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Faction #16 The Cult of the Dark One
#1
Brick 
Hello Midgard players,

I wanted to break the ice and start talking about different factions. I know that Davin is working on "the game mechanics" for the game, but we the players really can't talk about that very much. We simply are not doing the coding for the game mechanics, but what we can talk about are the factions and dig into details about them.  So first here is the last list of the factions that have been in the last couple of versions of the game:

[Image: Midgard-Factions.png]

The faction I would like to talk about in this thread is: Faction #16 - The Cult of the Dark One.

Now this had been a Non-Player (NPC) faction but a lot is known about it and was in the process of being worked on to open up as a Player based faction. So lets talk about them.

The Cult of the Dark One or Cult as it was normally know was based in Kalmar and Southern Midgard continents. The Cult #0 actually was the Founder #0 for Faction #32 The Cymru (player faction)and eventually stepped down with a new #0 standing in to take up that spot. Much was learned about the Cult and the faction was being flushed out to be played in the different versions of the game.

The Cult of the Dark One is basically a version of one of the Old Gods, specifically Moorlock. Now a lot of the work on this faction happened in Midgard USA version, but was changed slightly in the next version because the next version did not include either #10 The Serkeanar Religion or #32 The Cymru. A new faction #32 was stood up and put into play ,The Seekers (based in Kalmar and Southern Midgard). Through that interaction again more was learned and worked on through declared #17 Heretic clans that were trying to bring the Cult faction live. Being that we are in another new restart of this game, that is being redesigned it is our intent to help design this faction to eventually become a live player faction in the game. So below are our collective thoughts about the design of this faction, of what it might become in this version of the game. I know the GM Davin wants to start with the core factions, but this discussion can help to set those other factional discussions in motion.

I should also point out in the past under all the versions of Midgard, the standard to stand up a new faction was to have either a declared #19 Independent or #17 Heretic clan with a note to the GM that they were intending to declare for that new faction when it became live. Now you need to have (10) or more Players, and (20) or more Clans that are going to declare  to the new faction. They also must play in that status for (12) turns/cycles consecutively, once that is reached then the faction comes live. Before the clans do the declare and intend to start for the new faction, a lot of Special Actions has to happen to design the faction and find a #0 Senior founder NPC.

So with that said lets talk about this faction...

Faction #16 - The Cult of the Dark One:

One of the Old Gods...Moorlock, The God of Bringer of Forbidden Knowledge.

Druidical in Nature with close ties to natural setting, they also one with nature and skilled in Concealment/Ambush in nature. They focus on Bow weapon types and excel of raged stealth attacks from concealed locations to get a jump on their targets. City ownership is not really that import, having more Cult shrines is more import. Basically helping the people and spreading the teachings of the Dark One is more key. So they tend to be super Secretive, hidden in nature, not always understood, strike from the Shadows and from Ambush. They do care about helping the health of the people and their Medical knowledge is the key.

The factional perk is that they can Successfully Conceal themselves in nature with relates to giving them the ability to Ambush/Surprise someone. They are a foot based factional

Religious faction building: Shrines (Stonehenge like) -stone circles on a small hill with a stone alter, with a underground stone grottoes.

Shrines within a city bring a equal split in both Cult and Independent Influence to the city it is built for. Shrines increase a cities Health and act like a better Hospital for a city. Also since the Cult are archers, they increase the number of Bow Weapons; LM, MM types on a cities market. They also add HM to a cities market the numbers are based on the number of Cult Shrines a city has. Also the Cult shrines add to the % of LM and MM on the market added to the market depending on the number of armories in the city.

The factional skills are:

 PRE - Preach
 REC - Recruitment
 HRB - Herbalism
 APT - Apothecary
 SCT - Scouting
 STW - Streetwise
 

A new startup clan skill set up might be: (Standard is 10 skill levels in skills some assigned (8) and other picked(2) by the player):

LDR: PRE-1, REC-1, HRB-1, APT-1, STW-1, SPY-1
  F1: STW-1
  F2: STW-1
  F3: STW-1, SCT-1
Brother to Brother, for one and all. United we stand, and divided others will fall. Hear my call, and take up your arms with me as we bring Justice to all. Big Grin

Father Morpheus's theme music
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#2
Speaking on the whole skills issue, I understand that that whole scope is under plans for future review and design by Davin. Now under Zan and other GMs after him it was discovered that any Leader or Followers had a free flowing text field that if increased in the number of charters/size could have nay number of skills per character. Zan had redesigned it to allow for (10) skills per each character an each GM after him also agreed with that same redesign.

