Relics

Jeremy Saunders

I have been working up how relics will work in the future sect and cult expansions. Here is a semi rough idea. The numbers are not exact, but it should give you an idea of what we are thinking. This is a continuation of this thread: http://forums.imperian.com/discussion/292/cult-and-sect-expansion

Feel free to put in your feedback on the general ideas. One thing we are not sure how to deal with is extra fragments of class one relics. When the relic is combined do they disappear? Can they just not be combined until the other relic is destroyed?

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Relics

Relic assembly pieces can be found in a variety of ways. Killing bosses, completing merc adventures, and via quests. There are three levels of relics. All relics will require 5 fragments to complete them.

Saints

Saints are famous personalities from ancient Imperian history. Each saint will be associated with a particular power and their relics will be imbued with that power. For example, the relics of Ayva, who was the first priestess of Shallah will be associated with healing effects.

First Class Relics (Remains of a saint)

These will be body parts of the saint. Items like a skull, a finger bone, thigh bone, rib, lock of hair, dried skin, etc. Only one item will exist per saint. For example, the skull of Ayva, the rib of Ik'taru, etc. There is only ONE first class relic per saint.

Second Class Relics (Items worn or used often by a famous saint)

These are worn items such as robes, armour, helmet, scabbard, backpack, cloak, shirt, sword, dagger, staff, etc. Several items can exist for each saint. For example: The helmet of Urlic, the staff of Ik'taru

Third Class Relics (Items touched by the saint)

These can be anything the saint touched in his or her life. Such as, a book, a stone, a lamp, holy oil, a mirror, a tree branch. For example, a tome of Ik'taru, a stone of Kalika

Combining Relics

Relics will be discovered in fragments. Each relic needs 5 fragments to be combined into a completed relic. Fragments and completed relics can be traded with other players.

Saving Relics

Completed relics and fragments will decay if left in your inventory. They must be stored in a reliquary in your cult or sect temple. Fragments in the reliquary will not decay, but can be stolen by other players. Stolen fragments are recorded to org logs, and players can be killed for theft.

Destroying Relics

Relics that are in shrines when they are destroyed are 'uncombined' and some of the fragments destroyed. For example, if I kill a shrine with a class two relic in it, I will get back 1 to 4 fragments of that class two relic. Alternatively, we will totally destroy the relic. Up in the air on this one still.

Relic Powers

Notes:

• All numbers are temp placeholders. These are not final numbers and some are too powerful.
  
• Only one Class One relic can be in existence
  

Power	Saint	Class One	Class Two	Class Three
Health Regen	Ayva	Health regen in shrine web	Health regen in shrine influence	Health regen in shrine room
Mana Regen	Yaksha	Mana regen in shrine web	Mana regen in shrine influence	Mana regen in shrine room
Movement	Pat'nesai Fasch	Can quickly teleport to any shrine or altar within the web from any shrine or altar.	Can quickly teleport to the altar from any shrine within the web.	Can quickly teleport to altar from this shrine.
XP Gain (stacks)	Jaden Magnar	75% xp bonus to members	20% xp bonus to members	5% XP bonus to members
Belief (stacks for possible belief gain)		-75% belief loss	-25% belief loss	-10% belief loss
Faith	Ik'taru	50% more faith from sacrafices	25% more faith from sacrafices	5% faith more faith from sacrafices
Stats	Zangrilla Sylvia	+ 1 to stats in the shrine web	+ 1 to stats in the shrine influence	+1 to stats in the shrine room
Max Health	Urlic	+25% max health in the shrine web	+25% max health in the shrine influence	+25% max health in the shrine room
Max Mana	Darrin	+25% max mana in the shrine web	+25% max mana in the shrine influence	+25% max mana in the shrine room
Cult Rituals		Decrease ritual costs by 25%	Decrease ritual costs by 10%	Decrease ritual costs by 5%
Protective Rituals	Nathariel	Decrease ritual costs by 25%	Decrease ritual costs by 10%	Decrease ritual costs by 5%
Pillar Rituals	Iba Ebven	Decrease ritual costs by 25%	Decrease ritual costs by 10%	Decrease ritual costs by 5%
Favour Rituals	Ilom Marcell	Decrease ritual costs by 25%	Decrease ritual costs by 10%	Decrease ritual costs by 5%
Offensive Rituals	Kalika	Decrease ritual costs by 25%	Decrease ritual costs by 10%	Decrease ritual costs by 5%
Mobility Rituals	Eldgrim Flatnefr	Decrease ritual costs by 25%	Decrease ritual costs by 10%	Decrease ritual costs by 5%
Sukhder Rituals	Czevak	Decrease ritual costs by 25%	Decrease ritual costs by 10%	Decrease ritual costs by 5%
Moradiem Rituals	Lyria	Decrease ritual costs by 25%	Decrease ritual costs by 10%	Decrease ritual costs by 5%
Aryana Rituals	Gelor Antioch	Decrease ritual costs by 25%	Decrease ritual costs by 10%	Decrease ritual costs by 5%

