[Oicha]

Hey there guys, gals and non-binary pals. Hello and welcome to my very first effort post. What are we here to talk about today? Well, I want to discuss black magic, and it's counterpart, faith.

Let's look at faith first. What does it take to get into faith, right now, as a fresh character spawning into Meranthe?

Well, you have two options, you can either 
1) Find someone who already has enough faith built up in their chosen faith to indoctrinate you into the faith. Spending some of their resource and 5 of your RPP to give you access to the beginning tier of faith.
2) Dev your own faith, through a couple of scenes and logs, submit said application to the forums, and wait for it to be approved.

Simple enough, not particularly hard for either. How does one get MORE faith however? Well you have three options.

1) Pray for people, which, you need to find someone who has not already been prayed over in the last IC year. And someone who wants you to pray over them in the first place, as some people will either not want your specific god, you or any prayers in general. This is mostly dependent on IC.
2) Bless items, this requires either you blessing everything you come across, or having people come to you to get items blessed. (Generally people don't do this unless they get a rare item they don't want to lose it's rarity)
3) Hold faith based events, weddings, celebrations etc etc.

We'll come back to faith, but let's look at the same things for black magic.

As a brand new character in Meranthe, what does it take to get into black magic?

Once again, you have two options.
1) Walk up to the tower and ask to join, you sign the book, you are now a black magic practicioner.
2) Go on an event to get a book, sign the book, you are now able to use black magic.

Okay well, weird that it doesn't cost any rpp to become a witch/cultist. But moving on.

How does one acquire MORE essence? The counter part to faith.

1) Any non restrained fight, win or lose. Winning is better obviously, as it avoids injury and (I believe) gives you more essence. But you could theoretically just aggro everything you come across for essence. Much less safe than faith, fair enough.
2) Sabbaths. Wait for a Sabbath to occur, and show up. Press the funny sabbath button along with everyone else there, and watch as you get an essence point for everyone that showed up.

Okay hold on a minute, there's obviously a cap right? Nope, you get one essence for everyone that shows up, regardless of whether or not that character is afk and only logs on to go to sabbaths or not. Alright well, it's only for people that are in your specific cult right? I am actually unsure about this one. Needs clarification, but as of right now I think everyone that has black magic gets essence for participating in the sabbath, regardless of actual allegiances.

Right so, what do these seperate things get you?

Faith, you get a good range of things, mostly supportive. Let's look at one in particular which has a direct counterpart in Black Magic.

Blessing: (Usable once per year)
-10 temp to you for that year.
+5 Faith to you
+10 vit to the recipient, or heal all their temps.

Hey, that's not bad. It does sort of make the faith user nerfed, so maybe you just need to be more of a support type character. +10 vit isn't anything to scoff at. But healing all temps... That's a little lame. You can do the same thing with an easily made elixir that most people just chuck out at the first sign of someone being injured.

Shoulder burden is also good, being able to simply take a -5 perm on the faith user to arc kit one of your important fighters? Restore vigor, also another good spell! Removing age dr is a very, very big help.

So, why am I making this post then? Oh well you see, shoulder burden just takes a measly little -30 faith points with Restore vigor taking a -10. Now, while it IS more dangerous for a witch to gather essence than a faith user to gather faith, you are still hard gated by needing to pray over people. or taking a -10 temp for one boost of +5 faith per year.

Let's look at the counterpart to blessing then, shall we.

Hex: Costs 5 rpp to learn and 10 Essence.
-10 Vit to the recipient of the hex
-1 essence

Okay well, there's the 5 rpp counterpart at least!
Oh wait no, Hex is bugged and doesn't actually cost you shit. It still costs the ten essence, true. But Hex has been bugged a long time, and doesnt cost 5 rpp. I even raised this issue personally on Hindura/Volkemorde, and was not charged the 5 rpp it shouldve costed me, despite bringing it up publically that it was costing me nothing. On top of that, if you're hexing someone, because it can be completely ignored in RP, it is almost never used for actual rp purposes. Generally it is used to give the witch a leg up in an upcoming fight, they will hex you simply to give you the -10 vit nerf and help them out a bit. Nevermind the fact that the -1 essence is laughable, because theyre guaranteed to get that essence back in the fight regardless of the outcome.

