Ancestor Veneration (i.e. Bad Player God)

[MoogleDan]

I realize that the odds of a new god proposed here getting used is lower than my win percentage, but what they heck, I had fun coming up with this.

Background

You are not the first to walk these halls. It is entirely possible you will not be the last. Among the gold and treasures of the Dungeon, you've found more than a few remains of those who went before, and even the restless, angry spirits of those who failed. But their anger need not be directed toward you. Alone, lost, and unacknowledged, they must be mad with frustration. What kind of hero would you be to escape with the Orb of Zot, only to leave your fallen brothers unrecognized?

The practice of ancestor veneration is one of providing comfort to the fallen. At its most basic, it makes you more aware of the inhabitants of the invisible world, and also gives you the power to appease them. More powerful practitioners will gain the ability to dispel malevolent spirits of all sorts, and can acquire guidance, equipment, and even the direct support of the fallen heroes they've encountered.

The dead are pleased by those who make appropriate offerings of food, successfully appease the angry dead, and learn the appropriate methods for requesting their aid. They are easily offended and jealous, however; those who abuse their assistance and violate their remains are certain to rile them to anger, and who knows how long they will keep from succumbing to jealousy if you actually acquire the Orb they once strove for?

Concept Explanation

I've never been a huge fan of the current player ghost system. While I appreciate the sudden sense of panic one gets from encountering a DEFE on floor 7 or so, they almost never make an appearance past the early game, and when they do, they've generally got enough weaknesses to make them pathetic (or enough Fire Storm to seriously mangle you out of the blue). Too random, too uncommon, too unpredictable. Instead, this religion would essentially make them into the Crawl equivalent of NPCs, a sort of limited Summon / Shop / Trainer system which provides significant support on demand along with a spike in hostile player ghosts (and some limited but useful tools for dealing with them). Nice players can enjoy these abilities from the early game through to the extended end game, while more bastardly players can abuse their gifts for a different set of benefits. And as with any good story about irresponsibly dabbling with the occult, they will almost certainly turn on you before the ending credits roll.

Limitations
The only aspect of this proposal that I see causing any sort of serious technical hurdles is that of generating the player ghosts necessary to make the idea functional. There are hardly ever enough fresh ghosts around to populate more than a handful of floors in a given game; finding at least one for each floor would be impossible. I'm wondering if it would be possible to pull them in from some archive of dead players or, failing that, to draw them out of a stockpile of artificial ghosts or to randomly generate believable ghosts. I do like the idea of legendary players, Dev Team members, and various in-game dead people getting custom ghosts for this purpose, but that's not exactly a major point. Regardless, we’d certainly need to have a reliable way of providing them for offline games.

This concept also requires some new items which behave a little oddly. Most of them disintegrate when dropped, and one of them provides bonuses so long as it’s in your inventory. Somehow I see those as being easier hurdles to overcome.

Piety

Piety functions as normal, but as with Xom, there is another statistic tracked to determine your relationship with the supernatural: different species have different food preferences, and likewise their ghosts have different offering preferences. Your Respect level is completely seperate from your Piety, and it is tracked for each of the three primary diets: Herbivorous, Omnivorous, and Carnivorous. Sacrificing meat or vegetables will greatly please some ghosts while annoying others. Neutral foodstuffs are appreciated by all.

Piety Gain

Sacrificing permafood (pray over it)
Sacrificing clean corpses (slight chance, rises with monster's HD) (attempting to sacrifice any other kind of corpse will fail)
Peacefully turning a neutral ghost into remains
Training the Invocations and Necromancy skills (a la Sif Muna)

Piety Loss

The ghosts are restless. Lose 1 piety every X00 turns.
The ghosts are insulted! Lose 10 piety if you allow player ghost remains to be destroyed by lava or jelly, lose 20 piety if you kill a hostile player ghost.
The ghosts are envious! Lose 40 piety each time you get a rune.
The ghosts have gone insane!!! Lose 1 piety every 2 turns once you pick up the Orb of Zot.