Saints

• Ik'taru
  
• Urlic (Warrior)
  
• Yaksha (Illuminas)
  
• Ayva (Shallah)
  
• Kalika (Aesir)
  
• Czevak (Stavenn General)
  
• Nathariel (Caanae leader)
  
• Zangrilla Sylvia (healer)
  
• Iba Ebven (mason)
  
• Czezlo Tota (catapult creator)
  
• Pat'nesai Fasch (Lamira exploreer)
  
• Lyria (first lycanean)
  
• Eldgrim Flatnefr (famous norrjin)
  
• Gelor Antioch (founder of antioch)
  
• Jaden Magnar (explorer)
  
• Ilom Marcell (ancient kinsarmar elder)
  
• Darrin (ancient sidhe)
  

Kanthari

@Jeremy

Just one quick comment. Could you reconsider using Lyria, given that she actually is around and in Khandava currently? It seems a little odd to have relics from our council tutor, despite her playing a prominent role in history.

Ahkan

That seems awesome except for the use of Saint. None of these people could be Val Kilmer.

Aleutia

I'd rather see something ambiguous like 'Chosen' or 'Paragon' of Mortals or something used instead of Saint. Saint has a lot of heavy religious implications outside of the scope of this system. It just feels like an odd word to be using.

Sarrius

Before I go any further, I need to stress that is constructive criticism. I'm not rejecting this system outright. It seems alright, but not what I am personally looking for. I will participate because it seems like a neat system to be getting fights.

At first blush, I have reservations about this system. The numbers are not set in stone, but the numbers don't matter - the buff is either not worth picking up, or it is probably too strong to pass up.

In regards to class one relic fragments - simply remove the chance to obtain them when that relic has been formed elsewhere. If you would 'draw' that relic out of a reward, the fragment is just changed to something else, or becomes a 'false relic fragment'. You could find something cool to do with false relic fragments - perhaps turn them in to offense-oriented relics, where you try to stick them in enemy shrine webs to do things to the web?

I will say that when you introduced this system a few months ago, I expected the relics to have effects that were less blatant numerical buffs and more interesting/unique/wild benefits. I know it is hard to come up with those without them being hideously overpowered, but I feel like these don't even have the benefit of being interesting - they are just powerful. Assuming a class one or class two relic is in place, the shrine web makes the fight heavily favour the defender. I have worries that this will encourage a sort of conflict inertia, i.e "Storms/Rashirmir/Jackals have a web growing with a really strong benefit, we probably stand no chance taking the territory from them, so why bother?" - things like +1 all stats, extra health or mana, massive regeneration, etc strike me as area-wide benefits that make that sort of conflict inertia exist.

You could take the relic system and combine it with the 'altar domain' idea, aka that sub-area idea you were considering that we proposed. Then you turn the sub areas in to an area that can be sieged, which sparks conflict. You likely store your reliquary here in the sub area instead of the temple, but then you would have to go back to the drawing board for what to do with the shrine web. Perhaps the 'sub area' exudes a strong influence across the shrine web, giving benefits depending on what relics have been collected in combination, and then it sort of turns the relic system in to a mix-and-match system of buff legos. To provide an absolutely absurd example: "When combined within your shrine domain, the Gelor and Yaksha tier one relics will exude an aura of burning light across your shrine web, giving you bonus fire damage and a small amount of fire damage on physical attacks."

Jeremy Saunders

Whoops, right. No Lyria.

Kanthari

Jeremy said:

Whoops, right. No Lyria.

There goes my plan to walk up and make her touch random items to make them relics. Lyria's holy sock is totally a bust now

On a serious note, though. Thank you

Jeremy Saunders

I am not locked into any of the terms. I like tying terms to real world terms and I just personally like what the term 'saint' make me think about in this system. 

Jeremy Saunders

I am open to ideas for relic powers.

Ahkan

@Jeremy  Please don't listen to Sarrius.

@Jeremy Also, as we're starting to see more mana regen, more health regen, more stat buffs, can we start dialogue concerning diminishing returns as your stats get higher and higher?

Some of the bluffs seem a little...bland? Like run of the mill IRE buffs? I feel we could go a bit deeper with these (more specific to be sure)

-Increase (5%) to specific damage types and only that damage type. (or ignore 5% resist?)

