Seed of Nar'Sie; Cult Change Proposal

[Surrealistik]

 

Coordinating the Cult/Seed of Nar'Sie: There is now a coordinating force for the cult: the Seed of Nar'sie which effectively acts like a cult AI. Cultists, altars, constructs and runes (to a lesser extent; it can only see and hear what's immediately around runes) act as sensory/camera nodes for the Seed allowing it to see and hear around them, and it has a list of nodes to follow/move to not unlike the AI. It ignores darkness and can always see invisible runes, objects, creatures and ghosts. It can communicate with its cultists using a telepathic 'cultist' channel that works identically to the Coordinate spell, so long as at least one cult altar exists (see below). The Seed can be telepathically communicated with using the Coordinate rune/talisman as if it were a Cultist. If the Seed player logs out, a ghost may assume control of it.

 

The Seed can manifest in throbbing, blood red spirit form at an altar, traveling out to 7 tiles. While manifesting the Seed, an altar glows exactly as the Seed does. A cultist can pray at an altar to prompt a presence request for the Seed not unlike AI holopads. The spirit acts like an AI hologram, and is only capable of communicating and being communicated with (including with non-cultists), with the exception that it can remotely invoke runes it can see excepting Sacrifice, Summon Horror, Manifest Ghost and Resurrect. It can never be used as a sacrifice (obviously). If an altar is deconstructed or destroyed, the spirit using it to manifest immediately discorporates. Holy water or a blow from the Null Rod will also cause the spirit to immediately discorporate and be unable to manifest for several minutes; the spirit is otherwise invulnerable.

 

 

Cult Altars: Altars can be constructed by cult members from a section of table or desk. Altars must be consecrated with some manner of blood sacrifice made upon it (animals will do), in addition to demanding a considerable tithe of blood from its creator. Using the Sacrifice Other rune successfully with a living sacrifice will also work to consecrate an altar located above it. Altars furthermore weaken the veil between worlds/dimensions, acting as vital nexuses of Nar'Sie's power, and most runes must be within X tiles of them (larger than the spirit projection radius) to function (everything that's not Communicate and Sacrifice). Cultists will be notified when they're in an area they can use cult magic in bolded blood red text ("You feel the power of Nar'Sie flow through you!"), and their cult icon may change (red aura for example). Cult constructs, including manifested ghosts might slowly weaken/lose health if they're not within the 'power' radius of an altar, similar to Dionas in darkness. Cultists within the spirit projection range of an altar (as mentioned above) can freely utilize the cultist channel. Ghosts can write in blood within the spirit range of an altar as the veil is sufficiently weakened there.

 

The Chaplain can sense the presence of evil when in the spirit projection radius of an altar and is notified of it in bolded, blood red text. Holy water poured over an altar followed by a blow from the Null Rod will remove Nar'Sie's taint from it, effectively destroying it.

 

Essentially the altars act as a sort of network, behaving as APC/intercom hubs for cultist communication and magic. They also work as nexuses of sacrifice. When a critically injured living creature is placed upon it (or becomes critically injured while laid upon it), it is automatically sacrificed per the Sacrifice Other rune (also yielding the benefits of a Rune deciphering to those cultists nearby), and a soulstone is created, containing that creature's spirit.

 

Altars may be inscribed with a rune. Any spell invoked from a altar rune is significantly more powerful if it has any kind of numerical effect (damage, stamina drain or debuff durations for example).

 

 

Summoning Nar'Sie: To summon Nar'Sie, the Seed must be manifested and over the Summon Horror rune inscribed on an altar with 9 cultists invoking it. Further, the cult must fuel the ritual by sacrificing a crew member upon the altar. This makes victory via Nar'Sie a little more difficult to achieve as 10 players and a crew sacrifice are required and you must have an altar. Lastly, summoning Nar'Sie himself requires two minutes of chanting by all members. If any participants move or take any other actions, the attempt is interrupted and they must all start over.