Excommunication

You are immediately excommunicated if:

You use the Spiritual Cannibalism ability
Your piety reaches 0

Respect

Respect determines the initial attitude of player ghosts toward you. To keep matters simple (I'd rather not implement a massive chart of which species likes which), Respect is tracked for Herbivores, Carnivores, and Omnivores. Pleasing one category may irritate another. This scales from 0 to 20; the chance of a freshly encountered player ghost being neutral toward you is:

(Respect - 3)/Respect

If this fails, the ghost will be hostile toward you as normal. If it succeeds, it will be neutral, wandering the floor randomly, generally avoiding combat but attacking anything specifically in its way. Upon converting to Hero Worship, respect is set to 5 for all categories.

Respect Gain

Sacrifice Meat or Most Vegetables: +2 to the categories that like them, +1 to omnivores.
Sacrifice Neutral Foods: +1 to all categories.
Sacrifice Honey, Royal Jelly, or Ambrosia: +2 to all categories (ghosts love honey).

Respect Loss

Lose 1 respect from a random category every X?? turns
Sacrifice Meat or Most Vegetables: -1 to the categories that dislike them
Sacrifice Snozzcumber: -1 to all categories
Allow an allied player ghost to die: -2 to all categories

Special Respect Rules

Respect is treated as +4 when dealing with a ghost whose species matches yours
Respect is treated as -4 when dealing with a ghost with an evil religion (they're just inherently nasty individuals)
For non-orcs (hill or lava), respect is treated as 0 when dealing with ghosts who worshiped Beogh.

Excommunication: The Haunt

While the player ghosts won't inflict penance upon you under any circumstances, getting excommunicated throws you past a tipping point that leaves you unable to receive any further aid (although you can still generate further remains for consumption). The game will still populate the Dungeon with random player ghosts (now with a 20% chance of appearing in your line of sight), but there will be no way of pacifying them or bringing them to your side. You are effectively haunted by angry dead players for the rest of the game (though the rate shouldn’t be too overwhelming). This comes into play aggressively during the Ascension run, during which most players will almost certainly get excommunicated, making the opposition significantly nastier. Ghosts should spawn much faster during Ascension, and should always appear near you.

That being said, sufficiently high-powered, non-good characters may wish to get excommunicated earlier due to the recuperative abilities granted to those who are willing to cannibalize the remains, and careless characters could simply take too long, kill too many angry ghosts, or gather runes too quickly and get excommunicated by accident. Getting excommunicated does not prevent you from then switching to a different god.

Powers Overview

- Sixth Sense

- Soothe the Soul

- Shared Soul (Awakened)

♦ Banishing Wave

♦♦ Spirit Counsel

♦♦♦ Spirit Ally

♦♦♦ Spiritual Cannibalism

♦♦♦♦ Shared Soul (Intermediary)

♦♦♦♦♦ Spirit Shield

♦♦♦♦♦♦ Shared Soul (Conduit)

♦♦♦♦♦♦ Dual Soul

Powers In-Depth

Sixth Sense - Passive. The game will immediately generate 1 new player ghost on each floor you've been to so far, and all future floors will have 1 more player ghost than normal. To keep this from generating deadly uniques on every floor, these ghosts will be drawn from a pool of characters 1d3 levels below your current experience level. Further player ghosts will generate on a random already-visited floor every 1000 turns. Killing a player ghost now has a 20% chance of dropping player ghost remains (50% if killed with a reaping weapon). This ability lasts even when excommunicated.

Note: For game balance purpose, any ghost produced through Sixth Sense should provide reduced experience (possibly none?).

