Cults Should Not Perish In Totality

XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
edited July 2013 in Common Grounds
Cults are a huge investment of time and energy for players and Administrative staff both- something which needs to be set up correctly on the Administrative side (for example, the custom messages) and then which the players need to throw an extremely large amount of slaughtered beings at (1,200,000,000 in offerings, or as little as 133,000,000 of the cult leader's personal essence if they choose to go that route).  Most cults choose a mixture of the two, with the bulk of the work being done with personal essence invested by the Cult leader.

This is a process that takes RL months to complete, symbolizing the drawing together of the cult and the God to which the cult is bound.

A problem exists here, however; there are circumstances during which the Cult can be destroyed, through no fault of the players therein.  If the God chooses to dissolve their Order, all attached Cults are summarily dissolved.  Everything invested in them is essentially deleted from existence.

Unlike most other facets of an Order, this is something that actually destroys real, quantifiable achievements.  Shrines, the God's realm, the Temple, and all of the various little enhancements and additions that they make for their order are a different matter.  They are entirely put together by the God, using the God's own essence (which admittedly is gained through player input, but the players do not see the total numbers or how they are spent and so there is no real sense of "ownership," nor should there be).  These things are entirely the Gods' creations and should be seen (and enjoyed) as such.

The problem with Cults is that there is a very real and personal counter of what the player must put into it, above and beyond the God's contributions.  This personal investment is used to make the bond feel more real, but when it is thrown away it also causes a great deal of frustration.  Not only have you just gone through the trauma of losing your God, your Order, your quests, and everything else associated with Them (which is by itself a huge source of RP to work with), but there is an exact loss which you know down to the last little mote of essence that just feels extraordinarily personal, because that is something that you invested and threw in with a huge amount of your own time and energy.

So.  What I would propose is the following:
When a Cult is disbanded through the God's death, there would be a form of "backlash".  This backlash would encompass the dissolving of the Cults, the Order, the Temple, and the associated items / cleanup thing.  However, there would be a strange effect of this backlash on Cults; when the Cult is destroyed by it, the essence invested in it is severed from the God in question and shoved back into the Cult leader (as the primary investor).

This would remove the "personal" end from the entire equation, allowing the whole thing to be viewed in the manner in which I think it is intended to be- a tragedy, but not one that feels like it is directly punishing specific individuals who did invest heavily.  As a further note, I will point out that other things are not destroyed; order beasts and stoles both remain useable because they were investments by the players in question.  Given that Cults are irrevocably tied to an Order (and I don't think there is any intention nor desire of changing that), a simple return of the essence accomplishes much the same goal without destroying or re-writing the concept.
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Comments

  • Very well put and entirely accurate. I can't help but feel extremely bad for the leaders of Terentia's and Eventru's cults. They deserve some form of payback for the sheer amount of effort they've expended. 
  • Why was Xenthos' post editted by Raezon? I'm kind of curious about tactical espionage. o_o
  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    I'm pretty sure the only change was editing my title to remove two words.
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  • Oh, okay.
  • I would be very surprised if it turned out they were just going to wipe out all that time and effort permanently or without providing something in return. So my outrage is on pause.

    I am going to very intentionally not speculate on the matter. I have a sneaking suspicion that anytime someone guesses what is actually on the horizon that they scratch the plan and it sets things back considerably. 

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  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    Llandros said:
    I would be very surprised if it turned out they were just going to wipe out all that time and effort permanently or without providing something in return. So my outrage is on pause.

    I am going to very intentionally not speculate on the matter. I have a sneaking suspicion that anytime someone guesses what is actually on the horizon that they scratch the plan and it sets things back considerably. 
    This is more of an "in general" thing; not just from this one situation, but any time moving forward as well.
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  • Marcella said:
    Why was Xenthos' post editted by Raezon? I'm kind of curious about tactical espionage. o_o
    I did only edit the title of the thread for the two words. I wouldn't have bothered if I realized it would mark the post as edited by me.
  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    Raezon said:
    Marcella said:
    Why was Xenthos' post editted by Raezon? I'm kind of curious about tactical espionage. o_o
    I did only edit the title of the thread for the two words. I wouldn't have bothered if I realized it would mark the post as edited by me.
    You could also have asked me!
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  • Xenthos said:
    You could also have asked me!
    Asking... How would conspiracy theories start, then?!
  • edited July 2013
    Of course the other option is for the knowledge of how to form a cult with a God to sit dormant.  One day, should the opportunity present and the player is given an opportunity to form a cult with a new God they, they possess residual knowledge from having formed a cult previously.  They can form the cult and learn lessons using the stored knowledge they still possess.  I would suggest this should have a cost (say similar to transferring lesson pools).

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    06/30/2014 19:37 Silvanus channels the power of the Megalith of Doom for you, stripping you of your Vernal Ascendant status.......bastard!!

  • XenthosXenthos Shadow Lord
    Leolamins said:
    Of course the other option is for the knowledge of how to form a cult with a God to sit dormant.  One day, should the opportunity present and the player is given an opportunity to form a cult with a new God they, they possess residual knowledge from having formed a cult previously.  They can form the cult and learn lessons using the stored knowledge they still possess.  I would suggest this should have a cost (say similar to transferring lesson pools).
    My understanding from the comments in the other thread is that this is not really something that is desired from the Administrative end, because it doesn't fit in with the intent of Cults and how they are learned / associated with their Gods (something like that was my first suggestion).  This was a subsequent attempt based on some input from that side of things.

    I'd be fine with that as an alternative too, though.
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