God Proposal -- God of the Flesh
Posted: Tuesday, 15th February 2011, 21:24Since I know that specific game mechanics will always need tweaking, I'm mostly concerned with suggesting the god's philosophy here (although I will make suggestions on how gameplay will work)
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I'll call this god Carn. He is the god of the flesh--to him, life is sacred above all else. However, he places little importance on individual life, if he finds anything worthwhile in the concept of individuality at all. He views life more as a constantly changing, amorphous force, and he recognizes death as a vital part of the continuation of this force, and he does not make qualitative comparisons between one form of life and another. In fact, he welcomes even the death of his champions--perhaps especially his champions--so long as their bodies provide sustenance for maggots.
Naturally, Carn detests the Undead, who he views as unnatural interruptions in the cycle of life, and beings that come from worlds he considers not entirely corporeal and 'illegitmate', such as demons and summoned beasts.
Carn also detests those who rely on forces beyond their own physicality--like Trog, Carn prohibits the use the spellcasting.
Followers of Carn become more in tune with the transition of death into life. When they eat, they absorb more than just nutrition:
Mutations
In game terms, this is the primary benefit of worshiping Carn. Eating the bodies of the fallen allows you to influence the way your body is shaped, i.e. you gain mutations based on what monsters you eat. Carn encourages you to partake in the transfer of life as much as possible--he grants followers the ability to eat any chunk of meat without fear of ill effect--even normally poisonous meat or the flesh of death drakes and other "HCI corpses" (Carn greatly encourages the reintroduction of the undead flesh into the natural life cycle). However, Carn also expects you to partake in the act of eating very often; the first change to Carn makes to your body is a fast metabolism mutation (perhaps even two or three levels of it). This is how Carn's main piety gain works--for every satiation level above normal, you gain piety per X number of turns, the more full you are the more piety you gain. For every level of hunger below normal, you lose piety.
This means that you have an ever-changing set of mutations based on what you eat. You have some control over the mutations you get, but because you have to constantly eat, you may be forced to eat flesh you otherwise wouldn't. The mutations you get are based off of the enemies stats when you examine an enemy, so there should be little trial and error. You can get bad mutations as well--for example, eating a killer bee corpse may give you poison touch, but it may also make you susceptible to poison.
The actual changes take effect at intervals, with the mutations determined from the pool of monsters you recently ate. Especially powerful monsters and uniques are weighted more heavily than other monsters. A diet completely consisting of meat rations will enact no change.
Powers
Nothing aside from what you get from mutations (since Carn believes followers should rely on their own flesh). However, I think it would be cool if in addition to the cycling mutations you get from eating, there is a set of semi-permanent, Carn unique mutations that you acquire through piety. I was thinking that this would work like how Chei grants power, except in reverse. As you rise in piety, Carn transforms your body so much that you cannot use armour at all, and instead must rely on the powerful mutations he gives you. One mutation would obviously include an armour substitute--I'm still not sure how a player would be able to choose between an EV or AC playstyle. Perhaps the mutation is influenced by what armour you were wearing when you were gaining piety. Anyway, your armour skill should still train with this mutation. You will still be able to use jewelry and weapons, and maybe cloaks--though perhaps Carn should still favor worshippers who forego all equipment and rely only on their own bodies.
Perhaps praying over a corpse, which costs piety, will give that meat a stronger weighting when you eat it, with the possibility of making that mutation semi-permanent like the Carn unique ones.
Penance
Since Carn has little regard for individuals, I was thinking that he would't care should you choose to stop worshipping him. I was actually thinking that if you stopped worshipping him he would bring your metabolism back to normal, but take away the ability to eat any chunk of meat. He could also give you mutation resistance 2 or 3. However, if you ever choose to worship another God or to take up spellcasting, you will quickly be subjected to his wrath--which, of course, includes taking away your positive mutations and giving you bad ones.