 

 

New Rune Spells:

Hell Self Join, Ascension: Instantly transforms a cultist on the rune into a construct of his choice; they will be given a prompt to confirm whether or not they wish to 'ascend' in this way.

 

Hell Destroy Travel, Disrupt Bluespace: Will prevent all non-cultist teleportation to and from a 7 tile radius centred on the rune while active. Non-cultists that would teleport to or from the area will instead be stunned. Requires three cultists to activate.

 

Hell Join Technology, Corrupt Technology: Will corrupt all airlocks, consoles and machines in a 7 tile radius of this rune and the area of a cult Altar, giving cultists all access to them. Corrupted technology will not work at all for non-cultists, including non-subverted synthetics. This effect lasts until the corrupted technology is no longer in the area of an Altar. Requires 6 cultists that must chant for one minute. If any participants move or take any other actions, the attempt is interrupted and they must all start over. Floors and walls in the affected area upon the spell's completion will gradually be replaced by cult floors and walls. The AI will be notified of the corruption, and its location. If the AI or a cyborg is within the area of the spell when it takes effect, they will be slaved to the cult.

 

Hell Travel Join, Hell Portal: Creates a hellish red portal to Nar'Sie's dimension. Hostile NPC monsters will periodically stream forth, along with blood and gibs, attacking everyone except for Constructs, including cultists. Slowly corrupts the surrounding area into cult walls and floors. Non-Constructs within 7 squares will be subject to hallucinations. The portal is destroyed when its rune is destroyed, or it is no longer in the area of an Altar. Requires 6 cultists, a human or animal sacrifice and 60 second channel time.

 

Any non-Construct that enters the portal's square rapidly takes heavy damage. Any non-Construct that goes critical in the portal's square is gibbed and reanimated as a random Construct under the cult's control.

 

 

Nerf Manifest Ghost: No healing while manifesting a ghost. The manifesting cultist takes half of all pain/stamina loss and damage the ghost would receive (the ghost is still pain immune however), ignoring most resistances and immunities. Manifestation ends when the summoner goes into any kind of critical status. Ghosts are pretty bullshit and OP as they stand.

 

 

Wall Rune Nerf: Generates a force field that can be damaged and destroyed. The field is invisible if the rune is, but can still be attacked and destroyed. Has a generous amount of hit points.

 

 

Nightvision and Invisovision for Constructs/Manifest Ghosts: This makes sense to me.

 

 

Tone Down Juggernaut Damage Resistance: Being immune to pretty much everything except EMT weapons and E-Guns, and even then being absurdly resistant to these is a bit much; perhaps give them more health to compensate.

 

Edited May 16, 2015 by Guest

[Jack Fractal]

 

You do realize that the mask already does most of that stuff right? Like, it sees through runes and cultists, it can talk to cultists, that kind of thing.

 

It's not finished by a long shot, but it already does the thing.

 

[Surrealistik]

 

My idea is inspired by the Mask; I assume you are the creator?

 

That said, while I do like many of the Mask's changes, I'm uncertain about it in its totality; some of its changes I find too radical, and the Mask's ability to coordinate, its core idea, I feel is too constrained.

 

One thing I especially like about Mask is the Worship/Favour pool/resources and Miracle system; I omitted an equivalent due to concerns about complexity and the difficulties of balancing it, though I'd be down for adding something like it later.

 

Edited May 16, 2015 by Guest

[Fj45]

Cult needs a good bit of coding, mask is half finished and pretty broken.

[Jack Fractal]

 

Yeah I made the Mask. I ended up not finishing it for a variety of reasons. It's literally in debug mode on this server, none of the powers are finished, none of the abilities are balanced, I think you can only speak once every five minutes or something.

 

I'm amazed it's on this server. I submitted it to Bay, like a year and a half ago, mainly so that the work I did on the camera networks wouldn't get lost. I have no idea how it made its way here.

 

[Surrealistik]

It has some great concepts, which is where my proposal came from, balance tweaks aside, but yeah, a little unworkable in its current state, and I definitely think it would be an absolute pain to balance versus just adding the Seed/Mask and Altar concepts to the current system.