[Scrymud] Religions, Home Towns, etc.

[gingon at WANfear.com]

Quoting Edward Roper <eroper at wanfear.com>:
> By the way, forgot to include this in my last post:
> 
> I'd like to see Religion and Home Town come into play. I've got some
> vague
> ideas on what could be done with these but if anyone on the list has any
> suggestions, please send them along.
> 

I'd love to see some religion stuff in scry for a number of reasons.
religion is a good way to create conflict within the realm, and 
conflict is what most quests are based on. Religion is also a good basis for 
roleplaying, something which I feel scry is somewhat lacking.

Relgion should be an optional thing for all but priests. I don't want to walk 
every where and see religion in scry. It should be present, but in the 
background, not always obvious. It should be a driving factor for some of 
the realm's mobs and players, but not for all of them. For instance, the 
citizins of a town worship at the local temple(s), but not controlling
their lives. Of course, a holy city or monestary would be an execption.

Changing religions would cost some experiance, gold, and maybe require a quest 
to be completed, and will be impossible for the cleric class.

Gods that have an alignment should make use of regen code simular to that of
the necro's regen code. Also, spell duration/effectiveness may be altered
by current alignment. 

It could also be used as a limited money sink, requiring priests to donate
an amount based on current level before being able to acheive their next level.
(I'll have more to say on the state of money in scry in another post)

You could add to the AI code to make things more interesting, have a 
religion stat that ranges from -10 to 10, just like the current AI stuff.
at -10, the creature would not be religious in the least, at 10, the creature
might attack opposing religions, providing that the other AI setting allows for 
this.

Perhaps certian religions would gain power on holy days, and maybe
others would lose power. This would require some relatively simple code to be 
added, and would require that a calendar be drawn up. I wouldn't mind doing
either of that.

Some races might also have some inherit bonus for a specifc religion.

Of course, we'd need actual religions too. I'd like to break them up into 2 
groups, the naturalists, and the more standard god based ones. I came up
with a name for the other guys, but I can't remember what it is.

Naturalists worship the elemental powers of the living world, the raw 
elemental forces. They belive that everything should exist in harmony with
nature. They call their religions 'paths'. The clerics of a particular path do
not consider themselves superior to those of a differant path. They perform 
a ritual of seeking to determine what path they are best suited for, and vice
versa. Another thing to note is that the paths are not linked to alignments.
Whether a naturalist is good, neutral or evil is dependent only on the way
that he/she/it makes use of the skills given.

I envision the other guys as being Roman/Greek type gods, that is to say that
they each a specific area that they influence, and of course the spells they 
grant are based on that area. I'd like for the areas of influence not to be 
identical to the elementalist paths.

The naturalists:

Water, symbol: a single wave. anitre might have an inherent bonus for this 
religion. Mainly has 
access to healing spells, create water, and limited buffing spells.

Fire, symbol: the sun,  has the most direct damage spells of all the priest 
classes and the fire blade spell, may even get some of the weaker wizard type
spells such as burning hands and a limited fireball.

Stone, symbol: a lone mountain. contains skills like: stone skin, strength,
and flesh to stone.

Air, symbol: beats me. contains skills like: fly, buffing spells, and some 
healing spells.

light, symbol: a torch. not to sure on the spells for this type.
darkness, symbol: beats me. again, not too sure on the spells.

The other guys:
just general concepts here.

God of the sky, symbol: beats me.

God of the forest, symbol: a single tree.

God of the stars, symbol: night sky. darkness but not evil.

God of the dead, symbol: a cracked skull.


It would be nice if each of the religions had their own high level spells
specific to each to further seperate them.

That's all for now.

   --Gingon