.
2. Beogh pretty much is a Temple god now; since you can accept him from Orc Priests you will be able to take him before D:4 in 90% of games.
3. If the gods were 90% similar usage; using armies of your own race, it probably wouldn't need that much upkeep. I mean Tengu allies (Merc Card) automatically upgrade Tengu->Tengu Conjurer->Tengu Reaver. Technically even Gnoll allies will upgrade to Shamans or Champions...
4. But, I realize you can't do (army of your own race) with every race without some being OP (Mummies, Elves, Draconians, Demonspawn) or incredibly weak to nonexistent (Kobolds, Felids, Halflings).

[duvessa]

If Beogh starts accepting other species then nothing else should change, you should still get only orcish allies. A god that works completely differently for every species is pretty obviously bad.

If I recall correctly, around 0.10 I suggested removing hill orcs, allowing all species to worship Beogh, and flavouring orcs as "corrupted" members of other races or whatever; joining Beogh exposes you to this corruption and gradually turns you into an orc (which doesn't change your aptitudes or size or anything). I don't think it's worth the hassle since the god mostly duplicates Yred in gameplay (aside from being somewhat weaker) anyway.

[AzuredreamsXT]

The idea to open up Beogh to other species is old, of course (with Ogres and Trolls as the canonical candidates). I don't think it's a good idea. Hill Orcs are a very broad species, so you can combine Beogh with anything Crawl offers you. The fact that Beogh is the orc god adds great flavour: Crawl orcs are an extremely well organised society. Orc priests are distinguished enemies, and the Orcish Mines is one of the first branches you ever see. To me, that makes all talk about "any other species would work just as well" completely obsolete.

The distinction between temple gods and secondary gods is intentional. Beogh is a secondary god.

bcadren: the proposal to have 26 (actually species-many) gods under the B slot is out of the question. Designing new gods is fun and not too hard, but implementing and maintaining them is not exactly trivial. This won't fly.

This, a thousand times this. Please do not allow foul non-orcs to serve Beogh!

[DracheReborn]

I don't think it's worth the hassle since the god mostly duplicates Yred in gameplay (aside from being somewhat weaker) anyway.

Agree with most of your post, but on this point... Seems like it's ok for Beogh to be restricted to player orcs only because he's weak/uninteresting. But if he's made stronger or more interesting? Wouldn't that make Beogh simply another reason to pick HO, which is already a fairly strong species?

I would like to think there's more of a design space to be explored for perma-ally gods, and of the 2 current ones it makes more sense to tinker with the weaker and more limited one (Beogh). An example of a potentially good perma-ally ability is that old idea of extending player resistances to allies. Obviously this could be extended to other abilities that enhance allies (e.g. stuff that gnoll shamans and ogre mages do for monsters, for instance). These things could go into a Beogh revamp, differentiating him from Yred and making him an attractive option on his own without requiring the flavor crutch.

Now if Beogh is something of a sacred cow that can't be touched for flavor reasons, I guess the question then would be whether crawl can support a third perma-ally god.

[dpeg]

DracheReborn: Beogh does not approve your use of "sacred cow"! Currently, the three secondary gods are all linked to branches (Orcish Mines, Slime Pits, Abyss). It doesn't have to be like this, of course, but these really improve the flavour not just of the branches but of the game in general. Inevitably, players will demand upgrades of these gods, but I really want to keep a two-tier system of gods. By the way, I believe that allowing Beogh access to another species was a driving force behind the Lava Orcs idea.

Old Crawl had no permanent allies whatsoever, and it was good. Later on, we tinkered with permanent allies (also in Zin and TSO), and it was not so good. I am not sure there should be more access than what we already have.

Regarding resistances: one of the minor rule changes I'd like to propose at some point is that monsters never pick up items (there could be small exceptions like orcs picking up gold): this would obviously lead to Beogh improving orc allies in further ways. (However, the rule change about chunk eating is more dear to me, so no promises about the timing of this one.)

[bargaw]

It would be cool if worshipping Beogh ( or similar new god) would let you convert troops of your race instead of only orcs.

Spriggans converting spriggans, Trolls converting trolls etc.

[Leafsnail]

The idea to open up Beogh to other species is old, of course (with Ogres and Trolls as the canonical candidates). I don't think it's a good idea. Hill Orcs are a very broad species, so you can combine Beogh with anything Crawl offers you. The fact that Beogh is the orc god adds great flavour: Crawl orcs are an extremely well organised society. Orc priests are distinguished enemies, and the Orcish Mines is one of the first branches you ever see. To me, that makes all talk about "any other species would work just as well" completely obsolete.

The distinction between temple gods and secondary gods is intentional. Beogh is a secondary god.

Neither of the other two secondary gods have a restriction that prevents most characters from playing as them, though, and he could still be the "orc god" if he gave you orcs. Hill Orcs are quite versatile, but they don't have everything that you could get from other species.