So with that being said a clan that wanted to follow this path would declare for the #17 Heretic faction and then choose (10) skill levels as following. I would also point out that you could only choose up to a level 2 in any skill. It should also be pointed out that a Level-2 skill , could teach a character to level-1 skill and would also gain some % for doing such action (+5%) per cycle/turn in teaching another(s). So if I were to do this I might choose the following setup:

declared Heretic <clan name>:
LDR: HRB-2, MED-1, SUR-1, SCT-1, PRE-1, REC-1
F1: MED-1
F2: MED-1
F3: MED-1

I would then spend (6) turns having the LDR train the F1,F2.F3 in HRB-1. Then for the next (6) turns I might have the LDR and F1,F2,F3 to train at the local Hospitals in the city they were located in +1 MED, you would need to use Special Actions to locate a trainer that could teach everyone in MED-2. So after (12) months your skill set might look like the following:

declared Heretic <clan name>:
LDR: HRB-2.30, MED-2, SUR-1, SCT-1, PRE-1, REC-1
F1: MED-2. HRB-1
F2: MED-2, HRB-1
F3: MED-2. HRB-1

Note: Over that (12) cycles I would also do a Preach Special Action each cycles and each time the character doing the Preach would also gain a +5% gain in their skill rating score too would be looking for a NPC to teach PRE-Preaching skill to the clan and that would be my next (6) Turns/Cycles instruction for all the characters. So the skill set might look like this after (18) Turns/Cycles, I would most like also use both my PRE-1 and REC-1 to Recruit for new Retainers for the clan and Converts to the Faith as well. That might also give the same +5% bump increase for (18) Turns/Cycles to REC- Recruitment skill:

declared Heretic <clan name>:
LDR: HRB-2.30, MED-2, SUR-1, SCT-1, PRE-2.90, REC-1.90
F1: MED-2. HRB-1, PRE-1
F2: MED-2, HRB-1, PRE-1
F3: MED-2. HRB-1, PRE-1

Most likely I would spend the next (2) cycles/turns to get +10% for PRE-3 and REC-2

declared Heretic <clan name>:
LDR: HRB-2.30, MED-2, SUR-1, SCT-1, PRE-3, REC-2
F1: MED-2. HRB-1, PRE-1
F2: MED-2, HRB-1, PRE-1
F3: MED-2. HRB-1, PRE-1

That is the basics for the skills, and a SA each turn on working on relations and ingame work on the new faction. It is a long process but it can be fun. This clan would work on improving a city and adding Shrines to the city for the Faith.
Brother to Brother, for one and all. United we stand, and divided others will fall. Hear my call, and take up your arms with me as we bring Justice to all. Big Grin

Father Morpheus's theme music
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#3
In one of the versions of the game, I played a declared Heretic clan #17, and roleplayed via Special Actions to join the Cult #16. We had just finished our time (12 Cycles) to bring the faction live and declared as a Cult clan. Remember to accomplish this, we needed 10+ players (I believe we had 12 players) and had to have 20+ clans (we had more than that number, might have been 25+ clans). I was not considering being a senior within the faction as I was also enjoying just playing my other clans within other factions as well too.
Ever dance with the Dark Man, by the pale moon light? If you do risk it, it will be the last time you ever will.
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#4
The factional skills are:
PRE - Preach
REC - Recruitment
HRB - Herbalism
APT - Apothecary
SCT - Scouting
STW - Streetwise
SPY - Spying


A new startup clan skill set up might be: (Standard is 10 skill levels in skills some assigned (8) and other picked(2) by the player):

LDR: PRE-1, REC-1, HRB-1, APT-1, STW-1, SPY-1
F1: STW-1
F2: STW-1
F3: STW-1, SCT-1
Brother to Brother, for one and all. United we stand, and divided others will fall. Hear my call, and take up your arms with me as we bring Justice to all. Big Grin

Father Morpheus's theme music
Reply
#5
I should point out that if the Gift get back their Healing ability covered under the Gift Redesign thread, then the Cult will need to be redesigned again.

I would make the Cult the Keepers of Hidden Knowledge and Secrets. They are part of the shadows and use the dark  to help control the people  with fear and unknown. They are watchers and use the darkness to control the world. It is said that they practice human sacrifice, but no one really knows for sure because they are the true keeps of secrets.