Now, let's talk about the thing that truly spurred this post into being made. I lied to you earlier, there are not just two ways for a witch to get essence. There is a third way, that in my opinion, should not exist in it's current state.

If you are the holder of a book, you get three essence for someone signing the book. 

Now, in practice, this sounds fine. You get a new cultist, there should be some rewards for that to you rather than just the body. The problem is this, one. There is no downside mechanically to you joining the cult. I'm not talking about IC here, I mean purely mechanically, you could join the cult on a fresh character at no cost to you, and the leader will still get that essence even if you afk or rebirth that character in the next hour. 

The second, and much bigger problem. Is that this creates a very toxic phenomenon which I'm sure many of you, if you're still reading this, are familiar with. Sign or die. There is absolutely no risk, or issue, with coercing someone to sign the book. It has been ruled that someone can not sign it for you, i.e. no one can grab your hand and sign your name to get your soul. HOWEVER. If I hold a gun to your head and tell you to give me your money or die, am I going to be able to use that as a defense in a court? 

"Uhh actually your honor, he did give me his money willingly, it was simply under threat of death. But it was his own free will to choose to give me his money rather than die."

Therein lies the crux of the issue. Coercing someone into doing something, is not their own free will. And to add on top of this, if the person who holds the book happens to be a necromancer, the threat of death also gains them something as well. On top of getting rid of a potentially hostile/future enemy. This forces anyone who is a prisoner of any witch or cultist into a lose/lose scenario. There was no downside to this arrangement for the witch beyond the initial risk of capture of the fight. And even then, there's no guarantee the book holder was the one at risk, they could have been captured by another member of the cult after all.

Now why is this such an issue? Well, because, you lose your fuckin soul. Or at least a part of it. You are damned to hel for signing the book, and supposedly you lose all your faith if you sign the book too! Despite any coercion that might have come forth to make you sign the book. And, it is incredibly unclear how one regains their soul.

Oh well, you could app for some ability as a faith user to get people their soul back right? Nope! In fact, this has been expressly denied! Even if you are a high ranking member of your faith, the counter part to Black magic? Oh well, you shoulda picked black magic dumbass you cant get your soul back unless you go to hel! Lol!

What exactly does this require?

1) Find an eventmin that can actually be trusted writing very heavy lore implication events.
2) Have a group of people strong enough, and willing to risk their lives and souls themselves to GO to hel.
3) Somehow find the fuckin demon in hel that has your soul, and a riftmancer/wayfinder that can take you there.
4) Go on said event, which to be fair, we don't know the risk level of such a thing, as through my searching of Meranthe events, no one has actually gone on an expedition to hel to get their soul back (That I could find.) But let's assume, at a base level this is a HCoD. I mean for fucks sake you're going INTO hel to fight a demon who's important enough to have your soul.

Cool, that's for one person. Now times that by everyone who has been "free willed" into signing the book as a prisoner. Wow, what did this cost the book holder again? Oh nothing? And they actually gained rewards for it? Huh. Maybe faith should have some sort of counterplay to this. Either a protection they can place on people to completely cock block their soul being signed away, or the ability to spend a large chunk of faith to force someones soul back to them.

Are you really telling me a priest that has 100+ faith stored up couldn't beseech their god to punch another god in the face to get a soul back real quick? Or literally anything else? Being part of a faith, and being coerced doesn't protect your soul from damnation? The way the lore for it is written, it seems very cut and dry, you signed the book, you go to hel. There is no judgement beyond that. It creates a very unfun, and uninteractive chain of events. Someone gets capped, they're forced to either kill their character off, or doom their character to eternal damnation. I have not seen anyone who has had their soul forced out of them, say they enjoyed the rp. Quite the opposite, it is demotivating. It doesn't create intersting rp opportunities, it is a full on negative for the person that it's inflicted upon.

