Altar-defilement

[BountyHunterSAx]

Admittedly a poorly thought out idea at present, but I know it'd be fun to do thematically.

The idea is simple: with a sufficiently large weapon (clubs, hammers, maces, two-hander axes, double-sword and up, bardiche?) you can choose to 'c'rush an altar. Doing so permanently destroys that altar, gets you a response from the god ranging from an angry message to one of their wrath/penance effects. It's primary purpose as I envision it is just for fun.

Rationale: When I play my characters I sometimes really like getting into character. One of the best things about holy Pan for me is brazenly defying the good gods, mocking their servants and laughing at their wrath. The ability to do this ingame would be a fun furthering of that process.

As written, this is pretty much a "strictly bad idea" to ever partake in. It doesn't get you any ingame resources, may potentially cause you some ingame injury (depending how well you prepared for the possible wrath before provoking it), and (potentially, eventually) denies you a resource in the form of a place to convert. As such it can't possibly hurt the game from a balance point of view. But thematically? This would be the next best thing to direct deicide for me (Jiyva barely counts).


Other ideas: If there's some interest in actually making this a potentially *useful* thing to do, here are some possible benefits you could include for altar slaying...
1.) Your god gives you piety. In this case it should DEFINITELY be restricted to when you're likely to have the attention of your god (ie: **** or more), to prevent cumenical temple being to big a boost early on. Also, the piety gain should be very small -- this is to discourage a long return trip to all the altars in the dungeon since the piety-decay from just walking in most cases would be higher. I'm thinking a 50-50 chance at +1; you're doing this for the theme, not the piety.

If it's a Good god, he could grant a chance at piety for destroying *evil* gods' altars. Not unaligned, mind you. I'd also imagine that Elyvilon wouldn't much care for you mocking Fedhas though. Nor would Zin hesitate to see you smack up Jiyva.

Other gods could go on a case by case basis. I could see Trog enjoying the general carnage of you destroying pretty much anybody - but especially Vehumet and Sif muna. Makhleb and Beogh even moreso -- especially Beogh, he's such a HillOrc racist. Sif Muna would probably disapprove except in the case of Trog?


2.) Demigods - for whom altars currently serve no purpose at all - could get a different message in their "religion" screen based on how many altars they smash.

3.) Cash. Like, say, 20gp; the idea being that you're plundering the charities and offerings given to the false god.


That being said, as cool as some of these seem to me thematically, I don't think it would be a good idea to put any sizable benefit which would encourage people to make a "grand tour" of the entire explored dungeon just to smash all the altars they can. I think the theme - and getting the god's to talk to you/wrath at you - is cool enough.


Thoughts?

-AHMAD

[One-Eyed Jack]

There have been proposals about Lucy worshippers defiling altars I think

Also crawl is not a role-playing game, even though you can treat it as one I guess

[nicolae]

There have been proposals about Lucy worshippers defiling altars I think

IIRC it's been one of the ideas to flesh out Lugonu's flavor for a long time but nobody's gotten around to designing+implementing it. It would be a cool idea, though.

[BountyHunterSAx]

I should probably change it from 'defile' as that makes it sound like Lugonu's corruption (a misnomer, to be sure). I was gonna go with 'shatter altar' but shatter is already a spell. I'll change it to 'crush'.

And One-Eyed; yeah, I know. But even if it's not an RPG in the classical sense it undeniably has many of the same elements and not entirely coincidentally either. If you're going to add legit-buffs or serious plusses to altar-shattering, then this becomes a question of balance. But just the flavor part? Really, how is it different from allowing a player to shoot themselves with a spell? Yes, I've done it before - my character's sometimes get the "a god, am I?" complex .

-AHMAD

[Davion Fuxa]

If this was in game then I think it should be a piety inducing action, and only on a limited set of Alters that may vary in number for each God - like Yredelemnul would like if you crushed The Shining One's Altar since The Shining One is his direct foe; but he could care less about crushing Zin's Altar or anyone elses. The Shining One though hates all evil, and would thoroughly enjoy smashing the Altars of Yredelemnul, Lugonu, Beogh, Kikubaaqudgha, and Makhleb.

[adozu]

wouldn't it just make sense if lugonu followers could "corrupt" altars (not shatter or crush) to gain piety like trog followers burn books? i don't think any other god would really make sense giving altar breaking abilities. maybe limit it by making the temple ones un-corruptable to avoid easy farming (as suggested by the OP).

or, alternatively, corrupting an altar could be an ability that COSTS piety and in turn grants some bonus like e temproary boost to skill gain.

[BountyHunterSAx]

So, Davion is much closer to what I was trying to describe here -- please don't get sidetracked with discussing Lugono piety-based altar-corruption.

What I'm discussing is the ability to just smash an altar - period - like totally indpenedent of even having a god. Doing so incurs the appropriate god's ire (and possibly vengeance/wrath) right away. If there's going to be gains associated with it, then it really only makes sense if it comes from other deities and in certain situations.

-AHMAD

[BountyHunterSAx]

Why does Elyvilon have neutral dogs/butterflies dancing around his/her altar sometimes?

Why is there a separate tile for deep water in a sewer vs in the dungeon?

Why does The Shining One talk sometimes when you kill his servants? (Instead of just hitting you with wrath).



