I propose that the high god to choose either of those options when they ascend. Expanded realm/no portal or temple/portal.

Either way, the armament absolutely cannot increase in growth over the 5th divinity degree.

That is very much agreed; that would require something along the lines of a Forsaken or Sacrament power, or a very complex and impressive ritual as determined by Nat, to accomplish.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:01, Sun 16 May 2010.

Max the options should be

Expanded realm/no portal/no armament or temple/portal/armament

The first is "normal" the second is "high god".

Just because your temple doesn't have an obvious place to have additional realms doesn't mean they couldn't exist.  Once you've reached ascension a Methodes gate is fairly easy to get in some ways so just swapping it for a better realm just ignores the High God's uniquenesses.

I agree with Saragh, actually.

The armament is the key high god element, not the methodes gate.

Ruse, you're being hypocritical! The armament, as you said yourself, is a +1 degree equivalent. If they lose that and their methods gate, then they are weaker than the other god types, who will have a +1 degree over them.

Armament stays no matter what because it's the equivalent of the +1 degree all gods get. The only things that could change are the gate/realm.

Expanded realm/no portal or temple/portal. Armament stays, It's balanced.

Wrong.

I said the armament and ONLY the armament is worth +1 degree.

The methodes gate is a separate benefit, and is balanced by having a temple.

However, I still agree with saragh because an expanded realm.no portal/no armament is what a reborn god gets when they ascend. They don't get any sort of bonus besides the fact that they got some life insurance making it up to ascension.

If you want to go that way:

1. Expanded Realm/No Armament/No Portal/+1 degree (Normal)

Or

2. Temple/Portal/Armament (High God)

and Reborn gods would get +1 degree upon ascension, to balance them with other god types.

That would be balanced.

Whatever Nat decides, the armament NEEDS to be capped at 5th degree divinity.

 Seconded, providing that Forsaken powers, Sacrament powers, epic rituals, and the like could circumvent that limitation.

Max, a sacrament power or two could easily do that. But you won't need them unless you really want to keep making that sword a pivotal part of your character.

You wouldn't believe how epic a sword can get.

Basically, what I've decided to do is allow the High God to keep their weapon, and the methodes gate, and the realm (filled with four provinces and a central temple) once they Ascend. I don't see any further problems with that, but if they're there please feel free to continue.

Okay, people, what's next? :)

As long as their armament stops growing past the master degree. That is the really big kicker.

As for their realm growing, I have a suggestion for that just to make them work for it a little more. If they complain, remind them that they are keeping their methodese gate even if their realm is really low level (i.e. tell them to stuff it).

Ascension

High God Armament: The armament is retained, but does not grow in power past divinity 5 (i.e. masterhood).

Temple and Realm: The high god's temple sprouts a realm from itself when ascension occurs. However, this does NOT come all at once. The realm sprouts only due to the ascended's immense power, so it comes slowly, in response to that power.

Divinity 5+1 = Central province (at the center of which lies the original temple)
Divinity 5+2 = Central+East province
Divinity 5+3 = Central+East province+West province
Divinity 5+4 = Central+East province+West province+North province
Divinity 5+5 = Central+East province+West province+North province+south province

So basically, at newly ascended the high god only has a central province, but it is a full-sized province versus one very large palace. At increasing ascension divinity degrees the central province then "sprouts" more provinces connected to it. Basically, it's like the provinces are blossoming from the central temple province. At full-on ascended (i.e. divinity 10) they have a full 5-province realm.

Thoughts?

I wasn't planning on letting the Armament grow, either. :)

I'm not sure if I like this progression. It's been assumed (now official in the rules) that High Gods have had a full Realm for pretty much the entire game, just that the rest of the realm is drained of resources and empty of people. So while on one hand I like making them work on it, on the other hand it doesn't really work with my approach.

Well...you can just say that their realm blossoms with power and life or something as they gain ascension degrees, with entire directions gaining resources and stuff. Just a thought.

Really, the most important thing is that the armament stops growing.

Didn't know they had realms. Thought they were miniature relams or something. News to me. ^^
This message was last edited by the player at 14:40, Wed 09 June 2010.

Getting a "full" realm i.e. living and with population for a high god includes.