Soothe the Soul - A range 6 single-target beam attack that requires line of effect. When used against a hostile player ghost, it attempts to turn it neutral. When used against a neutral player ghost, it lays the ghost to rest, converting it into “player ghost remains”. This is a permanent item, but it can be destroyed if eaten by jellies or by tossing it into lava. You can only carry a number of remains based on your Shared Soul rank. Success rate is based on your XP level, the ghost’s HD, and your Invocations or Necromancy skill (whichever is higher). Costs 2 MP, 50 food.

Shared Soul - Passive. Allows you to carry the remains of player ghosts you've laid to rest (or the items you craft from them) for use in other abilities. You may carry 1 at a time initially, 2 at ♦♦♦♦ piety, and 3 at ♦♦♦♦♦♦. You maintain your highest capacity level even if your piety drops or if you are excommunicated. See item details below.

Banishing Wave - A burst attack with range identical to that of the Shining One's Cleansing Flame. However, unlike that ability, this only affects insubstantial demons and undead, dealing damage on par with Dispel Undead with spell power determined by your Invocations or Necromancy skill (whichever is higher). Costs 4 piety, 5 MP, 200 food.

Note: This is probably my least favorite ability. If you think there's too many, I'd say chop this first.

Spirit Counsel - Converts remains into a spirit counsel. This is an item which functions much like a manual. When you create the counsel, select one skill which the player ghost’s background begins with skill levels in. So long as you are actively studying the counsel, you gain a +2 to your aptitude in that skill. The counsel is destroyed if you drop it, if your skill level equals the experience level the player ghost originally died at, or if you’re excommunicated. Costs 10 piety and 400 food.

Spirit Ally - Consumes remains to summon a temporary player ghost ally. Allowing it to be destroyed will result in a loss of respect, but no penalties will occur if it simply times out (including if it is abjured by enemy summoners). Spell power determines duration, which rises with your Invocations or Necromancy skill (whichever is higher). Costs 10 piety, 400 food, draining.

Spiritual Cannibalism - Consumes remains to immediately restore 25% of your max HP and MP, as well as 1000 nutrition. Also immediately causes excommunication. This is an evil act and will offend the good gods if you choose to worship them later on.

Note: For balance purposes, should this take more than one turn to complete? Even if it’s hard to come by, it’s also much more powerful than most sources of healing. I’d also be willing to adjust the amount restored.

Spirit Shield - Converts remains into a spirit shield, an item which provides you with a single resistance the ghost had upon death. When created, you can select one resistance from a list of all resistances the ghost had. This item is not equipped in any way, but functions so long as it is in your inventory. It is destroyed when dropped or if you are excommunicated. Costs 20 piety, 400 food.

SPECIAL: Some ghosts can provide special resistances that aren’t normally tracked in player ghost stats.

Halflings: rMut (50% effective)
Deep dwarves: Damage shaving (as a level 1 deep dwarf)
Lava orc: Safe, slowed movement through lava
Gargoyle: Immunity to petrification (Not that anyone would pick it...)
Good god followers: rHoly
Ashenzari followers: Clarity
Trog followers: MR +30
Kiku followers: Death curses (50% effective)
Zin followers: Hell effects (33%) OR rMut (50% effective)

Dual Soul - You may pray at a shrine to an anonymous hero to bind your soul together with another’s. Consumes remains to immediately give you a single innate species mutation of your choosing that the player ghost had upon death (but only a single rank of it). You may only use this once, and it cannot be removed in any way. No cost.

New Item: Remains, Spirit Counsels, and Spirit Shields

Many of the powers described above are fueled by player ghost remains. These are essentially going to be portable Bones files, letting you examine the details of the ghost you defeated before use. Although the benefits of this religion are very modular, there is a hard limit on the number of them you can take advantage of at a time based on your Shared Soul ability, and the piety cost of using remains should be high enough to make the player think twice before doing so.

Weight: 10 AUM

Player ghost remains: “The ethereal remains of a fallen hero, heavy with regret.”

Spirit Counsel: “The ethereal remains of a fallen hero. You can almost make out its faint whisperings.”