It forces you to risk your life to get your soul back, you and several of your friends most likely, just to get back to the status quo of you having your damn soul back. The mechanic is easily abusable, as is perming someone who you cap for undeath. But that's a topic for a different time. 

The obvious solution seems to be, if your character doesn't truly want to sign, it doesn't count, and nothing happens to you. The same as someone else trying to sign your name in your own hand. The problem with that, is someone can join the coven, and later down the line claim "Ah well, my character wasn't 100% sure about it, so I feel like I should still have my soul."

Therefore, let's simplify it even more. Continue to not cap sabbath rewards for how many people are there. And in return, completely remove the gained essence for someone signing the book. This should nip most of this rp in the bud as is. I can also see this continuing to be a problem even with the essence gain being removed. So perhaps it needs to be handled on a case by case basis. But as is, it's incredibly frustrating to see people completely lose motivation on their characters because they were told, kill your character or kill your IC. 

So why not just make the solution, give faith a way to counter this? I really don't understand why giving faith some in depth method that costs a large amount of resources to retrieve someone's soul without the inherent risk of dying before you can even get your soul back is such a narratively bad thing.

That about wraps up my post, I hope that if nothing else, this promotes a healthy discussion on faith and black magic. My intent with this isn't to say "Fuck the coven fuck witches nerf them to shit" It's hey, this mechanic is easily abusable with no downside for the side that can abuse it, perhaps we can get some counter play to it?

[Jumpy]

if you sign your soul away it should stay that way.
faith is much easier than essence to get because it's riskless, the difference here is that there's a bajillion witches instead of the handful covens had in e3.
this is also the reason signing a book gives essence, i discussed it way back when i ended up as the supreme of a coven with only me in it making sabbath impossible to use.
hex is only as cool as the people casting and receiving it.

there's no downside for a new player joining a cult, you're right, but what's crazier is that praying for a new player is not only 'no downsides' but also 'all upsides' and they don't need to run at a spooky tower for you to do it, it can be anyone you find on the street with brown clothes, bright purple hair, a green name and a description that says [BLANK].

i don't think anything would change as far as being coerced into signing goes if you removed the essence gain; people who would change their methods over it would be killing their IC

[BlazeNight3]

Uh, Its 5 essence per signee if you hold the book. Not 3...

[Kiha]

I've played faith since essentially launch, so has Sanguine so I hope he pops in with his sense as well as we both had different rises to Radiant, I got a bunch of Drakanite gremlins, he had the god of faith grind, both were essential due to the fact you cannot stack prayers and so faith is also much more time gated for effort until you reach priest. I assume it's due to not needing to put your life on the line to get our equivalent of essence.

However, as it stands, faith users are in no way a real counter to black magic users, in fact, it's just like holy where occult is a direct counter, witchcraft seems to also directly counter faith.

So, here are some ideas I tossed up in the discord once that I think could be a good starting point:

Give radiants immunity to hex, and perhaps the ability to even give OTHERS immunity to hex. As it stands, our temp nerf priced buff is nullified by a single hex.

Change how prayer works. It's garbage, 5 mana will not do anything, and all it does is give you a point of faith. Changing it to +1 vit would be better, or giving 1% def of the faith user's choice on praying on someone.

Wardens if enough Radiants exist of a religion to punch nethradin in the face, or if not wardens, lore friendly variants for each faith. Ancestral giants, treeguards, warriors of Bastion???