-Increased time to germinate trees (druid/defiler)

-Increased effectiveness of felling or something

-Increased clotting

Based on what I see here it's a pretty solid outline. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out. I'm sort of wondering how easy it is going to be to down a shrine.

To clarify for Sarrius

-False artifact fragments are just that, false. They don't really need a sub quest. They're grey items. Turn them into a vendor for comms or something, but nothing remotely useful.

-Shrine webs won't be easy to produce/protect. Prime real estate is going to be heavily contested so it's going to be a huge risk/reward scenario do drop a class 3 relic in contested territory. It's an awesome example of opportunity cost. You're going to start a shrine war not to gain territory, but to knock out the super weapon of the other team.

-Defenders generally always have the advantage. Preparation is a huge deal. (Shrine web = preparation)

-Your lego system is needlessly complex and infinitely more min-maxed.

-

Jeremy Saunders

I have no idea what the 'altar domain thing' is you are talking about. You may need to point me at the post.

Sarrius

brb, getting the post.

EDIT: http://forums.imperian.com/discussion/274/sects-orders-are-dead-long-live-orders/p3

Some time around this page is when the idea of a 'sect area that is not a temple' was proposed. In fact, it was partially inspired by @Ahkan of all people, who mentioned Lupus' hunting grounds and it went from there. When we discussed it, I remember thinking that making it accessible from the cult or sect altar would be a very smart move. It would be something of a 'pocket area' with a huge amount of sect or cult-related themes. We could expand that idea easily to involve a heart for the conflict system for this.

Moreover, @Jeremy, I would prefer an interesting list of bonuses over a list of boring, numerical tweaks and buffs any day. I think that my 'false fragments' idea also allows for some way to interfere with the massive buffs that will end up occurring on shrine webs that want to be attacked. The system should ideally always be in use and the footing every sect has should ideally always be in flux - anything else is a gross waste of the system's potential, and slowly draws it toward the Ziat Protocol mindset, where we wait for somebody to log off before sieging their shrine web, etc.

Jeremy Saunders

There is the chance of one sect dominating, yes. However I am planning on altars taking more and more belief upkeep to control the number an org can have. Or, just set a cap.

Jeremy Saunders

Oh, drops for completed class one relics would probably stop.

I like those relic ideas. Keep them coming.

Selthis

Different names instead of saint: Exemplar, Idol, Paragon, Chosen, Archetype?  

Ahkan

Oh hey, since it's been a problem recently, here's an idea for a relic that exists only as a class one relic and should have more pieces.

This relic, we're call it...the Relic of Steve (who is a goat) would make your altar immune to defilement for the duration that this awesome goat relic resides in a shrine.

Sarrius

Ahkan said:

Oh hey, since it's been a problem recently, here's an idea for a relic that exists only as a class one relic and should have more pieces.

This relic, we're call it...the Relic of Steve (who is a goat) would make your altar immune to defilement for the duration that this awesome goat relic resides in a shrine.

For what purpose would this exist, besides to be a jab at the fact that altar desecration is used to encourage conflict that you do not necessarily agree with? Altar desecration should be a stronger tool, not a weaker one. This latest event with the statue has had one unforeseen consequence, and that is that entity-less sects have an even larger amount of breathing room to establish their belief level away from becoming a cult again, because desecration does not increase in power with infusion - only sacrifice. This means that I have to desecrate at 100% while they can sacrifice at 110% - at 100%, you can easily outpace desecration anyways, infusion just seals the deal further.

Jeremy Saunders

I am not really worried about pushing sects back to a cult. If the sect becomes inactive it will do that naturally.

Ahkan

@Sarrius Let's ratchet the butt hurt here, pilgrim. If you read the post and applied it to the relic mechanic you would see that it is a shielding mechanic . It would function just like outposts in obelisks, which you have been 100% in support of. 

Assemble STEVE (he's like voltron)

Put Steve in Shrine (Defilement immunity is on)

An attacker then has to locate the Steve relic, take down the shrine, and then bash up the corpses to defile an altar.

Honestly, when you look at the process it actually provides more and longer lasting between two sects instead of these silly one shot pk flare ups that some people seem addicted to, Plus, it's a nice little idea that lets people choose to be pk or pve focussed and make sacrifices here and there to be immune to attack or a powerhouse on offense. Though, I can understand why you're mad, this is totally raining on your only claim to fame. So, let me extend my apologies to you. It wasn't personal or intentional.

Jeremy Saunders

Keep it civil @sarrius and @ahkan.