Their skills then might be:

PRE - Preach
REC - Recruitment
STW - Streetwise
TRK - Tracking
SPY-  Spying
ASN - Assassin
TOR - Torture

Benefits:
1) Maybe they have the Benefit or Bonus perk of Ambush. This would make them Shadows in the Dark and extremely dangerous. Fear would make people do what is asked of them, or else be killed. Remember this faction is called: The Cult of the Dark One. This faction wouldn't be combat army types, but within a city they would be feared being in every shadow. They also practice bloodied sacrifice for their rituals. This makes them the perfect evil villian.
2)They might also have a second benefit of being able to be be hidden within a city, thus not being located or seen on a scouting report within a city, if the clan's size is less than 20% of what the cities population actually is. zExample 20,000 pop city, would mean if the Cult cla is less than 2,000 retainers they would remain hidden to anyone.
Brother to Brother, for one and all. United we stand, and divided others will fall. Hear my call, and take up your arms with me as we bring Justice to all. Big Grin

Father Morpheus's theme music
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#6
Now the Cult is starting to turn into a great roleplaying faction, and cult serves as the perfect bad guy for may if not all of the three-game religions. One could have fun playing those guys in the game very much, might be even more fun than playing a Bandit.
Ever dance with the Dark Man, by the pale moon light? If you do risk it, it will be the last time you ever will.
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#7
I believe this is a Good redesign for the Cult of the Dark One....

NOTE: If the Gift get back their Healing ability covered under the Gift Redesign thread, then the Cult will need to be redesigned again.

I would make the Cult the Keepers of Hidden Knowledge and Secrets. They are part of the shadows and use the dark  to help control the people  with fear and unknown. They are watchers and use the darkness to control the world. It is said that they practice human sacrifice, but no one really knows for sure because they are the true keepers of secrets.

Cult Skill-set could be:

PRE - Preach
REC - Recruitment
STW - Streetwise
TRK - Tracking
SPY-  Spying
ASN - Assassin
TOR - Torture

Cult Benefits:

1) Maybe they have the Benefit or Bonus perk of Ambush. This would make them Shadows in the Dark and extremely dangerous. Fear would make people do what is asked of them, or else be killed. Remember this faction is called: The Cult of the Dark One. This faction wouldn't be combat army types, but within a city they would be feared being in every shadow. They also practice bloodied sacrifice for their rituals. This makes them the perfect evil villains.
2)They might also have a second benefit of being able to be be hidden within a city, thus not being located or seen on a scouting report within a city, if the clan's size is less than 20% of what the cities population actually is. Example 20,000 pop city, would mean if the Cult clan is less than 2,000 retainers they would remain hidden to anyone.

A perfect theme song for the Cult - from Black Sabbath - Born Again

Market Item(s) to be added to a market  with different levels of temples:

(11) Cult Temples:
- Opium (drug with many uses)
(21) Cult Temples:
- Poisons
(30) Cult Cathedral:
- <special Item, Unknown as a secret>

Another great Theme song for the Cult

Roleplaying note: The Cult is set up here as the perfect EVIL faction hands down, they are IMO even darker and more sinister than the Blood & Fire.  These guys are not to be played with and are a very serious Villain, and are not to be trifled with at all.  These are truly Dark Souls and are Mega Evil. If you plan to play in this faction, put on your 'Big Boy pants' and get ready for the ride of your life!!!
Brother to Brother, for one and all. United we stand, and divided others will fall. Hear my call, and take up your arms with me as we bring Justice to all. Big Grin

Father Morpheus's theme music
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#8
I was kinda hoping that the really evil factions would be restricted to NPCs, at least early on.  Do you think we really need true evil player factions?

I remember in the early days of D&D players weren't ever permitted to play evil alignments, and for some good reasons.  Later, this was less restrictive, but I've never seen an evil player party work out very well in D&D.
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#9
Well you are right on there, but one does need to have the 'Dark Side' to give it a true feel of 'Fun'.

To me this would be a perfect Bad Guy faction that if you liked could make for a Real Bad Arse NPC faction if you liked, with some real 'Dark Color'. Just think of the fun you could have with this one! Angel
Brother to Brother, for one and all. United we stand, and divided others will fall. Hear my call, and take up your arms with me as we bring Justice to all. Big Grin

Father Morpheus's theme music
Reply
#10
The "Dark Side" works perfectly well as an NPC opponent, IMO.  There may be many different flavors of Good, but they all oppose Evil, right?
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