Now, why should faith get more reward with less risk? Give witches and necromancers MORE essence/undeath by beating up faith users. Aren't they filled with the stuff of life? Take it from them, those goody two shoes don't deserve it.

deus vult

[Oicha]

if you sign your soul away it should stay that way.
faith is much easier than essence to get because it's riskless, the difference here is that there's a bajillion witches instead of the handful covens had in e3.
this is also the reason signing a book gives essence, i discussed it way back when i ended up as the supreme of a coven with only me in it making sabbath impossible to use.
hex is only as cool as the people casting and receiving it.

there's no downside for a new player joining a cult, you're right, but what's crazier is that praying for a new player is not only 'no downsides' but also 'all upsides' and they don't need to run at a spooky tower for you to do it, it can be anyone you find on the street with brown clothes, bright purple hair, a green name and a description that says [BLANK].

i don't think anything would change as far as being coerced into signing goes if you removed the essence gain; people who would change their methods over it would be killing their IC

That same player could get prayed over, then go join the cult with no downside to the cult. And the cult would get more benefit than the faith user did. 

As for changing their methods over it killing their IC, if they're doing it to gain essence then it already isn't about IC it's about getting as much as you can out of your prisoner. If the intention is to truly just gather more soulshards for your god, then not getting essence shouldn't matter to you. You already accomplished your IC.

Uh, Its 5 essence per signee if you hold the book. Not 3...

Ah, the wiki says three. My mistake then.

[Sanguine415]

I was summoned, and so I shall speak my part.

I became radiant very quickly at the beginning of Meranthe because I was lucky enough to convert Silkie, an absolute unit, who proceeded to acquire so much faith it was almost unreal. She pushed it to the limit and, in twane with establishing the Zealots as a mainstream religion in Vdalion, we had achieved enough faith to make use of anoint champion within a few weeks. Of course, the spell didn't work back then, but I assume it will be fixed in time and no one is going to lose sleep over it.

If you are captured, you are at the mercy of the other party, there are no cop outs. Ultimately, you are never forced to sell your soul away, even if the alternative is dying. Reclaiming a lost soul is the kind of thing you'd pursue on an event chain, not something mechanical. That is the gravity of the effort, and making it something a priest can just do would cheapen the devil's bargain of becoming a witch.

Blessing is made to counter the vit loss from hex, but I believe it could go a step further and make one immune to hexes; it is ultimately an aegis and would allow one to send their chosen warriors into battle without fear of meddling. Prayer is the lowest level of faith so I really don't mind it being 5 mana, but radiant having the ability to use a wider variety of prayers would incentivize varied sermons.

It can not be understated how overwhelmingly powerful it is to remove age DR for a year, its the sort of shit evildoers dream of in their boundless pursuits for immortality. You can bring back a withered champion to their prime before a battle and possibly completely change the stakes of it by throwing a once mighty titan back into the fray.

Ultimately, once anoint champion is fixed, Faith will be in a good place. There has been discussion of warden summoning as well to combat necromantic undead, and I think that too is a good idea. Furthermore, the development of new sermons/buffs similar to how the Fireblooded had unique ones back in E3.2, but that is more of an IC dev matter.

Wardens should, however, be hardcore lawful good, and not tolerate the presence of occult, undeath, witchcraft, or demons without immediate violence, so as to avoid double dipping and shaky middle grounds.

[Callen200]

Im going to be entirely blunt when i say this i saw the thread and wanted to voice my opinion, My character is a happy person.. well in a nutshell over the years apparently their was a deity who is all about love and kindness

fast forward and im praying to my friends for one single faith and its fine.. honestly the first tier of faith is kinda Meh.. +5 mana is kinda... funny but lets roll with it, now the meat of the tree is when you unlock priest.

sure you get santify that gives +5 occult defense might help in a pinch and then you have blessing.. again as someone already said, empower is the ONLY useful thing to click here.. granted makes you -10 vit down the drain for a year and giving the other a +10 vit, really beefs up your friends and warriors before a war

now what about about baptize? ... i spend faith and allow you to be a low tier faith.. cool.. im loosing faith and gaining none in return if i recall, yet  holding the black book and signing it gives the holder five.. for just.. holding out a book..