I am actually not against the idea of a limited form of altar shielding. Maybe not a 100% shield, but something like that.

Ahkan

Jeremy said:

I am not really worried about pushing sects back to a cult. If the sect becomes inactive it will do that naturally.

Yeah, it would sort of block that, only player defilement. Sect death is going to happen in a defunct sect anyways and Steve wouldn't stop that.  The psychology behind is that you'll be offering someone a shield from the pk farm. People want to go out and drop world bosses and interact with the world. They don't want to deal with grief bots who kill people for standing at the altar because they 'may' offer corpses. People would be super bashing to gain the piece of mind so that they can effectively put a barrier between them and defilement and thus side step pk for like 7 days. This puts the onus on the 'attacker' to not attack the altar, but to find the shrines and attack them, making cult warfare a multi-tiered game of

-Locate shrine

-Determine artifact

-Break shrine

-Then attack altar

(Which is really form of MEANINGFUL attack and defense, which defilement is not)

The same way any real organization conflict would be. Break through the defenses!

At the end of the day, it makes them eat up time and resources that could be spent elsewhere (forcing them to invest 2-3 times the time and involvement) to put up a shield that's only going to block 1% of the active population. It's not a GOOD purchase by any means, but it's something to throw into mix to force people to prioritize different build paths based on their manner of game play.

Sarrius

Eh.

Ahkan

Different topic! Sect rituals.

Does anyone really have a problem staying topped off on personal belief?

Personally, I benevolence to bash and bash up the belief I used in the first round in about 15 minutes. Pk wise, it's usually a -45, +20, +20, +20, +20, situation. I know from other cults where people would invest 100% in meteor and pick up 8 x 20% because 8 people dropped. Is belief use really at a point where we're going to eat up 9 spots?

Sarrius

Jeremy said:

Keep it civil @sarrius and @ahkan.

I am actually not against the idea of a limited form of altar shielding. Maybe not a 100% shield, but something like that.

I wrote the link to that post on altar areas in an edit.

I disagree with the idea of altar shielding because it provides some level of conflict inertia - you can see the full effects of that in the obelisk system, where controlling Efficiency is the best thing to keep your grip on the rest of the obelisks. You cover Efficiency double-time and then use the spare energy to cover your other obelisks. The result is that the winningest circle continues to stay the winningest. A sect shield would only serve the same purpose, but in a smaller capacity. You set it to cover you during a time when you don't have people, and then you use your prime time figure to crush the opposition. This system entirely favours the 'AM Christianity/Magick Catholicism/Demonic Judaism' mindset, where everybody piles in to one sect or just helps that one sect anyways (see: Conquest and Storms teaming up but Storms taking a majority of the essence in the statue).

Ahkan said:

Different topic! Sect rituals.

Does anyone really have a problem staying topped off on personal belief?

Personally, I benevolence to bash and bash up the belief I used in the first round in about 15 minutes. Pk wise, it's usually a -45, +20, +20, +20, +20, situation. I know from other cults where people would invest 100% in meteor and pick up 8 x 20% because 8 people dropped. Is belief use really at a point where we're going to eat up 9 spots?

PK gains are pretty insane. A lot of people told me 'enjoy wasting your cult belief!' when I desecrated, but they went green around the gills when I explained that I was netting essence pissing them off.

Jeremy Saunders

Stay on topic. Ideas for relics is what I am looking for here.

Khizan

I would reconsider Nathariel, just because his Spear has been the cityleader item of Kinsarmar since the start, and that's a second tier relic type.

@Kanthari Undead/Corrupted Lyria is modern; she hasn't been around long enough to saintify things, because this incarnation of her doesn't have enough belief/faith/handwavium to imbue an item with power. Items from her original lifespan, though, have those generations of handwavium supporting them and thusly are relics.

Ahkan said:

I know from other cults where people would invest 100% in meteor and pick up 8 x 20% because 8 people dropped. Is belief use really at a point where we're going to eat up 9 spots?

This only works once. The second time you drop the Hammer of Indiscriminate Justice on them, they're all on belief cooldown and you gain nothing.

Also, it only took a few weeks or so for Magick to start interrupting my meteors, but it was fun while it lasted.

Kanthari

Khizan said:

@Kanthari Undead/Corrupted Lyria is modern; she hasn't been around long enough to saintify things, because this incarnation of her doesn't have enough belief/faith/handwavium to imbue an item with power. Items from her original lifespan, though, have those generations of handwavium supporting them and thusly are relics.

Ah, the Khandavan expert is back about. Good to know.

It's already slated for removal, as per Jeremy.

Ahkan

@khizan It only has to work once.