- Revitalising it somehow (major ritual? Stealing large numbers of seeds?)
- Stealing people to populate it
- Finding a source of resources to use in the realm

That's a lot of work in itself.

Getting a powerful weapon would also be a lot of work.  It balances out.

Well, it's never been explored in detail before Alliel, but I've always assumed they had Realms just not, you know, proper full-blown Realms. And yes the Armament will be capped. :)

Well...I guess I'm ultimately cool with whatever you do for their realms. The biggie is their armement but you got that taken care of.

As for other improvements...I'm cool with things as they are now. We need this breathing room to get more involved with our missions, agendas, etc.

I can't be bothered reading all the previous stuff to see if this has been suggested before, but maybe something in the setting detailing the various other species of Theogenesis?
I would just love to see a reference on the Shage, Callisti, Earthborn, Alkanites, even, dare I say it, the merits.

The non-divine Councilmen all have stats that are slightly different to ours, and I'd love to see a bit of the why relating to that. But mainly I just want to know myself what appears to be information taken for granted in game.

I've got some of that (If you look at Balast's last stats he was gaining the abilities of the other races slowly).  I'll try to tidy up the bits Nat has given me and submit them to him for comment.

Basically each race has its own innate abilities which represent their own outlook on life and the role they were originally created to fulfil.  The one I know most about is the Callisti and their skills are about understanding and controlling the world around them via mathematical probabilities so their skills have nothing to do with gods and are thus different in name.

Merits on the other hand are now extinct since the last thousand were in Alkan before it got turned into slightly less than dust...

Incorrect. Merits are held in the zoo of Alkan proper; only Fort Seal was destroyed. In addition there are an unknown number still living in the Realms Sorcerous.

Whether merits are dead or not, it's not really the stats I'm after, so much as a short bio(?), or an entry in a printed encyclopedia. Something that sums up the species, what it does, what it does for/against the Conclave, what it was made for, sample behaviour and appearance

EG: DIVINES
Highly variant, divines, or 'gods', are created by the tree, in order to fill some perceived need, each on an individual basis. Divines are both a threat to the Conclave, being able to amass the greatest strength by means of 'True Apotheosis' whereupon they become nigh indestructible, and one of it's greatest assets, as the natural versatility means that there is a Divine able to fill just about any position imaginable. Each individual Divine possesses a 'Domain' and this is the particular area that each Divine is strongest in, often able to directly affect this in some major way. Examples include: Death, Elemental forces, Mysticism, Shadows. Divines are almost entirely individual in appearance, each one having a unique exterior. Humanoid forms are common, but variations have included sentient machines and levitating amphibious squid. Just as their roles, power, and apperance differ, Divines have greatly different personalities and behaviours. Some are insular loners, while others make networks and establish large alliances across many species. A common element is their grasping at power in any and all its form, and they will often attempt to use craftiness to acheive this goal.
Skills: Divine, Combat, Magic, Realm, Social

Something like that, but edited down. Gods are really too huge to pigeonhole with one entry :S

I don't think even MD has tried to get that far into the various races.  I've sent him some stuff but there's lots I don't know.  I do know the purpose for the Divines though (analogous to white blood cells in the body) but I think that trying to relate everything to the conclave won't help much.  Each race apart from the Divines has its own agenda and it will do whatever it takes to achieve that agenda - some members will be in the conclave if that helps them and others will be opposed to it.

I know some of the agendas now (and you can work others out from stuff that has been said) but basically think of it as each race has (or has had) a very specific task to do.  The tasks quite often are not their original tasks (callisti were not created for their current purpose for example).

I think the best that can be done by me currently is Earthborn, Shage, Alkanite and Callisti - the rest I don't know enough about or am fairly sure MD won't want me saying what I know.

Add to that a lot of other stuff that needs to be written up before bits of that are going to make much sense (race types for example indicate Earthborn aren't a type 1 race which means they're either type 2 (which opens a whole can of worms) or type 4 (which is just wrong).

If you've got specific queries I'll try to answer them and I'll keep pressing MD on the realms and races (hell I got the infernal pedant title for precisely getting him to rewrite the realms a while back).

If you look into the conclave free channel, I asked MD a similar question and he covered all the races for mae.