honestly faith should like they mentioned have a way to place a barrier on a user so if they try to sign their soul away it REPELLS THEM and sorta ACTUALLY protects them, now raidiance is a sorta grind to unlock but the Age DR is amazing.. really next level sorta game changer.., champion is still bugged if i remember

and shuldering burdens is a good way to get rid of a warriors perms, but faith kinda locks you into a.. support class if i knew this going into faith.. i woulda skipped it TBH, the black book teaches you dreamwalking, telepathy, potions, cool skills,

what do i pay to get these cool skills: get beat up or beat people up.. its a win/win situation..

my character sold their soul and got it back years later and when i went to misfortune and got it back.. i had 12 essence just sitting in the back and all i did was get beat up.. (im a bad verber ok) and remember i never went to a sabbath.. so that was just by me getting beat up and attacked,

the fact that i didn't know what faith had in store VS the book.. yes IC she wanted her soul back.. but looking at the skills VS skills.. you are going to get in fights REGARDLESS so either way you would be gaining essence.. sometimes i wish you could use telepathy with faith or some cool stuff but maybe thats just me.. i have not played since.. E2 really and this is my first ever time playing faith and its.... very...

support.. sometimes you wish you can prayer yourself, after all you are speaking to your deity.. don't see why they can't enlighten you.. once your character gets old.. you can't Age DR yourself pretty sure, so either you gotta find someone willing to bless you with that anti Age DR radiance prayer.. or just continue to empower people and prayer and buff others while you turn old and gray.

faith to me feels extremely supportive and kinda.. lackluster, honestly renaming items with oath is fun.. makes unique cool items.. but other than that.. the black book has so much Pluses going for it.. i kinda don't know if ide ever make another character and willingly go into faith.. knowing whats in store for me.

TLDR: pray, oath, bless my allies, and protect them from occult from time to time, rinse repeat until radiance tier

[Detective100]

If I may post something that concerns me both with black magic and necromancy, is the possible ability to 'farm' essence by going through multiple aggro/dangers on a target that has been capped.

I am aware this is a fringe situation, but I'm bringing it up because it was at risk of happening. We were threatened that will be the fate of a captive for every irl day that passes without accomplishing a successful trade to get him back

It is not something I'll like to encourage, especially with necromancy that only takes essence from dangers/perms.
Perhaps add a limit of being able to take essence from the same person to be only once per IC year, or per one irl day?
Just that I won't have to worry about someone deciding to be cheeky and start farming essence from a captive.

[Iotasilver]

If I may post something that concerns me both with black magic and necromancy, is the possible ability to 'farm' essence by going through multiple aggro/dangers on a target that has been capped.

I am aware this is a fringe situation, but I'm bringing it up because it was at risk of happening. We were threatened that will be the fate of a captive for every irl day that passes without accomplishing a successful trade to get him back

It is not something I'll like to encourage, especially with necromancy that only takes essence from dangers/perms.
Perhaps add a limit of being able to take essence from the same person to be only once per IC year, or per one irl day?
Just that I won't have to worry about someone deciding to be cheeky and start farming essence from a captive.

Already not allowed...

( Only one perm allowed on a captive I believe. )

Though you should still respect the threat icly

[Detective100]

If I may post something that concerns me both with black magic and necromancy, is the possible ability to 'farm' essence by going through multiple aggro/dangers on a target that has been capped.

I am aware this is a fringe situation, but I'm bringing it up because it was at risk of happening. We were threatened that will be the fate of a captive for every irl day that passes without accomplishing a successful trade to get him back

It is not something I'll like to encourage, especially with necromancy that only takes essence from dangers/perms.
Perhaps add a limit of being able to take essence from the same person to be only once per IC year, or per one irl day?
Just that I won't have to worry about someone deciding to be cheeky and start farming essence from a captive.

Already not allowed...

( Only one perm allowed on a captive I believe. )

Though you should still respect the threat icly

I don't see any mention of it in the rules. If it is just me being too blind to see though, I'll love to be corrected about this