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Anyway, what do you guys think? I don't like how, currently, if you are going to go in a non-casting direction there's little reason not to just start a berserker, and I thought that this would be different enough from the others gods we currently have.
----------------------
I'll call this god Carn. He is the god of the flesh--to him, life is sacred above all else. However, he places little importance on individual life, if he finds anything worthwhile in the concept of individuality at all. He views life more as a constantly changing, amorphous force, and he recognizes death as a vital part of the continuation of this force, and he does not make qualitative comparisons between one form of life and another. In fact, he welcomes even the death of his champions--perhaps especially his champions--so long as their bodies provide sustenance for maggots.
Naturally, Carn detests the Undead, who he views as unnatural interruptions in the cycle of life, and beings that come from worlds he considers not entirely corporeal and 'illegitmate', such as demons and summoned beasts.
Carn also detests those who rely on forces beyond their own physicality--like Trog, Carn prohibits the use the spellcasting.
Followers of Carn become more in tune with the transition of death into life. When they eat, they absorb more than just nutrition:
Mutations
In game terms, this is the primary benefit of worshiping Carn. Eating the bodies of the fallen allows you to influence the way your body is shaped, i.e. you gain mutations based on what monsters you eat. Carn encourages you to partake in the transfer of life as much as possible--he grants followers the ability to eat any chunk of meat without fear of ill effect--even normally poisonous meat or the flesh of death drakes and other "HCI corpses" (Carn greatly encourages the reintroduction of the undead flesh into the natural life cycle). However, Carn also expects you to partake in the act of eating very often; the first change to Carn makes to your body is a fast metabolism mutation (perhaps even two or three levels of it). This is how Carn's main piety gain works--for every satiation level above normal, you gain piety per X number of turns, the more full you are the more piety you gain. For every level of hunger below normal, you lose piety.
This means that you have an ever-changing set of mutations based on what you eat. You have some control over the mutations you get, but because you have to constantly eat, you may be forced to eat flesh you otherwise wouldn't. The mutations you get are based off of the enemies stats when you examine an enemy, so there should be little trial and error. You can get bad mutations as well--for example, eating a killer bee corpse may give you poison touch, but it may also make you susceptible to poison.
The actual changes take effect at intervals, with the mutations determined from the pool of monsters you recently ate. Especially powerful monsters and uniques are weighted more heavily than other monsters. A diet completely consisting of meat rations will enact no change.
Powers
Nothing aside from what you get from mutations (since Carn believes followers should rely on their own flesh). However, I think it would be cool if in addition to the cycling mutations you get from eating, there is a set of semi-permanent, Carn unique mutations that you acquire through piety. I was thinking that this would work like how Chei grants power, except in reverse. As you rise in piety, Carn transforms your body so much that you cannot use armour at all, and instead must rely on the powerful mutations he gives you. One mutation would obviously include an armour substitute--I'm still not sure how a player would be able to choose between an EV or AC playstyle. Perhaps the mutation is influenced by what armour you were wearing when you were gaining piety. Anyway, your armour skill should still train with this mutation. You will still be able to use jewelry and weapons, and maybe cloaks--though perhaps Carn should still favor worshippers who forego all equipment and rely only on their own bodies.
Perhaps praying over a corpse, which costs piety, will give that meat a stronger weighting when you eat it, with the possibility of making that mutation semi-permanent like the Carn unique ones.
Penance
Since Carn has little regard for individuals, I was thinking that he would't care should you choose to stop worshipping him. I was actually thinking that if you stopped worshipping him he would bring your metabolism back to normal, but take away the ability to eat any chunk of meat. He could also give you mutation resistance 2 or 3. However, if you ever choose to worship another God or to take up spellcasting, you will quickly be subjected to his wrath--which, of course, includes taking away your positive mutations and giving you bad ones.
---------------
Anyway, what do you guys think? I don't like how, currently, if you are going to go in a non-casting direction there's little reason not to just start a berserker, and I thought that this would be different enough from the others gods we currently have.