Spirit Shield: “The ethereal remains of a fallen hero. Bathing in its glow, you feel safe from harm.”

Note: Due to the limitations of what Bones files actually contain, I had to adjust several of these abilities from my original ideas (no borrowing equipment from the dead, less control over the aptitude boosts, etc.). I think the batch I’m providing here is pretty solid though.

Titles

- Awakened

♦ Listener

♦♦ Consoler

♦♦♦ Whisperer

♦♦♦♦ Intermediary

♦♦♦♦♦ Avenger

♦♦♦♦♦♦ Conduit

Altar

“A humble shrine in memory of an anonymous hero.” - These altars can be found anywhere except for the Ecumenical Temple. Folks just don't die there often enough.

Death Messages

- "The gathered dead watch with empty eyes as you rise and join their number."

♦ - "The gathered dead part to grant you a place among their number."

♦♦ - "The gathered dead seem pleased to welcome you among their number."

♦♦♦ - "The gathered dead cheer with hollow voices as you join their number."

♦♦♦♦ - "The gathered dead cheer with hollow voices as you join their number."

♦♦♦♦♦ - "The gathered dead seem disappointed by your failure, but welcome you into their number."

♦♦♦♦♦♦ - "You hear the terrible wailing of the dead, their hopes once more dashed."

Excommunicated - "The furious dead descend upon you and tear your soul asunder." (SPECIAL - Characters who die while excommunicated from this religion leave no ghosts.)

[dck]

I think this waters down the impact of ghosts for very little gain. Ghosts are good because they're a sudden and unexpected threat which you have to look at and deal with, not common enough to be completely annoying, but yes common enough that you can't just expect to never run into one.
Respect system seems way overcomplicated and strange, why would this legendary DEWz ghost respect me a lot because I sacced a whole ten rations? Why would ghosts in general give a damn about food? Well, no wonder they're dead if they did but why would you follow a religion that makes you closer to people like that? Food is everywhere and thus so would be piety.
Skill boosts are strange as well and make backtracking to random felid ghost remains to get +2 dodging when you decide to train it a good idea, and virtually so for basically every skill with the number of ghost remains you'd have at your disposal.
Self-draining on a god ability will come across to new players as lugging rN+ rings and warding is a good idea. Also turning ghost players against enemies is very very powerful because players tend to have significantly higher numbers in practically every field compared to monsters.
Getting random resistances that were not even intrinsic of the player is weird and silly and powerful for no real reason, as is gaining one of their species mutations because then you can just get speed 1 and pretend you're an overgrown and laid back spriggan.
And getting the ability to heal yourself for 25% HP and MP when you get excommunicated is again powerful and silly for not reason in particular. You could actually just train necromancy, get two lucky charms to fill whatever resistance holes you want to, get the speed 1 intrinsic from a sp/fe/ce (very early on in fact, even more so if a food shop happens to spawn) and then drop the whole thing and go kiku, blasting every silly ghost that appears with dispel undead and now following an actually good and strong religion with a character that is basically on steroids and which has access to strange healing items; not that this is something someone reasonable would do since the religion itself is relatively strong, but so are other religions which also demand much less attention for more reward. So the reasonable wouldn't want this religion to begin with and the unreasonable would spend their time guessing at their current piety and whether to pick up this rune now and then sac those rations over there is optimal etc.
Also, dispel undead deals a lot of damage, cleansing flame range dispel undead is pretty crazy. Not to mention it's the undead who are split in substantial and insubstantial and not demons, and dispel undead damage on demons is pretty crazy too.

[MoogleDan]

I think this waters down the impact of ghosts for very little gain. Ghosts are good because they're a sudden and unexpected threat which you have to look at and deal with, not common enough to be completely annoying, but yes common enough that you can't just expect to never run into one.

Really? Like I said in my opening, I hardly ever encounter them outside of the early game, and when I do they rarely put up much of a fight. I think the uniques serve the role of sudden massive threat much better, as you don't have to guess what they're packing.