Khizan

Kanthari said:

Khizan said:

@Kanthari Undead/Corrupted Lyria is modern; she hasn't been around long enough to saintify things, because this incarnation of her doesn't have enough belief/faith/handwavium to imbue an item with power. Items from her original lifespan, though, have those generations of handwavium supporting them and thusly are relics.

Ah, the Khandavan expert is back about. Good to know.

It's already slated for removal, as per Jeremy.

It's a reasonable explanation for it if he decided he still wanted to include it. Demonic Khandava has existed for less than an IC century(651 AD - 679 AD, 1 AM to 50 AM); I do not think it unreasonable to claim that since this incarnation of Lyria can't draw upon the wellspring of handwavium established by her prior incarnation because the two are so fundamentally different, nor do I think it unreasonable to say that she hasn't existed long enough to fuel relics on her own. The saints are ancient; this Lyria is not.

Personally, I would like to add more relics from people who are important to specific organizations, because I'd like to be able to gloat to Khandavans that we have Lyria's hair, or to Stavennites about Czevak's bastard sword, etc, etc. I also like the idea of organizations may end up feeling obligated to choose targets based on an RP reason than a purely mechanical one. Jaden Magnar may have the far more beneficial buff, but they're using Czevak's skull to weigh down an altar cloth, and that crap can't be tolerated and who cares about Magnar, anyways, etc, etc.

Too many of those saints are basically nobodies who just happen to appear in a helpfile somewhere. Jaden Magnar led the party that discovered Kinsarmar, but I'd be very very very surprised if there's more than 5 people who knew that off the top of their head and I'd be even more surprised if anybody cared enough about that to have any investment in it outside the mechanical buff. 

Instead of just taking random names out of the helpfiles, I'd honestly rather just take suggestions from people and create entirely new historical characters to be saints. Yes, nobody would care about them right now. But honestly? Nobody cares about most of the chosen saints right now, either, and the mummified hand of the Emir-General who led the Wardancers in breaking the Horde siege of Kinsarmar or the Hammer of the Lord Artisan who held the walls until they arrived or the ritual blade of the leader of the Malignists who were summoning Sukhder make for a way cooler story than the fingerbones of some healer who learned how to cure xeroderma, and it would also let people generate more officially supported backstory for the world and create heroic figures for their circle.

With that said, I would like to include Nathariel. All you'd have to do is discredit the Spear as a genuine artifact. Maybe it was lost in battle ages ago and some Duke replaced it with a forgery without telling the populace, thinking that it would never be discovered and never matter.

Kanthari

@Khizan - I don't think that it's unreasonable to request that a relic not be based on an actual mob that inhabits our council currently and serves as our counciltutor. You can argue that this incarnation of Lyria doesn't have the same power as she did before, but if we look at how undeath works in the game, I don't find it overly likely that she forgot everything that she ever learned or was as a result of being risen.

Example:
1. I don't develop amnesia when I switch to Deathknight
2. I'm an aspect of Moradeim and it doesn't invalidate me being a demoner

If you think that Khandava is going to be in a twist because some Antimagickers are off sniffing Lyria's hair somewhere, that's stupid. We all know @Ahkan would just make clever jokes about it for our benefit.

I don't believe that it's any more reasonable to recommend retconning and/or invalidating a portion of Kinsarmar's roleplay to include Nathariel. I'm certain that there are other ways he could  be implemented, theoretically, without reducing the spear to a farce.

Nathariel is already on the list, and he's listed under 'protective'. Given this, maybe a shield or piece of armour or something would be a better fit than invalidating his spear as an object? Who knows? While I'm certain that all of the other cities/councils appreciate the helpful suggestions on how their roleplay and items should be dictated, maybe they should be able to propose their own.

In regard to the other names, while a lot of them are lesser known, I think it provides some interesting opportunities. It encourages that players read a bit about history and learn more about the environment that they currently inhabit.

Khizan

The Silver Spear is such a significant object that the leaders of Kinsarmar took it up as a symbol; it is the weapon that killed Czevak, broke the back of the attacking Stavennite army, ended 25 years of constant bloodshed, and opened the way for the Time of Prosperity. If you're going to call Nathariel a saint, his Spear should absolutely be a relic and it is absolutely a relic of defense and protection. 

This means that the Kinsarmarian one should be invalidated somehow, because making it not-a-relic will implicitly do the same thing; if Nathariel's pauldron or the like is a relic imbued with such power and the Silver Spear is just a fancy stick that Alvetta gets to carry around, the Spear is automatically cheapened in comparison with it and it's too famous and too historically important for that.