Because it adds flavor/theme, is entertaining, and thus - at least to some players like myself - has value. Not attaching boons to it saves the difficulty of trying to rebalance it. Hell, this? I'd enjoy patching it in myself. The *reason* to use it is the entertainment that comes from defying the gods. Adding the ingame benefit of doing so and gaining the pleasure of your god for defying gods they hate would be at best peripheral.

-AHMAD

[twelwe]

So, Davion is much closer to what I was trying to describe here -- please don't get sidetracked with discussing Lugono piety-based altar-corruption.

This is a silly request - it is akin to asking people to discuss white cheddar but restrict any talk of cheese. Not only did altar defilement originate as a lugonu ability, it fits the thematic concept of a banished God. To what end does allowing everyone this ability achieve, conceptually? I find this similar to allowing non-fedhas players to plant seeds into the ground and wait around a while and then viola, a plant! Sure, we could add seeds to the game, and sure, we could probably code in an ability for players to spread seeds, but if there exists no thematic prerogative or result envisioned then the inclusion itself has no discussion merit. Thus, there are no seeds in the game, and players that worship fedhas simply make plants "happen," the same way someday maybe just maybe lugonu worshipers will be able to corrupt altars.

[galehar]

IIRC it's been one of the ideas to flesh out Lugonu's flavor for a long time but nobody's gotten around to designing+implementing it.

Well, there has been some design, right there on the Lugonu's dev wiki page. Although I'm pretty sure the idea has matured quite a bit in dpeg's head since he wrote this.

please don't get sidetracked with discussing Lugono piety-based altar-corruption.

You're proposing a feature which mimics one proposed by a dev except your version is completely pointless while his is much more elaborated. You're saying adding theme is your main goal, but dpeg's version has a much stronger theme with Lugonu. If you insist on keeping Lugonu outside of the discussion, I don't see this thread going anywhere.

[dpeg]

Much has been said already, but I've been sort of quoted, so I'll quickly get to the point.

• I consider Crawl's pantheon like those of the Greek or Norse mythologies: there are enmities among some gods, but in general the gods get along with each other well enough. (Otherwise many altars and altar vaults make little sense anyway.)
• I have invented Lugonu to be the "falled god". Details are not really necessary (see the wiki) but the basic idea is that Lugonu worshipers will be able to desecrate altars to the temple gods.
• The idea is not forgotten, it just needs wrath to be redone first: desecrating an altar would induce punishment from the offended god, and we certainly want that punishment to come in initially smaller, and scaleable doses. Thankfully, there have been good wrath ideas recently -- much slimmer and better than what I had in mind some time ago.

[Davion Fuxa]

I see holes in all those points:

It makes little sense why Lugonu worshipers would go about desecrating altars while The Shining One worshipers wouldn't; let alone other worshipers of other Gods. The Shining One is on a crusade against all evil and likes when you kill worshipers - so he should have no problem snuffing out the means for evil worshipers to worship their evil Gods. Another way of also looking at the player is that your a proxy for your God - and that the Gods remain on good terms with each other because they are having their proxies do everything for them.

It is also sort of hard to call Lugonu a failed god too when he has worshippers - that's something you could call Jiyva after he disappears since he no longer exists. He could be the 'corrupt god' that was simply cast away and made separate from the world to prevent him from corrupting it in its entirety or the 'exiled god' who was banished by the other Gods; but failed god would assume he no longer exists.

When it comes to the dungeon, everything is friendly to each other. I see no problem with Altar or Altar Vaults being plentiful on the basis that regardless of the God, all the denizens of the dungeon are getting along with each other.

[dpeg]

Davion Fuxa: fair enough, but it's me who has been inventing Crawl gods for the last five years.

(One thing I learned along the years that it just doesn't pay to try to convince players of would-be developments.)

[tcjsavannah]

Have you tried LRD on a Beogh statue? It's fun for the whole family, honest!

[mumra]

Davion Fuxa: You have to see the "core pantheon" as basically a friendly comradery - in effect what they are doing is akin to playing a vast game of Risk but with the population of the entire world. It's unclear to us mortals exactly what their goal and motives are, or even what the winning conditions of this game are (but it may have something to do with a certain orb). But this game does have its rules which they must follow so everyone has a fair chance at winning (clearly, they must generally act through mortal agents rather than directly, although there are exceptions to that) and even if the rules again are largely unknown to us they are clearly designed with a sense of balance. Lugonu apparently broke these rules at some point and for this was banished to the Abyss - from where she tries to exact her revenge on the pantheon and on the world through her agents of chaos. Jiyva is more seen as a joke - a broken and ineffectual god with a solitary (okay, maybe not quite solitary) believer in command of an army of brainless jellies. With the ideas for demigod change, the gods feel threatened by the demigod's potential to become a new player in the game and they want to do everything within their power to stop this because they are comfortable with their little clique and any new competition reduces each of their chances of winning. Again they are limited to acting through mortal agents to try to stop this.

See, it all works and is internally consistent if you see things in the right way. Luckily Crawl is never too specific about any of this so we are a little free to interpret things and make up any story that fits - the above is just my interpretation of course, I tend to see it as a slightly Discworldian pantheon (which itself was strongly rooted in Greek and other ancient mythologies). On the other hand there is a creative designer behind all this and if he introduces an element that doesn't fit your interpretation then that might force you to adapt your understanding

[ebarrett]

do all you people who think the idea has any value also hit your own dick with a hammer because it's fun or because someone said they'd give you 20 bucks, because that's pretty much what the proposal is

-EBARRETT