Respect system seems way overcomplicated and strange, why would this legendary DEWz ghost respect me a lot because I sacced a whole ten rations? Why would ghosts in general give a damn about food? Well, no wonder they're dead if they did but why would you follow a religion that makes you closer to people like that? Food is everywhere and thus so would be piety.

I designed that to reflect real world religions which have food offerings for the dead. It's not too unheard of; heck, I think there are bits in the Old Testament about proper food offerings. Besides, what does Nemelex need all that clutter for, or Zin all that gold? As for the game mechanics though, I don't think they're that wacky or complicated (think Nemelex, only with three issues to track instead of five), and I chose food offerings because that's a stressor that the other faiths generally ignore. Lots of gods have corpses as a sacrifice system, and they're more or less equivalent to food; this just makes it a little more strict. Besides, you don't HAVE to crank respect up all the way; you can just pacify the ghosts through force, though that puts you at much more risk of having them hostile.

Skill boosts are strange as well and make backtracking to random felid ghost remains to get +2 dodging when you decide to train it a good idea, and virtually so for basically every skill with the number of ghost remains you'd have at your disposal.

Manuals rarely make an appearance until the very late game, and by then you've likely already got the skills you need to win. They're not USELESS, but the randomness of the skill they cover makes them often not worth the effort. I wanted to incorporate that mechanic into the game in a way that allows you to actually take advantage of it while you're still developing your character.

As for the backtracking, yeah, that's obnoxious... I wanted to prevent the player from simply stashing them all or having too many in their inventory at once, but wasn't sure how to go about that right. Have them decompose over time like corpses? That would prevent the player from simply picking from the shelves when he needed something new and force him to struggle with an unoptimized set to guarantee he has it later on.

Self-draining on a god ability will come across to new players as lugging rN+ rings and warding is a good idea. Also turning ghost players against enemies is very very powerful because players tend to have significantly higher numbers in practically every field compared to monsters.

It seemed like a given to include some sort of ghostly ally power, but you've got a point. Alright, nix the allies.

Getting random resistances that were not even intrinsic of the player is weird and silly and powerful for no real reason, as is gaining one of their species mutations because then you can just get speed 1 and pretend you're an overgrown and laid back spriggan.

Not even intrinsic of the player? I don't follow... Do you mean the benefits based on which god they worshiped? I don't see why any of those are so crippling. The most potent would probably be rHoly for demonspawn or undead characters, and it's not like there's that much holy damage flying around in the first place. Gaining a selectable intrinsic doesn't seem broken compared to the benefits of other religions, and speed 1's about as good as finding some boots of running. It's not common, but it's not unheard of, and it's not going to guarantee a victory. It'd help, sure, but I figure the final ability should have some punch.

And getting the ability to heal yourself for 25% HP and MP when you get excommunicated is again powerful and silly for not reason in particular. You could actually just train necromancy, get two lucky charms to fill whatever resistance holes you want to, get the speed 1 intrinsic from a sp/fe/ce (very early on in fact, even more so if a food shop happens to spawn) and then drop the whole thing and go kiku, blasting every silly ghost that appears with dispel undead and now following an actually good and strong religion with a character that is basically on steroids and which has access to strange healing items; not that this is something someone reasonable would do since the religion itself is relatively strong, but so are other religions which also demand much less attention for more reward. So the reasonable wouldn't want this religion to begin with and the unreasonable would spend their time guessing at their current piety and whether to pick up this rune now and then sac those rations over there is optimal etc.

That's why I suggested making the heal a multi-turn event. Useful between fights, but pretty useless during. What you wrote out there basically spells out the intended strategy; either go big with it, grab the brass ring at the end, and then switch to an evil god and abuse it, or stick with it and go good for the anti-undead offerings they offer. The healing items wouldn't even be that common with the low drop rate (if we institute the corpse rot on them).

Also, dispel undead deals a lot of damage, cleansing flame range dispel undead is pretty crazy. Not to mention it's the undead who are split in substantial and insubstantial and not demons, and dispel undead damage on demons is pretty crazy too.

It does deal a lot of damage, but the susceptible targets here barely exist. It'd be good against Haunt casters, a handful of not-too-terrifying demons, and player ghosts. Basically I threw it in to prevent the religion from overpowering you with the randomly generated ghosts, and I figured the short range would force players to at least be tactical enough to lure the player ghosts close.

[dck]

I don't like one bit the intended strategy then and I don't think the idea interests me enough to keep up a discussion either.

[rosstin]

I think the strangely interactive mechanic of player ghosts (where they know spells for instance) is already dangerous enough for play balance. Having a god of player ghosts would be thematically and mechanically really weird. Kudos for the effort though.

Actually, you could make a whole 'nother roguelike completely about that concept. I think I actually have a concept design for a game like that lying around somewhere, it was some kind of asynchronous online game where you fought NPC versions of other players' loadouts as the monsters.

[red_kangaroo]

Well, I like the idea. It is complicated, but still very very interesting and worth second thought!

[MoogleDan]

Thanks Rosstin and Red. I was trying to think of something that was a serious departure from the norm for gods, and I think I accomplished that, but I suppose it does really break the flow of Crawl. Maybe if all the player ghosts were pre-designed they wouldn't be quite so unpredictably hazardous, but I think it'd be best to avoid simply adding an absurd number of uniques that only show up in one religion... Ah well.

[Galefury]

Retroactive extra ghosts on earlier levels and ghost respawns encourage farming.

Permanent benefits from worshiping gods are usually bad. This is why Ashenzari's exp boost was turned into a skill boost, for example. Spirit counsels are in this category.

I like the general concept of an ancestor worship religion in crawl, but the interaction with actual player ghosts should probably be kept to a minimum. It would cause far too many problems, some of which you have mentioned in your original post. Piety for killing ghosts is about the furthest I would go (the spirits appreciate you putting these ghosts to rest).

[khalil]

@Galefury
But Kiku, TSO, Lucy, Trog, Okie, Sif, and Veh all give permanent benefits.
Weapon of pain/necronomicon
Holy weapon
distortion weapon
weapon gifts
weapon and armor gifts
spellbook gifts
spell gifts
Did I miss any?

[Galefury]

Yes, and a lot of people think there are problems with some of these things. Especially Sif and Oka gifts come up every once in a while.

[dpeg]

khalil: The branding gifts are alright, as they're one-off. It's a thematic way of saying that at ****** piety your weapon has the divine branding (actually a bit better than that, design-wise). Vehumet's spell gifts are much better than what that god did before, since it has a chance of triggering a thought process.

Let me point out the difference: A gifted book is exactly like a book found on the ground (and worse then a shop book in that regard) - once you have it, there is the choice if/when you'll learn a spell. But there is no additional choice from the gift whereas there is a choice from the shop book and from the spell gift. Kikubaaqudgha is exempt from such accusations as this good has a short list of book gifts, and then stops.

The same goes for weapon and armour gifts: these just amount to an additional source of floor items. That's not as good as it could be.

I am really unhappy about Okawaru's armour gifts (and have a plan for them) and about Sif Muna's book gifts (I have no plan for these). The others are no grave offense, in my opinion.

[TeshiAlair]

I know this was proposed at one point before the random books Sif Muna rework, but I still think it would be cool to have Sif Muna randomly open portals to Sif Muna's library, where you could learn spells from scrolls there, but once you leave it disappears. Its even more time-limited than Vehumet, but offers more variety of spells which is the benefit of Sif. Hell, opening the portal can even be a ****** ability and have a huge piety cost.

Regarding the ancestors idea, that feels really thematically cool, but the current suggestion isn't great, and I think many of the most thematic benefits (which would probably be skill buffs) would overlap with Ash too much